Previously on Haven, your friendly neighborhood recapper spent most of the episode swearing at whoever left the half an onion under her desk and saying "oh Duke honey" in woebegone tones. I suspect the rest of this season is going to involve a lot of "oh [name] honey," by and large our main three but probably not strictly limited to them. Fairly long actual previouslies this time, too, because the writers have done so much setup in these last two seasons, and SyFy's scheduling is so weird, that they'd like to remind us of all the details they think we're going to need this time out. Well, all the ones that are more thematic and aren't horrifically spoilery, or we would've seen a shot of the barn in these previouslies. But I get ahead of myself.
There's a lot of different threads being tugged in this ep, and a lot of groundwork being laid. In many respects the Trouble of the week case is a backdrop to highlight the character changes, and because we apparently can't have an entire ep of examining Vince and Dave's movements and watching Bowen chase after Bolt Gun. To which I say why the hell not, but I fully admit to being biased and wanting to chew on the Teagues' livers until they cough up all their secrets. We get closer to some of them in this ep than we have before, at least! Which means there was much keyboard smashing in place of grinding our teeth, because my dentist gets mad at me when I do that. Ahem.
Our establishing shot of Haven is nice and normal, except for that not at all horror movie-esque background music. So, not just another day in Haven, even by their standards. As we find out when it seems like we're watching a murder on-camera, only to pull back and find out it's on a police department laptop. Because no, actually, a serial killer is a new one on the town. The Troubled often kill multiple people due to their affliction, as we see this ep, but rarely are they capable of waiting days or weeks between kills, because they don't have that kind of control. We see the flash of the Guard symbol, not in its usual place which is interesting. I think the only other person with an out of place tattoo was Julia Carr from season 1, and hers pulled an appearing-disappearing trick that we also haven't seen repeated. I'll take Things I Would Still Like A Damn Explanation for $1000, Mr. Trebek. Now, the other interesting thing is that Nathan assumes that this guy isn't Troubled just because he's also a serial killer, or at least that's what he's telling Bowen. And that is for DAMN sure a false equivalency. Not least because every single person we've seen with the Guard's tattoo has a Trouble. Again, with Julia the exception and frankly she still could be, absence of proof not being the same as proof - look at how long we believed Duke was unTroubled, after all. Regardless, Nathan believes that the killings don't necessarily have a supernatural component, though they're probably tied to Audrey in some way. So he'll put his newest member of the department on the case, which is smart in a number of ways. It gives them a fresh set of eyes to look at all the various undercurrents and factions who'll be wanting answers off this case, it keeps Bowen off the supernatural cases that he's inexperienced with, and it takes Nathan's confirmation bias of "must protect Audrey" out of the picture.
I'm really curious about Bolt Gun now, by the way. We start out with the sort of killer who creates an elaborate abduction scheme and kills a woman during an outbreak of Troubles in a way that disguises what's going on, at least temporarily. Then he's the sort of killer who hides one body in a pile of others during another Trouble of the week. And now he's grabbing a woman in broad daylight off the street, in front of an ATM, and not only killing her but taking the time to do a thorough job of scalping her? This doesn't seem like the same person, and if it's meant to indicate the killer is devolving, that's happening really fast. Unless, as is possible based on other events in this episode, the killer is slipping mentally back and forth in time between 1983 and 2010, in which case our profile is shot to hell. About all we can add for certain is that Bolt Gun is or was a member of the Guard, and given Nathan and his tattoo even that's in some doubt.
Speaking of slipping back and forth in time, we have what looks on the surface of it to be a totally serious attempt to regress Audrey so she can remember being Lucy, figure out what happened to the Colorado Kid, and maybe figure out why she left last time. Frankly, I think Claire (or maybe her actress) is having a hard time not cracking the hell up. I would be having a hard time not cracking up, with what I know of psychology and therapy; no matter what's going on in Haven regressive hypnotherapy has been so widely discredited that it's obviously difficult for Claire to get past that. Still, she seems willing to do what she can to help Audrey remember, and I still don't wholly trust her motives and I don't know why Audrey does other than that Audrey probably feels like she's running out of options. I will say this for Claire: her utter lack of subtlety is cutting through the usual bullshit like a hot knife through butter, and though I don't think it's exactly helping Audrey right now, letting Audrey dance around her issues wasn't doing anyone any good either. Also noteworthy, it's been three sessions of trying this, and though we didn't see the first two can you all say Rule of Three with me? Uh-huh. So they're not showing the first two because this is the one that makes things start changing, which is good, tight writing. Claire easily moves the conversation from how regression works to more traditional talk therapy questions, where "traditional" has a fairly broad definition given the, ahem, unusual circumstances of our heroine. Audrey clearly, clearly hates what she's been doing to the boys this season, especially last ep. She can't even look at Claire, and Claire's not the one she's wronged. She's avoidant, defensive, and hurting, and she believes that if she leans on her usual support structures she'll get them hurt or killed. And that's not something Audrey wants to live with. Nor does she want to live with what she asked manipulated Duke into doing last ep, and she keeps running the reasons that there was no other way. To herself, to Claire, probably in her head at night when she can't fall asleep and can't go down to the bar for late night drinks and talking with Duke because he is, quite rightly, still upset with her. She does believe, has talked herself into believing over the last few days, that she took the only option available to her, and she definitely believes it still wasn't fair. With the Orionids coming, with her having pushed Nathan away and alienated Duke due to circumstances beyond her control (which she probably feels she should have been able to control because that's her role in life), the only thing Audrey has left is helping the Troubled. Claire reminds her, and I will sit here laughing my ass off at the irony of this statement, that she's only one person. Okay, fine, she only has one body. That we know of. AudSarLu cannot co-locate, how's that for a precise statement. She can't be everywhere helping everyone at once, but she's damn well going to try. Oh Audrey.
