Saturday, September 28, 2013

Blood Love & Rhetoric Haven S4E03 Bad Blood

Previously, on Haven: Someone in the writer's room, editor's room, or some management position paid a lot of attention to detail on the previously clips because that's just about as efficient as you can get and still tell the story of how we got here in season four. Good grief. The gist of it? Audrey goes into the barn, the Troubles end for 27 years, so sayeth Howard the barnvatar. The source of her anti-Trouble is love, and every 27 years she has to come out to recharge that power source, whereupon she then goes back into the barn, which acts as an amplifier. Nathan doesn't want her to go into the barn! Nathan shoots Howard to get her back after she goes into the barn. The barn doesn't like this. It disappeared with Audrey, Duke, James, and Arla's body, the Troubles don't end, everyone blames Nathan especially the Guard, he resigns and goes into hiding, Dwight becomes Chief. Like you do when your Trouble makes you a bullet magnet. Duke gets spat out in Boston, makes it back to Haven with the help of Jennifer, who can hear in the barn, finds his brother Wade Crocker running his bar and does his best to try to pry him out of it. For reasons involving both his brother being an annoying pest and the Crocker family Trouble, with a reminder that Duke and Dwight used to have a much more contentious relationship than we've seen this season. (In no small part due to sheer desperation.) Dwight drags Nathan back into being a detective so they can work to stop the Troubles, Jordan follows them both around making dire threats and being in serious need of therapy. (Too bad the therapist's dead.) Meanwhile Audrey is now Lexie and working in what she thinks is a bar, where a man named William is following her around like an extremely knowledgeable and demented puppy. We got all that? There'll be a quiz later.


This week on Haven, we're taking a victory lap. A very small one. Around the couch and hiding behind it again from William. Augh. In the sewers is also a good place to hide from William! Or it would be if we weren't convinced he's a different version of the basement muse. Long story. At any rate, that's where this week's adventure in Haven begins, in the sewers, with a municipal worker griping about Haven's worst infrastructure in the country. And a dead rat who, according to Shernold Edwards, is our first victim of the week! The municipal worker, as we can tell, is our second victim. Doing double duty as our first human victim and the person who discovers the first victim, so, every available role for the person who appears in the first minute or two of Haven! Excellent. The red filter and angle from above tells us he's about to be death from aboved. As, indeed, he is shortly thereafter. Blood splatter on the wall! This was evidently a messy death.




Friday, September 27, 2013

We'll Get Out Haven S1E13 Spiral

Previously on Haven, we return to Nathan and Audrey's very first meeting! Because that's not about to come back and haunt us or anything. And her interrogation with Agent Fuck you, which serves both to remind us that Howard is more than he seems (far, far more) and to give us Audrey's voiceover narration of a couple of the Troubles she's dealt with. These previouslies are a lot more, mm. Layered over, voice-to-image, than we've had before, to show us the ways in which all of first season has led us to this point. We move onto the Rev shouting about the ungodly in Haven, to Duke telling the group about how he's supposedly going to die, to Nathan yelling at his father for being unhelpful when his Trouble returned and discovering that he can feel Audrey's touch, to the culmination of Garland and Nathan's fight two eps ago. Then on over to the not-so-mysterious cracks which they've been telegraphing for the longest time as belonging to Garland, and I have to say the only reason it wasn't obvious at the time was that they were hammering on Troubles as running in families, often from father to son or mother to daughter. Which meant either Garland didn't get the Trouble, Garland doesn't talk about his Trouble even though it's the same as Nathan's, the Trouble went mother to son, or… well, the other thing that we find out in this ep! Along with that bigger bombshell that goes off courtesy of the Garrick Trouble, that Lucy and Audrey are the same physical being rather than Lucy being Audrey's mother. Only in the most metaphorical sense of that.


We pick up right where we left off, with Audrey sitting down at the docks where the Colorado Kid's body was discovered. How incredibly apropos, in light of s3. She's in the casual clothes of a small-town cop, but a neutral gray top, the FBI Agent somber coming into direct conflict with what she's becoming as she learns more about her true identity. Oh Audrey honey. The music, for bonus points, is about as Hotel California-esque as you can get without actually having the Eagles playing in the background. Actually, it's even more appropriate than that, now that I've gone and hunted down the full lyrics. Bonus points for the Garland reference. We then pull back to see someone coming down the road to the dock, not coincidentally near the house of Shady Fuckers Who Know More Than They're Telling (aka Howard and Garland's little rendez-vous which may or may not be Garland's house), and oh hello, what's this? Why, it's a bag o' personal items from Shawshank prison up the way, and a man in a denim jacket. We're playing in Stephen King's universe, folks. This never means anything good. The first time I saw this ep I cringed under the blankets and waited for Max Hansen to turn out to be Randall Flagg - which he's not, but he does nearly as good a job at shaking things up as King's basement muse. No points for the significance of the lyrics turning to "in the end the glass will crumble" as we finally see Max's face, either.



