And then we have cheerleaders! Their color draws our focus for the first second or two of the scene, which is both a nice way of indicating in retrospect that objectification of women (not that objectification of women is all of what cheerleaders are about at all, but in this context that is the role they play) is a significant thing in this segment and also a way of establishing cheerleader uniforms for Claire in the upcoming episode. And now the objectification of cheerleaders part comes out more strongly as the cheerleaders lose the focus of the camera, which moves instead to a man smiling at them holding a brown paper bag. There's about half a second where he could be someone who has a non-skeevy reason to smile, a parent, a coach, an alum, but no. Instead of going up to someone and talking about the event for which the cheerleaders are there he focuses again (and the camera focuses with him) on another woman in a short skirt, an older woman this time. In white, just to emphasize her purity and innocence and to contrast with what's about to happen to her. He smiles, goes up and we again get about half a second where it could be that he's going up to talk to her about something, but, no. He stands behind her, we get a series of shots of the ground around calf level and him smirking with a tiny flash of anticipation, back to the ground and the bag, back to face level, he nudges the bag closer and we see it has a cereal box with a hole in the top of it. And just in case we didn't understand what he was doing before, we get a slightly damp exhale. Ew.
And yes, that cereal box is for Dandel-Os, and no, I'm not dignifying the reference with a further response. Except possibly to ponder why we've been getting the gratuitous Dark Tower references fast and thick lately.
Over to the guy's apartment! He has a chain and a deadbolt on his door, so he knows good and damn well that everything he's doing in this apartment is sketchy at best and illegal at most likely. The guy's apartment is a little cluttered but not messy, and he definitely has the radius going on of someone who spends a considerable amount of time at their computer. Those of you who also spend a considerable amount of time at your computer will know what I mean, but for those who don't, the slightly more explicated version is that as you spend time around your computer, the radius of things you pick up and set to one side so you can keep working on whatever it is you're working grows. Such as my radius right now consists of hardware store receipts, two knitting projects, camera, lock with the key in, scissors, pens, nitrile gloves, lotion (okay, that always stays on my desk), another key I have no idea what that's to, loose change, my Arabic alphabet book and notebook, a couple of flash drives, camera case, two sets of headphones one with a mic and one without, hair ties, other assorted nonjunk mail, an audio cable splitter, an empty calligraphy pen ink cartridge, calligraphy pen, pen nibs, a bottle of nail polish, two bottles of BPAL, a spindle of CDs, CD envelopes, and two pair of earrings. And by this you can tell that I wear minimal makeup and scent, am working on some kind of home improvement project, and have been taking a lot of pictures lately. This guy's radius has several magazines, a bowl, a CD case or three, an ice cream sundae that looks half melted and, really, he just stuck the spoon in it when he'd been out for who knows how long? Ew. Some sort of portable drive with a USB cable sticking out of it, which he then plugs into whatever device he's kitbashed into the cereal box. A couple of pairs of headphones, what looks from this blurry perspective to be a circuit board, and some other gray box. The conclusion I draw from this is that this person works with computer hardware and is not terribly fastidious about doing so. Unfortunately that's all the shot we get of his radius as he pulls the drive out of the cereal box, plugs it in, and settles in with a grin for what he presumably thinks will be a happy afternoon of non-consensual porn picture viewing. And again I say ew.
Apart from 'email', 'video files', and 'media' I can't make out much of what's on his desktop. The files on the right all appear to be labeled with serial numbers of some sort, or at least I would assume they're serial. Being a paranoid pervert, he does turn around at the flicker of movement on the screen reflected from behind him. No one's there, of course, but then he turns around again and we zoom in to the sundae, which is now lacking the spoon he just dropped in. Then he's jerked backwards, we hear the standard Foley sound of something being shoved into flesh very hard, screaming, and the bloody spoon lands back in the sundae with improbably good aim and the same Foley sound of something being shoved into flesh very hard. Yum!
Cut to the exterior shot of the courthouse, which is about the right size for a town that small, and then to the interior. A judge wants to know, Mr. Crocker, does he or does he not own the vehicle in question? Oh Duke. This is now his cue to hold forth about ownership and try to weasel out of whatever minor legal entanglement he's gotten himself into this time. And I have to say, because this will be relevant later, as far as slams against the stenographer go, that's not really a hard one. Or even a bad one. Of course, following the initial highly irrelevant snow job comes a much more relevant weaseling job whereby Duke points out the flaws inherent in the system. He can't get ticketed for parking on private property, and he wasn't cited for trespassing. Duke uses Legal Technicality! It's Very Effective! Of course, the judge agrees to dismiss the parking violations way too quickly, followed by pointing out that Duke needs to re-up his liquor license. Judge Uses Licensing Violation! It's Super Effective! Duke's pained not-smile indicates that he'd either forgotten or hoped everyone else would. I wonder, though, why Duke let his liquor license be in danger of lapsing for the Grey Gull, because up to this point we've only seen that he tries to keep the Grey Gull as his legal enterprise. We can assume that he supplements the food and drink stock with his smuggling activities, but we've never seen it explicitly detailed. And a liquor license and the subsequent closing of his place would put a serious dent in his ability to move freely and/or live comfortably off the proceeds from the Grey Gull. Ignoring the real world profit margins of restaurants and so on, of course.
So, Duke's having a bad day that's about to get worse when he comes out of the courthouse and sees his car/truck/jeep thing has a flat. We'll call it a jeep, though it appears to be the British version of a Hummer. He likes the look of the blonde lady leaning up against his jeep, not so much the look of the flat tire. And when he asks her if she saw who did it, she just holds up the knife. The flat look of "and then confiscated his knife?" says that he knows damn well she didn't, but also that he's not surprised in the least that a woman might want to knife his tires. Which in turn says something about his relationships with women he doesn't recognize or can't remember. Oh DUKE. Though it's also possible he's assuming she's a friend or relative of someone he would remember as having pissed off lately. She proceeds to key his car with the blade of the knife and as he goes over to a conveniently passing Tommy, telling him he needs him to be a cop for five minutes. Oh Duke. Maybe I should make a drinking game out of this. Take a shot every time I say 'oh Duke.' He tries to get Bowen's attention, only of course by the time he turns back to the jeep she's vanished. As you do in Haven. Bowen disbelieves the illusion story Duke's telling about a tall mental kinda hot chick who slashed his tire and keyed his car and laughs him off as he walks away. I can't say as this is doing much for either Duke's estimation of the police who aren't Audrey or Nathan, or our impression of Bowen, but on the other hand Duke doesn't have anything in the way of physical evidence to point him at a person right now. The laughing him off was just an extra special jerkass bonus.