Cut to the Trouble of the week, and we know by the setting that one of these people isn't making it out of here alive. It's nicely set up to imply that the teacher is killed by her student's fear, which is just far too easy a solution to a Trouble so it's obviously not that. And now that poor guy is never, ever going to learn to swim. And roll opening credits, so we can get our usual hissing at the Revered Flagg out of the way. (Seriously, I wonder if he's showing up this season, since I don't think I buy the Rev as being based on Flagg. Maybe working for Flagg, but he's not quite sufficiently unnerving. The Rev, for all of his nastiness, was a more human type of nasty. Flagg is always the sort of nasty that makes your skin crawl because while he's in human shape, there's something fundamentally wrong and not-human about him.) Back to the scene of the crime, or, well, the Trouble. At first, watching this small-screened so Kitty and I could flail away at each other, I thought the top half of her body was missing. I am extremely grateful that that was a misapprehension based on the late hour and the small viewing window. Audrey's initial reaction, like ours, is to check that this isn't Frank's trouble. While I think she believes that explanation about as much as we do, it's a good first guess, and something that needs to be ruled out. As with last ep, they're skipping over a lot of the preliminary mundane cop work and leaping straight to the assumption of a Trouble. I'm also intrigued by the fact that we just aren't getting line references to cases that don't relate to the Troubles anymore. Bolt Gun doesn't count, since he's obviously related to the Troubles even if he's not using his Trouble to kill people.
Oh. Hi, Duke, and isn't it just fascinating that you're showing up at an investigation without invitation! Also there's an #EscapetoHaven graffiti in what looks like blood of the vic on the far wall of the pool. Thank you all so VERY much for that. Despite the fact that Duke should be coming over all intimidating and pissy at Audrey after last week, he and Nathan get into it instead. Force of habit, for one thing. Having a hard time reconciling being this upset with Audrey with loving her for another, and not wanting to face the thing he's most scared of for a third. Those things being related but not actually the same, when you get right down to it. Nathan, for his part, must be having a difficult time reconciling the same things, with the added complication that he has to reconcile the Duke he hoped (thought, believed) would never do that with the Duke who just did kill someone. I don't know what Nathan knows or thinks he knows about Duke, but I have the feeling that he's running on pure fear. Fear of losing the two people left to him who matter the most, fear that Duke's Trouble is addictive. I think it's that second one that keeps coming out whenever he's talking about Duke the killer who won't be able to stop, honestly. Much like in Warehouse 13, there's always a downside to the Trouble - really, the Trouble itself is frequently the downside. And aside from the people who want to kill Duke before he can kill them, we don't yet have any indication of the supernatural downside to Duke's Trouble. Psychological, emotional, possibly physical if anyone from the Guard decides to go ahead and kill him? Sure. The kind of thing that leads to a person being locked up in a house with no lights so their shadows can't kill anyone? Not so much. It's a wholly logical fear, that Duke would get addicted to the rush of power and start killing people to experience that rush more and more, it's the kind of thing that happens even to ordinary, unTroubled people, and if that's what's going on in Nathan's head I can cut him a lot more slack about his inability to trust Duke. Because he trusts Duke, when everything goes to shit. But he doesn't trust the Troubles. Nathan even says this pretty much right out, when he ends his argument with Audrey by pointing out that all her justification doesn't mean Duke won't learn to like it.
Duke, meanwhile, is here to prove a point. What point we're not initially sure, though it seems like he's maybe trying to prove to himself that he can be around Audrey in her professional capacity at all. Since I'd lay odds he's been avoiding her the last week, a neat trick given where she lives. Despite all his bluster he is trying to figure things out, crouching by the pool and looking at the blood smears rather than the body. Duke's not particularly squeamish, but right now I wouldn't blame him for not wanting to be around corpses any more than he has to. Audrey spends the scene feeling and acting guilty and we get our first sense of how awkward and off the three of them are. Usually even the banter and sniping has a regular rhythm to it, and that's been thrown off by Audrey's actions. Both her boys are broken; Nathan looks like he's holding it together only because he has his usual stoic taciturn mask to fall back on and Duke's putting on a bad boy attitude front. It's very much their usual fallback when they're around people they don't trust, haven't let in, and it calls back all the way to how they were in the first season. A nice bit both of writing and acting work, here.
I love this next scene. And want to crack open the brothers for all their secrets. Nathan, leave 'em in an interrogation room and let me at them, why don't you, now that you've got the process started? Dave, reading the top report and shoving it back and I'm very curious if that was the latest on Bolt Gun or something else. Depends on how fast Bowen's churning out paperwork, I guess. And oh this crack about "yes, monster in the pool," that's almost a real smile there. Because the Teagues are useful for maintaining the peace even if Nathan doesn't trust them as far as he could throw them, and their explanations in the Herald are weaksauce at best. But the point of those explanations is to remind us that normal people want normal explanations and will buy them even if the facts contradict something mundane. Because that's easier than shaking the status quo. That's not what Vince and Dave are for, though; they've heard about Bolt Gun's activity and would like a status update. Newsflash, guys, Nathan doesn't work for you. That's a very pointed pulling down his sleeve over his own tattoo, far too late to keep the Teagues from noticing it. Instead I think it's designed to draw their attention to what he's trying to hide, which isn't the smoothest of setups but nothing about Nathan and the Guard in this ep is a smooth setup. I just wish I knew more about who was setting up whom, and for what. Frankly, Nathan's beginning to remind me of his dad. The Chief, not Max Hansen. All gruff and standing his ground and determined to build an actual partnership with the brothers - if that's what they want. Certainly they appear to have had some kind of understanding with the Chief, dating way back. Long look exchanged, though it appears that Dave's controlling the flow of information on this one, which is interesting because if you asked me, 90% of the time I'd say Vince is the more dominant brother. Certainly he's the more dangerous, as we see later with his teeth and the blackmail attempt.
