Previously, on Haven. We get the crack in the ground, the dialogue as Audrey and Nathan point guns at each other (which we see repeated at the close of the first season with Audrey, Nathan, and Audrey II), Audrey interrupting Nathan to introduce herself to the Chief which is largely significant only because it allows Audrey to name herself for one of the residents of Haven who know her by other names, Audrey getting smacked around by a secondary effect of the Troubles, Duke, Nathan's inability to feel, Vince and Dave (you bastards), and the mysterious woman who looks like Audrey, followed by the barnvatar making bad inside jokes. Fuck everyone. Because, essentially, all of these previouslies are not just establishing things that are going to be important later in the overall of things, many of them are going to be important later because they hint at the underlying mythology, fragments of scenes that become more and more significant the more we learn. Because Haven is a fucker like that, the more we see of this show, the more we're able to peel back the layers, and the more we're able to see what was there in the first place. Which is exactly why we love it. And swear at it so much.
So! This week we start at a bar/restaurant type place in what looks like downtown Haven, as much as Haven has a downtown. That's a smaller downtown even than my town. The bar/restaurant is called the Rust Bucket, and it's owned or run or managed by someone named Otis, because the woman running out and talking to him about finishing the week's receipts calls him that! Which puts him in a managerial position and her in a pretty important position behind the scenes. Uh-oh, she's now in trouble. Here comes someone slamming a car door and shouting a woman's name, which we know to be hers both because conservation of characters in view and because a second later she calls him Dad. Isn't she a bit old for conversations with Daddy like this? Apparently not, because now he takes her to task for working at this bar/restaurant instead of spending time with Bobby (note: not "your son", which it seems like he's trying to ream her out or guilt her enough to use that epithet if it was true) or volunteering. Interesting choice of preferred past times. He also has issue with the bar owner, as we'll call Otis, given that he rises to the bait or insult when Shouty McShouterson calls it a pit of a bar. More insult flinging, apparently Shouty thinks it's his business what his daughter does for a living, nice and controlling Dad there, and Otis smarts off about Shouty's evident drinking problem. Not that he uses any phrase that means drinking problem, but the snide way in which he invites the man in for a drink and refers to the way he takes his liquor indicates that there's reason for Shouty to be either insulted or ashamed by the implication, or both. Shouty appears to be done shouting, and while 'take care' could be a kind goodbye in Shouty's delivery it's more of a threat or a warning. He'll now collect his daughter and be on his merry. Pleasant chap. Hannah apologizes to the kid for, well, being in the middle of this. The poor kid looks about as uncomfortable and trying not to make his presence felt as one might expect when still a minor in the presence of angry, potentially drunk adults. This scene does overall a very nice, concise job of introducing Shouty, aka the Rev, aka Edmund Driscoll to us without ever giving us his name, yet we have that suspicion already that he'll be important later. Anyone that shouty and abusive, with a strong moral compass that says his shouting and abuse is either good or necessary, is going to be very important, very dead, or both.
Night passes, dawn comes, and a butterfly crosses the screen. The butterfly comes bearing gifts! Such as a giantass stone or metal ball. Metal, by the sound of it. The butterfly must have gotten it off the set of an Indiana Jones movie, because the big stonemetal ball is rolling down a hill and steering itself in the butterfly's path, our first clue that something unnatural is happening, down a street and past a car and a handful of people who don't look nearly as surprised to see a bigass stonemetal ball rolling down the street. Or maybe most of them haven't had their coffee yet or don't have time to react. I'd say they're resigned to Haven except the Troubles have just started coming back, and we don't even know if these are Haven natives or newcomers to this cycle. The ball rolls down, picking up speed, oh, hey Otis. Get out of the way Otis. Rust Bucket, meet stonemetal ball. It's very pleased to meet you! Roll credits.
The Chief responds not at all to Audrey's question about the photo of Lucy Ripley, but with the sort of pleasant chitchat one might normally use in response to polite inquiries and greetings, etc. It's very obviously a hint. Also a dodge. Less obviously a dodge but for that bit at the end of where he says he didn't know she was still in town, which has a few of the facial twitches of pulling himself together, bracing himself. Now, he could be bracing himself against a determined, rude FBI agent, but it wasn't likely then and given what we know now, it's even less likely. Audrey interprets this as brushing her off or refusing to tell her anything, and it takes her a second to realize that she did kind of barge in here rudely, even though he's being very nice about reminding her of the basic civilities of human interaction. Not that she doesn't know them, it's just that this is personal and therefore she doesn't have the best of judgement. And although she doesn't back up to the pleasantries, she does at least sit down and adopt some less aggressive, confrontational mannerisms. Sadly, this doesn't get her any further, because the Chief continues to hide behind it was a long time ago and maybe he doesn't remember so much. That's bull, Chief, it was a very strange, very memorable time and you totally remember her, don't you. Audrey knows it's bull, too, and tries to play either upon his good nature to return the favor or upon his need to keep the Troubles (not that she knows to call them that right now) discreet to give her information in exchange for keeping her mouth shut. She even calls it quid pro quo, which gets some banter and his own words slid back to him. Cute. Okay, yes, it is a bit cute, he thinks it's cute, too, with the little chuckle there. All right, he'll cough up the information, but it'll take him a couple of days. Which pings all of our alarm bells even if it doesn't ping Audrey's, because if he's taking a couple of days to locate something where he should be able to take her to evidence archives and either let her dig it out herself or dig it out with her, chances are he's lying. Or covering something up. Or has to consult with someone else (cough cough Agent Fuck You). Or something else of a shady and dubious nature. Either way, it sounds deeply suspicious to us. Not so to Audrey, but she is impatient and wants to know what the hell she's supposed to do in those two days. Take a rest. Take a break. Go visit the Haven moose farm. (Moose farm?) Audrey isn't very good at vacations. We sympathize. Still, she could use the practice, as the Chief points out. We also note the at least three pictures of a boy who is probably Nathan over to the Chief's right hand side on a bookcase, indicating that despite the contentious relationship described thus far, there's some deeper feeling there, honest and solid. Hey, speaking of Nathan, look who's coming up! He's surprised to see her too. Well, um, she's, uh, vacationing, thank you Chief for that not quite cough of 'bullshit.' It doesn't take much for Audrey to admit that she's looking into the woman in the photo, yes. Uh-huh. Nathan just stopped in to say that something weird's afoot at the Rust Bucket, only he's saying it with this lip-biting thing that says it's something Haven-weird more than weird-weird. Audrey doesn't read him well enough to notice this yet, and she doesn't know Haven well enough to know that there's something to notice, but she'll tag along anyway! Because moose museums aren't her thing. Farms. Galleries. Whatever. Nathan looks less than pleased, but is overridden by the Chief, which probably wouldn't have gone better if the Chief hadn't added that last comment about Nathan using all the help he can get, which Nathan of course took as a slight against him and his abilities. Oh boys. Oh honeys. You really, really need some family therapy or something. Or maybe for the Chief to start talking, since we can guess why he wants Audrey along for something "weird" happening in Haven. Except when they finally confront him on this his and, really, almost everyone's excuse is that there's nothing they could say that would have convinced her before she learned about Haven on her own. Sadly, they're also likely right. Haven, like the Matrix, cannot be explained. You have to see it for yourself. That last comment about 'finally some peace' from the Chief, while likely intended to be more humorous and casual than double edged, is still really double edged, given Audrey. Bad writers. No cookie.
