Choose Someone Else Haven S5E13 Chosen

Previously on Haven! Audrey is sick. Audrey is undergoing Spiderman-style clone decay, I forget the exact name for this, really you guys? Mara wants aether to fix Duke. Nobody believes her except maaaaybe Duke, and he really shouldn't. We get reminded of the existence of the open thinny in Manteo, which has apparently been nothing but a plot device to get us to Bad Decisions time at the end of the episode? I really hope they pick that up next season. Dave has Weird Shit and visions and Croatoan and no, none of that makes sense yet either. Even at the end of the ep. Cue showdown with Charlotte, who turns out to be one of the… whatever aliens/superhumans/whatever the fuck they are, from the other side where Mara and William came from. Why? Because she's Mara's mother! Well, she phrases it as Audrey's mother, but even for the heinous villain Charlotte turns out to be I can sort of forgive her eliding that when confronted by a woman with her daughter's face.

This week… okay I'm going to be upfront with you guys: for us, this was a giant fucking mess of an episode, the magic rules don't make SENSE, they break their own rules at every turn, and given that we've spent four seasons with every woman who isn't Audrey Parker and is on the show for any length of time getting completely fucked over by the narrative, this is… really kind of gross, by the time we get to the end. Apparently if you're not a self-sacrificing empathetic savior figure, you don't have worth as a woman on this show. I'd try and point at Gloria as the exception except she's raising her grandson in the twilight of her life and gave up a peaceful retirement to come back and be the coroner in the middle of the worst bout of Troubles; if that doesn't scream the Crone version of sacrifice and empathy I don't know what does. So if you don't want to read a lot of snarling punctuated by cheering for Dwight going NOPE YOU LIED IN A BIG WAY I'M OUT, GOT SHIT TO DO, I suggest you skip this recapaplypse.

We pick up, as expected, right where we left off, with Nathan snarling at Charlotte to quit lying. I will give the actress credit here, her body language shifts massively the second she lays claim to Mara as her daughter. Dwight is still stuck in BSOD mode or he wouldn't start to say stupid shit like "you're too young." Uh-huh. Dwight. Barn? Audrey looks gutpunched but not, honestly, as surprised as she might want to be by all this. Because after everything, this is just One More Thing, and also she's dying. Her focus is a little scattered, which is why there's a Nathan to take point on the angry questions. So! Charlotte claims to be about 1100 of "your years," a nice classic I-am-Other phrasing, and Mara's about 600, meaning she was about 100 or younger when she ran off with William and started fucking around in Haven/this world. A little over 100 once she got barned. By immortal standards that's pretty much a baby! I can't say that the proof of Nathan being able to feel her isn't pretty strong, plus the ring, though I severely question the whole "and now I will tell you everything!" Yeah no. Let's not believe that after she spent several episodes lying through her teeth. The upshot, though, is that Charlotte needs to see her daughter Mara. At least everyone else's expression is a mix of terror and wondering if this means Charlotte is as bad as Mara! Especially Audrey's, who's sat around in Mara's head and knows exactly what that means. Her question is, therefore, where the fuck are you from, lady? Only somewhat more polite than that in phrasing if not in tone. We-ell, and then Charlotte has a spiel that's all about more advanced races in the analogy of the two microscopes. Uh… huh. This is not helping our theory that she views everyone else here as bugs under a microscope to be examined, even if she wants to fix whatever damage Mara's done. Even assuming she could. It's not helping Dwight, either! Dwight agrees that the two worlds must stay separate, including no more sex. No, nuh-uh, he is not hearing excuses, he is done with being lied to and trying to trust people, he's putting Charlotte Cross under lockdown and getting out. Probably before he bothers to show the anger more than that, and definitely to go find something productive to do. Dwight, while I kind of love you for this, I wish you had more of a brain available to help, because I bet you'd come up with the important questions pretty fast under any other circumstances. If that was part of Charlotte's plan, I do kind of admire it, but ugh. Charlotte will close us out of this scene with a professed motivation to take Mara away and undo whatever damage she's done. Lady, you are so, so very too late for that one. Like 500 years too late. At least.

In the more immediate sense, Duke is a huge part of the damage Mara's done! He would like to sit and drink his hard liquor by himself and mope and hope that he doesn't hurt people. Duke, honey, maybe being out back of the Gull while there's a crowd is a bad idea? Though it does give him ready access to the booze, not that I think that's a good idea either, but given what he's just been through I can accept needing a little time to process. Remembering that he's had at most, what, maybe an hour between this and "oh hi by the way your eyes are black, you're crying aether, and Mara has totally fucked you up." We will, for our sins, have to deal with Hipster Chick coming up to complain about store-bought kahlua, which is… no, okay, I'm not even going into the stupid, let's just go with that's dumb except I totally would buy that someone from the writers' room saw this at an LA bar. It has that kind of feel to it. Duke shoos her off, not as meanly as he could, but oh look two drops of aether from his eyes! Which he tries to control and can't, Duke if you were less drunk I would be yelling about emotional control. That's the only way to control the Troubles. The lady gets smacked, and so does some bearded guy a little further back. That second one will, of course, Be Important Later. Hipster Chick will be important now, since these are Troubles that iterate immediately and hers is destructo-hands, I guess? Heh. That does sort of fit with what very little we see of her character, the idea that she can't hold onto anything and everything she touches falls apart, but it also turns absurd and overly dramatic in about ten seconds flat, as she goes from glass to table to boyfriend or husband. The crowd goes running, she goes screaming, Duke is going to go see a doctor. That might be the first obviously sensible thing he's done in awhile! Roll credits.

It is now time for a great infodump that pretends very hard it's answering anything! There's a Void, it separates the worlds, that's fairly common. Charlotte compares it to a DMZ. Given all the military jargon she uses I really wonder what the fuck she is in her own world at this point. General? Queen? Scientist? Some combination of all of the above? I mean, 1100 years is a pretty good length of time to learn to be a lot of things, but the best lies are built on truth, so I'd guess some portion of what she told Dwight about her background is true, if filtered through a mirror. Which would also imply, in the overall, that she is her own kind of rogue agent, albeit not as determined about the 'fuck you' part as Mara is. Mara and William came through, took aether from the Void, and that is Bad and Dangerous, and Mara did this "for love." That's an extremely ambiguous, not at all helpful statement, and could mean about half a dozen things, none of which we'll be enlightened on, I guess. Charlotte proceeds to traipse down the merry path of she tried to fix it, to devise a punishment to make Mara see the error of her ways, but Audrey's the one who draws that to the conclusion of the barn. Which is a fucking awful and evil punishment, but one that Charlotte claims in this scene only tacitly. It makes me wonder if Charlotte's the one who came up with the barn or if she was overruled by someone else. I somewhat doubt that we'll see any indication that she wasn't the one who came up with the barn, but it's still an interesting potential thread left dangling, and is my one vague hope at another woman on this show who's not evil, dead, or both. We will now proceed along to the I lied because I was trying to help you! portion of the revelation. Um. Uh-huh. Because that always goes over so well, though yes, it was a great cover, well done, I even more or less believe that she if nothing else feels responsibility for what her daughter's done and has been trying to undo it. And some regret over calling Audrey a copy, but it's the distant sort of I have no better words for this regret. That rather sums up your attitude toward this town, doesn't it, Charlotte. It's not about the people themselves, it's about Mara. Regardless, the point about Audrey's sickness is that they can't have a physical copy of Mara existing in the world, that copy will eventually break down and be destroyed or something, therefore let's take Mara off somewhere where she can't Trouble anyone else. Seems like a great plan to Nathan! Complete with he'll just up and do whatever Charlotte says because she seems like she knows what she's talking about. Although at this point I wouldn't blame him for going along with it on the grounds of hey there crazy lady let's put both you and Mara together and see what explosions result and how best to duck and cover. I mean, there's a pretty high chance that they'll meet eventually if that's what Charlotte wants, better to do it in a situation Nathan has even vague control over.