Given the musical cues here, I'm pretty sure Vince and Dave are setting Nathan up with Jordan. Either physically (since we've seen that they hook up in the promos) or just because she's the member of the Guard they want him to have first contact with. We don't have enough information yet to say why for sure, though I can throw some speculation out there. Maybe the point is to put Nathan in the same position relative to Jordan that Audrey is relative to him. It's a heady drug, to have only one person in the world who can touch you safely (two, in Jordan's case, I suppose, though for that she'd have to be in the same scene as Audrey) or whom you can feel at all. We will now pause so that everyone can get their Rogue and Wolverine jokes out of their systems. The Guard is clearly an ambiguous group - protecting the Troubled is a good cause, sure, but being inclined to kill to do so? With the Rev gone for at least a month, who besides Duke do they expect to need to kill? Not that I want them to kill Duke, but I can see why without knowing him they would assume it would be necessary in the long term.
Going back to Bolt Gun, I find it interesting that Vince immediately leaps to "so what did he take this time." Since we don't have a known body part missing from Roslyn, and we only have one other body, it seems incredibly premature to be assuming that as a pattern. Unless Vince either already knows the answer or suspects something about the killer that he's not sharing; either is always a possibility with these two. Nathan gives them the bare minimum of information and escorts them out, though really, Nathan, even escorting those two all the way out of the station wouldn't do you a damn bit of good. He probably knows that, but he's feeling territorial and cranky at the Teagues, so he pops up behind them to emphasize his point. Which makes me smirk, because it's about damn time someone unnerved them. Eerie bastards. Dave actually initiates the vague idea of blackmail, though "he won't have a choice" is ambiguous enough that they could've taken it a couple other directions. Blackmail's easiest and fastest, though. And no, no Nathan does not trust you anymore. Not with everyone you know and are clearly keeping from Audrey, not with the likelihood that somehow Nathan's learned where Duke discovered the information about the Hunter. We can at this point guess that the Teagues knew Audrey was on a deadline from the minute she arrived in town, and have kept it to themselves this whole time. That's not going to endear them to anyone, but especially not to Nathan or Duke. Even if Nathan's repressing his feelings for her again.
In direct contrast to her first episode, Claire's a lot more circumspect about Frank as her client. Yes, she treated him, yes, he had severe hydrophobia, yes, she turned him over to a swim instructor once she determined she'd done everything in her power. No, to the best of her knowledge he's not Troubled. All the basic info she needs to fork over in an investigation, particularly one involving a Trouble, and this time there's a reason to do so. It makes me question the confidentiality issues in Stay even more now that she's behaving like a halfway competent professional. Grumble. But that's not the real point of this scene. The real point is to start with the flashbacks! Yay! No, wait, the other thing. Probably. Maybe. Because everything in this damn show is ambiguous like that. Now, it's possible that the necklace being in Claire's possession for a time helped to trigger Audrey's memories of being Lucy, and that that's her Trouble, somehow? But if so I have no idea what kind of Trouble that is. Psychometry of some kind? Much more likely is that we're getting Rule of Three in action and Audrey's sheer stubbornness is breaking through whatever memory blocks are affecting her. But I mention it here for completeness, just in case Claire turns out to be Troubled later, because goddamn near everyone else who's a recurring character is.
(My own personal theory is that in some way Vince and Dave are Haven, but I have no idea how that works or what's going on with them. I'm just convinced they're not vanilla human and we have yet to find out what their deal is, see also keeping ALL THE SECRETS EVER. Maybe they can induce amnesia! Seeing as how the whole damn town appears to have forgotten everything they ever knew about the Colorado Kid.)
I would scream again about Audrey trusting Claire with the information that she's starting to remember, except that a) she does have to come up with some kind of an explanation that doesn't land her in the hospital and b) she's extremely thrown by that, and the easiest explanation is the truth. Just not all of the truth. By the way, is anyone else beginning to find it exceedingly suspicious that Claire's 28, and the Troubles run on a 27 year cycle? Not just me and Kitty, then? Oh good. Fortunately Nathan comes up with cop work before Audrey can discuss it in detail. Unfortunately this leads to a terribly awkward, uncomfortable scene between them. It's the first time we've seen them really alone this ep, which translates to the first time since Audrey shut him out last week, and they have no idea how to work with each other without that closeness. All jagged edges and halting sentences. Basic information about the case, basic protocol until Nathan cracks and asks how things are going with Claire. I assume he doesn't know the details, the regression techniques, just that Audrey's been going regularly to therapy, but he's trying to be the Chief checking on his partner rather than Nathan checking on Audrey, and it's stilted and it shows.
It doesn't get any better when they start talking about the Bolt Gun case, either. Audrey can't hide how much it bothers her not to know what's going on; Nathan can't hide his protective streak. But she's tried to draw a line in the sand on their relationship, and he's trying to respect that, and you guys? It's not working. Especially because Audrey's right, this is a damnfool dangerous thing Nathan's planning to go do. Without backup. Presumably acting as a citizen rather than a cop, because groups like the Guard, they tend not to be over-fond of cops. Though at least he's sharing information with Audrey about where he's going and some of what he's found out, good partner with the info she'll need to check in on him if he disappears. That's not really what Audrey wants to hear; she'd like to find some excuse to go with him, but no, not anymore. And then Emily Rose and Lucas Bryant manage to break my heart in two words and a look, you guys have got to stop doing that. (Don't stop. Just, ow.) I suppose technically seven words, because after "be c-careful" we get "I'm sorry" and "yeah, me too," and that was a bit vicious, Nathan. Lashing out because he's hurt and he doesn't understand why and he really, really hates it. It's okay, Nathan, we don't like it much either.
