So! Having all been refreshed on why Haven should really call in the BAU right about now, we begin. Once again, this is a joint effort, with both of us trading places in between other household chores (like cleaning my new house, I just have to throw that in there because it's awesome). So this thing is likely to be forever long, and we're still not going to play try and spot the join points.
This week on Haven: We begin with what I consider to be one of the more boneheaded maneuvers of the season, having a conference in the Bolt Gun Killer's lair! With a bunch of people you think might contain the Bolt Gun Killer. Because that won't make him wary or inclined to hurt you or piss him off in any way, of course. Brilliant job there, you two. Audrey brings in Claire and the creepy Teagues, apologizing in a very not very sincere way for them having to see this. I'm sure everyone involved has seen much worse, Audrey. The Teagues because they're up to their not-yet-bitten-out necks in all of this, and Claire because, well, a) she's [redacted] and b) she saw the former-dog-human-thing with all its limbs broken in the cage. And if that's not bad, I don't know what is. Duke seems to have an unusual capability to handle any kind of sight as long as he's not actively being threatened, so we'll go with that. And Duke is about the only person here I agree should be here, but we'll try and reign in the ranting about the difference between our concept of 'need to know' and Nathan's.
Duke refers to the creepy coroner guy outside saying they were on the list (Hi Lucassi! My god, you really are like Stephen King, aren't you.) and all he says when he sees the skins in tanks is "oh," followed by leaning in to peer at one of the tanks. Thereby confirming that Duke's weirdness censor is severely skewed. As you would expect by now, but oh Duke. And of course Dave wants to know if they get the exclusive, which makes me want to smack Dave. Your lighthearted joking creepiness is not helpful, and now I want to smack you. Nathan, of course, puts a stop to that and any other notions anyone might have, with the "not about a story, or volunteer cops." Just in case anyone (and by anyone I think we mean Duke mostly) got any ideas about trying to play officer friendly. Even if it was funny when Duke was all "Special Agent, Haven PD."
And now the revelation that it's about the Bolt Gun Killer. We'll go over reactions first; Dave, curiously enough, goes blank-faced. Vince gets his standard 'oh hell' look, which is one part worry two parts blank-faced preparedness, a splash of deadly intentions and give it a good stir. Again, we would dearly, dearly like to know Vince's background and training, as per the conversation with Max Hansen in season one. Anyway, they go through their oh-shit thing, Claire's eyes narrow slightly and then go wide again, which is about all we get from her. Full disclosure now, this is about where we started pointing fingers. Maybe a minute after this, but within the same scene. Claire's wardrobe changes were too drastic, not overtly drastic but for us, looking at the minutae of the thing. And while the quiet reaction to the revelation that this is about the Bolt Gun Killer and this is his lair might be in character for her, I would expect at least a little more reaction to the revelation that that's Tommy's skin floating in the tank. Duke only looks sad, which is both completely in character and a little disconcerting. More disconcerting because being told you're in the lair of a serial killer usually provokes reactions other than 'sad' but Duke's tangled with the Bolt Gun Killer before and probably has some idea of how to deal with him. Like 'get bled on and get super strong' or 'shoot the fucker' or something. Sad, I think, because the Bolt Gun Killer is really bothering Audrey not just on the cop level and again after finding Tommy's skin because, hey, Tommy. Claire oversells a bit on the wide-eyes shocked expression, and the Teagues exchange another oh-shit look while Nathan gives us some more exposition that's better suited to the police station than the Bolt Gun Killer's lair, you guys, I know you believe it could be one of them but then you ought to be hauling all the crime scene folks in.
Now, I can understand why the Teagues are upset, but the fact that Dave automatically says "There's a skinwalker in Haven?" makes me once again severely question how much they know. Yes, skinwalkers are a common Native American (among others) legend. And yes, Dave knew about and believed in the wendigo too, which is another legend, but really you guys. This might all go a lot easier if you'd just cough up everything you know to Audrey. And only Audrey. Fucksake. Anyway, Audrey seems to have picked up on that little twitch of Dave's, both because of the look she gives him and because of a comment she makes to him later. And Duke wants to know where he is, which is a good question when you're standing in his fucking lair, and Vince wants to know who he is, which is a good question when he could be anyone and you wouldn't know it until you found their body. But they don't know. The skinwalker escaped. And then Audrey says something that has us kind of punching the air in glee, which is that she should have guessed because Tommy made a series of rookie mistakes. And we remember, we noticed back when Tommy was leaving his gun lying around just off the top of my head, we noticed that! That was, indeed, a rookie mistake. There are others which we've enumerated in the Bolt Gun Killer's profile (which, yes, will be updated again. Though maybe not until after the next episode). Duke would like to state I told you so for the record. So would we! But it also tells Audrey that the skinwalker can steal voice and face but not mind or memories, not like the chameleon could. Claire, of course, is the first one to note that they can catch him this way, and though she sounds thoughtful, her almost stuttering and facial expressions are what started us jumping up and down going CLAIRE IT'S CLAIRE. Too nervous. It's true, there's probably enough private moments going around, even with Vince and Dave and Audrey given that ring, that she could interrogate all of them about private moments and find out who knows what. Which is, of course, what they're going to do! Audrey outlines what the Bolt Gun Killer's after largely for the purposes of summation for those of you just joining us, etc, and lays out the rules of the locked room mystery. One of them is the Bolt Gun Killer, and they're all going to meet at the police station and find out who. The Teagues look relatively calm about this; they know neither of them's been taken over by a skinwalker. Duke looks like he pretty much set up the question for the locked room mystery, and not!Claire, honey, the only reason you're not completely giving yourself away is because real!Claire was prone to babbling when nervous. Hey, anyone else having flashbacks to As You Were?