Over at the police station Rafferty is giving Dwight the rundown on what went on over at the Gull and something else we don't know; four police officers went into a room to gear up and they got, she uses the word locked, I would use the word sealed. No hinges, knob, or lock. So, locked is technically incorrect, sealed? Entombed is probably unnecessarily alarming. Though accurate if they're using a crowbar for what looks like a chainsaw or a wetsaw problem. Yep, that's a Trouble. Hopefully the vents aren't sealed, too, because that's going to be a quick suffocation if it's an airtight room.

Gloria is making a scene at the hospital about how she needs to pick up a body with a sponge and therefore sedatives will be required. Or, you know, booze, which has historically been her choice of self-medication. (I don't think she's supposed to read as functional alcoholic anymore, but for damn sure they started her out that way. Not that it's an unreasonable choice of coping mechanism, living in Haven.) The point of this is diversion tactics so Duke can go sneak in and see Charlotte without the Guard noticing, which is ten kinds of adorable. I'm going to assume by this that Gloria did already examine Duke and go "fuck if I know," but it got cut for time, which at least is more sensible than Duke skipping straight to the person who, as far as he knows, only wants to put everyone in Haven under a microscope. I can't say he's wrong! I am once again mildly impressed by the actress, how she goes from Hi I Am Immortal Sorceress Here To Fuck Shit Up to I Am Nice Polite CDC Doc Who Only Wants To Help. Still and nonetheless, whatever Duke knows, he's clear that Charlotte knows about the Troubles, so he doesn't bother prevaricating what's going on with himself. He cries Troubles! Basically. Except it's not even crying, in that he's not aware of the buildup the way most people are when they're on the verge of tears. I imagine that, if he were given time, he might learn how to sense it coming, but he's only just hit this point. Charlotte is by now clearly hiding all her OMGWTFBBQ THIS IS NOT GOOD face behind doctor trying to remain calm in the face of utter wacky. But when Charlotte turns around and we get her POV on him, you remember all the black handprints from when Mara was handing out Troubles? Well, Duke has them. All over his chest. I'm sure she's trying to pass off the momentary hoshit as a reaction to, I don't know, Duke is hot? The tattoos? Something like that, but it gives her pause and she's going to go poke his tear ducts while Nathan tries to get hold of him.

Nathan is now bitching about how Duke's their best bet at finding Mara, not even in an angry at Duke sense but more in an irritated sense considering, in his words, Duke isn't answering his fffffff... Yes, I make that exact same noise when I'm trying not to swear. It's hilarious. Less hilarious are Audrey's cough and Dwight's Trouble at the police station, although it still amuses me how blase everyone is about Troubles now compared to first season. Also, Audrey is freezing, which Nathan blows off with a half-hearted joke about her ice queen mother. I cannot disagree there, either. It's a little funny. It'd be more funny if Audrey's situation weren't serious. Anyway, Nathan's going to go get her a hot coffee to help warm her up, and Mara will take this opportunity to climb into the truck and point a gun at her! Audrey, that is. So we're going full on Orphan Black now. Mara is still full, brimful of resentment and anger towards her clone, which gives Audrey a little trepidation but she also seems to be losing her fucks as her cells decay. Which is a fair response! Meanwhile Mara is dealing with Audrey's existence up close and personal by going into full on giggling psycho mode. She hates Audrey's weakness, her pallid face, her hair, and her taste in alcohol. I wonder how much of this is because of Mara's instabilities brought on by repeated personality erasure, how much of this is uncertainty of self and identity and the feeling that Audrey is the daughter her mother always wanted, and how much of this is just inherently Mara. Two of those might well be Charlotte's fault! They have nothing in common! That is also true! Sort of. Audrey then responds with "Your mom" which is not only the one thing they do have in common but also the best intonation because it turns the whole thing into a your mom joke. Best Emily Rose. No, Mara will not go talk to her Mom, she has nothing to talk to her Mom about, she will not talk about why she won't talk to her Mom except to say something more against Charlotte than Audrey, interestingly, that "if she really was your mother, you would know." I'm not going to say what that sounds like but I'm pretty sure a lot of people are nodding very hard right about now. We'll deal with that later, in another rant. Mara will give Audrey a message for Charlotte, though, which in this situation is usually the sort of thing that results in bodies on the ground. The demand is that Charlotte open a thinny (which, I suppose it's now implied she was the one running around closing them?) so that Mara can leave, or Duke Crocker's awesome will astound them all. And by astound I'm pretty sure I mean kill horribly. Bodies on the ground. Oh look, a whole bunch of new Troubles, Duke exploding, yep, kill horribly is definitely the way we're headed here. Her turn of phrase is weirdly folksy, too, it's like someone was using Randall Flagg The Stand edition as a dialect guideline. Oh, and two more things. The only relevant one here is that if anyone kills her, Duke will blow, because after that Mara clocks Audrey, says the requisite I-feel-better line, and books it.

Over at the docks, or a docks, there's a school trip going on apparently to learn about sustainable fishing practices. Eh, reasonable to learn about when you're a coastal town. One of the teachers, or possibly the adult chaperone or whatever, rebukes a kid for being high. So, we're just tossing that out now like it's not illegal in Maine still, and I'm giggling. The kid isn't high, the rope totally moved by itself, and given that this is Haven, either is possible. And then the rest of the ropes start moving by themselves, so, yes, it's just Haven being Haven. The ropes and at least one net starts to trap the kids on the boat, the teacher has the remarkable presence of mind to tell the kids to get off the boat, I start openly laughing because someone's definitely been in Haven long enough to just go with it, and a bunch of kids go deeper into the boat because scared kids don't think clearly. That's going to come back to bite them in about... yep, five seconds. All the ropes pull taut, water starts leaking in from... somewhere. The teacher wails about how he is so fired. Nah, it's Haven. Everyone's used to this by now.

The Teagues are having a massive, massive happy hour at the Herald. To the tune of rye whiskey, Canada Dry, a shaker, and at least one other bottle of alcohol back behind there. Rum? It's either a flavored liqueur or more hard stuff, in case we needed more indication of how fucked everyone is; hard alcohol especially in the middle of the afternoon is traditional shorthand for "everything is fucked and we have no control over anything and WHY IS LIFE." Possibly also "and we're functioning alcoholics," with a side of period drama depending on the show, and let's not forget that the Teagues grew up in the 40s and 50s when the three-martini lunch was a common trope in powerful circles. Circles that Vince, at least, is semi-attuned to on a state level, as it turns out. He calls the drink a highball, yeah, it does look mostly like the classic definition, what, shut up, we notice these things. Dave will now proceed to lampshade the drinking by pointing out that it's a wonder the whole town isn't full of drunks. Or other forms of addict, really. He's also mixing alcohol with painkillers, which is yes a bad idea. Listen to your brother, Dave. Or don't, but they're talking over how Charlotte's from another dimension (so Dwight's been sharing information if nobody else has, good Dwight) and fuck their lives and Dave will not use his fucking cream, he doesn't trust her anymore. That's not unreasonable! He doesn't need to get out the rest of the argument, we know what it is, and then a vision hits. This one comes complete with a rock in the same woods as always. Vince responds to how it looks on the outside, which is sort of like a small seizure or zoning out into the middle distance, by informing him that he's cut off. No, Dave would like more booze now, not less, pls to be giving back. Fortunately after this season they've finally more-or-less stopped lying to each other, which allows Vince to go oh, a vision. Well that's going to lead somewhere eventually, but I'm not holding out hope for answers from it given how many threads they're trying to yank on this episode.