They head out to the car anyway, because this show would not be the show we know and love were it not for implied long car rides with awkward silences full of things people should be saying and aren't. I note here that Audrey's back to a leather jacket, very crisp lines and almost looking like she's wearing armor. Less comfortable armor than the big fuzzy flannel thing from last week, too. She chews on Nathan about telling Duke about the Guard, and Nathan's "I don't want him anywhere near them" comes off as protective of Duke more than the Guard. Or of his plan to infiltrate the Guard and also Duke, but he can't possibly have that much of an emotional connection to a group he knows nothing about. This is directly contrasted by the confrontation in front of the car and whoa there, Nathan, I know you can't feel but have you heard of personal space? With my pondering Nathan's fears and motives earlier in mind, you'll note that he never actually accuses Duke of being a killer, or of wanting to do more. He just doesn't trust "that it ends there." Since I'm looking for subtext, this almost reads as much like a "please be careful" as a threat/warning to Duke himself. I don't have to look for subtext to know Duke's lying through his teeth with his response, though. No, this doesn't have to do with Nathan trusting him, that much is true and everyone knows it. It also doesn't have anything to do with Audrey trusting Duke, because what she did last ep was not an expression of trust. It was base manipulation, and it broke the trust the three of them had formed. To his credit, Duke's a damn good liar, but he looks down a time or two, and his words come too slowly to be anything other than chosen for maximum jabbing at Nathan's soft bits.
Whatever they were going to end up doing (please ignore the NOW KISS trollface to your left), they're interrupted by yet more of this week's Trouble. No, no he is not okay, and not going to be okay, and all three of them have long since developed the reflex - even Duke - of running towards potential danger. Surely this will in no way come back to bite anyone in the ass. After the ad break, we come back to shitty coverups, snark about the Haven way, and a not at all sinister cut on our next victim's leg. For all that Duke has snark and people could read into it about what's really going on, nobody really wants to, and he's not giving away specifics. Much to nobody's surprise, the vic would like to please stop standing around the streets of Haven while soaking wet, I bet it's chilly even on a nice summer day in Maine. Or Nova Scotia, take your pick. Nathan's going to give Duke grief about it, though, because if he didn't we'd all assume something was even more wrong than it is. And then oh noes! Much to the audience's utter lack of surprise, the guy from the pool is also dead. They really shouldn't leave the guy alone at this point, but they're all off their game and given that it took a few hours between Frank being in the hospital and his death, it's reasonable to hope they have a little time. Plus, Nathan won't leave Duke on his own, and Audrey won't leave them by themselves because they clearly cannot be trusted to act like adults without her presence. Particularly not with that comment about "I'm gonna kill him," was that really necessary, Nathan?
In the meantime, Bowen comes to beard the lions in their den and we all have a sinking feeling about how well that's gonna turn out for him. (I have never been happier to be proved wrong.) Vince and Dave make a ploy at harmless if creepy old men who will roll right over for Tommy's attempts to intimidate them. In retrospect, you know, I'm pretty sure that "that's good, thank you" followed by the smirk was an indication that Bowen knows they're playing him and is off to go do some digging of his own while they figure out what tactic they want to take next. We still don't really have a name on anyone from Boston that Bowen has/had contact with, so the assumption that he's a cop remains exactly that, but dirty cop, conman who's capable of pretending to be a cop, not!cop who's part of Agent Howard's team (I'm wondering about the good shrink, too, at this point) or chameleon who took over his body... whatever the case here, I'd say he's got plenty of practice with coming in and taking the measure of a potential threat while appearing to be full of hot air. The Teagues are so used to being the most powerful people in the room that they don't notice this, which will be a bit of a problem later this ep. In the meantime, I'm going to be finding the tactical nukes for the level of teeth they show after Tommy leaves. Not that I don't think he has something to hide, and not that I trust his motives to speak of, but the brothers are getting more and more Stephen-King-esque (what with the giggling in unison and sinister childlike attributes, plus the fact that there are two of them) and that can't be good news for anyone.
Oh, hey, there's some actual developments in the case now! Frank died by drowning. In the shower. Which makes no sense, even for a hydrophobe. (Though I question why the hell after THAT a hydrophobe would even take a shower.) And a connection between our victims. Daphne! To go along with Duke's comment about the Scooby van earlier, I'd bet, which, really? Did you have to? Nathan has an appointment to keep, though, busy being a reckless idiot at the Gun and Rose (again with the facepalming) so he can't accompany Audrey to Daphne's house. Some very pointed, biting comments about how Duke's probably still pissed, and now Nathan really is being protective of Duke. Not that Duke's fully aware of this, because on the heels of that we get him snarking off about being delighted by grouchy Nathan, but then they're manly men who do not share their feelings. And this is why we have trollfaces. Audrey, despite being shaken, gives Duke a much more manageable assignment than last time (or what seems like one): get hold of the woman and find out where the hell she is. I don't know why they don't also call the station and try to have her cell phone tracked, though admittedly that (should) take awhile even by TV cop standards. They go on up to Daphne's house, Audrey trying to get Duke to explain to her why he's here without ever saying the magic words "I'm sorry." It might help him to hear that sometime when he's not three sheets to the wind, Audrey, I'm just saying. Especially since we know she's capable of those words, unlike apparently all the men in Haven. I could possibly eyeroll harder at that gender binary but I prefer them in their eyesockets. Duke gives her puppy eyes and tilts his head back and forth like he's considering saying something, but whatever it is Audrey interrupts by knocking on the door and the neighbor interrupts further. Followed by a brief interview in which it still isn't clear to Audrey that the missing Daphne is the Troubled person and they need to find her now. Also, crabs. Lots. And lots. Of crabs.