The dog starts barking, we start having flashbacks to Stay instead, and our cops go out to take a look at what's been found. Hey, it's a bunch of bodies! Along with Lucassi, who apparently qualifies on the "someone [they] can trust" list. Or at least the list of people who've been involved enough with the BGK case that he might also be the skinwalker, though given poor Tommy (we hardly knew ye, yes, I had to) that's less likely than someone who Audrey confides in. Plus a canine handler and a very pretty German Shepherd. This being the dumping ground is very interesting, because a) we haven't heard a lot of missing persons reports coming through, which means the BGK is probably choosing outside of Haven's jurisdiction and b) we know that several of the bodies were not dumped here. Three, to be precise, though given the rough timeline we're working with it seems likely that the BGK had not picked up the abandoned factory as a lair until after the woman who was murdered for the chin, and the nose and hair vics were deliberate red herrings. Also, in the case of the nose vic at least, an attempt to force Audrey to realize what was going on and rattle her. Audrey looks horrified, like you do when you realize you've got a good three or four more murder vics from your Troubled serial killer; Nathan looks pensive and like he's pondering all the assorted problems he currently has. Which he probably is. Find the BGK, find out what he/she knows, find out what the fuck is going on with the barn, save Audrey, end the Troubles because Audrey won't stay if they can't...
And while I'm listing those off we pan over the Gull at the end of the day, around sunset, as Audrey's coming home. This is our first indication that this is going to be a flashback-filled ep, since we know damn well there's no reason for them to skip over all those interrogations without some kind of narrative reason.
Audrey is tired, she's frustrated, she was hoping for more answers and we know how you feel. Stupid lack of information. The first exchange between her and Nathan is all business, inasmuch as the Bolt Gun Killer is business. Nathan is his usual taciturn self, and one of the Zuckgirls, I think it was, said that the key to writing Nathan is to remove words? It's true. The more you listen to him the more obvious it gets. On the second sentence as a response to Nathan's 'long day' comment (you see what they mean?) Audrey says she'll take as many of those as she can get, and though it's a long shot over the cars to her profile and you don't get much of her face, you can hear the smile in her voice is for Nathan. It's good to see them working together again like they used to, and apparently as far as she's concerned it's good to be working with him again. Well, Nathan thinks she should get some rest, everyone should get some rest in this show, really, but in this case the comment serves as both standard cute interaction and foreshadowing because everyone in Haven is about to go into a big sleep.
Only she's not going to leave it there, and millions of fanfolk lean into their TV screens (or computer screens, admittedly) as Audrey continues on. Hesitatingly, but continues on. If it turns out that she goes away there's some things that she wants him to know, and other such cliches. With the standard delivery of hesitation and awkwardness and one of these days someone's just going to drop it when the other person's around to hear and I might keel over in shock. I'm just saying. Nathan pauses on the steps of the police station and that's as close to an actual smile as he's going to get for a while. Physically you can barely tell he's smiling except for the lines at the corner of his mouth and the way his brows lift and the corners of his eyes crinkle, and I guess now's as good a time as any to note the phenomenal way the actors on this show keep consistent characters with consistent tells and expressions. Lucas Bryant right now, dear god, but also Donat and Dunsworth, and generally, everyone. Ahem. Back to Audrey trying to spit it out, honey, if it's not only important but overdue, don't you think you might as well drive over there and tell him now? No? Okay, then. I'd say tell him over the phone but the next thing Nathan says is "Let's not do it over the phone, then" which is not only a lot of words, it's probably a good idea. So, okay, they agree and hang up, and both of them look like teenagers trying not to do the you-hang-up-no-you-hang-up thing. Awwwww.
Not quite awww just yet though. One final player has to make his appearance, hey, there's Duke! Who not only has the uncanny ability to pop up right when his feelings for her would be most awkward, he also has the uncanny ability to tell when she's mooning over Nathan. So she looks over at him and he just nods slightly at her, and he's happy that she's happy, which is my favorite quality of Duke's right now. One of my favorite qualities of Duke. As wistful as he is about wishing she loved him back, he really is just plain happy that she's happy and with (or, well, dancing around being with) someone he can trust to care for her the way he would. Audrey's little duck of her head and not-quite-smile though tells us that her feelings for Nathan might not be so unique or cut and dried as he thinks. There's a solution here, guys. Many fanfiction writers have found it for you.