Wednesday, September 25, 2013

First Kiss Goodbye (Person of Interest S2E08 Til Death)

The number shot (which is sort of like a money shot but not from that industry) of the week gives us Reese in an elevator bisecting two people, which is interesting. Firstly that we have two numbers this week instead of one, not the first time but usually when there's multiple numbers it's bad shit going down, and they lose at least one of them. Usually. Secondly, the positioning of Reese as bisecting them indicates that there's something going on with these two people, some sort of balance that needs to be addressed, since everyone's been so neatly framed. Thirdly, the title of the episode itself gives us a big honking clue as to what's going to happen here. So, um. Let's begin the hijinks? And why wasn't this the one where Reese and Zoe were going undercover as married?



Saturday, September 21, 2013

What You Need To Live Haven S4E02 Survivors

Previously, on Haven. We get pretty much the same footage as we did last time (leading to about a second of wondering if someone aired last week's by mistake, that is almost the exact same footage) followed by some informative clips from the season four premiere! So everyone's all caught up, then. The clips (as well as the ep) are noteworthy almost as much for what didn't get mentioned as what did; we'll call your attention to the Cogans in particular. I very much doubt that's a through-line that's been dropped so much as, Audrey no longer exists quite on this plane of existence, assuming the barn still has her memories intact, and Nathan and Duke are the only other two likely to care and they don't have time.


Friday, September 20, 2013

Episode Index: Haven

In light of the fact that Haven is now one month away from airing s4, I present to our dear readers a one-stop location for all our Haven recaplyses (and recapalypses) to date. This will be linked from the Haven show page as well, and from here on out will be consistently updated as we get through new episodes.

Thus, in chronological order of our having written them up, the eps!

The Truth Is Out There S3E01 301
Dog Days Are Over S3E02 Stay
Bad Company S3E03 The Farmer
About That Half an Onion S3E04 Over My Head
Full Court Press S3E05 Double Jeopardy
House Rules S3E06 Real Estate
Sunrise Sunset S3E07 Magic Hour Part 1
Silence Like A Cancer Grows S3E08 Magic Hour Part 2
A Most Ingenious Paradox S3E09 Sarah
Putting Out Fire With Gasoline S3E10 Burned
Qu'est_ce Que C'est S3E11 Last Goodbyes
Who Dares To Live Forever? S3E12 Reunion
The Show Must Go On S313 Thanks For The Memories

All recaps after this point include spoilers through season 3 or later. You have been duly warned.
And So It Begins S1E01 Welcome to Haven
Tiny Variations in Complex Systems S1E02 Butterfly
Music of the Spheres S1E03 Harmony
Eat Prey, Love S1E04 Consumed
Crush of a Prayer S1E05 Ball and Chain
When You Are Real S1E06 Fur
Still Life S1E07 Sketchy
The Shadow Knows S1E08 Ain't No Sunshine
Sell A Contradiction S1E09 As You Were
Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire S1E10 The Hand You're Dealt
What About Your Future S1E11 The Trial of Audrey Parker
Fill In Blank Spaces With More Dotted Lines S1E12 Resurfacing
We'll Get Out S1E13 Spiral

Nobody Knows The Troubles I've Seen S4E01 Fallout
What You Need To Live S4E02 Survivors 
Blood Love & Rhetoric S4E03 Bad Blood 
Other Worlds Than These S4E04 Lost And Found
As You Are He As You Are Me S4E05 The New Girl
Cut to the Core S4E06 Countdown 
Love Takes Hostages S4E07 Lay Me Down 
No Greater Love S4E08 Crush 
Stigmata Turns To Stigma S4E09 William
Cries Crescendo To Cantata S4E10 The Trouble With Troubles
C&H Report HV411 (complete) S4E11 Shot In The Dark
Cradle Will Fall S4E12 When The Bough Breaks
And The Silver Eyes That See The Wind S4E13 The Lighthouse

See Her Very Well S5E01 See No Evil
Meet The New Boss S5E02 Speak No Evil
How Infinite In Faculty S5E03 Spotlight
This Quintessence of Dust S5E034 Much Ado About Mara
The Manteo Job S5E05 The Old Switcharoo (Part 1)
The Secret Job S5E06 The Old Switcharoo (Part 2)
Paul Is Dead S5E07 Nowhere Man
Photo Finish S5E08 Exposure
A Plague On Troubled Houses S5E09 Morbidity
A Grave Man S5E10 Mortality
Trust But Verify S5E11 Reflections
Fatal Attractors S5E12 Chemistry
Choose Someone Else S5E13 Chosen

