Kate Hawthorne

**Kate Hawthorne** is a character in the science fiction comedy television series *Resident Alien*. She is portrayed by Meredith Garretson.

## Character overview

Kate Hawthorne is a woman who lives in Patience. She is married to the town's mayor, Ben Hawthorne, and is the mother of the boy Max Hawthorne, who can see through the alien Harry Vanderspeigle's human disguise, as well as a currently unnamed child who was abducted from her womb by The Greys. She is a teacher at her son's school, which has led to him becoming something of an outcast among his peers. She and her husband have something of a troubled relationship, as she is an assertive, dominant personality, while he tends to be much more submissive in nature. She is a professional lawyer, but gave up her dream to have a family and live in Patience. Having grown up in a large town, Kate never had the same feeling of community that many Patience natives have, but comes to appreciate the town and the people in it.

## Plot summary

Kate Hawthorne is out walking with her son Max, her holding his hand, when she two of them encounter the alien who is masquerading as Harry Vanderspeigle. As she is unable to see Vanderspeigle's true form, she is confused when her son screams upon seeing him and then rushes back to their car, locking the doors. That evening, she and her husband Ben hear their son screaming. Neither believe their son's claim that there's an alien under the bed who tried to kill him and she tells him that she can't do another night with no sleep. She gives him a count of three to get off the top of his bed and come sleep with them, chastising Ben for letting him watch movies like *E.T.: The Extraterrestrial*.

She is again aggravated when she and Ben take Max to the doctor's for a sore throat, only for him to race out of the clinic and hide under the bench because the Vanderspeigle alien is the doctor. She and Ben again ignore Max's claims of attempted murder, but agree to let Max go with Ben to his office, so long as his sore throat doesn't worse. She then tells Ben that they're getting rid of him if he keeps things up.

Later, she pays a visit to Vanderspeigle at his cabin, telling him that her son is going around town telling everyone that he's an alien and showing him a wanted poster that her son made. Vanderspeigle at first thinks that she believes her son's story and secretly grabs a knife to try to kill her, only for her to ask him what's wrong with her son, why he's making things up. She tells him that she normally used to talk with Sam Hodges about this sort of thing. When she asks what she can do about it, he suggests that she and her family move far away, that Scotland needs mayors. She tells him that they're not moving and he plays it off as a joke. He then suggests that she's neglecting her son and she agrees that things might be difficult for Max, with her working at school. She later approaches Max at school, hoping to connect with him, but her giving him a hug only ends up embarrassing him in front of his peers.

She and Ben have a talk with Max. When they give him cookies, her realizes that it's a serious talk and at first believes that they're getting a divorce. When they tell him that Vanderspeigle is coming over for dinner, he asks why they couldn't just be getting a divorce and screams and hides in his room. To their surprise, however, Max behaves like an angel during dinner, secretly playing the role of the good boy to run interference for his friend Sahar who is stealing Vanderspeigle's keys so that they can sneak into his cabin. Meanwhile, Kate is embarrassed by Vanderspeigle's unexpected date, D'Arcy Bloom, who reveals that she and Ben had dated while they were in school and technically never actually broke up with each other.

Kate's relationship with her husband, Ben, grows increasingly troubled due to his own lack of assertiveness and their continued troubles with Max. Vanderspeigle suggests sending Max off to a special school in Georgia, ostensibly because of him suffering for teraphobia and face-blindness, though secretly due to Max's ability to recognize him as an alien. When Vanderspeigle later claims to have been "mistaken," Ben calls it "great news," but Kate states that he drove a wedge between her and her husband.

Things only continue to get worse, as the two have their anniversary dinner. Based on the misguided advice of Sheriff Mike Thompson, Ben picks the restaurant, a fancy upscale restaurant named Laurent's that he would normally never frequent. During the dinner, he is abnormally controlling. Kate finally calls him out on it and he replies that she had said she wanted him to challenge her more. She admits this is so, but says that this isn't him. She tells him that that they aren't always going to agree about everything, that they're different people, but she wants them to be a team. Following the dinner, Kate visits the restroom. Here, she encounters a woman who gives her name as "Sarah Houston" and claims to be new in town. Kate introduces herself as the mayor's wife and gives the woman her phone number, telling her to call her if she needs anything. Unknown to Kate, the woman is actually the government agent Lisa Casper, who is seeking her son Max to learn what he knows about the alien.

Sometime following this, Kate invites "Sarah" over to dinner along with "Richard Houston," who is supposedly her husband. In fact, "Richard" is actually a government agent partnered with her, whose actual name is David Logan. When Ben arrives home, he is annoyed, as he upset that they are having fish for dinner instead of their usual taco night. He is sulky throughout the dinner, irritating Kate, who pulls him aside and tells him to at least try to make an effort at conversation. Meanwhile, Kate sneaks up to Max's room and discovers a piece of Harry Vanderspeigle's spaceship, hidden away by Max. When she is caught by Kate, she claims that she simply wanted to see what a child's room looks like, feigning that she and "Richard" are having difficulties having a child of their own due to him being sterile.