She gets in upstairs, locks what sounds like at least two locks and maybe three, and looks really tired. The two locks is a good if subtle callback to Duke fixing her locks earlier in the season, and also highlights her fear. I'd call it paranoia but they really are out to get her. (Also when you live upstairs from a bar, multiple locks on your door keep drunk people from mistaking your room for the bathroom and peeing on your floor. This has happened, I shit you not.) And then a nice mirror shot of her, which is something I've come to expect more from Grimm but in this case serves to highlight how emotionally torn she is about, well, everything. Talking to Nathan, going away, finding answers now that it seems increasingly likely that she's really not gonna like those answers. Tired Audrey is tired, and yet can't sleep, as we see from the next shot of her on the sofa. The uncomfortable position probably means she drifted off for a bit, but obviously it wasn't that long. She has the gun in her hand, too, so definitely drifted off because I would dearly hope that someone who was at least fake-FBI trained would know better than to fall asleep with a gun in your hand. The door closing downstairs wakes her up, so at a guess it's 2 am (last call) or 3 (Duke leaving after picking up) or maybe a little later. And now she's awake again, can't go back to sleep, it's the hour of her wolves. So she calls Nathan. Like you do when you can neither sleep or spit out words about your feelings. She's got her hands curled up and against her face, slightly defensive but more emotionally so than anything, shy, hiding her face so that the invisible Nathan can't see her blushing or what have you. Even though it's on the phone. Audrey, you liar, you know damn well why you're calling, because you need to be held and loved and comforted and when you think of being loved and loving you think of Nathan. She was hoping he'd be up. Which isn't a bad thought, he might be up working on the case too, it's certainly bugging him, but no. Or if he is he's not answering his phone. So after some more not stammering out actual words, she tells him she'll see him at the office (again, ordinary words but also foreshadowing, she'll see him there but she won't talk to him because coma) and hangs up, presumably to try and go back to sleep.
The next morning we have a Pretty Day In Haven flyover of the marina! Which, as usual, means Something Is Happening. Audrey pulls up behind a guy slumped over the wheel of his car, and we get a nice long hold on the street name, Townsend, which I don't think is a thing in King so we're going with the truly awful Town's End pun. Thank you ever so much, guys. Audrey assumes for a bit that something at least semi-normal weird is going on, which of course it's not. The guy turns out to be alive, which is at least a start for dealing with Troubles! Alive can be saved. Dead... can be saved but we sent those people out of town, so presumably they don't have any new and exciting resuscitation options. (No, skinwalker, you do not count, and I'm still having Agent Smecker moments over here.) She tries to call for an ambulance, like you do when someone is inexplicably unconscious and unresponsive, and nobody picks up, and then we pan out and hey look, it's Sleeping Beauty in reverse! Also that goddamn hashtag on the bumper of someone's car, looking for all the world like a taxi service logo in style. Excuse me, I have to go find some Guard members to punch in the face for being a creepyass cult again. Audrey lets her phone fall from her ear, though she leaves it ringing in the fond hopes that this isn't a town-wide phenomenon, and gets her semi-standard "well, fuck, guess this one's all me" look. Roll credits!
When we come back, Audrey's walked from where she parked all the way down to the station, which is only sensible considering the number of cars and people scattered around the roads. Though why nobody owns or uses a bicycle neither one of us knows. She clearly hopes against hope that maybe the station's immune, losing that hope as she gets closer and closer to Nathan's desk, and yes, Audrey honey, you're gonna have to solve this one all by yourself. In time to rescue the sleeping prince and tell him all those things you've been sitting on for the last few months. Mostly I'm just incredibly amused at how often the boys are in the damsel-in-distress position. (Also goddammit Nathan be less of a workaholic, I still want to see the inside of your house with all its decoupage.) He's slumped over his desk with the Bolt Gun case file under him, and Audrey's sufficiently tired and stressed that she panics even though everyone else has been alive but unresponsive.