A quick view down the high street brings us to the Rust Bucket, now featuring giant stonemetal ball. Hey, Nathan recognizes that giant metal ball. Nathan recognizes that giant metal ball with the sort of bland coffee-holding stare that people use when someone's proselytizing on the street corner in a particularly amusing way. Not that he looks amused, because this is Nathan, the king of deadpan. The only thing more notable about his deadpan here is his lack of surprise. Because fuck Haven and its Troubles, only Audrey doesn't know that. She's intrigued! And more than a little WTF. Nathan describes the ball for us and where it used to be, including, to emphasize the oddness of it, the fact that every year drunk students try to steal it and fail because it's a big bronze ball and ostensibly no one should be able to shift a bronze ball of that size. Make your own jokes here, folks, because there are so many of them I'm not going to go near even one. Otis is understandably worried and pissed off as Audrey approaches, making noises about who's going to pay for this. Audrey seems a bit confused about who she is and whose authority she's going to use; ordinarily it'd be understandable that she might try to piggyback off local authority, but in this show it just underscores the confusion as to her identity at a time before we know there's anything to be confused about, as well as foreshadowing her eventual resignation from the FBI and joining Haven PD proper. Grr. Yes, Otis knows exactly what happened. The ball rolled down the damn hill and crushed his place. Well, does he have any enemies? Yes! We even saw this one. Shouty McShouterson, whose real name is apparently Ed Driscoll. He did, in fact, quit drinking and developed a hatred for the bar as a result, "his place" is up on Green Street where the ball is, and so Nathan and Audrey will go run along to have a chat with Shouty McDriscoll. We get a nice bit of banter between Nathan and Audrey as we follow Nathan's truck from an aerial view along to Driscoll's or the former ball site, both for the sake of establishing character bonds and to reinforce Nathan's deadpan humor a bit. As we come to get to know these characters we'll value these moments for everything being all right, and for them teasing each other and being cute. Lookit the little trollface peeking over the horizon! Look at it! Isn't it cute!
The ball is apparently a three ton ball, outer shell of bronze and not hollow, which explains the more solid stone-ish sound, but filled with sand. It looks like some sort of world symbolizing sculpture, and it's been in front of the church since about 1969. That's between cycles, so we won't take too much note of the date, but yes, we are paying attention. The chains are a recent addition because of some new insurance company deciding the ball needed to be protected against theft. Or possibly the Troubles came back, but actually insurance companies being odd sounds about right to me. The guy (church employee? sexton?) they're talking to says he tried to tell the insurance company the ball wasn't going anywhere. Well, he did put the chains on as the insurance company said, so presumably now they still have to pay. Heh. Oops. And over to find Driscoll it is. We can hear a church organ, so we have a pretty good AUGH HE'S BLESSING THE BABY GET HIM AWAY GET HIM AWAY. I kid, but seriously, this man is not looking all that welcoming or paternal in the religious sense. He still looks like more of a righteous wrath of god type preacher, and in this town, that's just scary. Not least with the Revered Flagg bit in the credits; we can guess where the inspiration from Driscoll came from all too easily even if he's not as skilled in manipulation as Stephen King's basement muse. Anyway, he's conducting a baptism, and every indication is that he's doing it out of genuine love and goodwill. We'll give him that. Audrey even comments that he doesn't look like the kind of guy who'd send a big bronze ball into a bar to smash it to bits. Nathan says to give it a minute. So the Reverend Driscoll takes his place up front and starts talking about the child belongs to God and it's up to each of them to make sure he stays on God's path, which is fair and also potentially dangerous depending on what these people think is a Godly path. Apparently, according to the Reverend, this means steering clear of the troubled and the ungodly. Let me repeat that. Steering clear of the Troubled and the ungodly. Except this is early on in the season before we've gotten used to attaching a capital T to the word Trouble, so we're just blithely trundling along thinking that the Reverend means people who are different in a more normal sense and in conclusion, Oh You Fuckers. Fuck you and all the little easter eggs you rolled in on these episodes. Argh! And at the same time it's beautiful because you can tell these people had a plan and a vision for this show, the characters (like Reverend Driscoll) who know about the Troubled are using all the right words to be talking about it while we, like the main character, have only just met this town and have no idea what it really means. It's beautiful. And aggravating. Along with Nathan's little jawtwitch when Reverend Driscoll says the Troubled are meant to be steered away from, rejected, etc. The Rev calls for an Amen. Nathan walks the fuck out, because fuck this guy. The Rev emphasizes that Haven is a good place to raise a family except for all those goddamned (literally, to his mind) ungodly, can he get an Amen? Amen! No, not Amen, Rev, fuck you. Audrey, a bit torn between listening to this to find out more and chasing after Nathan to find out why he stalked out, eventually does go chasing after Nathan. She seems surprised, too, at the Rev's speech. Outside, she takes Nathan to task for not telling her about his history with the Rev, which he freely admits was kind of a dick move or at least irresponsible. Apparently the Rev's been a "self-righteous jackass" (Nathan's words) since his wife died. Audrey asks that he keep that under wraps while they talk to the Rev. Probably a good plan, not that Nathan has an unambiguous yes for her. That little head bob is more of an I'll-try at best. This also goes a long way to highlighting AudSarLu's boundless compassion as a consistent character trait, her desire to heal and make people happy. Right up until they decide that their happiness entails harming others.