Cut over to the Grey Gull and Audrey and Claire, whom Audrey has no real reason to trust with as much information as she's giving her. I realize this is largely due to the constraints of time in the season and time in the episode, but it irritates me to no end that we're supposed to take it as given that Audrey will feel comfortable just blathering out family issues. Two arguments that we've made before but I'll repeat in summary here are that she's used to using her past as a means to an end, though that end is usually connecting with people she's trying to negotiate through or apprehend, and that she's feeling constrained by her upcoming deadline for disappearance. With similar alacrity and concision Claire sums up Audrey's dream: the Colorado Kid, the barn, and Howard being creepy and telling her to stop remembering. Just for the people who missed it last episode. Audrey says she hasn't had a new memory since, which is both a bit premature and a bit justifiable. On the one hand, how long was it until that last episode before she had any memories that were actually hers at all? And on the other hand, when they did come they came not in single spies, and hard and fast. So if she hasn't had a new memory since there might be some reason to think that Howard, either by Trouble or solely manifested in her subconscious, has blocked them. She also worries that the memories she has regained will start to fade, for which I can only offer the simple solution of write it the fuck down, Audrey. Come on, here. Claire continues her role as sum up everything as neatly as possible girl by saying that Audrey's freaked out and it's blocking her, which is a strong possibility. See above with the subconscious. I'm not sure relaxing and letting it come back is the way to go, but by summarizing what could be an hour or so of dialogue with a therapist in a more real-time setting that works its way around to making that point, we neatly sidestep that same hour of dialogue. And while Audrey is befuddled and used to drawing lines between her role as a cop and her history as AudSarLu, Claire is not. The suggestion of a facial composite from Audrey's memory of the Colorado Kid is a damn good one, sadly interrupted by cop business. Audrey can't quite admit she's getting help from a shrink yet, so Claire says 'session' and 'appointment' for her, leaning in a bit to touch the outsides of Audrey's personal space and gently force the issue that yes, Audrey, you're seeing a therapist, and it's helping. And we get a brief but entertaining moment of the girls bonding with Claire's comment about one patient calling them dates until she had to drop him, and Audrey's sympathetic/knowing "Yeah, that was a good call." I do like Claire. I don't trust her farther than I can throw the Grey Gull, but I like her. She's growing on me. Like black mold.
Establishing shot of Haven to wedge the scenes apart in theme, at least, and Audrey comes into the pervert's apartment! The door is off its hinges and broken down, which is explained in a second as being the first responders and not the creepy woman in white. Now that we get a broader view of his apartment I have to say not a lot of those pictures on the wall are overtly creepy, and some are actually quite good. Which doesn't mean he's not a perverted bastard, though. The blinds are up, and the curtains, and there's even a sheet over one window which is a nice bit of psychology there, someone who constantly invades other people's privacy having the protection of his own privacy always on his mind. The pervert now has a name, Jason Dooley, and the neighbor apparently called it in when they heard the screaming and there we have the fire department breaking the door down. Audrey brings up the fact that the attacker took his eyes out with a spoon by holding up the bloody spoon in the evidence bag, I'm assuming she picked that up off the floor because she just got there. Nathan gives her the more surrounding details of the case, mostly the actions taken by the first responders and CSI. Audrey, with the Bolt Gun unsub and the Colorado Kid thing still on her mind, immediately leaps to the assumption that it's Bolt Gun with more vigor than I'd expect if she were thinking clearly. On the one hand, yes, missing body parts indicates some sort of connection. And on the other hand, spooning a pervert's eyes out who specializes in non-consensual photographic pornography (possibly more than that, but let's not go there) is also reflective of the punishment tailored to the crime. Nathan does point out that a lot of people probably want to hurt this guy, and there's a brief conversation that will come in handy later about how the guy bounced in and out of the system because he knew how to play the courts. Tellingly, Nathan has to actually come out and say that if it's the Bolt Gun killer they'll get him, and "I know how important this is to you." If the rapport they had in the first couple of seasons and even into the first couple episodes of this season was still intact he wouldn't need to say that, but right now they're estranged enough that it no longer goes without saying. Laverne comes over the radio telling them that Dooley's alive and stable, and Audrey seizes on this as thinking they might have a witness who saw Bolt Gun. On this dramatic pronouncement, cue credits!
Audrey's asking the questions of the victim, which is a bad idea because she's using gendered pronouns and asking about specific weapons. Objection, leading the witness. But since it isn't Bolt Gun, he can't help her. Nathan's questions are a little better, asking if the victim has any idea how his attacker made it in, avoiding gender pre-determination and putting any images into the victim's head. Witness testimony is bad enough without contaminating it with your own pre-determinations, Audrey, you know this. They're interrupted by the nurses needing to prepare the victim for surgery, and Nathan points out on the heels of that, that Bolt Gun removes his victims' body parts surgically and this was done with more aggression than attention to detail. Go Nathan! His "he's not going to come after you again" sounds more tired than anything, though it's well timed for right after Audrey rubs the back of her neck/head. Heh. A and I both end up watching this late at night, usually on our own, with headphones, and I have to say I have my back to the wall and I still get prickling base of the skull feelings. So, we sympathize, Audrey. And Nathan's comment brings out a floodgate of how she wishes Bolt Gun would come after her again, she's frustrated, she's running out of time to figure out what's happening to her and how this works. Her rapid fire delivery and body language scream upset and panicky, as panicky as Audrey gets without an immediate threat to hand anyway, but Nathan's response is listless and distant. As A points out, he calls her Parker rather than Audrey, and he doesn't close in on her space. He tells her that Bolt Gun is a member of the Guard, which I find a hasty assumption on his part given that anyone can get a tattoo with the right design, and that design isn't exactly secret. And that he's getting in with the Guard, and he has a contact and he'll do whatever it takes. The words are meant to be reassuring, but there's not much effort put into reassuring body language or tone of voice. He looks away as he says Jordan's starting to trust him, crosses his arms when he says he'll do whatever it takes. Deceptive body language in the former, and self-protecting in the latter, he isn't talking about what he has to do to gain Jordan's trust or the fact that neither he nor Jordan really trust the other, nor how much the trust between him and Audrey has been hurt. And as far as doing whatever it takes, he will, because he still loves her, but it hurts him that he needs to. To do whatever it takes, to save Audrey. "You know that, right?" Is a tacit plea for Audrey to let him in because right now he still feels shut out. And particularly with Audrey taking care of Duke, he feels excluded in favor of Duke Crocker, who he knows as a scoundrel at best. The rivalry there is complex, it isn't quite as unilaterally Duke-is-evil as he sometimes tries to get people to think he believes, but Audrey's perceived favoritism of Duke over Nathan is not helping anything. Audrey takes a couple of seconds to say "I know," which doesn't help anything either, especially since she sounds as tired and unconvinced as Nathan does.