And now we flash back to yesterday, and give some context for why she's so tired and stressed. Nathan and Audrey stand over the body pit catching us up on what we already knew, which is that the BGK is creating a composite face/full skin of someone. We spent most of this scene jumping up and down going IT'S YOU, AUDREY, WHY ARE YOU NOT GETTING THIS. Probably because she's too horrified by the concept of a serial killer being fixated on her to admit it aloud. We get a standard gross-out shot of the woman missing her lips and yes, This Will Be Important Later, we get it. Audrey has a little monologue about how disturbing this guy is and I question if she has any false memories of working serial killer cases for the FBI at all or if she's repressing them on account of not really being hers. At any rate, then we get the puffin earring! Nathan wonders what his next move is, I wonder how close to the crime scene any of the four who are nominally waiting downstairs are mostly because I wonder if not!Claire heard any of that, and something in his expression says I think that he's got a damn good guess that this is a Frankenaudrey the BGK is putting together. But he's Nathan the taciturn and he's probably waiting until everyone's been cleared of suspicion to say anything. Plus he's trying to upset her as little as possible, and telling her over the dead bodies? Definitely not the right place or time, I would say. That said, Nathan, you're running out of right times. But he's on her side no matter what, including facing off with a skinwalker serial killer.
And we're back to the present! Which involves Audrey wandering around Haven wondering where the hell the Troubled person who caused all this is, because you know and I know and she knows it's a Trouble. We get a few shots of her wandering through all the people in their various mid-activity naps, and by the time we're done with the establishing montage she's walking up to a church. (We're letting the cars being turned off pass because Hollywood and that would make for a really boring damn sequence, as one of the writers noted on Twitter.) I have to note, it's the same goddamn church from the opening credits, the one that's standing imposingly and then on fire. I'm not sure what church that is or how it's significant, but I'm going to give it the side-eye until it stops being sinister at us. Or starts explaining why it's sinister, in which case it might get more side-eye but at least it would be informed side-eye! I'm also not sure why she's going to the church, but it doesn't seem to matter because just as she's about 40 feet from the door she whirls and pulls her gun, pointing it at the guy following her. But not, I note, with her finger on the trigger, or at least not at first. She might be jumpy, exhausted, and freaked out, but her gun safety reflexes are still well in place for now. Good Audrey. The guy who was coming up behind her holds up his hands and backs up a pace or two, like you do when someone's pointing a gun at you. He also has a shirt on that says he is the droid she's looking for. Thanks, shirt! We'll keep that in mind.
After the break she wants to know who he is. Again, like you do when you're the only one awake in a fucked up, bespelled town and the only other awake person who probably did it sneaks up on you. He tells her to "gear down, champ," which may or may not be a reference we don't get. Sadly, neither of us has actually played Uncharted so we're not in a position to get any inside jokes that may be made, but we appreciate them nonetheless if they're there! They banter for a bit, where she points out that he still might be dangers and he snarks that only the most hardcore criminals roll with one shoe. And as funny as this all is, this gives us a couple possibilities that one, he's playing like he doesn't know what's going on until he can knock Audrey out and do whatever he was planning to do with everyone else in Haven asleep (assuming he had done it on purpose) or two, that he isn't actively dangerous because he has no idea he's Troubled or how to use it if he did know he was. He's still not telling her who he is or what he's doing, she still wants to know, and he wants to know why she's the only other person awake. Well, we the audience know why, but he says he doesn't. In order to at least ease down the stalemate some she does tell him who she is, and that she's Haven PD. Her gun is lowered by her hip but she still hasn't holstered it, which is either a breach of gun safety bordering on the egregious or a sign of her nervousness, and I'd actually bet on the latter. At least until he tells her he has no wallet, no ID, and no memory of who he is, at which point she starts gesturing with the gun and Audrey goddammit be better. I know you know better.
She doesn't believe his story. I'm not sure I'd believe his story, amnesia would be awfully convenient. On the other hand, he does look kind of scraggly and the Troubles aren't an exact science, plus, she's armed. And not standing too close for efficacy. His story, for the record, is that he woke up by the side of the road with no memory of who he was and everyone around him asleep, then he saw her car and followed her into town. He has no idea what's going on or why he's only wearing one shoe, why he's wearing this ridiculous shirt, and he's fed up with all the not knowing to the point where he actually says "If you don't believe me just shoot me." Which, at this point, would either take sizable brass ones or true desperation based on his story. Audrey seems like she's going to go with desperation, even though she warns him she doesn't entirely believe him. But if he takes her to the spot where he woke up maybe they'll find answers, or at least, that's clearly what she's thinking. He's up for just about anything, and again, desperation. The part about 'keep your hands where I can see them' to the armed cop is a nice touch, especially the half-not-quite-smile that follows. Audrey thinks it's charming too, not that she'll say so, but she has that little smile and headshake that says she thinks it's cute, that she had with Duke in the beginning of the series. And it's at this point that I have to stop and say, this episode sucks for all of the damned minor characters I've gotten attached to. Phooey on you, writers. And kudos for doing such a good job of yanking my heartstrings.