Nathan is fussing, as you do when you come back to find your girlfriend's been hit over the head by a psychopath, and he'd like to think that all they have to do is tell Charlotte what Mara wants and Charlotte will just give it to her and let her leave, and ... what, they can deal with the mess that is Haven and the endless Troubles now? Um. Apart from the fact that that's a bad idea, Audrey is now having some very large qualms or possibly brain weasels about her status as a whole and separate person. Thank you Mara for that husk comment. Nathan gives no fucks for what Charlotte or Mara think of her! Which is adorable but not necessarily the helpfulest, but at least he follows that up with asking her what she thinks. Whatever Audrey thinks of Charlotte is unclear right now, but she does at least care about what Charlotte thinks of her, and there's something she's not telling Nathan by that distant, off to one side look. Possibly a lot of things she's not telling Nathan. Dwight's texting again about the Trouble down at the docks, so Nathan should go help Dwight deal with that and Audrey will talk to Charlotte and meet up with him later. Yeah, this is starting to remind me a lot of Audrey telling Charlotte that Nathan doesn't do well with problems he can't fix. Which is very, very, very true and all but it tends to come along with keeping secrets from Nathan, and haven't we learned our lesson several times over about keeping secrets in this town any heavier than what someone's getting for their birthday? Apparently not. Audrey will go over to Charlotte and give her Mara's very short list of demands, as Charlotte is scanning through the list of Maraudsarlu's past accomplishments, picking out who she wants her daughter to be. Is anyone else creeped out by this? Right after asking Audrey if she's okay (the answer, of course, is no) Charlotte starts going on about how odd this is for her. Well, good, you're still not the one dying. She doesn't, as it turns out, consider Audrey her daughter, which also doesn't answer the question of whether or not she considers Audrey a person; I'd put that down to poor question phrasing, though. She also doesn't seem too interested in helping Audrey figure out whose daughter she is, which might also be guilt, but... well. She does seem to realize that she's not being either the most reassuring or best behaved or the most friendly, but nothing she says indicates that she's trying to change that. Audrey doesn't seem to like her either. Her tone gets more strong and hostile when she gives Charlotte the list of demands, to which Charlotte naturally has no intention of giving in, and now it's time for the stick. As Audrey is talking about how Mara turned Duke into a Trouble bomb we cut, of course, to Duke coming back with some kind of medication or another, or just a pill bottle, right in time to overhear how he's been turned into a person of mass destruction! Oh goodie. Poor Duke has never had the easiest life, but he's really been shit on the past couple of seasons. Actually, I think, ever since third season when we went through the attempt at defying his destiny only to be blocked at every turn. Confirmed, then, by Charlotte, and at this point Duke's heard enough, he's out of there. And I do actually think that if this were a conversation between, say, Audrey and Dwight, that Duke would come around the corner all "Well shit how do we fix me" and they would talk it out. But nobody trusts Charlotte right now, for various reasons, and that just means Duke books it on out of there. Charlotte is at least relatively free with her information now, says that Duke came to see her and she believes Mara's telling the truth, and takes Audrey to see Duke... except, of course, he's not there. Well, shit. Charlotte declares it doesn't matter because she doesn't know how to fix him and she will never let Mara through a thinny. Oh, that's helpful, Charlotte, thanks, that's really helpful. That's also a good sign of how much she cares about her daughter more than the town, because it's not as though she can't track Mara down again, one would assume. But, no, she'll refuse to let Mara out of her sign, so to speak, even if it means burning the whole town. Thanks. Audrey, on the other hand, is willing to beg and plead for the lives of the people in this town, and Charlotte is blatantly willing to take advantage of that. If any part of this episode was supposed to make me like, trust, or sympathize with Charlotte, it's doing the exact opposite.

Dave is finally taking advantage of his visions to do a little rudimentary botany. I'm curious; has this just now occurred to him? Or has he just now gotten enough clarity on the visions, admittedly the various pine trees could be anywhere in much of the US including, yes, North Carolina (though I'm not sure if they grow like that near the coast?) (according to Wiki sugar maple would be closer to WNC than the coast, but aspen doesn't get that far south) but you'd think he'd have thought about this before now. And what the fuck has he been up to since we last saw him on his camping cot? I fully accept that the actor may have gone off to do something else for a couple eps, but given the plot monkey he's been turned into it's kind of an egregious plot gap. The upshot is, Dave has locational markers that say it might be somewhere around here! Vince questions this on the grounds of that's a big fucking massacre not to have made it into any kind of historical records, including, I will grant, whatever esoteric and arcane ones the Teagues have access to. Dave cheerfully bickers back about neither are the Troubles, and they might have a whole half hour of banter in them if it weren't for Duke. Hi Duke! Duke has come for answers because Teagues always have answers, which is both intelligent and kind of adorable. In this case, the question is, is there anywhere in this dimension, on this planet, where he can go and not fuck people up with his Trouble bomb, and the answer is… well, no. Not as long as Haven's not a haven. But if they were expelled into the Void from which they came? Is Vince's coda to that, which requires a thinny. Not that there's one in Haven that's open; Charlotte's seen to that. Or so it's implied. (If she hasn't, the question remains: who the fuck DID.) (And for that matter, which thinny did Charlotte come out of, one of the ones here or the one in Manteo?) Still, it gives Duke a direction to point himself in: find a thinny, explode the Troubles into the Void, hopefully be done with this shit. I will just note here that as far as anyone knows, William is lost in the Void, and that is no kind of combination I want to speculate on. Though it's not like anyone knows that he's still alive, or for certain where he is, or if he's managed to get himself un-lost and off to some other dimension again. It's still not a good theory! I don't like it! Duke doesn't like it much, but it's what he's got as far as immediate problem that needs an immediate solution. The Teagues have that shifty look about them that, for once, is getting called out rather than passed over, thank you Duke for that hilarious threat. I think we've made threats like that in the general direction of the Teagues before.