Interrupted by the phone and the case of the week, which is a partial image of the suspect. Delicate arm, probably a woman's, and a white dress. We recognize it, of course, as the woman who assaulted Duke's car earlier. And Audrey rubs the back of her head again as she admits that it's not the Bolt Gun killer.
Cut over to Duke's place! This whole scene rather telling of his sense of law, order, and morality, starting with the fact that he's voluntarily closing, kicking everyone out, and losing a fair amount of custom rather than get dinged for operating without a liquor license. Possibly that's a sense of expediency and not running up against the law more than he has to with regards to his legitimate business, but the stopping the drunk guy from driving home and taking his keys is going above and beyond the requirements of the owner and manager of an establishment such as the Grey Gull. Duke doesn't feel right about letting drunk people drive home, which we've never seen be an issue before, but then again we've never seen the Grey Gull around closing time before. It's also a good placement of a little in-character something Duke does to establish his good guy credentials, good timing, good pacing all around.
Of course this is immediately followed by Duke catching sight of the woman in white (and yes, that's a Thing, the vengeful ghost figure in white, 99% of the time a woman) at a distance from his place. He snarks off at her about his jeep, shakes his head, closes the door only to find her directly on the other side of it when he turns around. While it's theoretically possible she could cross that distance in that time, she'd have to be Usain Bolt to do so. And then of course there's the part where he turns around and she's right there, which is physically impossible. Unless you're a Trouble! He pulls out one of his ubiquitous guns and, really, for a guy who dislikes the idea of killing people so much he has an awful lot of guns around. We only ever see him pulling them out in extreme circumstances, though. Such as right before he gets flung across the room by a creepy silent woman in white. He tries to explain to her about the Troubles, but it doesn't much work, and yes, Duke, she's Troubled. She grabs a boat hook? off the wall and proceeds to shatter every glass object within easy reach in the room but again, doesn't offer Duke violence to his person. Which is interesting, and sort of telling what she's after; she scoops the eyes out of a pervert who ogled women and took pictures without their consent or even awareness, but since Duke's crimes aren't against people so much as against the behavior limitations set by the law and popular morality, she takes her vengeance out on his stuff rather than Duke himself. He's just on the opposite side of the wall, and she could easily go after him with that gun, the boat hook, anything like that. But she doesn't.
Which gives Duke time to get on the phone and call the police, like you do when a crazy person is tearing up your bar. Drunk guy comes back in in mid phone call protesting that Duke owes him a drink, only to be slammed face first against the wall by Duke attempting to get him out of the line of fire/keep him from drawing the woman in white's attention. Still drunk, the guy of course protests that that's assault and Duke made him bleed and so on, conveniently ignoring or not registering the sounds of violence coming from the next room. Duke attempts to get him to be quiet. Which sort of works. Sadly, Duke's attempt to protect his drunk patron only get him thrown in jail overnight for assault, as we see in the next scene. Duke's good deeds have a history of doing this, we note, as any time he helps someone out onscreen he seems to have a fifty-fifty chance of it coming back to bite him in the ass whether in a small way or a big one. Though lately or at least in this season, it seems to lean more heavily on the side of biting him in the ass. Bowen is disinclined to coddle Duke for his complaining about being in jail overnight, but he also doesn't rub in Duke's checkered past the way Nathan might have, which is points to Bowen. Instead he points out, fairly gently for Bowen, that it's procedure since Duke was accused of assault, that there's paperwork to fill out, and here's his stuff and his court date is tomorrow. No accusatory or even hostile gestures or words, just taking the clipboard and trading it for the evidence file of Duke's things. He even kind of alibi's Duke to Audrey and Nathan as they walk in, or maybe warns them that Duke's cranky because he's been at the cop shop all night. And then walks out, chuckling. Not so necessary, Bowen, thanks.
Audrey comes to the immediate assumption that Duke had a fight at the Gull, though I would note that given her surprise and lack of accusation she probably means a more generic, there was a fight taking place at the Gull, rather than something Duke started. We have seen him defend a kid at the Gull, try to keep peace between the cops and a local small arms dealer, and a couple other things that could qualify as being in the middle of a fight he didn't start, so this isn't even that far-fetched. Duke, feeling persecuted and again having been in jail all night, vehemently corrects her to he was attacked at the Gull. Nathan's posture, by contrast, is immediately defensive when he sees Duke there. He doesn't step forward or take any action, but he does tense up quite a bit. Audrey takes a few steps forward with the question and her concerned look, cueing Duke to launch into a summary of his life in the last 24 hours. Again telling us something of how he relates to women, he describes the vandalizing of his truck as "she expressed her anger" and states how "usually that's all they want" and while he was angry about it yesterday, today he attaches no blame or stigma to that. And I kind of love him a little bit more for that. Acknowledged, sometimes he's not the nicest of guys, women would have cause to be angry with him, and he owns that rather than calling her any of half a dozen names that we usually hear from guys who have had their tires slashed and their rides keyed. And following that he describes her actions in terms of her being Troubled and angry, teleporting herself inside the Grey Gull and throwing him across the room. It's less her moods that worry him, it's the fact that her Trouble could escalate it to dangerous, deadly levels. As with so many other Troubled folk in Haven. Duke has a Troubled stalker! Oh Duke, if only it were that simple.