After the service the Rev is tidying up in his office when Nathan and Audrey return. My, those are a lot of butterflies on your table and walls, Reverend. The Rev makes only a mild comment to Nathan before greeting "Special Agent Parker," whom he seems to already know or be able to guess. I'd make comments on his ability to gather information except, no, small town, she's been there a few days, it really does move that fast. Especially with things like murder and freaky weather involved. She jibes back, but the Rev is more about business, and in this case business means the sculpture. As for his opinion about the Rust Bucket, he considers it a cesspool and good riddance. Nathan takes this to mean the Rev did it! After that speech I almost would too. The Rev attempts to dodge by playing folksy and welcoming with Audrey, who is having none of it. Well, the Rev's position is that he doesn't condone violence of any kind. His words say no but his attitude and tone of voice say that cross he's carrying is full of mercy. The kind you hurt people with. He then pulls out some logic, which is irrefutable, that being that if he were going to destroy the bar using the sculpture from his actual church would be a dumbass idea. Not in those exact words, but that's definitely his drift. So Audrey asks him about the conflict from the other night, at which point he calls upon the woman from last night, his daughter Hannah. And her foster son, Bobby, and that explains the odd phrasing of his admonition! Excellent. Tight writing and explanation through normal dialogue for the win. Speaking of informative dialogue, the exchange between the Rev and Hannah about why the Rev was shouting at Otis the other night also tells us that the Rev is a controlling, rigid man who likes to and believes he is entitled to impose his will on others. Look at the way he makes Hannah (or tries to make Hannah) tell Audrey and Nathan why he behaved badly last night, putting it on her shoulders since he clearly expects her to say something along the lines of her behavior provoked him to be a jackass. Just to make sure she's still an obedient daughter as well as to punish her for being disobedient the other night. And when she refuses, he goes and says it anyway. Making it about her actions, and his actions were righteous and in no way is he to blame for being shouty and threatening. For her part, Hannah demonstrates long skill at redirecting her father into something that's not berating her. So now we have a good general impression of just how fucked up this family is. Audrey then asks Hannah point blank if there's anything she wants to tell her about what happened at the Rust Bucket. Note the phrasing there: Audrey leaves it open whether or not Hannah wants to talk about either the fight at the bar or the bronze ball crashing into the bar, which is pretty slick of her. Not that Hannah's going to talk about problems she might have with her father in front of him. She makes the excuse that she only started working there and they were gone hours before the ball hit the wall, so, there. Nathan then asks Bobby if he saw anything, and Bobby returns a very polite if unusually stiff "No, sir." Which we'll also note down, along with the 'sir' he gave the Rev on being rebuked (in a more normally parental style, or it would be without all the shouting) for bringing his bike into the church a few seconds back. Nathan then asks, implicitly, Bobby, if he'll tell them if he sees anything else unusual happening. This time it's Hannah who responds, and the camera indicates to us that they've exchanged a look of some significance, and Audrey's caught it. In-ter-est-ing. Very, very interesting. The Rev changes the subject to seafood stew, and will Audrey join them for Sunday dinner. Audrey pleads gigantic metal ball investigation, which the Reverend accepts with good grace, and then tells him she doesn't believe he's telling them everything, which he accepts with less than good grace. And a warning that he doesn't intend to talk further about the Rust Bucket. A very stern, authoritarian warning. Outside the church we find out why Nathan and Hannah and the Rev were all so tense (ostensibly) apparently Nathan asked Hannah to the prom, her father forbade it, and being teenagers, they went anyway. And then they went up and watched a meteor shower. Naked. Which was apparently her idea! (Given her extremely controlling father, I would not be surprised. As far as safe-but-rebellious choices of Troubled people to fool around with, Nathan's probably pretty far up that list.) Or something. It's all very cute except for fucking meteor shower which was the conclusion of last season of Haven. And I repeat, fucking meteor shower. Fuck, you guys! You sneaky, sneaky bastards.
Back over at Audrey's room in whatever place she's staying at, a bed and breakfast? Some place that invites a lot of travelers, by the flags outside. Oh fuck me sideways that's the same hotel Arla took James to at the end of this last season. I have to go drink heavily now. Just because it's probably the only decent hotel in town (the Altair Bay Inn being a bit outside of town and thus less suited for law enforcement) does not decrease my desire to swear. She's showering, or at least we get an open door with water running and a light on in the bathroom and a bit of steam on the window, and then we get an open window for a good night breeze, with a butterfly coming in! Aww. Sort of. That'd be more aww if it weren't for the something-hinky-is-about-to-happen motif. The butterfly lands on her bed, Audrey comes out of the now closed-door bathroom (mis-set? did she realize the bathroom door was open and close it? I'm going with mis-set) all betoweled for our delicate eyeballs and, most likely, because the window's open and even on an upper floor with the curtains mostly shut, you never know. And sees the butterfly on the bedspread and smiles as she ushers it out. Aww. Except not. (This also, by the way, tells us that Audrey touching a non-human manifestation of the Troubles doesn't engage her auto-off function for them.) Audrey sits back down on the bed and makes confused faces at the more butterflies noises, and then starts to call Nathan. Not noticing the blanket behind her is unravelling itself and about to yep, there it goes, cocooning her. She tries to stand! It doesn't work when she's all bound like that. Nathan's voice comes over the phone, she tries to call for help, her face is muffled by the blanket... we get Nathan's first "Audrey"! Sadly, because she's in trouble. Still, trollfaces on the horizon.
