‘Resident Alien’: Alan Tudyk and EP Chris Sheridan Preview ‘Dark’ Turn in Season 3 (VIDEO)

To paraphrase Harry Vanderspeigle, this is not some bulls**t. Season 3 of Syfy‘s hilariously twisted Resident Alien is about to turn up the heat on the residents of snowy Patience, Colorado, as confirmed in this behind-the-scenes reel that was just screened for the TV Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena. And we have your exclusive first look at the clip.

“What we try to do this year is really start moving in the walls and crunching down the alien threat on everyone by design,” showrunner Chris Sheridan told us a week earlier. “The first couple of seasons were some alien stuff with a lot of character development, but we’re really ratcheting it up in Season 3. There’s more alien threat and there’s higher stakes. And Harry is, as always, in the middle of all of it while also trying to deal with his own emotional stuff.”

When we last saw Alan Tudyk‘s Harry, the stranded ET who has been posing as Patience’s town doctor was aligning himself with General McCallister (Linda Hamilton) to stop an alien race called The Greys from taking over the planet. Given that Harry’s original plan was to actually eradicate mankind, this is sort of a big step for the Law & Order-loving misanthrope. Credit his last two seasons of spending time with the best of Patience, including his nurse bestie Asta (the always fabulous Sara Tomko), her bar-fly bestie D’Arcy (scene stealer Alice Wetterlund), Mayor Ben “Snowflake” Hawthorne (too handsome-to-be-this-funny Levi Fiehler), his wife Kate (Meredith Garretson, finally getting the screen time she deserves) and local law enforcement faves Sheriff Mike and deputy Liv (Corey Reynolds and Elizabeth Bowen, a duo born for their own spinoff). With a crew like this, how could he want to wipe us out?

“It’s unsaid that Harry’s not going to kill the humans,” agrees Tudyk, once again at his A-game level from the jump this season. “But if he’s not going to kill them, he’s not going to let anybody else kill them either. I mean, there is a love there [for humans] now. It’s him coming to terms with his love.”

And that love will take a few forms in Season 3, Tudyk continues (including that Blue Avian alien you peepped in the trailer). “When he really falls in love with a woman in a romantic way, he not only recognizes this new strong feeling but is able to recognize the difference between this kind of love and the love he feels for Asta. That is another level of emotional growth for him…being able to delineate the difference. He’s starting to see the different types of love now.”

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Sheridan hints that Harry may have found a new ally in D’Arcy, especially since she discovered his alien identity at the end of last season. “The two of them, they work together, they get closer. She’s not just alcoholic Raggedy-Ann anymore,” he laughs. “She’s a person that he won’t kill because he likes her.  And once she knows who he is, he doesn’t have to hide who he is in front of her anymore. He’s able to be himself around D’Arcy. And with humans, when you let down your guard and let someone see who you really are, that is a moment where you move closer to them as a person.”

At the same time as all of this bonding and good will, Harry will have some very serious situations to deal with. First, hottie Grey (Enver Gjokaj) has infiltrated Patience as new cop Joseph. Also, now that he is on McCallister’s team and actually reporting for duty (desk and all!), Harry will have access to more alarming information about the Greys’ nefarious activities—including their ritualistic abductions of the Hawthornes, who are starting to realize that something very otherworldly has been plaguing their sleeping hours for God knows how long.

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“Oh yeah, it will get dark,” warns Sheridan of Ben and Kate’s torturous experiences. Sheridan and his team of writers took great strides to tell this part of the story as sensitively as possible, aware of the myriad reports of abduction out there. “We’ve done a lot of research on that, saw a lot of transcripts of [victims under] hypnosis, and we try to be as authentic as possible with Ben and Kate’s journey,” he offers. “Horrible things happen to them, and they don’t remember it, but it is still affecting their life because it’s inside of them.”

“People might believe it, people might not believe it, but I’ll tell you this,” he continues. “There are thousands and thousands of people who have gone through these abduction scenarios and they believe it. These are people who are put under hypnosis and relive these things. You can say it’s not real—but let’s put that aside for a second—but these people believe it’s real and it’s harrowing. It’s terrifying to sort of relive the things that they go through.”

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It’s also catalyzing for our favorite martian. “Without saying too much about that, yeah, Harry finds out a lot [about the Hawthornes] that he’s got to become even more proactive,” confirms Tudyk. “For Harry, it’s personal because these abductions are not for him. He knows exactly what an abduction is, he knows who’s doing it, he knows why they’re doing it, and he doesn’t like it. He thinks it’s gross.”

And for an alien who has once eaten his own friend (albeit, an octopus), that is saying a lot.

Resident Alien, Season Premiere, Wednesday, February 14, 10/9c, Syfy