Nathan undercuts (or attempts to) Duke's increasing upset by asking if she was wearing a white dress, which Duke recognizes as accurate and now he suspects he's being targeted by a Troubled person they already know about. Audrey helpfully (not) provides that the woman in white spooned another man's eyeballs out, also not calming Duke down in the slightest. And while Duke takes a second to figure out what he wants to say to that Nathan gets word of another possible victim and it's time to roll out. Audrey decides Duke's coming with them on the basis that he's already been attacked twice, which clearly gives Nathan some pause and exasperation. On the one hand, if they were all as close to each other as they have been prior to this, Nathan would probably be right behind her. But since Nathan feels she's pushing him away and pulling Duke closer, this rubs even more sand in an already festering wound. And yet I get the feeling, and given his actions in The Farmer, if something were to happen to Duke because he wasn't around, Nathan would grieve, and hard. The fact that Duke doesn't want to tag along this time is at least some mild comfort.
The second victim (or third if we count Duke) suffered 22 fractures in one arm, which practically speaking means the bones of that arm are near pulped unless they're counting each of several branching spiral fractures as a separate one, I'm not sure how that works. It doesn't sound like a spiral/twist fracture, though, the medical person describes it as an impact wound. So we're back to near pulped. The only problem with that is that the victim was in a locked room on the ground floor, awaiting evaluation for a CPS custody proceeding, as it turns out. And, oh look, she was accused of physical abuse of an infant. Duke fills in the blanks with his exasperated description of his own infractions followed by the woman in white's attacks. Again, we see the contrast between serious abuse and Duke's parking violations and questionable liquor license, but again, the contrast between getting his tire slashed and bar smashed up and people being physically and permanently injured. Which Audrey doesn't touch on so much as the aspect of the punishment fitting the crime. Naturally, this has Duke upset, considering he recently did kill a man. He directs this comment both with body posture and gaze at Audrey, too, who he at least partly blames for putting him in that situation. Not entirely, as we've seen repeatedly. But if he's getting into trouble for this he's making sure she knows he didn't want to do it, and Audrey feels guilty for it, too. Guilty enough to immediately step up and assure Duke that they'll protect him day and night. This needles Nathan enough to speak up and offer the hospitality of the Haven jails, which is half ironic and bitchy but also probably half true. Jail cells being monitored, it wouldn't be that bad of a place to hide out, as Duke agrees. It's not what Audrey has in mind, though, and she suggests or, rather, says that Duke will stay with her that night since she's immune to the Troubles. If she were thinking more clearly, again, she might choose instead to double up both the secure location of a jail and her immunity, but she's not. Her body posture is defensive, arms folded across her chest, shoulders hunched in. Nathan looks to one side and away from both of them when she says that; this doesn't sit well with him, still. Again. For reasons previously mentioned. And when Duke gets upset and rattled he gets even snarkier, which leads us directly to him visibly pondering a number of possibilities, some of them almost certainly lascivious because the next thing he says is "... I sleep in the raw." Which is probably also adequate warning, but definitely a tension breaker, given that he shakes his head and smiles after. Duke also, I have no doubt, would have zero problems with throwing on some old sweats or something for the comfort of everyone else involved. Normal Audrey would fire back at him, rattled Audrey just walks straight past him and out of the hallway. Nathan, now pushed to the point of showing teeth, finally looks at Duke as he walks up and points out that Audrey's using him as bait. Just in case Duke got the impression that Audrey cared about him. Oh Nathan.
Establishing shot of the Grey Gull to keep the scenes apart a bit, and we switch to Audrey gathering evening things like blankets and toothbrushes. She's also doing the rapid fire talking thing again, which is partially nerves and partially it sounds like she's going over the evening plans both for the audience's sake (Doylist) and to keep it clear in her and Duke's heads (Watsonian). She's got a gun and Duke's got... a fuckload of knives. Technically a leather apron of knives, but that's a fuckload, I know because I own a fuckload of knives. Just off the top of my head it looks like a meat cleaver, a leaf-shaped knife I don't know the name of offhand, a steak knife, another carving knife, something I can't see all of that might be a paring knife, something with a couple nicks in it, a dagger, and a fat-bladed throwing knife. I think I even have those last two. He thinks that he can take her if he's supercharged with her blood, and Audrey almost rolls her eyes as she points out this requires Duke to get close enough. Considering he did get thrown across the room the last time. She offers him the stack of blankets, and he thanks her and questions her going to sleep this early. She just smiles and tells him good night which is a polite way of saying no, I will not be baited by you any longer. It's all very cute for being as tense and upset as they both are, her for longer. But she disappears into the bathroom and Duke goes to settle down with a sigh and a stack of blankets. I suspect Duke was trying to keep cheering her up, albeit in a less direct way than he has in the past.
And over to the Gun and Rose, which still makes me eyeroll and laugh in most of the good ways. It's late, it's almost empty, the only patron visible is a guy who's probably caffeinating himself post booze-bender and trying to stuff his money for the coffee Jordan's pouring him down her shirt. Classy, dude. She grabs him by the wrist and points out that even if he might not bite, she does, at which point Nathan intervenes with his quiet gunslinger act (yes, I went there, too) and his badge. The patron leaves with a pout and a huff, and Jordan makes what looks like an angry sashay over to the bar to set the coffee pot down. Seriously, the hip-pop looks less like an on-purpose display of sensuality and more like a side effect of stomping in those shoes. Jordan dispenses any pretense of small talk with a comment, Nathan asks if she got his messages, and Jordan sighs through her nose and with her jaw clenched. So that's a yes, then. Nathan points out that she could have defended herself just by letting him grab her, I'm not sure that's an honest question but I'm also not sure it's actually prying into her relationship with her powers, I'm not sure he's capable of that right now. Jordan snaps back that she doesn't actually like inflicting pain, crisp words, sharp. People say that touching her is the worst thing they've ever felt, and she says that without looking at him, which indicates to me that her description of her relationship with her Trouble is accurate. Nathan tries to draw an equivalency between their Troubles, which she defines as them both being screwed up. It's true, his Trouble is more passive and receptive than hers. Though I also still wouldn't put it past her to use that as a way to get to Nathan, or someone else to use her. Like Vince, perhaps? I could just be being paranoid based on the level of scheming and plotting in our other show, but if it walks and talks like a duck....