Fire crews are attempting to extract the kids from the boat of constricting death, with presumably little success because Troubles are pesky things that don't obey natural laws like that. The kids are shivering in the water, which can't be good for them, depending on how long they've been in there. I doubt hypothermia would be setting in this soon, it doesn't seem to have been that long, but they're definitely taking damage from it. Dwight's optimistic that as long as they keep the boat up and afloat the kids will be okay, which isn't the worst idea in the world? At the very least it should keep everyone from drowning. But also, well, they're almost knee deep in water by the look of it and hypothermia is going to be a thing. Dwight is also going to be clever and point out that these are probably the same Trouble of Locking People Into Things. See, now he's the best Dwight again. Nathan thanks him for letting Charlotte out so she can help try and save Duke and Audrey and how much do I love Nathan for including Duke in there? Good Nathan. How much do I love Dwight for barely twitching at the mention of Charlotte and simply ceding responsibility and oversight to Nathan while simultaneously cautioning him to take it seriously? BEST DWIGHT. We interrupt this moment of jubilation for the boat sinking, though, so, crap. By the time we get another look at the inside of the hold? the kids are neck deep in cold water. Possibly only waist deep if they were standing up, but that's still not going to help their survival chances. Dwight goes over to deal with that while Nathan checks if Charlotte's going to give Mara what she wants so she'll go away. (Hey, everyone remember Storm of the Century? Uh-huh.) But she does have an alternate plan! Because that works so well most of the time. The alternate plan is apparently to reintegrate Audrey and Mara, not that Charlotte says that at first because she wants Nathan to go along with this. The more I see of Charlotte, the more everything she says feels contrived and manipulative. Not to mention she's not admitting any responsibility for setting Mara on the cycle of personality erasure that turned her into a psychopath, not to mention she only thinks that when Audrey and Mara are recombined, Mara will choose the path of goodness and whatever and choose to stop her destructive behavior. I wouldn't buy this if it came with a pony and a plastic rocket. She claims she's not talking about trapping Audrey in Mara which, okay, I will accept there's a semantic difference there, but what she is talking about is effectively killing off both personalities, as far as we can tell at the moment. Creating some new amalgamation thereof. And sure, Audrey's consenting to this, but I'm not at all certain that consent isn't cleverly manipulated and coerced. And no one's asked Mara yet. This is a bad, bad plan. Nathan is naturally rejecting this plan on the grounds that His Audrey For Him And Damn The Town. Nathan, this kind of thinking is what caused the Troubles to be neverending in Haven and no, we are not going to let you forget that. Charlotte pushes harder on the urgency by saying that if Mara gets into the void she will destroy all of them. While entirely unhelpful, that is probably true.

Duke has a plan! It is a clever plan. Anytime we see Duke wandering around the streets of Haven with a cell phone tucked to his ear we should assume he's got some kind of con in mind. The last time that comes to mind most strongly is when he set up Arla at the barn at the end of s3, which gives me all kinds of screaming issues about repetition of pattern and type. I mean, really, what does it say that whoever James Cogan was, he married someone awfully similar to Mara in temperament? Because urk. He's got the location of the thinny, and he's going to take Mara into the Void with him, complete with the distancing banter-and-snark that is his default defense mechanism. Yeaaah, Duke's about to do a lot of other shit, isn't he. Which entails getting Mara and himself out of Haven and frankly if I were him I'd see what the aether could do to her in the Void, but then I'm a vicious bitch like that.

Audrey needs to have this discussion with Nathan alone, which is more than fair, but she's asking him to die. Either in spirit or in body, because he doesn't know how to live without her, we've seen that proven ad nauseum, and I don't know if she really realizes that. It's still a conversation and a decision that they need to make together, because it's the kind of decision that affects them both. And touches on her origins, how all of this started for them with the picture of Lucy and now she's found her mother but she's nobody's daughter. But she, herself, as herself, wants to do this and be the person that everyone thinks she is, the one who can save everyone. That's a shit sense of self-identity to have to fall back on, but after being taunted as a husk and called a copy or a part of Mara by both Mara and Charlotte this ep, distrusted by a lot of the rest of the local population after what Mara did, I can see why she chooses this. I think it's an incredibly manipulated choice, but it's still wholly in keeping with her character. I don't approve of having her break out the do-you-love-me-then-let-me-do-this line; it's somewhat in keeping with how fucked up their relationship is but the way it's being acted and shot I think we're supposed to take it as romantic. And it's nooooot. That's always a manipulative way of getting what you want, doubly so when Nathan Loves Audrey is one of the central tenets of his existence, if not the only tenet of his existence by now. He used to, does anyone remember back in the first couple of seasons? He used to have Protect Haven as one of his central tenets, inherited from his father, but not so much anymore. Audrey will now proceed to demonstrate that her idea of saving people involves not realizing how thoroughly tied up in her continued existence both Nathan and Duke are, because there's no way that either man will accept this answer. Not easily and not lying down. In the immediate sense she plans to help the kids, figure out the immediate Trouble, and then go off to, as far as Nathan is concerned, kill herself. (I guess nobody is thinking of Hipster Chick from the Gull?) Meantime she wants Nathan to contribute to the last part of her plan by way of finding Mara! And then she invokes them as a team, and I'm going to need a new desk while they have their goodbye kiss, because that's exactly what it is. Nathan tries to extract a promise from her in return, and I don't know if she means that promise, or means it in the sense of the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, or doesn't mean it at all. He wants her to keep fighting, though, trying to assert her personality as the dominant one in the body, because he's going to get her back. Somehow. I can't even say at this point that his faith in that is misplaced, because the narrative keeps fucking rewarding it. Still, it's the barn all over again! Only worse! This time he knows exactly what the fuck could happen if he fails. I need a new desk again, y'all.

Duke is... chaining himself up in the Cape Rouge? I know even less than Jon Snow. The kids are, in fact, knee deep in water in the hold, so I guess they managed to pull the boat back up some, but they're still soaked, screaming, and water is still pouring in. Dwight's getting an air compressor mobilized to pour air into the hold? Hot air, I hope, because that might actually help. So will what Audrey's got, because it turns out one of the kids in the hold and one of the cops in the gun room share a last name. Thank god, by the way, no one's tried to shoot their way out of the gun room, that would be bad. Oh, that's what Duke was recording! Not a suicide note as I half expected but a message for Mara. She wanted to see him chained up before she would agree to meet him! There's some banter about the toe (which Mara does not miss) (did that heal when they allegedly integrated, I wonder?) and Duke acknowledges Mara's superiority in a deeply sarcastic way, circling around to using that to make the point that he holds all the cards now. Which to some extent is true! He now knows the location of an open thinny, and they're going to go together, or she doesn't get to go at all. That's as close to a guarantee as he can get that he won't Trouble anyone else, going into the thinny and not being in this plane or Earth or whatever anymore. Oh Duke honey. It's the sacrifice play is what it is, and apart from the fact that, Duke, when has anything ever worked out in your favor on this show, generally only women get to make sacrifice plays here. Men just get to, I don't know. Stand around and swear and bumble a lot. It's sexist and twisted, but there it is. At least, main character men and women. When it comes to Troubles we're pretty evenly gender split, weird trend of male characters impaling themselves on Duke's knife aside. No, I don't know what's up with that either, except possibly to hammer Duke in the face with the allegory and then not let him complete it. I don't think anyone's really been paying attention to that entire theme.