The next morning Audrey is very calmly freaked. Her actions are hurried and it takes her a couple seconds longer than it usually might to get her gun clipped onto her belt, to get herself ready, and her words are stuttered. But she's clear in her mind, she's thinking over the case, she's speaking in complete sentences, and she's continuing about her work. Calmly freaked. Her logic is also pretty damn sound for someone who was almost killed by cocoon, namely that butterflies were seen before the attack and that all of this seems aligned with the Rev's anger against the bar, and the sculpture came from his church. If you start with the premise that the cocooning and the ball rolling are not impossible, everything else does line up to point at the Rev. Nathan is attempting to play the voice of reason and pretend for the outsider that shit like this doesn't happen in Haven, but hilariously all this does is make her dig her heels in more and accuse him of being irrationally skeptical in the face of physical evidence that Weird Shit Is Happening. Nathan does manage to slow her down some by pointing out that there isn't much she can say to make the Rev not think she's crazy. And since she doesn't know about the Troubles and that the whole town knows already, she backs down in the face of a yawning gap of externally plausible evidence. For now. Nathan also suggest that they go talk to Hannah, who's over volunteering at a food bank without the Rev. He opines as how her favorite time is when the Rev's not around, which says he's seen how the Rev treats her. Poor kids.
Over to the soup kitchen! Everyone is sorting cans into what look like boxes for maximum usability and spread of nutrition, cool beans (pun intended) and it looks pretty busy. Which is good, for a soup kitchen! Hannah sees them coming and it's hard to say whether her announcing her break (with Bobby following) is them making a half-hearted attempt to flee from answering uncomfortable questions or them making an attempt to politely excuse themselves to talk to the nice police officers somewhere where the rest of the gossipy church folk won't hear. Either way, the nice police officers separate them pretty easily by having Nathan take Bobby out for a walk and leaving Audrey free to help out with the cans and talk to Hannah. She starts off innocuous, admiring the way Bobby helps out, which gives us that Bobby is a clingy foster son and won't leave her side. Not unusual in fosters, depending on the circumstances. Which we now get! His family was in a car accident, Bobby was the only survivor, the Rev took him in and now Hannah takes care of him. Right. Excellent. The closest Hannah will come to criticizing this, probably in equal parts because she genuinely likes and cares for Bobby and because she doesn't want to speak ill of her father, is saying that while the Rev is good at the big gestures the daily grind of followthrough isn't so much his thing. Audrey offers some heartfelt, strong praise for taking in the boy, which as we know from last episode comes from her own very real feelings of alienation and abandonment as a child. It also helps get Hannah to open up about how wonderful and fulfilling it's been having Bobby around, despite early doubts. Outside, Nathan gets Bobby to open up about the Rev by offering his own opinion of the man, which is "not easy." Nice and diplomatic and leaving it open for Bobby to say what he thinks. He has some more favorable opinions of the Rev based on the Rev leaving him alone and giving him space to open up on his own time, which may be accurate or, as Hannah says, may be more Hannah's doing than the Rev's. It's really actually hard to say here, because a lot of the Rev's fire and brimstone does come out of a strong belief that he knows what's best, and what he knows is right, which means that he genuinely does care for the people of Haven. He has the passion to prove it. What he doesn't have is the ability to listen or take in new information that contradicts his world view. But what Bobby was going through doesn't contradict his world view, so it's possible he really was that compassionate and capable when dealing with the kid. And this is the kind of ambiguity of characters I like, people not being good or evil, or even sweethearts and assholes. People just being people. Nathan asks if the Rev is always "that way," meaning gentle and compassionate, and Bobby gets the shuffle of not wanting to say anything bad. His definition of the Rev's problems is "having moods," which is as good a diplomatic term for it as any, there are some clinical terms I might use as well. Bobby retreats when that happens, most of the time (when he's not being forced into a car to go retrieve his allegedly wayward foster mom) and Hannah just takes it because she's used to it. We're still talking about the Rev as we go back over to Audrey and Hannah, discussing the Rev's temper. Hannah says he doesn't like surprises, which is a fair assessment although I question her use of the phrase "that's all." She also says he's protective. Audrey questions why he won't let Hannah work. Ooh, ooh, I have a few theories! Hannah skips past that to the part where she feels like she should stand up to him, as though it's expected of her. And she knows she should if anything is to change, but she never does, and she'll go finish doing soup kitchen work now, leaving Audrey looking like she's considering the possibility of additional suspects for, uh. Conspicuous use of butterflies.
