For three whole seasons, Sheriff Mike Thompson (Corey Reynolds) has lived in something of an insular bubble, immune to criticism, the opinions of others, and modern dating etiquette. While that blustery exterior began to subtly soften throughout Season 3 of Resident Alien, Patience’s leading lawman still remained as hardnosed as ever, overly confident in his personal worldview.
The guy wholeheartedly believes in things like Bigfoot, mermaids, ice guns, and injury-faking pigeons, but bring up the idea of life beyond this planet, and he’ll look at you as if you’ve gone insane. Everything he knows — or thinks he knows — suddenly came crashing down around him in last night’s season finale when the sheriff came face-to-face with an honest-to-goodness alien, a member of the dreaded Greys! And this time, Harry (Alan Tudyk) isn’t around to wipe his memory.
Resident Alien Star Corey Reynolds Breaks Down Sheriff Mike’s Big Moment in the Season 3 Finale
“It’s game-changing. He has been made aware, he’s a believer. I’m curious to see where it goes,” Reynolds told SYFY WIRE over Zoom before the show aired. “I think it is the cliffhanger of all cliffhangers and I’m curious to see what happens next. I have no insight on this and it probably won’t happen [this way] but [I see him] bursting out of the door with a full-blown Richard Pryor scream.”
As Reynolds points out, Mike is basically the last major player to be brought in on the big, cosmic secret. “It will be interesting to see how the dynamics of the show continue to shift as more information is revealed to these characters,” the actor mused. “What will Mike do with this information? That’s a good question. I have no idea. We’re gonna have to wait and see, man.”
For More on Resident Alien:
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Resident Alien Boss Chris Sheridan Hopes to Further “Expand” the Cosmic Side of Hit SYFY Series
Resident Alien’s Corey Reynolds on Sheriff Mike’s New Romance, Feasting on Sunflower Seeds & More
Even if the show is not renewed for another season, Reynolds has vowed to pay showrunner Chris Sheridan a hefty sum to write a resolution. “I told Chris, ‘Whether they pick us up or not, I’m gonna need you to write these episodes because I need to know what happens.’”
He continued: “I think that there’s a lot of viable storytelling here. I think in the comic books, the characters are aware of Harry eventually. Who knows what type of transition is going to be made? However, there’s no going back. We did have the one moment where Harry erased Deputy Liv and Mike’s minds, [but] this is way out of the context of that now. This can’t go back into the box. Everything changes after this. Moving forward, it can’t be the same. Something new is happening.”
Does Corey Reynolds Believe in Aliens?
Sheriff Mike may be resistant towards the idea of extraterrestrials, but Mr. Reynolds remains a little more open-minded, stating: “I think aliens absolutely exist. I think statistically speaking, just mathematically, how selfish would it be for us to have the whole universe and only be able to experience this small part of it? It just doesn’t make sense. There are most definitely aliens.”
The only big question in his mind is whether or not Earth has been visited by these beings, although he doesn’t completely rule out the Chariots of the Gods theory put forth by Erich von Däniken, who posited that ancient human cultures were influenced by more advanced civilizations from outer space.
“There is some compelling stuff,” the actor said. “When you look at some of the structures that were built way back in the day, and you also look at how … the pyramid was something that was on all of these different continents all over the world [made by] people who had no contact with one another, designing things very, very similar to one another. I don’t know. I think they could have been here and now they don’t want to be here. But if they’ve been here, or if they do come here, we better hope they’re friendly. Because if they can get here, they’re going to be able to do whatever they want. Who knows what an alien would do?”
Giving us a brief glimpse into some of the hilarious improvisation work that regularly takes place on the Resident Alien set, Reynolds came up with a hilarious alien invasion scenario that’s more Douglas Adams than H.G. Wells: “Maybe they come in and they invest highly in real estate. And they’re like, ‘Hey, we’re business aliens. We’re not conquest aliens. We’re not going to murder you. We want to buy you out.’ They have money we can’t use, but they don’t understand that because they’re a higher intelligence, and they’re just like, ‘But you can just use our [makes up gibberish word for galactic currency].’ And we’re like, ‘No, we use dollars.’ And they’re like, ‘What the f*** is a dollar?’ And that’s when the war starts. It’s not a war that happens because they want our resources, it’s a war that happens because we can’t do a currency swap. And the war is just a legal battle — it is a seven-year litigation that takes place … Investor aliens are probably our best bet. The hostile ones, forget about it. [If they exist], we’re toast.”
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