Okay, back to the boat. Audrey gets the rundown on the family, the father was at the Gull, it's probably his Trouble, now go talk him down Audrey. To be fair, this is coming from Dwight, who understands a lot better than some people what she does and still has full confidence in her, which is probably more helpful than someone in ignorance saying "You can totally fix this." Off she goes! Meanwhile we cringe as Charlotte comes up to try to talk to Dwight, who has clearly noped the fuck out of any relationship with her, friendly, professional, or otherwise. He will do the bare minimum to get his job done and to keep his people safe and other than that, she doesn't exist. He is also, which is noteworthy enough, not going on vengeance rants to anyone about what an evil conniving bitch she is, which is another part of why he is the best. Yes, it hurt. It sucked. He's got a job to do. He's going to do the job, and anything else he might have hoped for, well, clearly that's not going to happen, he'll deal. Including, if he has to and she pushes, talking to her. So, all right, all he wants to know is if it was real. Not the relationship, the information she uncovered in her search for the origin and the cure for the Troubles. I'm honestly not sure if that's because he's putting his people before himself, because it's easier for him to focus that way, or if it's because he's making that assessment of her the gauge by which he measures how wrong or right he was about her, or what's going on there. Too many possibilities. She insists it was real, he doesn't know whether to believe her or not because, well, she's a lying liar who lies. She insists that she really did care about him! Aww. That's adorable. Dwight doesn't look like he buys this, and asks if she always knew she was leaving, or. So, no. That's a no, we are never ever ever getting back together, I can't believe I just gave Dwight Taylor Swift lyrics. And yet, it fits! No, Charlotte, you lied. You knew what Dwight was like at least somewhat because you played him like an expert, and you lied about some very deep, fundamental, even harmful things. So you should have seen this coming a mile off. No sympathy for you.

Audrey will now proceed to try and talk Troubled Guy of the Week down, the nice thing about the Troubles having gotten worse and all being out in the open is that a lot of people have a clue how they work. So she can ask the straightforward question of, what happened today that was traumatic to you specifically, and get back not just that answer but an answer that involves his kids: he was at the Gull when the guy exploded, check on trauma, and he wanted his son to come home but he wouldn't and also he hates the station, so that's one child. Oh, and he wanted to send his daughter away to school, away from the Troubled classmates who could kill her. Dude, have you missed the part where the Troubles exist all over the world, it's just Haven knows what the fuck they're doing with them? Granted in recent months this isn't such a promising feature, but still, that smacks of a similar parental bigotry to the shit two episodes ago. In this instance, the parent's the one with the Trouble, though, and now he's the one trapping his child. WELL ISN'T THIS THEMATIC. I kind of wish they hadn't bothered putting this in; the only character purpose it serves (and it's a valid one but there were other ways) is to allow Audrey to use her expertise one last time. It's not a very coherent theme, is the problem, there's something in there about fear trapping children, and what Charlotte did to Mara, but none of it becomes something we can point a finger at and say YES THIS by the end of the ep, not really. The kids are by now shivering and neck deep in water no matter what they do. I hope HPD has enough mylar blankets.

Over at the Gull there's crime scene tape, there's signs of life inside, there's Nathan pulling his gun because Duke isn't answering his phone and people are moving around a blocked off crime scene. And by people we turn out to mean Gloria. Hi Gloria! They have their moment of augh surprise, and it turns out Gloria's here to check out what was left of... the explodie guy? That doesn't explain the potato liquor. Well, that's because Duke called and said he needed a favor, presumably involving that distraction at the hospital earlier, and in return she could take his perishables. And by perishables we mean booze. No, Gloria doesn't know what he's up to except that he's going out of town. Vicki knows he's with "Audrey!" and by Audrey we know here that means Mara. No, she doesn't know where he was going, but she knows how he was going, which means unless he took the car option he had to file a flight plan or get some navigational charts. In other words, leave a trail. That'll help!

Audrey continues to try and talk this guy down, who is also one of the more disappointing guest spots they've had in awhile. Way overacted. Dude. It's like Brian Blessed's cursed cousin. The answer is easy but, as usual, hard to enact: stop being afraid! This de-escalation attempt is interrupted, god knows why, by Nathan insisting on calling Audrey to tell her the information he just learned rather than texting it to her like they normally would. The easy answer is, no, this isn't a normal case, but underneath that there's the constant refrain of how Nathan doesn't give a shit about anyone but Audrey, and he's doing what she asked of him. That said, the upshot is that he's got a location and if she can get over there as soon as possible they can maybe have this solution that works? In theory? And then back to talking the guy down, where he has the very good point that saying don't think about something, especially that emotionally loaded, is never going to work. The go-to example here is pink and purple polka-dotted elephants, as I recall. On roller skates. Regardless, he needs something else to think about! It's clumsily handled, because this is fear borne out of love (and we're very intimately acquainted with that and all its detriments THANK YOU NATHAN) but I think the idea is supposed to be that he focuses on the qualities in her that have nothing to do with being afraid for her life. I would prefer it if the whole thing were less clumsy. Times when he wasn't afraid for her! Times when he knew that she was his brilliant daughter who could handle anything! Concrete, vivid, specific details are your friend when you're trying to do this kind of visualization, generally speaking, but no, we're going with the cheap cop-out of kind and smart and going to be okay. Sigh. Fine. The kids are alright, Dwight confirms it when Audrey comes back toward the crowd of emergency workers, and he'd like her to help with the exploding hands woman too, they've had people working on that. THANK YOU. For any kind of continuity with that. But she can't, she's got to go make the sacrifice play, and he seems aware that the goodbye is a goodbye for good. Dwight has so many bigger problems, and at least Audrey's taking Charlotte with her, thereby removing one problem from his immediate jurisdiction.

Over at Willow Cove Duke is loading up the seaplane, he's going to go check the forecast but they should be good to go. Mara comments that she didn't know he had his pilot's license, and Duke responds (slightly worryingly) that he doesn't. Which at least in me raises some red flags that he doesn't actually intend to fly her out there but then again, it could also be that he's a pirate and a smuggler and generally not interested in the finer points of the law like having a license to pilot the vehicle he's about to pilot. Mara finds this absolutely endearing, and actually that "I kinda love you Duke Crocker" sounds like the first honest statement we've heard from her since she started, maybe? Which makes what happens to her even more tragic and Charlotte a little more sinister looking. Duke doesn't trust her, really, but he does appreciate and seem to think that she might be telling the truth, which tones down his retort quite a bit.

Meanwhile, over in the woods of obfuscation and plot thickets, Dave and Vince are searching for the terrain he saw in his vision. Because sure, why not. This is not helped by the fact that Dave is predicting exactly where they're going to find, in this case, a giant uprooted tree. This is not helping also because that treefall looks recent. Not within the last day or so recent necessarily, but certainly not from back in the 14/1500s. Brr. Audrey and Charlotte get to Willow Cove and the seaplane, but Audrey wants to wait for Nathan. The fact that it takes Charlotte a second to realize she wants to say goodbye does not at all reassure anyone of her capability for empathy, given that it sounds more like a calculation. We will now have a bit of dialogue confirming that, no, Audrey Parker will no longer exist when she's merged with Mara, using a paint analogy with standard good/evil colors, woo. And as she was presumably intended (by Charlotte if nothing else), Mara overhears! And heralds that overhearing with a gun cock noise.