We fly over Haven to indicate the passage of time and the crossing of distance and come through a residential neighborhood and a bunch of sleepy people. And it kind of looks like the start of a zombie movie. Audrey being Audrey, it's the half-open ambulance that gets her attention as odd, because there's no reason for the back of an ambulance door to be open if everyone fell asleep in mid task. The other guy not being Audrey, he wants to know why she doesn't find all of this odd, and says at least she knows her name. Ah hah. Ah hah hah hah. That's oh so funny. See me laughing. There's going to be a lot of anvils like that falling over the next 30 minutes, enough that we debated calling this recaplysis the Anvil Chorus. Get your dodging shoes on. Speaking of, Audrey starts rummaging around in the back of the ambulance and hey! It's the droid she's looking for's other shoe! There you go, droid, don't say she never did anything for you. He's so delighted to have two shoes now he misses what she points out, which is that it must mean he was in the back of and subsequently ejected from the ambulance. The other reason he probably misses it is because he feels in perfect health. Which he does seem to be, but since no doctors are awake we can't confirm that. Audrey thinks he may have healed himself, which is a good (and accurate, not that she knows it yet) guess, and the droid's all "I what myself?" Which again points to him not knowing about the Troubles, which is her next question. I swear, these Troubles explanations are getting shorter and shorter. Though I approve of him just smiling and nodded and wondering if that's a band, especially as much as that speaks to him being completely out of it while said Troubles got worse over the last two months.
Of course then she gives the rundown on exactly how his Trouble works, which, although she doesn't have confirmation, is pretty much how his Trouble works. He was injured, he got freaked out, he woke up, everyone else went down for naptime. Which he claims is not a superpower, and if you agree with that I have a few thousand day-care workers who would like to disagree with you. But they're not powers, (although Duke on some days, that chick with the poison-inflicting power, Stor-- I mean Marion Caldwell, and Ezra Colbert the precog/telepath might disagree too) they're curses, and of course that makes so much more sense. The droid continues to deny all of this, citing the fact that she's still awake. If he was actually thinking about it, that would just be further proof that it was some sort of power or curse, because the immunity rate for any kind of disease that dropped people into a coma in their tracks should be more than just two in a very large number, whereas for a mutant superpower it makes sense. Those rarely come more than one to a person/family, and one to cause it, one to be immune is narratively sound. But alas, the droid doesn't realize he's in a narrative. So Audrey sighs and drags him to the police station, and tells him he can argue with her on the way there. Now, at this point, we've and I think most of you have figured out what's going on: the droid was in a coma for some reason, he was being transported for some reason, he woke up for some reason and when he did, everyone fell asleep because the droid is a Troubled droid. We don't know the reasons yet, though, and that's clearly what we'll spend the next 30 minutes finding out! While you're all with me on that, I have to hang this lampshade here over the incredibly common Stephen King trope about people in comas or people dreaming and those dreams/comas being Special. You're welcome. Now go (re-)read Insomnia after this.
Speaking of arguing with people, we're back to yesterday's interrogation scenes. For the record, these flashbacks are only marginally coherent in how they fit together, though if it's intended to be from Audrey's POV, her thinking over the events of the day prior to see if she can fit any new data together, I can sort of buy that. Her thought process is obviously scattershot throughout this ep, and that kind of free-association is pretty much what I'd expect out of someone extremely sleep-deprived and stressed. And now I'm stalling so that I don't start swearing, but let's give up on that. This is the part where I start saying 'fuck' a lot! Because not!Claire you are really good at this and I fucking hate clever unsubs. Let's establish right away that Claire Callahan is not the original skinwalker either; her attitude started changing at the tail end of Magic Hour and that is where we think the skinwalker killed her and took her over. Which is really a crying shame, because shitty psych in many ways she was, but she was also very young and she was learning. Before she got dead. We know it can't have been Real Estate because not!Tommy was in scenes with Claire there, and we have not!Tommy's whereabouts accounted for right up until the faked death in both parts of Magic Hour. So no sooner than that, and no later than shortly before Burned starts.
Not!Claire flounces in, upset over Audrey testing her first. Audrey's excuse is that she needs Claire to help her test everyone else, hello, you're supposed to be a shrink, that's what you're here for. Personally, I think she suspects Claire as the next newest person to the group after Tommy, because if the test is supposed to be based on individual experiences and knowledge shared between her and each of them that no one else knows does Audrey necessarily need a shrink for that? But everyone here is playing their cards so close to their chest that it's hard to be sure. They start off with their first meeting which is not the same as their first session, not!Claire, but it's cute that you dodged it that way. And it doesn't send up any certain red flags because Audrey was so stubborn about not having therapy sessions for a while that even real!Claire might push the gentleness of calling them meetings instead. Or just push the terminology to be specific about what Audrey preferred, since there was the whole dialogue bit about how Audrey could call them sessions or appointments and one person called them dates. We go through bits and pieces of their interaction during Stay, which... is interesting, because Tommy doesn't show up until an episode later, so somehow or another the skinwalker learned about the events of that case. Probably through either extensive direct questioning of Claire or reading her case notes, or at a stretch extensive indirect questioning under the guise of being social as Tommy, but we don't know which it is for sure yet. Assuming we ever find out. And even if the skinwalker didn't have the time to get deep into Claire's case notes, we established very early on that she babbles. At length. About anything and everything, including things she shouldn't talk about; this makes her a perfect target for the skinwalker to take over Tommy and bond with her as the other newcomer/outsider in the little group of people working to resolve the Troubles. Her word choice here, "which I found highly insulting," is somewhat something real!Claire would say but it's also got a distance in choice and tone that smacks of either attempting to detach because she still finds it insulting or, y'know, not actually being Claire. The choice of proof is also very good because it was a case that happened before Tommy and presumably the skinwalker was involved with the police, and thus before the skinwalker would have a reason to know extensive things about that case.