Following this encounter, Casper and Logan try to use Max to track down Vanderspeigle, but are thwarted by him and his friend Sahar, who realize that the two agents are onto them. They then break into the Hawthorne household and try to interrogate Max and Sahar while Kate is upstairs exercising. Kate eventually comes down and demands to know what they are doing, at which point Casper forces into a closet. She manages to break out. Around the same time, Ben arrives and sees what is happening. He makes his way inside the house and together he and Kate fight off the two agents using every household object they can get their hands on. In the aftermath, covered in blood, they seem to be newly turned on to each other and kiss and make out.

In the coming weeks, Ben and Kate's marriage seems to be stronger and more passionate than ever. They have wild sex, engaging in a variety of kinky role-play. In truth, however, this outward front is a cover for their continued cracks in their relationship. Ben remains troubled by being kissed by D'Arcy Bloom, despite himself not having been the one to make contact. Meanwhile, Kate finds herself restless, troubled by the fact that she gave up a promising legal career in order to settle down in the sleepy town of Patience and be a mayor's wife, a schoolteacher and a mother to Max.

The cracks in the two's relationship begin to show when Ben is out at the Grady property taking photos with D'Arcy, as D'Arcy was the only one with a license and insurance for the ATV needed to reach it. Kate is away on a trip with Max and Ben admits to D'Arcy that he feels like he can't himself around Kate, that he has to do things like holding his farts in. D'Arcy is surprised, as she thought their relationship was "all handcuffs and frozen dildos." Ben tells her that he has a sign that he can't even hang up in the house because he's worried about Kate might think. The two eventually retire to the Hawthorne house and D'Arcy helps Ben to hang up the sign, which reads "Live, Laugh, Love." The two smoke marijuana that she hid the room that is now Max's when she was a teen and she ends up falling asleep in Max's bed, though romantic happens between them. Despite this, when Kate arrives home the next day, Ben has D'Arcy sneak out the window. He also takes down the sign when it is clear that she dislikes it.

One day, Kate is working at out the local gym when she discovers that D'Arcy is there as well, trying to get back into shape after having taken a "recovery day" for years following the accident that ended her Olympic dreams. The two get to chatting and Kate helps D'Arcy to get back into the groove of working out. Afterwards, the two head to the 59 for celebratory drinks. When Kate's drink tastes like soap to her, she fears she might be pregnant. She admits to D'Arcy that she doesn't know how she feels about having another kid. She says that Ben would be thrilled. D'Arcy is dubious because of a comment previously made by Ben, but doesn't say anything. Kate assures her that Ben does want kids and would start a family band if he could. D'Arcy takes her to a corner of a bar and dispenses a pregnancy test from a machine. Kate tells her she doesn't know and D'Arcy tells her it's there for her when she's ready.

Ben hosts a surprise party for Harry Vanderspeigle's birthday, hoping to lure him into once again becoming the town doctor. During the party, Ben gets a call and informs Kate that he got a call from a company that wants to put a resort in Patience. She expresses her disgust at the idea to D'Arcy, who says that nobody is putting a resort there. She asks what she's talking about and Kate says that Ben took pictures of the Grady land to show them and now the company is sold on the idea. "He said he was using those pictures for the town website," reveals D'Arcy, stunned.

In the shock of it all, the entire messy business comes out into the open in the party. Mike reveals that D'Arcy had kissed Ben, trying to absolve Ben of guilt, but not realizing that Kate didn't know about the kiss. Kate is shocked to learn about the time that D'Arcy spent with Ben and that she even spent the night over at the house and she didn't know it. In her anger, she accuses D'Arcy of not being her friend and spending time with Ben only because finding a single guy who's real and available is too scary for her, thus inserting her drama into other people's lives because she can't deal with her own. She tells Ben that she hates her life in Patience and drops the bomb that she's pregnant. "Who's keeping secrets now?" comments Ben and Kate stalks off, Mike telling Ben that's not really the road he wants to go down.

Ben tracks down Kate, finding her in the cabin's bedroom. He apologizes for not telling her about what happened with D'Arcy, saying she probably already knows by now that she's married to a dipshit. She asks why he didn't tell her. He says he was scared and that the truth is that they don't really talk about things anymore. "Let's talk, right now," says Kate. "We're gonna have a baby," says Ben and they both agree that it's a lot. They then start making out and later head to the bathroom to once again engage in wild sex.

Not long following this, Ben proposes to the town of Patience a plan to build a major new resort within the town, in order to rebrand the town away from being a "murder town" and attract new residents and business. Kate is one of his few allies, as most of the town is adamantly opposed to the plan, feeling that it would ruin Patience's small-town charm by driving away local business and creating massive traffic problems. Kate adamantly supports Ben, both determined to be more supportive of him and genuinely feeling it to be a good idea.

Asta, D'Arcy, Deputy Liv Baker and Kayla hatch a plan to change Kate's mind. On Halloween, they take Kate out for the evening and bring her to an old bridge at a secluded creek. There, they showed her how they carved their names into the bridge as children, and that it was even where Ben lost his virginity. Kate admits that having grown up in a big city, this is something that she never had, that she never had this sense of community or belonging. They tell her that she could have it too and she ends up carving her and Ben's initials. Afterwards, she agrees with them that she is on-board with them and she no longer wants the resort and for Patience to change.

