Warning: Spoilers ahead forResident Alienseason 4, episode 3, “Ties That Bind.“I love thatResident Alienseason 4, episode 3,“Ties That Bind,” properly brings Linda Hamilton’s General Eleanor McCallister back to the storyafter a cameo at the end of episode 2, but her comeback also comes with a notable plot hole that may or may not be addressed as the current run continues. Since joining theResident Aliencastin season 1, episode 6, “Sexy Beast,” General McCallister has gradually transformed from one of the biggest adversaries ofAlan Tudyk’s Harry Vanderspeigleinto a vital ally.
TheTerminatorfranchisestar features heavily in “Ties That Bind,” but her presence brings with it an unresolved mystery. With large portions of the episode taking place in 1970,Resident Alientoys with time travel again for the first time in a while. As such, Harry and D’arcy Bloom (Alice Wetterlund) are afforded the chance to go on an excitingly fresh adventure, which just so happens to recall Linda Hamilton to the cast.
Resident Alien Season 4, Episode 3 Doesn’t Explain How General McCallister Traveled Back To 1970
Linda Hamilton’s character somehow beats Harry & D’arcy to their temporal destination
Needing an alien device to trade toResident Alien’s Grey Aliensin return for his “alien energy”,Harry and D’arcy travel back to 1970to retrieve one from a spot where they know one to be. They’re shown traveling through a portal to achieve this. While a little generic by sci-fi standards, it ticks all the right boxes for Harry and his companion to make the journey. Plus, painfully in-depth sci-fi lore is pretty much always secondary to storytelling inResident Alien, and that’s fine. After all, it’s just as much a lighthearted comedy as it is a genre-heavy drama.
McCallister visits her younger self in an attempt to convince her father that the alien ship he saw was real and not to doubt himself.
That said, “Ties That Bind” also places General McCallister in 1970, but fails to provide an explanation for how she got there. The episode actually features two versions of the character, as McCallister visits her younger self in an attempt to convince her father that the alien ship he saw was real and not to doubt himself. It’s all very wholesome, but it ignores the matter of how the general came to be in 1970 at all.
“Ties That Bind” doesn’t show McCallister arriving in or departing from 1970, so the viewers are never told how she can time travel like Harry and D’arcy. Instead, the episode just sort of expects the audience to accept that Hamilton’s character has mysterious ways of traversing the timeline. While it’s arguably a nice nod to the actress' connection to theTerminatormovies, it’s also a pretty frustrating oversight. It doesn’t hurt the episode’s larger story, but it would be nice to know how she did it.
Explaining General McCallister Time Travel Plot Hole From “Ties That Bind”
McCallister’s military connections could provide an explanation
AlthoughResident Alienseason 2, episode 4, doesn’t explain McCallister’s timeline-hopping escapades, the show has already provided some background information that could be used to fill in the blanks. Her connections to the US military have already proven to give her access to incredibly advanced technology, some of which has been derived from alien tech that has either been encountered, salvaged, or studied. The show has already included several sequences that demonstrate the resources she has access to.
So,it’s not unreasonable to assume that McCallister has access to time travel via her job, even if the device she used to get to 1970 hasn’t been revealed yet, or even if it’s left its prototype phase. This is the most solid theory I have with what I know about McCallister, but it’s still just speculation. It’s not strictly necessary for the show to provide a canonical answer to the question of how the present-day McCallister got to 1970, but I’d like to think thatResident Alienseason 4’s remaining episodes will provide at least a token explanation.
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