Meanwhile, Nathan has a very strangely Western meeting with Jordan. Seriously, I can't make out what song they're playing under there, but it sounds kind of like Johnny Cash, which doesn't fill me with warm fuzzies about Jordan or the Guard. (Kitty found it! [Kitty also thought it was Johnny Cash to begin] It's here, and now I'm EVEN WARIER of this whole thing.) For a waitress or possibly the diner owner, it's unclear though the brothers indicated she just works there (and we all know how accurate the information they give out is), she's got a great deal of poise that speaks to at least an upper middle class upbringing, or at least so I would tend to say. No, wait, that's what it is, her bearing reminds me of Inara's in Firefly. Contained and graceful and keeping herself to herself, and while certainly part of that is the fact that she can't touch anyone (except Nathan), I suspect some of it speaks to a degree of physical training either on the part of the actress or the character (or both) that you don't often see. Even in Hollywood. Dance or martial arts or both, I would bet. Mental training, too, Jordan's got a good polite poker face. She flirts with Nathan a bit, as she probably flirts with most of her customers because it's never going to go anywhere and that gets her better tips, but her flirting turns to teeth when Nathan reveals his tattoo. Nathan's playing the gormless idiot here, at least I'm pretty sure he's just playing it, but they're both hauling out (some of) their real emotions and real motivations and using those to hide deeper emotions and motivations. It's very, very dangerous tightrope to be walking, the more so because they're very knowledgeable about what's going on, at least at first. Neither one of them trusts the other, Jordan's digging hard at Nathan with the getting it to be cool comment, and they're clamping down hard on their real reactions. It makes this scene hard to read but also full of the kind of tension that you just know is going to end either in a bedroom or with bullets. Nathan, you have no idea what side you're choosing other than Audrey's side, and Jordan knows it. Maybe not the second half of that, but he clearly doesn't know what picking a side means in this context. I'd love to know what line Jordan was going to feed him after that little exasperated sigh over "are you doin something illegal," but oh well, interrupted by the phone. I'd also love to know what it is that makes Jordan change her mind about meeting with Nathan again, assuming she did change her mind and wasn't just pushing to see how far he'd take it. I rather think the latter, considering how little I trust the Guard, but regardless, they set it up and she picks up the cash with this resigned, almost bemused smirk on her face. Somehow I don't think she ever expected that to happen, but now it's here she's going to use the opportunity it gives her.
Now is as good a time as any to mention the additional footage from Stay, if you haven't already seen it. It's a very short additional scene, but it's our chronologically first introduction to Jordan. We know that she and Dwight are friendly if not friends, we know from the rest of Dwight's Youtube series that he's no longer a member of the Guard. So either it wasn't a bad split between Dwight and the Guard, or it's healed, or Jordan's part of a faction within the Guard that can afford to be seen talking to him. Or something else that I'm not thinking of. Skipping ahead in this ep's worth of knowledge a little, either she's used her Trouble on him or he's seen it used, because that's the look of a man who knows damn well what she's capable of and that she's not bluffing when she takes off her glove. He's not terrified of her in a way that would indicate loss of cognitive processing, but he's got a healthy sense of caution. The Guard obviously, and perhaps Jordan particularly, has history with the Crocker family. Maybe even with Duke himself. Hard to say for sure, on this little data, but we know that Dwight's had enough of a change of heart regarding Duke to try and bring it up with someone who has every reason to want Duke dead. And that in and of itself is very interesting, particularly with what happens a week after this scene. Oh everyone.
Nathan gets caught up on the case, the boys snipe at each other, Audrey ignores them, and I try not to mutter "Bob's yer uncle" under my breath and fail miserably. Ahem. I do not for the life of me know why they pause here to go after Reid Harris instead of looking more for Daphne, aside from perhaps they're trying to go after a potential victim of a Trouble before starting the hunt for the Troubled person. I also don't know why they can't just send a unit of uniformed officers to Harris' place, but okay, fine, Audrey's off her game and they're going after Harris. Nathan grumbles more about Duke and Audrey almost snaps at him to lay off, a sure sign of how guilty she still feels. Normally she could get away with that kind of forced teaming, we owe him, but Nathan's not having any of it right now. This whole ep we can just feel how stilted and forced the interactions between the main three are, emphasized by the extent to which Duke and Nathan haven't changed as much as Audrey with either/both of the boys. They're out of sync, and they all know it, and there's nothing they can do but attempt to push through to the other side.
In case we wanted to be unnerved further, the Teagues would like us to hide under the desk from their giggling. STOP THAT SHIT YOU TWO. Before I decide to start watching this entire season with my machete to hand. I think they're making a whole lot of leaps of logic as far as what's in that IA file; though the logic follows based on behavior and the available data there are other explanations. Bowen could be ex-IA, for all we know, or an IA plant in another department, which frankly fits with his digging around in the Teagues' financials while they're digging around in his employment record. And since Vince and Dave of ALL people should know that people in Haven, people arriving suddenly in Haven, none of that is ever what it seems, they should damn well know better than to think this will be as easy as they're making it out to be. Much MUCH more interesting in this scene is the comment about "feels just like old times," for which I have all the questions ever and none of the answers. Most of those questions directly related to Garland Wuornos and Max Hansen, but some of them tie into Simon Crocker and others tie into the Guard and rrrgh insufficient data.