When we next see Audrey she and Nathan are coming up to the church just as the Rev is storming out of it in search of her. How convenient! He is shocked, shocked and outraged that a law enforcement officer would do her job and question persons of interest involved in the destruction of commercial property. How dare she! And so on and so forth. Audrey outright asks him if he's hit Hannah before, and, oh, hey. It's a butterfly. This may be the first time in the history of television, certainly in all the television I've seen (including X-Files, Millennium, etc.) that I've seen two cops with good reason draw their guns upon seeing a butterfly. Which, considering it's only the second episode, goes to tell you what kind of a town Haven is. Yeah. The Rev asks, as one might, if they've both lost their minds. Although honestly, given how he was pointing and yelling earlier, it's not quite as farfetched as one might think? Still, it's more deadly force than seems warranted for yelling and pointing of fingers, particularly when Nathan's been doing his Dubious McDoubterson impression. So, yeah, I'd ask them if they'd lost their minds too, except that the next thing that happens is the Rev gets pulled around by his St someone or other medal. Since he's being pulled around by it at the moment I can't tell who's on it. And when it gets stuck to the hood of the car, pinning him by the neck chain, no, I still can't tell who's on it. Bugger. Audrey climbs up on the hood of the car to try and get the necklace off the poor bastard as another car starts up, preparatory to smooshing the trapped Reverend between the two vehicles. I'm not entirely sure it would kill him? Not immediately, anyway. He might well die of his injuries later. And isn't that a cheery thought. Through a combination of tugging and smashing, eventually they do get the Rev free of his medallion right before the car smashes into him. For your viewing and shipping pleasure, Nathan automatically has his arm around Audrey when we next get a non-motion shot of them, most likely from tackling her to the ground because cop reflexes and oncoming car. But still. The trollface still peeks over the horizon! Everyone catches their breath for a second, and then it's over to Nathan's truck and Audrey singing the I told you so song along the way. Nathan asserts that he didn't say she was crazy, which he hasn't, but it's a fine line and he hasn't been nearly as accepting as befits someone who actually does know about the Troubles. He tries to pass it off as normal skeletons in the town closet, but Audrey isn't buying that, either, no matter what he's selling it for. Her ground rules are a) this is not normal and b) this is local to Haven. And b) is interesting largely because, while yes, she's only been investigating local phenomena so far and the events have been restricted to a sort of single line of sight, several minute long issue, that's still not necessarily a reason not to check at least outside newspapers for strange things going on. Not least because there's reference to the freak hailstorm just last episode that brought the Hastings family, Marian Caldwell's family, up from Georgia. (We don't know enough to phrase it exactly like that yet, but still, "freak weather" plus "weather control tied to strong emotion" is about as conclusive as you're going to get for 54-ish years ago.) And for this particular instance, c) it's not the Rev. Which is not unreasonable although not outside of the realm of possibility, if the Rev were cunning and of a criminal bent he might attack himself to throw suspicion off himself. We don't know him well enough yet to be sure of that. Still, that's a twist that's usually reserved for procedurals, so for right now we'll leave Nathan grumping that he can't arrest the Rev (for bonus points because that would mean the Rev is Troubled and I can just imagine the malicious glee many people would take in that. including us!) and continue on with the investigation!
I have to say, I love that despite the Troubles not following what one commonly thinks of as the rules of science and nature, they approach these investigations logically. Back at the station, Audrey is frowning over the Rust Bucket, on the presumption that they're treating these incidents as deliberate if not premeditated assaults, and they've just lost their main suspect that would have connected the Rust Bucket to the other two assaults. Audrey's looking at a new suspect now, though, who does have connections to the two sites (and I'm guessing she assumes the assault on her is a warning to cut out the investigation): Hannah Driscoll. Nathan reacts with an immediate and certain negative; it's not Hannah, he knows it's not Hannah. Most likely because he knew her the last time the Troubles were around! Not that he's saying this. Instead he's pointing out, when challenged, that Hannah didn't have a problem with the Rust Bucket that they know of. So, okay, they'll go talk to Otis and see what's what. Nathan doesn't look too happy about this but, sweetie, that's police work, and she's got a reasonable line of inquiry. And unless you're going to cough up details about the Troubles and all that goes with, Audrey's going to keep following that line of inquiry till it gets her somewhere. That's kind of her thing. Can I get an Amen open and frank discourse and exchange of information? No? No.
Otis, as it turns out, does not go to interrogation. Possibly because they don't have that set yet, possibly because he's not under suspicion for the other two occurrences and they don't want to intimidate him. Audrey is taking the background role, asking questions but not necessarily looking directly at Otis for Watsonian reasons I can't quite discern, but the way they've shot this puts her very much in the foreground and apart from the rest of the scene, looking off into the distance. Separate from it, in a way. You cheeky bastards. Otis says she did payroll, accounting stuff, but doesn't answer directly or immediately when asked if she had any reason not to like him. Well, apparently he intended to fire her for dipping into the till, which neither Nathan nor Audrey quite believe. Apparently he told her he was thinking of letting her go shortly before the ball dropped on the bar. So to speak. At which point Audrey pulls Nathan aside for a quick confab to point out that either being fired or dipping into the till or both, depending on which is true, gives her motive to attack the Rust Bucket, which gives her motive for all three attacks. Nathan, to his credit, only puts up a brief argument before going along with it as the logical direction of the investigation. He'll subpoena her bank records. Which, as it turns out, nets them a bank account in Bangor with a considerable sum of money. Going by the fact that Nathan led with her not having a bank account in Haven he still doesn't think she's guilty, and implies as much as she's keeping it from the Rev. Audrey isn't saying which way she thinks, at least not before they knock on a door. Oh, hey, it's the Rev. Speak of the devil. Heh. He looks like crap, he's talking slow and tired, and he's got a glass in his hand. Well, this doesn't look good. Audrey chooses to lead with hey we saved your life you wanna talk to us now? Nathan chooses to lead with calling the Rev out on his drinking relapse. Nathan really doesn't like the Rev. There's a brief exchange where they try to find out where Hannah is and the Rev is drunk and belligerent in their general direction, which also reveals that he doesn't believe he was attacked. (Or possibly that Hannah didn't do the attacking. He's drunk; he's not exactly at his most coherent.) This is an interesting change from later in the series where any time a Troubled person so much as looks crossly in his direction he claims they're trying something, evil, and need to be destroyed. Especially given that one is supposed to find truth in the bottom of a bottle, or at least pry it out of the drinker more easily. Audrey pushes, telling him about Hannah's money, the alleged stealing, all of it. The Rev will now totter over to the stairs and drink more. At least he's not fighting them? And the fact that he left the door open gives them at least tacit permission to go in and call for Hannah, who, hey, now the Rev remembers where she is. At the high school with some science club event. We will now have a good long shot of Nathan staring down at the Rev, and it is staring down at, because the angle from which the camera looks up at Nathan is usually reserved for threats or monsters or, less often, the point of view of someone who is or has been disabled. Also half in light, half in shadow over his face. Most likely this is twofold, since the Rev is kind of legless with liquor at the moment and since he also is spouting obscure and dire pronouncements that Nathan walks alone, yet thinks his shadow is the Lord's, etc. Basically that Nathan is a sinner and evil though he doesn't know it. The Lord has cast him out. Etc. We continue with the creepy camera work on Nathan, now with extreme closeups, as Nathan digs back at the Rev about trying to lose himself at the bottom of a bottle. Yes, Audrey, the conversation here is going on on several levels you can't yet understand. Don't worry, though, you will. Soon enough. She pulls him out of the house, since the Rev is clearly in no condition to be of any use to anyone, even himself.