Jordan changes the subject, cutting off the possibility of going back to their Troubles, and points out that Nathan's done nothing to earn trust with the people who view that tattoo as a symbol of brotherhood; he's done the equivalent of buying a commission, not earning it through the ranks. At which point Nathan takes a damn big risk and starts to just walk out with a casual "see ya." We can tell it's a ruse because his voice is higher and clearer than usual, which means there's stress and tension there. Jordan does, indeed, stop him as he's about to walk out, and present him with a task he can do to earn their trust. Of course, very little about this task is real, to absolutely no one's surprised. At least, A and I weren't surprised. Were you surprised? The task is getting someone transferred out of Shawshank, and I don't count this among the egregious King references because Shawshank is probably better known to most Haven viewers than most of the Maine prisons would be. He agrees to do it for an introduction to the other Guard members, which I wouldn't mind, myself, if we get to see some of these people. I wonder if Dwight will be there.
But enough of Nathan and his dumbshit ideas for now! Over to Duke on the couch. Being Duke, and Duke who is scared and doesn't want to be alone and so acts like a five year old. Complete with Five year old acting Duke music in the background. "Audrey. Audrey. Audrey." "WHAT." "Are you sleeping?" I'm going to assume she threw something at him between this and the scene change to both of them on the couch in front of the fireplace, which is probably a requisite for any sleepover bonding scene, Conversation On The Couch. At the very least it's a very old and rather cozy trope. And Duke telling her with complete and honest and audible conviction that she's not Lucy Ripley, she's Audrey Parker. It brings a smile out of her when he says that, the first that looks like an actually remotely happy smile all episode. Duke argues that even if Lucy Ripley loved the Colorado Kid, Audrey doesn't know she'd feel the same way if she ran into him today. Which she doesn't, but she believes Bolt Gun when he says she would. Duke rightly points out how much bullshit it is to trust the psych evaluation of an unsub who goes around committing extreme acts of bloody violence for no clear reason, and the gentle Audrey-connecting-with-people music comes out. Audrey doesn't know if love is something that can be erased, and while she doesn't say it in words she has conflicted feelings over whether or not she wants that to be true. On the one hand, loving the Colorado Kid and having him come back and her remember that would cause serious problems for her and everyone around her. On the other hand, she now has forty something days until she disappears, which means she stops loving Duke and Nathan, and she very much doesn't want that to happen. Which now Duke starts to understand, as he goes through the cycle, disappear, lose the people she loves. Adding, "they lose you" with a soft look that we've rarely seen on Duke before and never before this season. Now that is a Duke in love look, but not the frantic, manic love, a very calm and steady love that Audrey can lean on. Very adult, for all that he was freaking out and being five years old earlier. He's come, out of the three of them, I would say he's come the closest to accepting that Audrey may disappear in forty some odd days, and how much that will hurt. Which doesn't mean he'll take it as a given, he'll fight to keep her, but he's making his peace with the pain before it happens. Or trying to. I try to make my peace with the fact that I will never be able to squish-hug Eric Balfour for this the way I want to, and Audrey completes the cycle with her return and they have a chuckle over the cycle endlessly repeating, which is more at the absurdity of the situation than at the problems it brings them specifically. As Audrey burrows down into the couch, being very tired since Duke wouldn't let her sleep earlier and she's running on short sleep anyway, Duke sympathizes with talking about both of them fighting their fates. And losing, he adds, again with a chuckle for the absurdity of it because he damn well doesn't find being made into a killer funny. But Duke will laugh at the ridiculous aspects of a situation to keep from being overwhelmed by the gravity of it, and so he does.
Audrey isn't laughing. Audrey says she knows he only did what he did because she asked him to, which is still not an apology in words, Audrey Parker. But it's reassurance, as much as she can string together, that he is not the monster he thinks his fate is to become. Duke starts to say something to that, but changes it from whatever it was going to be to stating that whatever happened between Lucy or Sarah and his family (Simon Crocker and Pa Crocker before that) it should stay between them. Reiterating that she's his friend tacitly, and openly that he doesn't intend to let the past relationships drag the two of them down with them. "We're better than that," he tells her, then adds a bit of self-deprecation "Well, you are, anyway." Oh Duke. (Take a drink!) I think part of that addition, apart from the wine and the late hour, is also that the Troubled of the Week has him thinking on his past sins and the things he's done, and not so much wondering if she's right to attack him like that as thinking how he's done more things that people should be upset with him for than things that are helpful or increase the good in the world. And though most people in his line of work (the smuggler one) wouldn't really care about that, we've seen even as far back as, say, season one in As You Were that he has a much more spiritual outlook on things, and he's always seemed to try to be a good person. Which, yet again, makes me question him taking a profession that generally requires some form of violence as self defense. And now she's fallen asleep just in time for him to say that the one good thing about the Troubles is getting to meet Audrey Parker. Yeah, that's your luck, Duke. He tucks her in, and we make trollfaces as he sits back down and says his "Good night, Audrey Parker."