Kate goes to Ben and reveals that she is no longer in support of the resort. She expects her word to change his mind, but to her surprise and shock, he tells her that he is still for it and that the two of them are going to have to agree to disagree. Stunned, Kate reports back the news to the others. Kayla then asks her why she is spending so much time worrying about one man's opinion. She explains that as they are both lawyers, she's done some research and they could get a temporary restraining order to halt progress prior to a preliminary injunction hearing. She asks Kate if she's in and Kate asks when they could start.

Around this same time, Kate begins to suspect that her pregnancy test may have been a false positive. She gets blood work from Asta at the Patience Health Clinic and confirms the false positive. Meanwhile, her battle with Ben over the resort continues. When the tension starts to create conflict at home, they agree to a truce to simply not talk about the resort at home. This, however, ends up becoming an issue when Ben brings over Sheriff Mike, who is his other big supporter on the resort plan, for dinner. Mike has made no such agreement and therefore ends up dragging the two back into the argument. The stress of things seemingly causes Ben start having nightmares and sleepwalking, something that he hasn't done since childhood. Things come to a head when Ben, drowsy during the day due to a lack of sleep, ends up in a car crash.

Kate rushes to the hospital, where she blames herself for having caused Ben's accident by putting this stress on him. She tells him that he doesn't have to worry anymore, that she knows a lot of good can come from having a resort in town. She continues that she doesn't want him to have to stop doing something that he believes in. He, however, tells her that during the accident, the important moments and people of his life flashed before his life, and all of them were there in Patience. He explains that he got so caught up in rebranding Patience that he forgot that he already loves it exactly the way it is, and he no longer wants to change it. He tells her that he's tired of trying to make everyone like him. She tells him that they already do, but he retorts that they don't, that he's just the mayor to them, but he knows that she does, and that's enough. Kate's words, however, are soon proven right when members of the town pour in to check on Ben and make sure he's okay.

Sometime following this, Kate wakes up in the middle of the night. She goes downstairs, only to find Ben standing still in the kitchen, apparently having sleepwalked there despite no longer suffering from the stress of the resort. He tells her that he had the same nightmare again, quipping that she shouldn't have woken him until he finished doing the dishes. She tells him to come back to bed. Not long after this, Ben is abducted in his sleep by The Greys along with Robert Hutchins, something that has apparently been going on for years and is the cause of his sleepwalking, anxiety and nightmares. He struggles. "Do not worry," one of The Greys tells him. "Your baby is here too," he says, indicating an incubation tube containing the baby which they abducted from Kate's womb approximately three months before.

## Quotes

"*Look at this. It's disgusting. Makes me want to throw up just looking at it.*" - Kate upon seeing a picture of Harry Vanderspeigle's alien form

"*I hate Patience, I hate my life, and I hate that I thought you were my friend, and I'm glad I pissed on your hand when I took that pregnancy test!" - Kate to D'Arcy Bloom*

"*I... you know, I never had this where I grew up, you know, a sense of belonging to a place, like it was a part of you.*"

- Kate, after learning of the carving spot under the bridge

"*I've been trying so hard to change this town... to make it perfect. And it already is. At least to me. And... I don't want it to change. I'm just so tired... of trying to get everyone to like me.*"

"*Oh, honey. Everybody loves you.*"

"*No, they don't. I'm just the mayor to them.*"

"*No.*"

"*But I know that you do. You know, that's what matters.*"

- Ben and Kate Hawthorne

## Behind the scenes

* Kate Hawthorne's actress, Meredith Garretson, is credited as a guest star despite appearing in all episodes of the first season of *Resident Alien*. She continues to appear regularly in the second season, though is absent from at least one episode.
* According to *Resident Alien* creator and showrunner Chris Sheridan, he had considered withholding the truth regarding Kate's pregnancy and the abduction of her child by The Greys until Season 3. He decided, however, that this would feel like a cheat, that it would make it seem to viewers like the story had simply been cut off, and thus it was important to reveal the truth within the same season. He also felt that it made for both a great and terrifying ending to the season.

## Gallery

### Videos

Mayor Ben & His Wife Defend Their Kids from Government Agents - Resident Alien - SYFYSara Tomko Talks About the Love Triangle Between Mayor Ben, Kate, and D’Arcy - Resident Alien - SYFYThe Hawthornes Try Couples Therapy With Dr. Harry - Resident Alien (S2 E9) - SYFY
## Navigation

Mayor Ben Hawthorneportrayed byLevi Fiehler**Kate Hawthorne**portrayed by Meredith GarretsonMax Hawthorneportrayed by Judah PrehnGeneral Eleanor McCallisterportrayed byLinda HamiltonDavid Loganportrayed byAlex Barima
*Browse all*

## References

1. ↑ Syfy: *Resident Alien* Showrunner Breaks Down Biggest Moments from Game-Changing Season 2 Finale by Josh Weiss. September 29, 2022.