Over at the science fair, Hannah is helping Bobby set up. As you do. Man, I remember these! This doesn't seem to be so much of a traditional science fair with experiments and the like as a science exhibition? Science club event, okay, that makes sense. One kid has an exhibit on Egyptian mummification, someone else seems to be doing something on tallships, there's something on meteorites. If I wanted to stretch things I'd look at this as foreshadowing, given future Troubles include a guy who sucks water out of people and a guy who enforces his belief in aliens on the rest of the town, not to mention the meteor shower that ended the third season. Rocks fall everyone dies? Still, that seems like a bit of a stretch even for us, so we'll just let it slide with a we see what you did there, folks. Uh-huh. Anyway, they banter a bit with some of the usual type of snark about Hannah being in the science club about a hundred years ago, and it's terribly adorable. He's clearly happy to have her in his life and she's glad to be helping him, to be making him happy. Bobby is noticeably exhausted, which is at least noteworthy because they seem to be going out of their way to give it more than a yawn and a line reference, though we don't know yet what it means. Anyway, Hannah is going to go see if she can bribe a judge, which probably means make sure they've gotten set up appropriately in non-silly-buggers talk, and he'll finish setting up. Ah, bribing a judge means socializing! Not that she gets too much of a chance, because here come Nathan and Audrey. They want to talk to her somewhere more private like, which she takes to mean they have bad news about her father. He told her he was going to take it easy after "that event," which means at least one of them is accepting what happened for what face value they can put on it. Sure, if you take downing a bottle of scotch to mean taking it easy, yeah, he's doing just fine at that. No, they're not here about her father, and they're not going to tell her he's turned back to the bottle either, apparently. Which is probably good for the not upsetting her front, both because she's at least a mostly decent person and in case she wields butterflies of doom. No, they're here about the money she's got hidden away and has she been stealing from the Rust Bucket. Apparently, though, Otis just made that up because he didn't want to tell them the bank had hired her to check his books because he stopped repaying his bank loan. She's been making money auditing for various people, and she kept the money outside of Haven because, as Nathan said, that way her father wouldn't find out and assume, correctly, that she's leaving him. (At least it's in Bangor, not Derry. Everything bad comes from Derry. Them's the rules.) The way her mother left him, which surprises Nathan, because the official story is that her mother died in a car accident. But apparently the car accident happened three days after she ran away with the deacon. That doesn't speak well for the Rev, really, and we'll definitely bear this in mind when we get around to season 2 and the Glendowers. Now she's going to go finish things up before she gets back to Bobby, and apparently he has a booth on butterflies. Which, according to the laws of narrative conservation, means Bobby's doing it because there is no other conversational reason we should have gotten that bit of information. Ah-hah! It's an ah-hah moment for Audrey too, along with, to judge by her expression, an "oh you have got to be shitting me" moment.
Bobby is now in the locker room with a soda and some loud music playing in his headphones. Hey, that's how I stay awake, too! Apparently there's some kind of optional athletic practice going on? I say optional because the coach doesn't seem too upset that Bobby isn't there, he just invites him to come out if he's feeling like it. Might be optional for Bobby or optional in general, either way, it gives an adult who's seen Bobby in the locker room and who seems to like the poor kid. The team misses him, so, okay, optional for Bobby to come join them, most likely he's off the team at this point and since the death of his parents? At least the school seems to be taking care of him pretty well, which almost makes it more bewildering that he should be causing all of this. And yet. Nathan and Audrey go looking for Bobby through the halls, at least until the butterfly catches up with them. And, hey, Audrey's already learned enough about Haven to know that this is going to suck! Awww. Nathan just nods. He knows how this works. By what horrific means do we die this time? Apparently by water and electricity! I have absolutely no idea where the water's coming from, but then, that wire's snaking itself across the floor, so I suppose the only thing that matters is that it is water and that is electricity and never the twain should meet around the human body. Their first recourse is a bench to get out of the water and away from the cord, but that only traps them on a very narrow field. Hah! Fire alarm. That should at least summon help, maybe? What it actually does is wake up Bobby, causing everything to stop. Bobby still looks like hammered shit. Nathan and Audrey look like they're still not entirely sure what just happened there. Excuse me, what the hell just happened there, thank you, Audrey. After that incident they're talking to the coach, who says Bobby's recovered amazingly. And that he's always felt responsible for the accident in some way. Not a specific way, just a survivor's guilt way. Poor boy hasn't had a good night's sleep since oh, and did he mention that he sometimes catches cat naps wherever he happens to sit down? Standard interview is standard, in that every question leads to more of the pieces falling together, no bit of dialogue wasted.