Run On For A Long Time S5E14 New World Order
What's Done In The Dark S5E15 Power
As Night Is Dark And Day Is Light S5E16 The Trial of Nathan Wuornos
Damn Your Eyes S5E17 Enter Sandman
When The Man Comes Around S5E18 Wild Card
And Some Are Dying S5E19 Perditus
Remember to Forget S5E20 Just Passing Through
Cold Bitter Mist S5E21 Close To Home
I Must Live While Others Die S5E22 A Matter Of Time
For The Reckless Ones S5E23 Blind Spot
Wings of a Dove S5E24 The Widening Gyre
Be Unbroken S5E25 Now
Will The Circle S5E26 Forever

Audrey II Audrey S2E01 A Tale of Two Audreys
A Life Half Lived S2E02 Fear and Loathing
Love Connection S2E03 Love Machine
S2E04 Sparks and Recreation
We Are Groot S2E05 Roots
And Then You Wake Up S2E06 Audrey Parker's Day Off
Communes Are Just A Red Herring S2E07 The Tides That Bind
Make It A Double S2E08 Friend or Faux
Toxic Masculinity S2E09 Lockdown
To Serve Man S2E10 Who What Where Wendigo?
In The Blood S2E11 Business As Usual
Simon Says S2E12 Sins of the Fathers

Fill In Blank Spaces With More Dotted Lines Haven S1E12 Resurfacing

Previously on Haven. There are two Havens! One is a normal small town with normal small town secrets. The other has Troubles. Lucy Ripley is one of those secrets! So is whatever Duke does that makes him so sinister, apart from routinely pissing off Nathan. Seriously, they keep playing up the Duke is a bad guy here, it makes me think he's going to have some secret murderous superpower oh wait. He's also a smuggler, and Audrey quit her job to stay in Haven.


And now that we're up to speed, we get a nice long coastal view of Haven and one of the fishermen on it before we reach the mystery of the week. A washed up boat named Fisherman's Honor? That's what it looks like at least oh hey! Skeletons! Well, that's a nicely contaminated potential crime scene for everyone to look over. Also if I ever go into a washed up boat, would someone please remind me to poke around with a ten foot pole instead of my hands? I know that skeleton didn't fall on top of the guy or anything, but I really expected it to.




Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Battle Come Down (Person of Interest S2E07 Critical)

Hey, you remember that theme I was talking about with people being used as pawns to commit murder? It's ba-ack. And Finch is in the field in a serious way this time! Usually he doesn't get in on the soon-to-come clip, but here he is in scrubs near what looks like a woman in full surgical getup. Oh goodie. Because there's not an infinity of ways to kill someone as a doctor, or an infinity of ways for a doctor to be threatened! That's nice and unhelpful, as these things go.


We also won't start cracking that one open just yet! First we have Reese batmanning down a street at night. Alone. Because where Reese walks in New York, he is always alone. (This is what happens when I spend awhile in a proper sized city at all hours of the day and night; I'm reminded that the streets are never as empty as filming would have you believe.) They have a repeat number, and by the tone of Finch's voice he's more amused than concerned. Which means that no, this is not another domestic violence situation, Reese's hackles - if they were ever up - go down, and Leon comes crashing through the window. HI LEON. We didn't exactly miss you, but watching you try to run rings around Reese and Finch is never not funny. Emphasis on try. This time Leon's gotten himself into trouble with the Russian mob, who apparently has an interest in goldfarming! If you're reading these recaplyses, I'm just going to assume you don't need the expository explanation from the episode and leave it at that. With a great deal of giggling at Reese's eyerolls while he disables the mob thugs.


Saturday, September 14, 2013

Nobody Knows The Troubles I've Seen Haven S4E01 Fallout

Previously on Haven! Our standard voiceover paired with massive imagedump for those who need a refresher or those just tuning in, why Audrey has to go into the barn and some of the more horrific of last season's Troubles. Also, Jordan. And the barn. And the barnvatar. And that whole entire clusterfuck at the very end. Guys, I promise, that is seared on our retinas.


This week on Haven: Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Fallout is right.


Duke lands in the barn, having flung himself in after Audrey, but she's not in view. Neither is Arla or James. So, that might well come back to bite us, then! And in places we wouldn't want bitten, too, considering Arla's fragile and homicidal state of mind. Nathan shooting Howard is also coming back to bite everyone, because the barn is having as many structural integrity issues as Howard was. The most irritating part of this is that it deprives us of seeing what a normative barn experience is like, what happens when AudSarLu goes in it on a normal cycle. I'm pretty sure it doesn't shake itself to pieces, though, which is what the barn seems to be doing now. Falling debris, holes opening up. Duke has no idea what's going on. Or at least about as much idea as we do, which isn't much. Audrey's memories-slash-clips from last season are being played all over the walls and broadcast all through the barn, which is interesting but entirely uninformative. To us, anyway, although the emphasis on saying goodbye, questions of humanity, love, motherhood, and ending the Troubles is kind of like a ten-second tour o' Haven's Themes. To Duke, some of these conversations he wasn't there for, so he's paying more attention to that for a moment than he is to his surroundings. At least until the floor drops out and he falls…