Continuing on, the skinwalker combines plausible knowledge from Claire, acquired presumably through observation as not!Tommy (and suddenly I wonder if there are new hidden cameras in the station), making friends with Claire as not!Tommy, and/or from reading over Claire's notes, with knowledge that the BGK is known to have. Which is to say, a bunch of information about the Colorado Kid. She gets really blunt and pushy about Audrey's tactics to push Nathan away, and while Claire is blunt and pushy at the best of times she does know when to back off. Not so here; the skinwalker is deliberately pushing all of Audrey's buttons to keep her off balance. The detail about the bra just plain strikes me as odd, from the weirdness of women who barely know each other loaning out bras (no, really, I have a very short list of people I would do that with assuming we shared a bra size, and none of them fall under the category of 'someone I've known less than three months') to the weirdness of picking that particular detail. One assumes that somehow or another the skinwalker learned about the loan, and all sorts of skeevy things about serial killers and women's underwear comes to mind here, including possible rifling through Audrey's personal things. Ew. And then not!Claire says something that is completely untrue, though in this case I think she knows or at least suspects that this is something that will cause Audrey to suspect her. Because that delivery is almost perfect for being a lie made up to test Audrey. Who's upset enough to give away details about what really happened that let not!Claire finish her sentence based on being the one who's building the Frankenaudrey. Ugh. We get the blowoff about how Audrey had to be tested too (while back in the peanut gallery we stamp our feet about the reason the skinwalker is making a patchwork Audrey is because she's immune to the Troubles augh) and the coat goes back over the gun. To shrieks of NO DON'T DO THAT FUCK THAT'S THE SKINWALKER. Not!Claire proceeds to set up another little test that really, she should be the one trying to pass but instead Audrey fills in the gap. Your honor, I believe we call that leading the witness. Or misdirection. Or both. I'll go with both. They declare each other not the skinwalker, Claire with a slightly smug look that we can now interpret as 'I know something you don't know' and Audrey with a look down that I wonder about. Mostly, I wonder if she's hiding the suspicion rather than getting control of herself as she confronts the possibility that one of the others is the skinwalker. Because she'd hate the possibility of Nathan or Duke for obvious reasons, and one of the Teagues being the skinwalker means she loses out on a lot of answers.
Cue not!Claire trying to get her to take a breath, and I'm not sure what that's all about other than twisting the knife some more. Audrey brushes her off, she doesn't have time to relax, she can relax for the next 27 years. And then we get a dig about losing someone very suddenly which, if the previews are accurate, we can safely guess is a dig from Arla about James. Or, given the "you think you're the only one who loved the Colorado Kid" comment (which also points up Arla for that matter), a dig about James in general. Cue the anvil chorus about getting to say goodbye to "Nathan and everyone" if she wants to, and I have to assume that the reason Nathan's so prominent in the skinwalker's thoughts is because he does remind her (him, whatever) of James a fair bit. And possibly there's some revenge planning there, starting with setting Audrey up to indulge in her love for Nathan before abruptly ripping Nathan away, the way James/the Colorado Kid was ripped away. I also have to pause and give major, major kudos to everyone who's played the skinwalker in whatever guise, because the mannerisms and very small tells are so consistent throughout this season, especially if you're minutiae-focused like us and know what you're looking for. A lot of body language that encourages people to talk (and thus give the skinwalker details in case he/she needs to be that person next, or cue them to respond appropriate to the person he/she is supposed to be), a lot of open-handed gestures, open shrugging. And some slight aggression as well, in the form of exaggerated and confident movements where the characters before they became skinwalked versions of themselves were more muted or, for that matter, certain other local traits like dialect were muted after the skinwalker took over because they were too difficult to replicate. Kudos to all skinwalker victims! Which is a sentence I never thought I would say.