Amoricus interruptus! A hand comes over Duke's mouth and yanks him backwards, and the noise of him spilling onto the floor brings Audrey to her feet and moving for the shotgun! Duke gets up and moves for the knife! Interesting, too, that Audrey doesn't announce herself or take a more solid aim until after Duke's tried stabbing her with the knife. Which he does in a fairly serious place, seriously, that probably would have hit some vital organs. You couldn't go for an arm slice or something? Not that it matters, since she doesn't bleed. Duke announces this and now Audrey tells the woman in white to freeze as she pumps the shotgun all menacingly and unnecessarily. It gets the woman's attention, at least long enough for Duke to scurry behind Audrey, not a bad plan there, and we get the darkly comical moment of "Don't make me shoot." "What? Shoot!" The woman advances, Audrey clips her, then blast her into a thousand pieces. Literally, there's a pile of what looks like white clay or marble on the floor. Audrey and Duke stare. Then throw down their weapons. Then, and it's fairly smooth choreography, but then they end up in this facing each other less than a foot away stance where they're looking at each other and the trollfaces of NOW KISS get bigger and bigger. Because seriously, there is no reason for them to end up in that almost facing each other stance except to highlight the sexual/romantic tension between them. Audrey's face is relieved, smiling, almost expectant. Duke's... is not so much. Because he sees the woman in white coming up behind Audrey, not in time for Audrey to get out of the way before being flung through the doors. Sigh. Duke tries to go after the woman in white but she throws him into the piano, backhands him, bounces his head off the piano a bit. And then she's gone by the time Audrey gets back inside.
Scene breaker with an establishing shot! Two of them, a flyover and a shot of the police building. Audrey comes in with her Master of the Obvious badge and the theory that the woman in white is using the Haven Herald's crime blotter as a hit list. It's a good theory, at least! Everyone was in it, including what she describes as Duke's false accusation of assault. Which provokes Nathan's irritation in the form of a skeptical "really?" Audrey had Vince and Duke come up with a sketch of the woman, and they're going to meet at the courthouse to show the sketch around and see if anyone recognizes her, and this sits even less well with Nathan. Now, not only is she involving Duke in police business even if Duke is the victim here, she's doing all of this at the expense of her partner. That's a long list of actions both planned and taken not to consult Nathan on. Yes, he has been busy with his little Guard sting operation. That doesn't mean it's not going to hurt more. Audrey points out that Duke is her friend and someone's trying to kill him, both accurate statements, and Nathan delivers a heaping dose of sarcasm and a truly fake smile (as much as Nathan ever smiles) when he tells her she's right, she should stay with Duke. To her credit, Audrey recognizes there's deep upset there and asks him what this is really about. And there's tension and a staring contest before Nathan gives her a 'nothing' and I bounce my head off the desk a few times in frustration. Oh Nathan. It's not like it's an unrealistic reaction from him but I still want to shake him and make him talk to her already. He tells her "We're okay, Parker," which is not only a blatant lie, it's underscored by the fact that he's calling her Parker still. Audrey, dammit, listen to what everything but his words is screaming at you. She doesn't sound like she believes him, at least, with her "Mmkay." And she's distracted, and I still want to lock them in a room till they make up.
Off to the courthouse, for now, and Duke, whose assault charges were thrown out. Presumably because Haven PD recorded the guy as being drunk and belligerent, the guy couldn't remember what he'd done under the influence the night before, what have you. It wasn't a terribly strong case to begin with. He's more concerned with the woman in white, as well he might be. Audrey tells him to pass out the sketches, only when Duke picks them up he happens to be looking right across at the woman in question. Also known as the woman in white in the painting of Lady Justice behind the judge's chair. Oops. Of note for later, at least 9-10 people are in that painting beneath her, the lamp obscures the furthest right edge so it's hard to tell if that's one person or two. This Will Be Important Later.
Over to the Haven Herald! Source of all coverups and shadiness in the town ever, no, Vince and Dave, we do not trust you. No one trusts you. The headline isn't legible from what's up on the screen, something about Courthouse and Showcases and what might be Renovation. Audrey has a good point about finding the model, which Dave shoots down by informing everyone that there was no model, the woman was painted off the "feminine ideal." Duke snarks about Terminators made of plaster, which gives the creepy twins the idea that this woman is a golem. I'll refrain from going off into a huge two-to-three paragraph long tangent about golems here, but yes, they are a folkloric creature usually made of clay and designed to do the master's bidding. The twins say there isn't a way to kill a golem, but the twins are either badly informed or lying through their smiling teeth. Again, without tangenting wildly, golems are animated (in the traditional sense, at least, the Troubles might differ or deviate) by a piece of paper with a word in their mouth, and altering or erasing the word kills them by returning them to the inanimate plaster or clay statue they started out as. (A: I'm sure that th
Back over to the police station, now that we've had our dose of Nathan-Audrey awkward for the moment. It's got to come to a head soon, but right now it's just plain painful to watch Nathan and Audrey becoming more and more broken, even as she's managed to patch up her relationship with Duke. Mostly by Duke being understanding and zen, but also by Audrey being a little more careful with him. That's probably a whole other essay, too. But right now at the police station Duke is stretched on a couch with a lampshade for how it really doesn't make sense to the outside observer, why Tommy Bowen would trade in his pretty good big city detective life for doing cop work not only out in the sticks in Haven, but also in a town full of weird. Bowen's excuses are not convincing, but Audrey interrupts to draw a connection between everyone and Judge Boone. Which struck me as fairly plausible! (A: Meanwhile I was at this point jumping up and down, as much as I could with the cold, because stenographer.) Over to the judge!
Just to hammer home the theme targets of the episode, we get a group of teenagers who apparently vandalized a rival high school statue but are getting off because the owning high school isn't pressing charges. We pan around expecting to see Audrey and company coming in to confront the judge, but instead after the kids, parents, and officers file out we get Nathan! He wants the judge's help with getting the prisoner, Duncan Fromsley, transferred to a minimum security ward. A points out that we also get the stenographer in the background, and again This Will Come In Useful Later. Meanwhile the judge pretends to be disapproving of Nathan's request at first but then just has the prisoner transferred without research or paperwork, all via a phone call to the warden and an offered favor about his golf game. This Will Also Come In Useful Later! I have to say, this is actually very tight writing the way this all fits together. I approve. I do not approve of the somewhat tacky dialogue of "transfer some con on the down low for me today," but it gets the job done. Nathan, only half satisfied, goes back out only for Audrey's phone call of "I think Judge Boone is creating the golem." I briefly digress to point out the black-edged white church in the background and note the location in Haven. Hah. Nathan, suitably horrified, was just with the judge and races back there gun drawn and phone in his other hand, the way he'd hold a flashlight, but it's too late. The judge has been killed and made into a deeply sarcastic display of the blind scales of justice. One of those scales filled with blood, too, just in case we didn't get the message. There's a good view of the painting, now, and there are indeed ten people in it. Ten, of course, being numerologically significant in a variety of ways though probably the most telling in this instance is the Ten Commandments. There's also something probably to be made about the fact that the woman in the painting and therefore the vengeful woman in white is not blindfolded, as traditional depictions of justice are. Possibly a tacit message about sometimes you can see too clearly? Or moral myopia. It's definitely an aberration.