Dove. Hello, dove, seriously? I mean, I know there's a lot to be said about patterns of behavior and how they can be used and so on, thanks Charlotte, but this is getting a bit egregious. Not to mention we're playing on the opposites for emphasis thing again, dove, the bird of peace and all that, for Mara, who is anything but peaceful. Meant to imply how far she has fallen, blah blah okay, yes, we get it already. Mara is not talking to her mother yet, first she is dealing with Audrey and telling her once again how much she hates her. This time it's a little different. This time there's an admission of vulnerability, not that Mara seems to notice what she's saying, and of fear. The admission that every time she sees her she gets uneasy and the feeling that she's left the gas on (no, she's a fucking squirrel! sorry.) that she's missed something, and that's a huge admission of vulnerability for someone who's spent most of the season gloating that humans are inferior and she knows everything that's going on. Huge. Audrey, meanwhile, is mustering what measures of defiance she can, which isn't much and only gets her laughed at. Poor Audrey. But it was a good try, we did get that one moment where it seems like the reserves of strength she mustered might be enough! No. No they're not. Now it's Charlotte's turn, starting with, five hundred years of having her locked in prison and all Mara gets is a 'hi?' No, Charlotte, no, I think she really does want to shoot you, at least on some level. She might not for various other reasons, but I'm pretty sure she does want to pull that trigger. And now for a part that screams of abusive mother abused daughter issues, not to mention a potential slight Elektra complex in combination with other things, Charlotte knows why Mara's so angry! Is it because she was imprisoned in a magic barn for five hundred years by her own mother? Is it because she was erased repeatedly? Is it because her mother loves her less than her copy? No! It's because Charlotte thinks Mara feels guilty over what happened to her father. Charlotte doesn't even acknowledge that Mara has a right to be angry for being imprisoned and erased, she's a) putting everything bad that happened in her life, regardless of whether or not it was her fault (because admittedly we have no idea what's going on with the father here, this is the first we've heard of him) on Mara, and b) she's backhandedly blaming Mara for pulling her attention when, again implicitly, it should have been on the father person. No, I'm not kidding, this is classic abuser language, "You're angry because you feel guilty for X," when the person hasn't mentioned either guilt or X event, "I did these things/sacrificed for you when I should have been/could have been doing this other worthy thing"? Classic abuser language. Holding out understanding and sympathy as a thin veneer over blame, shame, and tearing down the victim. Which clearly Mara is and has been at some point, where Charlotte is concerned. Underscored by the fact that Charlotte's been pushing everyone's buttons since she arrived, no, Charlotte is the evil queen here. And Mara, for all that she's no paragon of goodness herself and definitely needs to be stopped somehow, is also no longer willing to put up with this emotionally abusive bullshit. She does not feel guilty. She feels angry, she blames Charlotte (which also to be fair, might not be accurate, again, we have no idea what the hell happened with the father) and calls her timid and weak and jealous of the things Mara can do. Which puts an interesting spin on the dynamic here, especially since Charlotte's already admitted to not being able to undo what Mara did to Duke. Mara, on the other hand, is neither weak nor timid, she has powers and she's going to use them to get her father back. So, okay, at least she feels a strong and in some ways loving connection to someone. Whether or not that's a healthy form of love, no, I think we can be pretty well assured it isn't, but we've seen a lot of forms of love on this show and some forms we would call vastly unhealthy the show seems to hold in high regard, so there you are. But it adds some connection and some dimension to her, which Charlotte doesn't seem to think she's capable of. And, honestly, apart from William, whose relationship with her also didn't seem all that healthy, we hadn't seen her build any real connection with anyone. But now there's the father. Who she's going to get back, at any cost. Including Duke, if she has to, though Mara doesn't seem too concerned and claims she turned his power off. She needed to work with the aether (and refers to Charlotte as being afraid of it, which is at least one more piece of data since we don't have any original cultural context for them or the aether) and, well. So, that means we're correct in assuming Duke is an aether-spewing machine? That's certainly what that seems to imply. Charlotte continues to try to plead for reintegration and takes a couple steps towards Mara, not yet crowding her personal space but definitely pushing Mara's status as in control of the situation, and argues for Audrey as another part of Mara. Mara still doesn't feel that way. I can't say either them is right or wrong in this case, it's one of those strange existential things until we have more information from a reliable source, which neither of them is. My kingdom for reliable data. I think we need to start tacking that on as a qualifier to 'sufficient', just so that it's there and understood as well.

The boys! The boys are much less aggravating to handle, Duke's coming out of the seaplane rental shop with Nathan around the corner. Hey, this time nobody's pointing a gun at anyone. PROGRESS. And Nathan doesn't even look like he's going to deck Duke so much as he is upset by all of this, he needs Mara, and he's furious at what she's done to everyone. That's definitely progress! Now he just, y'know, needs to realize the part he's played and stop fucking doing it. One of these days. They start to have the exchange of information, which is totally unnecessary, and Duke will state his plan! Which is not to take Mara through the thinny unless it's in the explicit circumstance of hauling her corpse through, he's going to take her as insurance against the thinny having gotten closed between when the Teagues visited and now. And when they get there and it's open he's going to kill her, haul her and himself through the thinny, and go expel all the Troubles away from people. It's the sacrifice play! Because Duke can be the one to do the hard thing, make the hard decisions, including killing someone shaped like a woman he loves, whereas Nathan has never managed to make that decision, not up until Audrey basically browbeat him into it. His argument is that he's going to save everybody! Including Duke, including the whole rest of the town, yes, even including Audrey, he's probably being wilfully blinkered or possibly lying, it's hard to tell with Nathan's deadpan stoicism.

Let's go back for some more manipulative abusive bullshit! Firstly starting out with Charlotte saying how it doesn't have to be this way, Mara doesn't have to be so angry, as though her anger weren't justified (it is. I'd be pissed, too.) and then forcing Mara to admit to the source and cause of most of that anger that, no, she doesn't like feeling that way all the time. It's an admission of vulnerability that Charlotte probably will take as an admission of wrongdoing or at least culpability, and jesus christ this is not a conversation to be had with the target of all that anger. It's manipulative. And pretty damn twisted. Mara doesn't look at her for her apologies, because she doesn't believe them, because the manipulation is working, hard to say. Remember that Elektra complex, though, that I mentioned earlier? Mara will now bring up a memory of her childhood, when she used to go swimming with her father, and how safe and happy she felt, how much she loved that. And the reason this is creepy is because that was also a strong and powerful memory with William, who was very definitely her lover at the time. In fact this is so creepy it had both of us confirming with each other that, okay, no, William was never meant to be the father, it's just... a creepy coincidence-not-coincidence and a latent Elektra complex. Or at least implication. It's unnerving. For a whole different type of unnerving we have the leading exchange nigh on synanon style where Mara confesses that she doesn't feel safe anymore, and she wants/needs to feel safe again. I have an idea. How about not putting her life and mind in the hands of the woman who imprisoned and erased her in the first place, wouldn't' that make her feel safe? That is, apparently, not an option with Charlotte. And the evil just keeps notching up.  Now I kind of see where Mara gets it from. The sad thing is, it's working. Charlotte creeps in ever closer to her, right up into her personal space, and wears her down until Mara can't really resist anymore. Alas poor villain, I believe is the phrase here.