Saying goodbyes is what Will Brady's all about too, not that he knows who he is or why he's here just yet. They go to dig into the 911 archive, which is an excellent thought, but then the servers and internet go down. Audrey is immediately suspicious, the way you are when you have someone claiming amnesia hanging around being Troubled at you and you're looking for a serial killer. We never do get an explanation for that beyond narrative convenience, though it's possible the servers had been down for awhile due to BGK activity. And we already know that Haven has some truly awful infrastructure, she says with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek, but in all seriousness power surges aren't abnormal in rural towns. Then our droid comes out with some medicobabble, which isn't as difficult knowledge to get as Audrey seems to think but it is exactly the sort of language a doctor might use to family members who want the clinically detached version of what's happening to their loved one in a coma. I crack up over "you have cop face" and Audrey drags the droid into Nathan's office to give him a physical examination. Nathan now has a pillow under his face. Aww. She's making it personal by showing vulnerability over Nathan, and this drags him into taking a closer look at one of his... well, victims, for lack of a better term. At which point we get the big reveal that nobody's asleep, this is a coma, to which we all chorus FUCKING FINALLY and get on with the deadline bit. Because we weren't using those toes and apparently we need to dodge more anvils. The droid takes a step back when Audrey demands a timeframe, though, since he doesn't know if he has any real expertise. I can't blame him for that, though I will snicker over his line about a guy who's obsessed with WebMD. Oh honey. I like you. It's most unfortunate that you can't stick around Haven providing some extra snark and good sense.
After the ad break, we reestablish the police station along with the facts Brady just laid out in case we forgot or went to the bathroom early, and there's some nice steadicam work on this shot of Audrey stalking through the station as she thinks out loud. By this point our Troubled person of the week is starting to believe her, because an entire town doesn't just drop into a coma. I'm not sure why an entire town was just falling asleep, though we all know how gas leaks and Haven go together like peanut butter and jelly. They start trying to solve the Trouble, Audrey in true resigned to this fucking town form, and she throws out some things that might set off memory flashes. (Isn't fries and gravy rather Canadian, while I'm at it? Just saying. We'll be over here in the giggles corner.) The droid comes up with a mental image of, presumably, the team mascot, which will eventually lead them straight to the Grey Gull.
But first to its proprietor! Who is sitting on the other side of an interrogation table with an expression much, much closer to the one he wore in seasons prior when he was dragged into a police station. For extra bonus fun Duke points, he's framed between Audrey and not!Claire's shoulders, both for the light-dark dichotomy (okay, Audrey's wearing gray and not white, but you get the idea) so that we're sure not to miss that anvil to our left and for the twisted up version of where Duke wouldn't mind being under other circumstances, i.e. at a table with two beautiful women. Because yeah, Duke plays up the good-time guy, and probably does occasionally wander around the Gull with a lady friend on each arm. Whether or not this leads anywhere in private, I leave as an exercise for the fanfic writer. But right now it's a pleasant day at the Gull turned into a sinister day at the police station, and Duke is in the spotlight with both women's attention focused on him.
Claire leads, which is another reason to suspect Audrey already suspects her; Claire and Duke have little experience in common and not much mutual friendship (though it's more that Claire kept teasing Duke and Duke kept being only mildly irritated) and there should be no reason for Claire to take point on this. But she is right. It's an easy test, get a drop of Troubled blood, say, Nathan's (which would also prove Nathan's identity), drop it on his hand, watch him go all silver-eyed and sexy was that my outside voice? Ahem. Not!Claire's antagonism towards Duke could be explained easily enough by tension and by the strained relationship the two had in the first place, but it looks a lot more like the same kind of superiority-inspired belligerence Tommy showed Duke back when Tommy was the skinwalker. Real!Claire would likely soften the "don't throw me across the room" bit with a smile, but not!Claire has no smiles for Duke, and something of an unspoken 'again' in there. Duke isn't inclined to listen to or be bullied by Claire at all anyway, so that went exactly nowhere. Instead he looks over at Audrey, which may or may not infuriate the BGK (I say may or may not to allow for all possibilities but I'm pretty sure it annoys the BGK), and asks if this is what she wants. Audrey just says that it has to be something unique to him, which gives Duke an out from dealing with his Trouble, which he takes. Again underlining his attitude towards his Trouble, the fact that since it's not an immediate life or death situation, he'd rather not deal with it.
Instead Duke goes back to the night they spent in Colorado when they found out about Arla Cogan the Colorado Kid's wife, and that right there would be enough to confirm Duke because unless Audrey's told anyone else (unlikely even as much as she was trusting Claire) they were the only ones there for that information. And again we start shrieking IT'S CLAIRE CLAIRE'S THE BOLT GUN KILLER because that clipped, almost angry delivery of "yes. yes she does." could contain any number of things that are much less of Claire and much more of the Bolt Gun unsub. Starting with impatience and aggression, going through the actual desire to know so that she knows rather than, if she was real!Claire, a desire to either needle Duke gently or be more certain for everyone's sake. This skinwalker Claire wants to know everything Duke knows and for some reason mentioning Arla Cogan stabbed her in the soft spots. I think everyone who's seen the previews for the next episode can guess the reason but as usual, until we actually see it, we can't be sure that Arla is the skinwalker.