Cut to the cleanup. Bowen exposits that the judge died of a broken neck as he fiddles with the scale plate in the evidence bag, which gets Duke snapping at him about tainting evidence. Duke, honey, I realize that you're upset, but Bowen's right, that evidence in the bag isn't going to do a damn thing. Bowen doesn't have to be so rude, though. Nathan breaks it up by all but flat-out ordering Bowen to go after the kids who just got away with decapitating a statue, and I pause to giggle over the fact that Bowen just accepts he's been assigned to protect a bunch of kids from assault by woman in painting. Duke's right, too, in a way, he really is taking this all surprisingly calmly. Which may or may not be further evidence that he's a chameleon or there's something else hinky going on here. Back to Nathan and Audrey, and Nathan thinks he knows why the judge was targeted, explaining about the conversation regarding the bottle of scotch and the prisoner transfer. They deduce then that this must be someone who knew the judge and worked in the courthouse, also not unreasonable. Cut to Nathan walking down a street and talking to Bowen in his car on the phone, Bowen having eyes on the kids. Hey, what's that over there on the gazebo? It's an #EscapetoHaven hashtag! It's a +2 Gazebo of Warning. There's a bit of snark about the woman in white, to be interrupted by a call from Jordan, and he switches off Boone pretty quickly.
And now this is interesting: as Nathan walks up and talks to Jordan, telling her the prisoner's being transferred within the hour, we see that he's actually walking up on the Gun and Rose diner. So it's not that far on the outskirts of Haven, then, since the first locative direction we got on it was "out on route..." Jordan sounds flustered about it being within the hour, which he picks up on, hiding behind the sign to keep her from seeing where he is. He offers, too, to bring her the paperwork, which provokes the flat-out lie he most likely was expecting about her not coming in to work today. She has to go, hangs up on him, and Nathan watches her run to a blue SUV and tearass out of the parking lot. So now he has confirmation that she's playing him, or at least much stronger evidence for it. Oh Nathan. We told you this was a bad, bad idea.
Back to the courthouse! Audrey frowns over the timestamp on the paperwork and the timing being tight on how quickly Boone could have found out about Duke's assault charge. Duke wants to suspect Tommy for it, but Audrey puts it together for someone else, which gets Duke's 'no way'.
Over to the police transfer van! They're gassing up at a familiar looking truck stop when Jordan comes up, sans gloves. She gives her cover story a bit of a shake-out before grabbing onto the guarding officers and inflicting her Trouble on them, both of them drop. I will give her that she looks distressed because of it, but I can't tell if that's distressed because using her Trouble is physically painful for her (yes, I suspect her of lying about so many things, why do you ask) or if it's because of the aforementioned hatred of her Trouble, or both. Nathan, of course, has followed her and is lurking in the bushes like a tall lanky lurky person. Jordan raids the officers for their keys, in the process touching a guy's hand to move it out of the way of his pocket and causing him to convulse again, which causes her to jump up and back. That, I do think, is genuine distress over what she did. Startlement at the very least. There's a very 'oh, fuckit' gesture, she calls to someone "We're good! Go!" as she opens the van, the prisoner gets out, and is driven away by her accomplices. So, more Guard, then. And one cop pulls out his gun, manages to get a good aim at Jordan's back, when Nathan pops out from behind him and clocks him in the head with the butt of his shotgun. The gun goes off into the air and Jordan whirls, surprised to see her. He tells her to go, and now Nathan has crossed a line he can't ever take back and this is just going to break him and strain relations with Audrey further. Joy.
Back over to the courthouse, where Audrey tells Lynette the stenographer that she's the one releasing the justice golem (which is also inaccurate, it's not a fucking golem, argh) and Duke tries apologizing. Surprisingly, Lynette has a fairly rigid mind both as to the goodness and evilness of the people who pass through her courtroom and as to whether or not she's Troubled and sending the woman in white after anyone. Which maybe shouldn't be surprising, it would take a fair amount of rigidity and conviction in the notion that people deserve to be so brutally punished for a varying number of crimes. Particularly when, as Duke points out, she barely knows anything about most of her victims. Including, at this point, Duke. And I think what pisses Duke off about her here is being judged based on one day of his life, particularly since she's harping on about things that are so very minor compared to the shit he's endured recently and the things that he's done. The thing that, in his mind, he does deserved to be punished for. As hard as he fought being used as a weapon of murder, and as hard as he fought to prove he's more than just a murderer, that act must weigh very heavily on him. And this woman is sending a death-seeking woman in white spirit after him because of parking violations and a halfassed assault charge. He ignores Audrey telling him (and half-assedly telling him, too, Audrey could be so much more forceful than this, and isn't) to stop, and he tells Lynette he's going to prove to her that she's causing these attacks and doing a very bad thing by it. And then launches a whole diatribe on how he's a bad guy because of what he's done, because of the murder he committed. Everything he says is true, too. Which brings up the woman in white with a sword at his neck. I think, at this point, that Audrey isn't being forceful telling Duke to stop it because as bad of an idea as it is, it's also the quickest way to show Lynette what she's doing, and how simplistic she's making some very complex problems.
Sword at his neck, Duke stands very still and Audrey explains the context surrounding the act of murder Duke did commit, how he saved lives because of it. Not, I might add, as convincingly as she could. There could be a whole bit in here about how the man Duke killed had killed a bunch of people and unleashed a bunch more murderers on the world, and there isn't, and it weakens the dialogue somewhat. There's no reason for Lynette to be convinced that Duke is innocent, even if there's nearly as little reason for her to be convinced he's guilty, but since she places her faith in the court system for being perfect and having everyone right the first time she believes he's a bad person, and it's a short leap for her from there to murderer. Regardless, Audrey's arguments do the trick. Lynette believes that Duke killed someone to save many lives, and then believes that her almost killing him was wrong. Like a robot (which, again, I actually see as writing weakness here) she's encountered a logic fault; she has committed a bad act by sending justice to people who have committed bad acts but without being certain of their guilt. And now she is the criminal and deserves to be punished. Which, since the Trouble starts with her, apparently leads to her being absorbed into the painting? But, heh, now remember all those 10 people who were in the painting before? Consider that 10 people have done this before her. Oops. Duke and Audrey are suitably horrified, though three seasons in it's a tired, resigned horror.