Now they at least have a good idea of whodunnit, even if the answer breaks most of what Audrey thinks she knows as the laws of nature (isn't it fun coming up on this with three seasons of knowledge? My tenses are all knotted up.) it's over to the Driscoll house to try and stop Bobby from doing whatever it is he's doing. Again. To lethal effect, this time. The Driscoll house looks like a hurricane's been through at least the bottom levels, but it's okay, it's only Hurricane Ed, and the Rev's passed out on the floor from liquor by now. They'll leave him to his drunk, which isn't exactly the safest or best thing to do considering they're law enforcement and should know better. They could at least get him into a position where he won't choke on his own puke? No, they're still more concerned about Bobby. And in Nathan's case it might be some latent hostility or fed-up-ness on his part. Admittedly, if Bobby's asleep the Rev might be in more immediate danger than the bottle. Up to Bobby's room, where it's like the ending of Labyrinth in here. There's a model from which the big metal ball came to destroy the Rust Bucket, there's the magnets for the Rev's necklace, there's the cocoon in which Audrey was trapped. And then there's the poster of lightning over the water, as Nathan points out, these are the things that he sees before he falls asleep, so they appear in nightmarish form in his dreams and affect the world around him. It also explains why he hasn't been sleeping, because he's trying to stay awake, so he doesn't hurt people. For the record, Nathan's being awfully quick to accept that this is really happening, awfully calm, and awfully useful for someone who was a step away from calling Audrey crazy earlier this ep. She might chalk it up to natural ability to adapt, but we know better. And now they really need to find out where Bobby and Hannah have gone, so it's back downstairs to wake up the Rev. He puts up a token effort at an argument, doesn't seem to have the energy to do more than that, before he tells them Hannah took Bobby out to Bobby's family's cabin, plus the road on which his parents died on. Oh goodie. Oh, and on the way out, the Rev will tell Nathan that the boy is one of his people, not God's. And that's why he never let Nathan near his daughter, because Nathan would have killed her the same way they killed his wife Penny. We all remember, from later in season two, what actually happened to Penny Driscoll, yes? Yes. For those of you who don't, she ran away not just with a deacon (which may or may not have been true at the time) but with a Glendower, all the men of whom are Troubled. Not that anyone in this room knows that now, but file this story away under to be continued, because even with things as they are I bet we haven't seen the last of this, with this the third repetition of the Rev's wife and the most detail we get on it this episode. (Drink for Rule of Three!) At any rate. Nathan would like the Rev to know that he is a bad man who should feel bad and gets in a couple more digs at the Rev about his late wife before Audrey steps in to stop the fight that, okay, would be inevitable if the Rev weren't so damn drunk. The one advantage to the Rev being that drunk? He flat out says the Troubles are back (and not to bring the boy back there, which is probably why Hannah dragged him off to the cabin in the first place) and so now Audrey has some sort of name to put to all the weirdness. Along with a category to assign Nathan to, if the Rev's not just maundering in his drunkenness.
Over at the cabin in question Bobby is sitting down on the couch, which both of us can tell you is not the best place to sit when you're trying not to sleep, and asks for coffee. Hannah reacts with surprise, indicating that he hasn't told her about his nightmares and what he's afraid he's been doing. Which is understandable, given the Rev's attitude towards the Troubled which he has no doubt shared with, oh, everyone, but still. Oh honey. He does ask if they can talk about something in the tones of someone who has something serious to talk about, but it cuts away before we hear exactly what the subject of this serious conversation is.
And over to Nathan and Audrey. Audrey would like to know about the Troubles now, Nathan, thank you. Nathan doesn't want to talk about it and we want to shake him for that. At least his thank-you seems to indicate that he knows he's being a moron and she just wants to help? Bobby does seem to have told Hannah about what he thinks is going on, in a startling display of clear and straightforward communication for this show, though Hannah doesn't act as though she's entirely convinced. She tries to convince him that getting some sleep would be in his best interest, and there's some degree of truth to that, in that the mind works much better and with fewer brain-wolves after a good night's sleep. Unfortunately for Bobby, he seems incapable of getting a good night's sleep without hurting or potentially killing someone. They are, however, both handling the conversation like mature adults, which is pretty startling for TV in general though in keeping with what we've seen of their relationship so far. We've already seen Nathan stubbornly refuse to talk about something which Audrey has already guessed most of and really should know about, just by way of pointing out the contrast. Oh, hey, speaking of things they should be more aware of, here comes Twin Pines overlook. And the butterflies. Everyone knows what's coming, now.
That is a lot of butterflies. Audrey says they have to wake Bobby up, which prompts Nathan honking on the horn. Hey, it was worth a shot! And just as Nathan rolls down the window to get rid of the butterflies, the gas pedal drops to the floor of its own accord. Now intercut with Hannah trying to calm down the sleeping (dreaming, and nightmare-ing) Bobby, Audrey and Nathan have to figure out what the hell is going on and how to stop it before they re-create the accident that killed Bobby's parents, complete with lethal results. Which might in fact be Audrey's thought process. Because she posits that if they're in Bobby's dream, then he can see them, and much to Nathan's confusion starts talking to the empty back seat as though she were talking to Bobby. Calm and steady, this is very much her talk the person off the ledge voice although she hasn't practiced it as much in Haven yet, she tries to talk Bobby down from re-creating the accident and into changing it, instead. The two scenes bleed together so we get a less fractured view, more strange morphs instead. I can live with Audrey-as-Bobby's-Mom, but Nathan-as-Bobby's-Dad looks eerily like he's trying out for a Beatles tribute band. This would be hilarious except for Bobby's panicked orders to his parents/Nathan and Audrey from the back seat. And there's some indication that they can hear him, too, as Nathan responds to Bobby telling him to watch the road. It's really, really hard to tell in this instance how much is Bobby's Trouble and how much is Audrey's ability to help the Troubled control their affliction - I'm not honestly sure if the writers were clear on that at this early stage of the show. The muddied nature of dream-world and reality means that we'll never be entirely sure, anyway. Everything slings around wildly, going from the family's car to Nathan's truck and back again, until the accident. Only in this case, Nathan's truck jams itself against the guardrail without going over. Everyone's safe, everyone's alive. Which Audrey takes pains to point out to sleeping Bobby curled up in Hannah's arms. It might even help some, in the long run. Nathan pulls his truck back, having sustained only minimal damage due to both the height of the truck and the fact that, well, it's a great big metal truck.