Friday, September 13, 2013

What About Your Future Haven S1E11 The Trial of Audrey Parker

Previously on Haven: We get a rundown of the various Troubles, particularly the (self-)destructive ones and ones that affect others' state of mind, including the pyromaniac angry kid, the chameleon, Vince (can we count Vince?), Vicki's Trouble used as blackmail and coercion, the McBreen madness Trouble, the taxidermy Trouble, a lot of Garland, poor Vanessa Stanley and Duke, the Carrs, the Dark Man, and Lucy Ripley's mysterious identity. Oh, and let's not forget Agent Fuck You and all his ridiculous knowledge. In short: this ep Will Be Important and maybe tell us a little something about how the Troubles work. Drink every time I swear at Agent Fuck You. Not with alcohol. I don't want you to go to the hospital.

We open the episode proper on Duke's boat with a poker game! Duke and Audrey and Julia and two guys who we don't know at all yet, but we're certainly about to. Some smack talk, some interesting blocking with Audrey at the head of the table, Duke and Julia on one side and Ezra and Tobias on the other. It gives us sort of factions, with Audrey as the bridge between the two, and it also gives us Duke and Ezra across from each other (two we now know for certain are Troubled) and Julia and Tobias facing off. (Julia I still suspect is Troubled due to that fucking tattoo; Tobias seems to have only been taking advantage of his partner's affliction but we could say that the Carrs have a certain history of being willing to do that, too. Particularly Eleanor.) At any rate, Ezra starts in with Audrey on what her favorite nut is, which is so out of the blue that it has to be some kind of cold reading. If only we'd known when we first watched! Plus there's some indication with the hour and the bottles that they've been at this for a little while. Regardless, Audrey wins the hand and calls Duke's bluff because that's exactly the kind of poker player she is. Much more interesting is the fact that Ezra folded on a full house, raising everyone's suspicions, not least because they have done this before and last week he took all their money. Uh-HUH. That's not suspicious at all. Ezra's squirrelly as hell, Tobias tries to smooth things over and hey, guess who the dominant one in this pair of con artists is? Yep. I already dislike him. After a few seconds of wary accusations about running some kind of con (though what kind of con requires losing in poker is an open question), Ezra coughs up some feeble excuse about feeling bad for last week and Audrey relaxes. Audrey, you need to get a more suspicious mind. Duke's about half-relaxed, I'd say.


Wednesday, September 11, 2013

You May Find Yourself (Person of Interest S2E06 The High Road)

Today's Person of Interest gives us John in short sleeves. Oooh. And otherwise appears to be a guy in a flannel shirt, so, nothing telling there. Except the polo shirt. Can we have him in short sleeves more often? Because yum.



Saturday, September 7, 2013

Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire Haven S1E10 The Hand You're Dealt

Previously on Haven! Audrey's alleged mother! The Troubles! Nathan's Trouble doesn't work with Audrey! Which isn't, mind you, necessarily a bad thing. Eleanor dies! Julia takes her place! In several senses of the word. Duke was the boy in the photo! And what does all of this have to do with Lucy Ripley? QUESTIONS ABOUND. Ah, the early days of Haven, when we were young and naive and thought all these questions had simple answers. Ahahahahahno.



Wednesday, September 4, 2013

It Never Airs Out (Person of Interest S2E05 Bury the Lede)

Also known as The Ep Where Reese Has to Flirt. But we get ahead of ourselves. Credits are the same as ever for the new season (and inquiring minds would like to know what s3 credits will bring! will the Machine do the voiceover, having been freed? because DO WANT), and our only glimpse of this week's number is of a well-dressed woman who… frankly, on first glance looks kind of like Zoe. Both in the facial structure and the kick ass and take names attitude. Well, if I'm right, then Reese will totally have at least a bit of a crush on her. Because Reese has a Type.


We open with a series of news articles and yes, if you look closely they're all written by one woman. Also one of those ubiquitous phone calls between two anonymous men who are talking about the mayoral election and how two white guys (one old and authoritarian, the other younger and presumably more charismatic) are having one hell of a race. Whee. We know what that means! Lots of money and backroom dealings being flung around, probably several of the less-than-legal variety, and therefore someone in danger. Apparently the reporter, Maxine Angelis, is on the trail of Griffin (aka old-and-authoritarian) who's supposedly cooking the books. Because nobody ever does anything stupid when money and power are BOTH involved oh wait.