Back to the police station where Audrey has finished wiping Duke's parking violation and assault charge. Duke gives us a very ironic "thank you for the clean slate," Thank you, Duke. Audrey claims they're overrated and bitches again about losing all her friends and memories. Duke stops her before she can run the whole tirade again and points out how she doesn't know that, which is nice coming from a guy who bemoaned his lack of success at fighting fate the other night, and drags some lightness into the mood by claiming to be hard to forget. It does make her smile. Oh Duke. (Take a drink!) Even more oh Duke (take a drink!) as he wants to know if Audrey really meant it about him being a good man. Yes, she did, Duke. I promise. She has faith in you, too. And it seems as though he needs to hear it even more right now, and from her, because of what she had him do. He thought, on some level and at least for some time, that she had him do that because she thought of him what Nathan does, that he's a killer and born to be a killer because of his Trouble. But no, she really does think of him as a good man, and he makes light of his comfort and relief by scurrying off to "do about three years of back taxes." Heh. Cute. And awkward, when he almost runs into Nathan coming in as he's going out.
Nathan tellingly doesn't explain to her what happened with Jordan, instead asking her what all the paperwork is about. Audrey's bringing in Claire to do a facial composite of the Colorado Kid, go Audrey! Practical solutions to wacky Haven problems. Nathan wants to know why she didn't ask Vince, but she doesn't trust Vince anymore. ANYMORE? Oh honey, we haven't trusted Vince from the get go, almost. Vince and Dave. Creepy bastards. And Audrey does ask about the prisoner transfer and Jordan, and Nathan lies straight to her face, and badly. By the narrowing of her eyes and the slight raise in pitch of her voice she doesn't believe him, but I think she wants to believe him. All she says is "good," and nods, and Nathan turns to go, sighing at his own... something. Idiocy, perhaps, as he grabs the 'wanted' sheet and crumples it, but what exactly he thinks he should be doing instead is lost on me.
Back to Jordan in the diner, and she's at least changed her shirt. Nathan comes in and confronts her about her lying, wants to know what she and her people are into. He's called and checked on Fromsley, now, after the fact, Nathan I could slap you so hard you WOULD feel it for that, and no, Fromsley doesn't have cancer. Give me a second to hunt down A's jar with the surprised face in it. Fromsley apparently sets himself or things around him on fire when he has bad dreams, which is what killed his son, and the doctors in the prison took away his sleep meds. She's right, too, setting a fire in a prison would be bad, although probably not the catastrophe in a modern US prison that it might be in some other places. For all that they're crappily built in some ways, they're not built out of materials that combust easily. Fromsley would probably die though, assuming the tradition of pyrokinetics being immune to their own flames for a certain period of time doesn't hold. Nathan tries to argue that she could have told him, but she argues that Fromsley's safer out of prison. I wonder about that. I seriously wonder how honest she's being with herself, with Nathan, how honest the Guard is being with her. There's a lot of people lying here, most of them bad at it, the problem is telling what they're lying about.
But then Nathan's emotions and chivalric impulses get the better of him; he points out that if she'd told him the truth she wouldn't have had to hurt the cops. His voice breaks a little when he does so we know she's already gotten under his skin, and he doesn't like seeing her twisted up like that. It's also possible that he's using his inability to help Audrey and projecting it onto Jordan's similar refusal to let him help her, but at least some of that is genuine feeling for Jordan. Oh Nathan. Jordan's as dismayed as I am, for probably different reasons. He sees her, though, he sees how using her Trouble hurts her, how isolated she is, he empathizes with her. And when he touches her he sees how it undoes her. It's a heady thing, as we said last time, being able to have that effect on someone. Audrey had that effect on him and he couldn't control it, can't protect her, but he can have that effect on Jordan and he can try to protect her, to have some of the control, maybe more of the control and less of the pain than he has with Audrey now. So when Jordan asks why he's doing this, yes, he's doing it because he wants to. And part of it might even have to do with some feeling he has for Jordan. But it's too soon for those feelings to be all that benign, clear, or untainted by ulterior motives. Even subconscious ones. The touch is intoxicating for her, the ability to intoxicate is intoxicating for Nathan, the kiss is desperate and passionate and all kinds of, pardon the word, trouble for both of them. Just for emphasis the music croons "what would I do if I couldn't have you." And when he breaks it off she looks like she's about to cry and he's almost smiling, backs off and leaves with a quiet "'night." while she looks like she doesn't know whether to pounce him or hit him. Because that's not going to come back to bite you in the ass, Nathan, not at all.
And once more over to the police station! Audrey's trying to composite the Colorado Kid while Claire names all her brainweasels in blunt, blatant, half-unhelpful terms. There are times when making Audrey aware of her issues helps, but I doubt this is one of them. Claire suggests they try a relaxation exercise, which isn't a bad idea, but it's interrupted by an email ping. The feds (FBI, one assumes) have finally come through with the files! And it's another Bolt Gun murder, and since three makes a pattern with nose, chin, and hair, it finally dawns on Audrey what we've been saying at least since the last episode. He's making an Audrey doll. Out of real women. Well, what Audrey says is he's making himself a woman doll out of real women, but given the target of Bolt Gun's obsession it's a safe bet that it's Audrey. Just to make sure we're extra creeped out by this, we get one final shot of Bolt Gun doing a Buffalo Bill with the parts of his victims. Gross.
Next week: Haunted houses! And the trapping of our dear cast within! Iain Glen guest stars as someone name Roland on a Stephen King based show, because that always ends well, and the rest of the gang can finally meet this mysterious Jordan! This ought to be a fun Halloween.
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