Duke will finally call Nathan out on his inability to give up. Yes, that has been noticed. A few times. And remarked upon about a dozen more. Well, no, he doesn't, and no, he doesn't see how that's long since crossed the line from being a positive character trait (determination, grit, whatever positive connotated words you want to throw at it) to a negative one (stubborn, wilfully ignorant, incapable of empathy for any but a few). He does, however, not want to lose Duke too! While I admire the sentiment, and I realize that they have frequently been at each other's throats all series, after the depth of the rift that got driven these last couple eps I find this a little unbelievable as far as not earning back the trust and camaraderie. Duke goes on to point out that they don't have ANY idea what happens if Mara and Audrey combine, not really. Just in time for said amalgamation to form, courtesy of a really strong wind! Let's get out of here… no? No, Duke and Nathan have been running toward trouble and Troubles for longer than they care to think about, they're going to find the epicenter. Which turns out to be Charlotte, Mara, and Audrey kneeling in the dirt road just past the cement track, with Mara on her right and Audrey on her left, arms around both like some kind of demented Pieta. And… no other sign of any kind of magic happening other than the glowing light and boom of power. Um. UM, I say. So far, and I realize that Charlotte's got 500 years on Mara, but so far we have seen exactly zero indication that these other people, however advanced they may be, can do magic shit without access to the aether. The only thing we know for certain is that they're immune to the Troubles, and that that's a power that (supposedly) comes without having handled the aether extensively. And the only kind of manipulation we know they can do involves the aether. There's some implication, strong implication, that Charlotte closed the thinnies without the aether, but it's not confirmed and we have no idea what the fuck their powers are. We can't even assert that Charlotte opened a thinny herself to come through, with or without use of aether, because we don't know how long she's been here, if she had help trying to get through, nothing. Assuming these powers even exist! So whatever Charlotte can or can't do, she's playing by whole new rules, none of which we have access to a rulebook for. I fucking hate rulebooks that other people won't show me, and frankly it feels a LOT like cheating on the writers' part. We have all these rules, long-established ones, about what can and can't be done. We got some new ones when William showed up and started Troubling people, we don't have ANY for Charlotte, and we didn't really get new ones to add to the mix from Mara this season. So it's a bigger deus ex machina, in a way, than we've ever had to consider, because there are no signs that Charlotte can do this. Just her word, and then the doing. I hope we're not meant to take this as a good thing, especially in light of the damage her words have been doing all episode. The boys go falling over from powersplosion, we get back up after the ad break and… um. Audrey's clothes are empty, but Audrey was the one on the left. And now there's a person in Mara's clothes on Charlotte's left, and in short, someone's visual continuity is fucked and they should feel bad. But the hair and the body language are all Audrey, and we get a somewhat adorable reunion of "Audrey?" "Parker." I'm having a hard time not muttering "Marco!" "Polo!" under my breath, though.

And now we have the worst confession to murder I've heard in a long fucking time. SERIOUSLY. YES. YOU TORTURED YOUR DAUGHTER FOR FIVE HUNDRED FUCKING YEARS. AND THEN YOU EXPECTED THIS TO RESULT IN A HAPPY REUNION. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU. It's not even that Mara shouldn't have been stopped! It's that Charlotte's idea of stopping her was "here let me make you over in my image of what you should be" and while yes that is a long and unfortunate tradition, what the fuck. And what the fuck, writers' room, for making this some kind of fucked up family drama without giving us anything to hang it on. Charlotte will continue ramping up the evil by all but outright stating that Audrey is the kind of daughter she wants to have instead of the daughter she got. WELL, LADY, TOUGH SHIT, THAT'S NOT HOW KIDS WORK. I do not trust this. I do not trust that Mara isn't hiding in there somewhere, and this just… well. No, you know what we do have to hang this on, however briefly, is we have Reverend fucking Driscoll to hang this on, this is exactly the kind of shit he did albeit without supernatural powers and magic barns. He tried to make his family over in the image he wanted, and his wife faked her own death and ran off to the Glendowers. For that matter, what about freaky Holloway and him trying to keep his family in the picture perfect lifestyle and not letting them leave? This is not at all the solution to Mara that we wanted, and in some ways not the one we expected (in other ways it's almost what we expected, just not the timing). This is not at all a happy ending. This leaves us feeling very, very hollow and unsatisfied.

... It feels unearned, is how it feels. Not in the sense that Audrey Parker hasn't earned a whole body, because she has, but you know what? In a way she hasn't, either. This isn't because she has done and sacrificed for the people of Haven, for everyone she's come across. This explicitly isn't because of that, this is because she is compassion and empathy and kindness and sweetness and light, and implicitly because she is inherently those things. I'm not going to toss around the MS word but I kind of am, because that's what it sounds like. Mara, meanwhile, from what we're told has damn well earned her anger considering what her mother did to her, not even a jury of her peers, her mother imprisoned her in a world, in a tower barn, and repeatedly erased her. That's a pretty heinous punishment even considering the heinous crime, and we're not given anything to imply that where they're from, home and family aren't supposed to be the safe place they are here. You know who else hasn't earned this? Charlotte. She hasn't earned the trust capital from us, especially considering the depth and extent of her lie came out last episode, and she damn well hasn't earned the confidence that this is the right thing to do. Instead this comes across as evil, emotionally manipulative, evil, self-serving and self-soothing, evil, superior in the sense that she knows best and what Mara wants doesn't come into it and who's going to save her husband and Mara's father now, and did I mention evil? Jeez, between this and the manipulation that led up to it no wonder Mara traveled across a void and possibly across a galaxy, time dimension, whatever, to get away from her. I'd want to, too, if I had a mother who decided which of my feelings were acceptable or unacceptable. Apparently Mara's rage and anger and disgust and loathing and distrust of everyone not William are unacceptable. And note, here, I'm talking about her emotions, her feelings. Her actions damn well are unsupportable by any stretch of the imagination, but Charlotte or whatever her name is didn't imprison her for her actions, she didn't punish her in any way regarding to that, she erased her entire identity. Repeatedly, and now permanently. That's fucked up. That's twisted and evil on a whole other level.

And we're supposed to buy this all as adorable because Audrey and Nathan have their reunion, except I'm still in the extremely disturbed corner because Audrey is now whatever alien humanoid race Charlotte and Mara are. Were. Assuming that Mara really is all the way gone, which is an awfully big assumption. And this leaves Duke out in the cold. Charlotte steps up to assert that Duke is fine now! Mara said so! Oh for fuck's sake, Charlotte, you really don't know your daughter and never did, did you, since she was obviously fucking LYING at the time. You know what else isn't earned, on top of all of this? Duke hasn't earned this kind of punishment either and Charlotte doesn't seem to give a crap about him, which fits, but then that's consistent with the show handing Duke a steaming pile of festering pustulent wormy goat mutes every time he tries to have some kind of happiness. Duke is the scapegoat, the whipping boy, the child in the cellar who tolerates the suffering of Haven, and no one's tried to pretend otherwise. Hey, I wonder if that's the explanation for the Crocker Trouble. It's thematically appropriate! At any rate, he gets reassured, we know there's something worse and more to come because this is fucking Haven, and we'll start with the mist rolling in from across the bay. I'm just flat disregarding everything Charlotte says as a lie at this point, Audrey didn't do it, Charlotte claims not to have any idea, Duke can't see anything. No, literally. Because the Troubles are pouring out of his eyes, or will be. Yes, Charlotte, Mara lied, plus you killed her, these things combined mean Duke's going off like a death slug filled bomb. Whatever Dwight sees in the mist (nothingness?), he ends up driving straight back to the big white church from the opening credits. Is that the fucking Void? Because goddammit none of you ever fucking think about anything you're doing and you all suck. Dave and Vince are far enough out that we get to see them discover the rock and the inscription of Croatoan on the rock, and dust that hasn't been washed away by the rain so it's recent. Yes, I think you'd best get out of there if you were both dumb enough to go out unarmed. And now it's time for Duke to explode in a montage of Troubled deathslugs and people getting hit by them.