Our awkward threesome pulls up to Reid Harris' house, where they find cracked glass and Duke finds the cracked phone. I find it interesting, since Duke is better read than he pretends to be, that he calls them Sherlock and Holmes, two halves of the same person, rather than Holmes and Watson. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it feels like he's trying to matchmake at them without being obvious about it. Which just makes me go oh Duke some more. And since nobody's figured it out before, now we have Harris confessing to a hit-and-run with another car sometime yesterday, and now the puzzle pieces start to click into place. Audrey is seriously, seriously off her game, as long as it takes her to fit those together. Both because of what's going on overall and because she just had another person die on her, and this exemplifies her sense of helplessness and impending doom in small. She can't save Harris, she doesn't know what she can do, and Duke's not nearly as much of a shoulder as he usually is for her. He moves away from the dead body as soon as she says it out loud, that he's gone, too. Duke deserves all the hugs ever. He does, at least, stick around to be someone she can bounce her theories off of, because he's not capable of abandoning her despite the betrayal and hurt he's going through right now. Nathan's jab at Duke's Trouble is a little softer than usual, particularly since it's nothing but the truth: they do need Duke fully coherent, which as far as they've seen he isn't for a few seconds after getting the rush from someone's blood. Meanwhile, Kitty and I have the sudden realization that we need to do an essay on ka-tets and ka as depicted within Haven, because lord knows they've been pulling on those ideas even without calling them by King-specific names.
As Duke finally spits it out, we get doomy cymbals and a long pan over the cliff. Ugh, that's a nasty place for an accident. I'd be scared shitless too, though I'd like to believe I'd be doing more about it. Then again, I'm the kind of woman who keeps a knife or three hanging around most of the time, and Daphne doesn't appear to be. Plus that water is cold enough to make mincemeat out of your cognitive skills. Plus blood loss. Plus dear god that's disgusting, plus sharks, yeah, and we have no way of knowing how long she was unconscious though it seems likely she was knocked out at least for awhile based on the timing of her Trouble showing up. And then what's that? Surely not! Duke, in following Audrey's instructions, has put himself in position to be in danger. That never happens in Haven. I pause to wipe the sarcasm off my keyboard, and we cut to Duke drowning on dry land. Of course, because he's a main character instead of an NPC he's not allowed to die, though I don't think the guy with the crabs died either, just was very, very uncomfortable and sick of bad jokes. Plus none of the other vics had someone nearby who immediately lent a hand. What parallels where, I think they were knocked out of the way by that giant anvil on my feet.
We have a profoundly unsexy CPR scene, which on the one hand kudos to the actors for not trying to make it Baywatch. On the other hand I want Audrey and Duke makeouts one of these days. Nathan stands over them and worries; again, this is not the Nathan who's been hammering on what a bad guy Duke is when they're in public all season. Audrey fills Nathan in on what's going on, the EMTs come and take the body away, and everyone gets down to business. Duke is understandably twitchy about this Trouble, since it's tried to kill him once already and he'd really like not to send other people into harm's way. (Read: Audrey and Nathan. Read: Nathan has a martyr complex sometimes. Just a teeny one.) But he says so in a way that hits Audrey's buttons about saving people, and she gets short with him. Duke Doesn't Apologize, so instead he joins in trying to figure out where Daphne could possibly be. So, all right then, he gets it first. Good smuggler, knowing all the ins and outs of Haven's shoreline both from the road and the sea. To Nathan's credit he doesn't take a whack at Duke's source of income here, or at least previous source of income, since the Grey Gull's occupying most of his time these days. (Not to the exclusion of smuggling, of course, but this is Duke. I think we'd all drop dead of heart attacks if he were to go totally straight-arrow on us.) It's telling, too, that throughout this ep they show up in two separate cars when all three of them are going somewhere. Audrey and Duke, and Nathan in his truck. Never mind that there are valid logistical reasons for that to work better, the visual symbol of the split in the group is there throughout. And despite all that, when the chips are down Duke says no, we're not putting random emergency services people in the middle of a Trouble they may not understand, we'll do it ourselves. And then they do.
Granted, I'm pretty sure what Duke really means is he'll do it himself, based on what he says later to Audrey, but hey, nobody ever said the martyr complexes were in short supply on this show. Aaand whoops, Audrey's having another flashback. Off the words "If she sees me, I'm - I'm immune," which may or may not be of significance but you can bet that we'll be keeping an eye out for what triggers these. They also let us see what appears to be the Colorado Kid, full facial view of his corpse, anyway. At least that's what we're supposed to think is going on, I'm extremely wary of committing to that interpretation without far more data than we currently have. Though it if is the Kid, he's got a similar build to both Duke and Nathan, and possibly to a younger Vince. AudSarLu has a Type, it seems. At any rate, neither Audrey nor Nathan has time to figure out what the hell caused the flashback, since Duke's going after Daphne all by his lonesome. Audrey has all kinds of words for Nathan's inclination to shoot Duke, which, no, seriously, what the fuck, dude. Not that he looks like he wants to, more like he's scared he'll have to. One of these days I am going to get some answers about what "he's the same Duke he was last week, the same one you grew up with" "exactly" means. I can see it if Nathan's only responding to the first half and ignoring the second, though. Because Duke is malicious and sometimes bad at empathy, but he's never been portrayed as a cold-blooded killer from when he and Nathan were little. (Kitty: Possibly simply that Duke is bad at impulse control.)
