Warning: This article contains spoilers for Resident Alien season 3, episodes 1-5.

Summary

• Harry's plan to stop the Greys is thrown off course by a shocking discovery in Resident Alien season 3, episode 5.
• The Greys' intentions for Earth are not what they seem, as they plan to terraform the planet for their own habitation.
• Resident Alien's storyline cleverly misleads viewers about the Greys' true intentions with the Yellowstone caldera.

Resident Alien season 4.

Resident Alien's Grey Aliens are portrayed as a fairly stereotypical form of extraterrestrial life. As well as their highly recognizable appearance from folklore, the show's villainous race also abducts various human of the Resident Alien cast and treats them very unethically before returning them to Earth, but after wiping their memories. Although the Greys' primary goal has been mentioned on several occasions, Resident Alien season 3, episode 5, "Lovebird," proves that Harry and his friends didn't have all the information.

Resident Alien Season 3, Episode 5 Shows The Greys Want To Terraform Earth

Harry had the Grey's original plan wrong

The final moments of "Lovebird" disprove Harry's theory that the Greys planned to use the Yellowstone caldera to destroy humanity's homeworld. When Max steals Harry's recreation of the Greys' mysterious compound for a science fair project, the school gymnasium is quickly evacuated when Harry pulls the fire alarm due to the fumes. Harry's quick thinking allows him to see the effect of the compound firsthand and away from prying eyes. The compound's dispersal around the room reduces the gravity, which would make the environment suitable for Grey habitation.

The dead frog suspended in the low gravity environment of the gymnasium strongly suggests the Greys' changes will be incompatible with Earth's native species - humans included.

Greys can't survive the stresses of Earth's gravity for very long, hence the development of the human/Grey hybrids. So, it would seem that the evil aliens do plan to use the caldera after all, but not in a traditionally destructive sense. Instead, they plan to take Earth for themselves. However, to do so, the Greys need to take drastic measures to alter the Earth's atmosphere to suit their physiology. The dead frog suspended in the low gravity environment of the gymnasium strongly suggests the Greys' changes will be incompatible with Earth's native species - humans included.

The fumes could be part of the terraforming process, but the gravity doesn't seem to be hugely weaker, as Harry remains on the ground with only lighter objects succumbing to the environmental changes.

Resident Alien's Caldera Storyline Has Been Cleverly Misleading

The caldera's presence in Resident Alien has taken a quick change in direction

So far, the Grey Aliens have been portrayed as textbook villains with no deeper motivation than to just destroy Earth. The Yellowstone caldera would be a good way to achieve that goal, so bringing the volatile geographical feature into the equation felt like a natural part of the plan. By revealing that the Greys are planning to use the caldera for something other than conventional destruction, it adds an excellent plot twist to a Resident Alien story that otherwise felt comfortably predictable.

Resident Alien airs weekly, each Wednesday on Syfy. The new episodes can be streamed the following day on Peacock.