Our next time on Haven looks like another mystery man with supposed answers. And a lot of bodies on the ground. And William Shatner. We're not sure if the first and the last are the same thing, though. We also have a strong bias towards Please Let William Shatner Play Randall Flagg Because It Would Be The Funniest. I include this here so you, too, may be amused.

And now, for your reading displeasure and our notekeeping, a list of things in Haven that hasn't been explained or tied into the rest of it (not saying they won't, just saying we're still chewing on these), in no particular order but as I thought of them, and with no distinction for weight given. i.e. the Crocker Box I will allow as the saying might be more generally thematic than structurally significant, but other stuff is just ... well? And? Leaving out obvious plot hooks like Mara's father and the fact that Haven seems to have been engulfed by a thinny. There are nineteen items, because Stephen King. There is also copious swearing: consider this along the lines of a behind the scenes excerpt where every third word is "fuck."

1. The barnvatar that Charlotte never mentioned. Yes, she did mention or rather didn't deny, okay, let's be clear that's two different things. She allowed our heroes to believe she was responsible for creating the structure and so on, but was the barnvatar a construct, like Heckle and Jekyll were for William? Because he didn't disintegrate in the same way. Actually, come to think of it, he disintigrated in a hell of a lot like the way Mara, did, so does that mean he was he one of Charlotte and Mara and William's people who volunteered to be tied to the barn, essentially sacrificing himself (which goes along with the theme of the show and for which I want to shake people) to ensure that Mara doesn't go free?
2. The entire fucking Crocker line. What the fuck. Especially in light of recent developments with Duke. Although we're reconsidering the Crocker Trouble as a safeguard/mitigating curse and pondering it, as well, as more of a storage box for curses that have been outmoded, given recent developments. The Crocker Box seems like it should be significant, it was certainly implied like it was? But it might not be plot significant, maybe just as an artifact to weigh on Duke's mind.
3. Who the fuck gave Garland that ring.
4. What did Lucy Ripley know? Did she know all of it about Mara and William? Did she tell anyone? Does it matter anymore? (Probably not.) (Which is in and of itself annoying because that scene was given such weight.)
5. Dave and Sarah/Lucy/everyone. Why is Sarah his greatest fear, still? What's with the beach and the Colorado kid? What the fuck is going on with Dave? (We might even get an answer to this one, although I increasingly doubt it's going to be satisfying.)
6. Are Dave and Jennifer and the other kids (kids? more than just these two? because it looked that way) Agent Fuck You adopted out from the same world as William and Mara, or are they from a third world entirely? What the fuck is the purpose of all of this?
7. Leading to, what the fuck was the purpose of Jennifer as the Child of Ruin? Who wrote that prophecy? What the fuck is going on there? Leading to
8. What the fuck with the tattoo and the bloodline and the Mi'kmaq and Vince as the guardian of Haven (oh dear god why) and that just got dropped like they would hope we wouldn't notice. Not to mention having the Teagues bloodline and the Crockers seems a little.... redundant. Who created the tattoo? And why? And what does Julia fucking Carr have to do with it? And if it was created to point the way to the main or at least most used thinny, what on earth was the purpose of the tattoo/seal in the floor? An anchor point for the tattoo to point to? Who the fuck made that? What the fuck with the door that Jennifer closed? What the hell is even going on with all of that and what was the point of all of that? Not the thinny part, that's fine, but what was the point of all that rigamarole and riddle solving to get there and close the goddamn thinny? Who set that bullshit up? Was it William Shatner's character? Because that looks like something Denny Crane would have come up with.
9. What the fuck came through the door? Was it Charlotte? Is she the memory stealing thing, because given how she seems to have created the barn of memory fuckery, I could believe it. Does she have a memory stealing pet octopus?
10. And if not, what the fuck is with the memory stealing octopus and why does that entire plotline with the losing time and Dave's leg seem so far separated from the main plotline of the rest of the season? It originally didn't, because we also had the losing time/memories to go along with the barn appearing and disappearing, but so far it's only gotten further and further away from the central plot. Is there a rogue Beholder floating around somewhere? ... actually, that would explain a lot.
11. Getting back on rough chronological track, apparently the Glendowers were just a very big red-herring. Although this show definitely has a fetish for emotional connections to swimming and water.
12. The entire Colorado Kid plot has yet to be folded into any of this in any way that doesn't leave itching and a faintly dirty, distraught sensation. I think they make a creme for that. What are the consequences of a half-human, half-whatever child? What happened to him when the barn implexploded. (We may actually find this one out, I hear the actor's reprising his role on the show. That may only be for flashbacks, though, in which case we find nothing out and I froth some more.) Here's another interesting question, could the barn regenerate James because he's half alien like Maraudrey, or did it regenerate anyone, because we didn't find out about Arla, on account of she got hauled out of the barn.
13. What the shit with the Audrey having to kill the one she loves, that, along with the Child of Ruin, what the hell was that about? Or was that for here, Mara, murder William, to prove you've redeemed yourself. Because I can actually see Charlotte doing that, depending on how she feels about William.
14. Okay, speaking of killing the one she loves, why would opening the door to the other world, any other world, cause .... this entire prophecy gets less and less sensical the more you poke at it in context of Charlotte's revelations. It really does. Because if the door is opened and more people go through, and Maraudrey kills... well, if she killed a mortal like Nathan or Vince, I honestly don't think it would make much difference one way or another to salvation or doom because they don't seem to care, Charlotte's insistence to Dwight nonwithstanding. But if she killed William... how does that doom ... I don't get it. And if it doesn't refer to killing the one you love, if it refers to the omnia vincit amor love solves everything clause, what on earth is going on there? Although given Charlotte's idea of love, I almost buy that more.
15. The entire Cabot journal. It roughly maps in terms of timeline but what the fuck is going on there with doors and thinnies and Croatoan and ... no, really, what the fuck. We can throw Dave's colliding with a deer at rapid speed on foot visions in there. And the random magic plague thing.
16. The Mi'kmaq Haven for God's Orphans alleged connection to the plot gets its own separate entry because what the hell, that was played up twice in two separate incidents for being significant and it's actually aliens? Plus the vaguely racist webseries they've been doing this season? I'm not sure what's worse, magical Native Americans or magical Native Americans as a sidelined ... cargo cult.
17. There was an implication that they'd broken laws and were being hunted by law enforcement authorities, and there definitely was a plural going on there, and yet when it comes down to it all ... no, wait, actually, that makes a gram of sense because if Charlotte is arguing for her idea of rehabilitation rather than punishment, she might well say the types of things she said about reputation and credibility and proof and her colleagues that she did to Dwight. Never... mind? Something like.
18. I'm assuming we'll deal with where William went to when Colin Ferguson reappears, but why the hell didn't Charlotte mention imprisoning him in the barn, too? Or did he somehow get there some other way? If so, how? If not, Charlotte, that was a really big thing you left out, you think?
19. No, wait, if William and Mara broke as many rules and laws as William thinks they did, are these social rules and laws or wouldn't Charlotte have mentioned something about it being illegal and immoral and ten other kinds of wrong to mess with the aether? I mean, we know she's a lying liar who lies, but still.