We have a definite theme this season of people's paranoia causing their fantasy to become reality. I suspect that's going to become even more of a theme as Audrey begins to remember more and more of her time as Lucy Ripley, and as we get some answers about what the hell really is happening in Haven. Duke tries to get her to stop, though it doesn't do any good, so, well, time to shout up at the other two to stop standing at the edge of the cliff face unless they want to fall in. Immune to the Troubles Audrey may be, but immune to natural disasters caused by them she is not. And then he notices the blood! Though it freaks everyone out it's actually very, very clever. I can't blame Daphne; if a man reached into the water for my blood and his eyes went all funky silver-blue and then he pulled out a knife like that, I'd assume the worst too. Instead lo! It's Super-Duke! Nathan's still terrified, and when Duke comes up with a living Daphne in his arms and silver eyes he looks rather befuddled. Like he had reason to expect something utterly different and now he has to revise all his expectations, only I don't know if he'll do that because Nathan gets really attached to pet theories and has to be pried off them like a bulldog.
And that's mostly a wrap on this week's Troubled person, but we have ten minutes left to do a closing scene or two for Daphne and then... what? Clearly we're going to further a few other plotlines in the time remaining. Kitty and I both went "well, that can't be good" around now. In the hospital, with the Duke and Audrey and the trollface! I love Claire's "I'm gonna recheck her vitals" right here. Not even pretending it's something other than what it is, but not making a big deal of it either. C'mon, Duke, say it. Nathan can think whatever he wants (and you do care, you lying liar), but Audrey's good opinion matters to you. In so many ways Duke is the most grown up of all of them, certainly by this point. Capable of saying all the important things he's not, but he can admit to being hurt by Audrey's behavior while acknowledging his own culpability in killing a man. Can admit that proving to her that his Trouble doesn't define him matters, though not that it matters that he prove it to himself. (Maybe that's just implicit.) Audrey, by contrast, doesn't take it any further than that, doesn't really reciprocate because she's so scared of disappearing that she won't reach out to the people who care about her. And then Duke comes out with a bald-faced lie to Claire because no, in fact, she's not on his trusted list. Exactly the opposite of what he just said to Audrey, in fact, that he wanted to prove himself to her. Yeah, no, Claire's not buying that, and I think her response is because she's a bit offended that Duke came out with such an utter lie instead of something more hostile to her and less insulting her intelligence. We already know her brains matter to her above and beyond almost anything else, so that seems likeliest.
Back to the Gun & Rose while I wonder where Axl is (no, sorry, not going to stop making bad jokes about that anytime soon), where with the diner empty we have a somewhat better look at its decor. Very, very 1950s, down to the pinups on the wall by the coffee machine. Not to mention the greens and yellows and rusty reds, and the shiny stainless steel, and, yes. Jordan's clothes, too, evoke something of a 1950s retro look. (Which makes me wonder why the name of an 80s band, but sure, okay, we'll go with it.) Overall the diner seems intended to evoke a number of eras and genres that aren't the usual fare in Haven: cowboy/western with the musical choices, 1950s with the decor, 1980s with the name. Though you notice anything about those two decades? Yeah, they'd be the last two times the Troubles were active in Haven.
Moving along to the scene itself, there's so much going on here that it's difficult to unpack. We'll take it from Nathan sounding her out about Duke, which man, that was a setup right there. Just to make sure of what he already suspects, but her reaction is so immediate and so disgusted that it's a solid confirmation. Assuming I'm right, that Nathan's doing this to find out who the Guard is and what the hell they're doing in his town, he's actually doing a really good job of getting bits and pieces of information out of her. I just don't think he's got good enough control over his emotions these days to be playing spy games without risking more than he should. And I dislike where that's likely to lead. Particularly since he's having to give information to get information without really knowing what he's giving away, and I have a sinking feeling it might be the homeworld. That tidbit about Max gets Jordan to react in an almost gloating fashion, under the surprise and interest. I think she's lying about something with the not running into Max, but judging by her age I would tend to agree that it's before her time, so it's not that she knew him personally, in all probability. No, I think she grew up on stories of him instead; that reaction also strikes me as someone who's heard a great deal about a person but doesn't have lived experience to back it up. Like he was the boogeyman in the closet or the great and shining leader, and I'm voting for the latter as far as the Guard's concerned. And, hey, confirmation that Bolt Gun's Troubled! I approve of that, thank you, Jordan. I bet Nathan does too. Or will when he thinks of it. Jordan is definitely using her vulnerability to reel Nathan in here, but it's also an actual vulnerability, which is what makes it so powerful. She misses being able to touch people (and if she knows what Max's Trouble was then she's definitely doing this on purpose and that's a damn impressive spur of the moment game to run) and she believes there's no way to control her Trouble. I wonder if that, too, is part of the mythology of the Guard, that there's no way to control the Troubles and they have to rely on each other as counterbalancing agents. No AudSarLu for them. Even if Jordan knows Nathan's Trouble by extension of knowing Max's and putting those pieces together, her reaction to Nathan's touching her seems largely unfeigned. Again, if it really has been years since she touched anyone skin to skin? That's a lot of conditioning to break, and makes her genuine responses all the more dangerous. Nathan, I really hope you know what you're doing. More than I fear you do. That's a really bad blank check you're writing her by offering to prove your trustworthiness however she wants you to, bonus bad idea bear points for lying about Audrey knowing anything about this.