Daylight. Which, most of the time on this show, means things have at least calmed down? Daylight and a peaceful shot of downtown about its business as we move over to Bobby and Hannah. Apparently moving out to the cabin! Well, given what the Rev closed his last appearance with, that makes sense. Bobby doesn't sound too broken up about things, likely due to not having to be around someone who hates him and getting a good night's sleep for the first time in a long time, plus the fact that he seems to have at least put a dent in his fears. Though in a way, this also goes to explaining some of what might have appealed to him about staying with the Rev in the first place. The idea that he can be cured or redeemed if he doesn't use his Trouble may very well have been something the Rev at least generally spoke of in his sermon, if not suggested directly to Bobby. From feeling guilty over his parents' death, he went to a place where not only was he encouraged not to be Troubled ("Have you tried not being a mutant?") but where he received both the punishment and the forgiveness he was looking for. If nothing else on a subconscious level. Anyway, it's a theory. But his Trouble didn't stop, and it needed to be addressed, and then it was and the Rev's house became more of a stressor for him than a haven, pun intended, so, the cabin. Nathan attempts to bring up the subject of Bobby's Trouble somewhat sideways by telling Hannah he's a different kind of kid, and by her statement of "just like you were" not only is she very much aware of this, it doesn't bother her as much as it does her father. Which is good. Audrey doesn't seem to mind either, though we already have some idea of both what her attitude towards Troubles is/will be and why. Hannah doesn't seem to think Bobby either is aware of or knows in detail what the Rev thinks of Bobby and his Trouble, though in my experience that's underestimating the poor kid's perceptive abilities. That's still a talk for a future time. Right now, since they're discussing Hannah and her father, it seems to be time for apologizing to Nathan for letting her father's prejudices come between them. There's all kinds of loaded implications there, from the family she's just now building with Bobby, to the romance we've touched on in discussion between Audrey and Nathan, to Hannah's plans to leave her father, etc. They don't address which ones they're talking about here, either of them, so we're free to speculate. Meanwhile we move over to Audrey as the piano shows up again, playing the Audrey-thinking-about-her-past music. Audrey and Bobby are having a discussion about parents and being a foster, and all those things her parents were never around for and, by extension, that his parents will now not be around for. She points out that he had his parents for a time, however short, and he has another mother willing to step in and be his new family. We'll take another Oh You Fuckers moment to realize that Audrey's new family just showed up, too, and what are they for, according to the barnvatar? Charging her with love like a battery! I have to go buy a new desk again. There's a nice callback to Audrey shutting Nathan's hand in the car door as Nathan and Bobby close the doors to the van, Nathan teasing him. Audrey's passing along a prescription from Dr. Carr that's supposed to help stop night terrors. Unfortunately it doesn't usually work in adults. Which Bobby is rapidly physically becoming. Still. It's better than nothing, and might serve as a stopgap while he learns lucid dreaming or similar techniques. Then, along the theme of families, she asks how Hannah's doing with the Rev. Who won't look at her, or speak to her, or acknowledge her. Nice, Reverend Shouty McRantypants. Very nice. Hannah puts on what might well be a brave front, talking about how the Rev's shopping cart when they met at the store is full of frozen dinners and that's bound to get old. Which also shows an interesting picture of the Rev's household prior to this episode, indicating that the Rev at the very least is disinclined to take care of himself, probably has some "traditional" 50s style ideas of how a household works, and at most actually doesn't know how to cook himself a proper meal. Admittedly, cooking for one is a tricky proposition if you don't want to be eating the same meals for the next few nights, but still. Who's willing to bet that the Rev has any idea how to begin taking care of himself? Yeah, I didn't think so. He does come out to watch them go, but with what we know of his character at the moment it's very hard to tell what he's thinking. We can guess, based on what we've learned since, but for the purposes of this episode it's pure ambiguity.
Another passing shot of Haven takes us back to the precinct to wrap up a final bit of business that we haven't seen since the opener, hey! The Chief does have those files for her, or at least, he has a file box and a story about some flood that happened in the evidence room. He also goes out of his way to point out that the evidence tape is still on there. But the file box is empty, and I note that the bottom folds up, so if one wanted to remove any evidence that had been in there at the time, all one would need to do is refold the bottom of the box and with the water damage, it'd be difficult to tell the box had been tampered with. Which assumes there was anything in there to begin with. Why no, I'm not suspicious by nature, why do you ask. Audrey is not happy. She still has questions, ideas for potential leads (the photographer, where the Colorado Kid was buried, and hey, guess what? both of those come back in later episodes!), and she wants to find out who the woman in the photo is and if that's her mother. At which point the Chief invites her to stay, continue her investigation, and work for him. In other words he's holding the information hostage against her staying and helping out in Haven, which was subtle but clear when we first watched it and ten times as obvious in hindsight, so repeat after me, Oh You Fuckers. I'm not certain Garland's been planning this since the Troubles came back? But he's certainly been considering his options and how he might get Lucy/Audrey to stay without telling her exactly who she is before she's ready to accept it. He cites as his reason for wanting to keep her around that most people just see things the way they expect whereas she sees things the way they are, and as often as this gets leaned on I'm expecting some sort of payoff in the AudSarLu's attitude towards the world is different department at the end of all this. Even if it's a small one. The Chief spends most of his summation of this offer looking either down or away, so he might as well be waving his arms and screaming "there's something I'm not telling you." Audrey is, at this point, I think too hyperfocused to notice, or if she has noticed she's still not asking. She doesn't give a clear yes or no, though. She says she'll think about it. No, that's a yes, she's just too freaked to say so right now.
She'll go talk it over with Nathan instead. Poor Nathan, he's sitting on a bench staring out at the water when she comes up and tells him that his father just offered her a job. Nathan doesn't seem too surprised, but more in the manner of both naturally being laconic and stoic and in the manner of someone who knows his father and saw that coming based on the Chief's behavior. Audrey is still hedging her bets, still freaked. Nathan offers his opinion that it's a good idea, and even some personal history to go with it! February 1983, everyone note that down for Haven's fucked up timeline, and Nathan's sledding accident. He describes not noticing that his arm was broken, although I'd still expect that he'd notice the loss of functionality in that arm? Maybe not if it wasn't his dependent arm and if he was already a bit dazed from hitting his head. And that was the start of a lot of adults being scared, whispering, kids getting pulled out of school. We know what that looks like now, from an adult perspective, but it probably was pretty scary from a kid's perspective. Audrey now knows what "the Troubles" means, and that they went away a couple years after they started, but Nathan's afraid they won't go away this time. And Audrey takes a second to absorb that, but by the tone of her voice it only convinces her further that she needs to stick around. Because her mother or the woman in the photo was there in 1983, and it might all be connected, says Nathan, for which we would like to smack him some more because that's a decent sign he know or has guessed way more about her nature than he's sharing, too. Oh Audrey, honey, you have no idea right now. But you will. In the meantime, that's enough of a serious discussion for one afternoon. It's time for pancakes. Awwww.
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