We don't get to know what it is Jordan or her people will ask him to do just yet, though, because Bowen and the Teagues have to have a game of who has the most teeth in the room. As uncomfortable as this scene is I still adore it. Tommy's not the kind of person to cave under intimidation; it's implied though never outright stated that he's got quite a lot of experience in being the person doing the intimidating. Also we just don't have enough data on the shooting he was involved in back in Boston to say for sure what went down, but it seems like a safe bet that someone died who shouldn't have. Probably because Tommy was too reckless and went off-book, which we know he already tends to do. Regardless, he doesn't look the slightest bit concerned by their tactics, or threatened by the way Vince is looming. I can't decide if that's praiseworthy or foolhardy; it depends on how much of that is not showing weakness and how much is him really believing he has the upper hand. Because I wouldn't want to show weakness around Vince, assuming I had to be in the same room as him. And now I need the jar back from Kitty after her Grimm analysis as far as the Teagues' financial interests in Haven go. I mean really. Though I'm glad someone has the proof to hold it over them now. I'd love to know which half, or at least, what industries they're most focused on, too. I bet that would tell us some fascinating things about their interests. They give me fodder for my theory that the brothers are the town, in some bizarre Stephen King sort of way, with the comment that the Teagues go all the way back to the founding. Yeah, I'm not buying that explanation for the money either, Tommy, somehow I don't think anyone would who knows Vince and Dave if they tried giving that explanation. Unfortunately, since they both have dirt on each other, we don't really get much more of an explanation of anyone's shady past or present, just an agreement to stay out of each other's business followed by some more threatening noises out of the Teagues. Which are kind of ruined by the rapidity with which they dive for the door Vince so unpleasantly closed when they came in, good going, guys. Though seriously, the acting in this scene just gives me all of the squee ever, more so for having watched the livestream of the NYCC panel this morning which included a documentary with clips from Richard Donat and John Dunsworth being, you know, themselves. Maybe I won't hide behind the nearest piece of furniture if I run into one of them on the street someday.
But wait, there's more! Bolt Gun has a cooler and a stereotypical serial killer cellar. I can't possibly imagine why. Also stereotypical serial killer background music. I will have you know that I watched this in the dead of night with all the hair on the back of my neck standing up and I needed half an hour to come down from being so creeped out I couldn't sleep afterwards. Considering I'm used to this show, that's saying something. Creating an Audrey doll to... do something with, I'm trying not to think about it too hard, is something else again, though. We never saw a picture of the first victim, so I can't say for sure that she had Audrey's nose, but go on, bet against me on that. Do. With the blond hair that's just about the right length to be Audrey's hair right now. And the brushing it out, and I think it's just the blood and the dim lighting making it look like the hair's going to brown, but I would also not put it past the directors to have done that somewhat ambiguous hair color on purpose with all the shots of brunette Lucy this episode. God that's disgusting, and you'll note we don't even get a front view of the mannequin's head to confirm that there's a nose on it. Bets that that's because there's more than just a nose there? No takers? Yeah. I'll be over here with my machetes. Also, that's going to get really gross really fast unless Bolt Gun has a really good freezer or the ability to keep things from rotting, either mortician training or Trouble-related.
And we're still not done and that's a pan over the Gull, so it must be time for a dream sequence! Excellent. Those never end poorly. First we get Audrey, looking like Audrey rather than Lucy - first time that's happened in one of these flashbacks and oh look, that's the third flashback this ep - walking on the beach, up to the body. It does look like a body at this point, although there's no clear indication of how he died; his neck's at an awkward angle but not one that would to me indicate that it's broken. (Kitty adds that with the Troubles there are all KINDS of fun ways to die that don't involve external trauma. A was trying very hard not to think about the annoying nature of that fact, because she doesn't need to chew her desk anymore than she already has.) And then a nice closeup of his face, so that'll matter soon. And last but by no means least, do we remember the vanishing memory-removing barn? It's baaaaaack. About time, too, I was wondering when they were going to start playing that up again, with the apparent importance it has to memories as a focal point. As always, Audrey "wakes up" before she can see into the opening door and we have a sense that if she had seen what was inside it would've been Very Bad. Which is more or less what dream-Agent-Howard tells her, and there's another person I'd love to crack open for all his juicy secrets. Including how the hell he or AudSarLu or someone managed to implant that tripwire in her subconscious. This time she wakes up for real and we get a great shot of Audrey sitting up shocked in bed with the piano and sheet music in the foreground, a really brilliant juxtaposition of Audrey with something that's from one of her past lives.
Let's take a whack at the episode title, by the way, now that we're through the whole thing. "Over y head" has so much symbolism and so many layers to it it's not even funny.. Starting with the blatantly obvious, water coming over Daphne's head and drowning her, to the way Duke nearly drowned and his father did drown. (Let's not even TOUCH on the parallels between Duke and the Colorado Kid, only emphasized in these last few eps, since we know how the latter died and how the former's supposed to. And they're the same.) Moving onto the more metaphorical, everyone's in over their head this ep. Nathan has no idea what he's getting into with the Guard, Duke has no idea what continual use of his Trouble might do to him even if he's not killing people with it, and Audrey has no idea what she's doing without her boys for backup. The Teagues didn't know what they were getting into when they tried to blackmail Bowen, but by the same token I don't think Bowen knows what he's done by making a probable enemy out of them and by showing his aptitude this early. Different but related metaphor! People going over other people's heads and making executive decisions that affect them without consulting others, and we can pick on the same six people there again for the same reasons. And finally, doublespeak and layers flying over people's heads, a less pronounced theme in this episode but still and always a theme with Haven.
Next week on Haven: Duke's a damsel! Poor Duke, always in distress. Swords! Someone thinks she's got the power to declare herself the person who metes out justice for real or imagined wrongs. Given the ep title, Double Jeopardy, I would guess these are people who weren't convicted in court but should have been, for certain values of should. This should be Chinese curse values of interesting!
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