Meanwhile the fact that Duke brought up that particular night means Audrey gets a truly goofy smile. Oh Audrey. You are just as much in love with Duke as you are with Nathan, aren't you. I'm not entirely sure why she's more active about pursuing Nathan at this point, though clearly it didn't stop her from pursuing something with Duke when she thought Nathan was with Jordan. Trusting Nathan first, maybe? At any rate, Audrey smiles when Duke leans forward preparatory to describing more of that night and it's very clearly the smile of 'you're adorable and I love you come here let me smish you.' She doesn't even move except for that one blink, but it's all over her face and probably it's a good thing Claire wasn't looking at her to see it. In fact, it's at this point that Duke and Audrey pretty much block not!Claire out of the metaphorical room, while not!Claire leans in and to one side to try and get a clearer idea of what the hell everyone's saying, what's going on. Duke refers to her being confused, and by the look on his face and the almost smile just-for-her I strongly suspect he's not just referring to Colorado Kid things. Right on through where he reminds her that he'd do whatever she wanted him to do. And on through the kiss, which is probably not something that should have come out in front of the skinwalker but Audrey is not at the top of her game right now, not with the very anvilicious reminder that she does have Duke there, who has all but confessed his love for her. It's comforting, and it makes her relax more than she probably should. Not!Claire's reaction to the kiss revelation is probably similar to what Claire's would have been, wide-eyed surprise and mild disbelief and a lot of blinking. And then she turns and says something I really wish Duke hadn't interrupted, which starts off that she's happy they kissed and all, and sounds like it has a 'but' coming. I would dearly like to know what that 'but' was.
But no, she has to bring up the barn, which causes Duke to turn on her for talking about the barn as though it's inevitable. Because even if Duke can't fight his fate, Audrey can, or something like that, oh Duke honey. Audrey has, though, by now, started considering the fact that if she does go in that barn the Troubles will go away for twenty seven (ish) years, and that might help a lot of people. And Duke can't find an argument for that. I pause now to note that even though it's possible Audrey told Claire about the barn clause sometime between finding out about it from Jordan and this scene, it doesn't entirely seem likely due to the timecrunch on these last two eps, and therefore not!Claire's knowledge of it should be deeply suspect. But if Audrey does suspect, she doesn't give much in the way of a sign. The only tells we might have are the fact that she looks down when not!Claire starts talking about it and then doesn't look at her again while she's talking to Duke. Which might be a factor of dodging the Bolt Gun unsub's looks or it might be a factor of talking to Duke.
Here endeth the interrogation, and we're back at the Grey Gull. As the droid says, this is one sad looking happy hour, not just because of the comatose people but also because of the lack of them. Then again, presumably everyone fell down asleep in the early to mid-morning, which isn't exactly business hours for the Grey Gull. She takes the droid over to the wall with the pictures of the local sports teams, most local restaurants and pubs have them and I guess the Grey Gull is no different. And while we knew about the Seadogs and the Riflemen and so on, the basketball team is apparently called the, wait for it... Rams! We get a brief and cute digression where he says she spends way too much time here, she admits she lives upstairs, and he quips "tempting offer, but we have work to do." Dammit, writers. Why do you make me love him so much when he's just going to go away? Bring Moira or Noelle back so he can die and she can resurrect and heal him. He's pleased about finding the Rams but once more misses the point so that Audrey can explain it to us, that the picture is of the team and that guy on the far left in the lame t-shirt is him, complete with named caption below. Actually, as much as I gently complain here, I suspect this is also setting him up as the kind of adorkably clueless guy who doesn't realize when a woman's interested in him and therefore spends the rest of his life single. Trust me, This Will Be Important Later. So, Audrey has presented Will Brady with his name! Will Brady is free! Or I can make Echthroi jokes, if you like. And now that they have a name they can find an address, and it's off to Will Brady's place as he's imagining himself as a handsome Irish doctor, to see if they can find out more about him.
In the meantime, we flip back to interrogation room C and a camera angle opposite the one we had for Duke. Which means we're on Nathan now! Guys, I see what you did there, you aren't as funny as you think you are. Not!Claire and Audrey have also reversed position, not!Claire lurking nearer the door, possibly so she can flee if the game's up at any point. Nathan starts by saying she looks worried, and Audrey says, well, yeah. For obvious reasons, because she doesn't want it to be Nathan. Nobody replies when he actually uses a bunch of words to spell out what's going on, a nice role reversal. Audrey's being silent because she's scared, and not!Claire is being silent because babbling won't induce Nathan to fill up any silences, whereas shutting up and seeing what he spills is actually a great way to get information out of him. Nathan's most comfortable with silences when he's around people he trusts, even if they do become awkward silences; he doesn't trust Claire and so he starts talking. Just in case we missed the tells earlier, not!Claire shrugs at him, arms crossed over her chest in a defensive posture as though she's actually afraid he might be the skinwalker. Ha. Ha ha. Ha. He puts his hand in the middle of the table, and Audrey's got a good idea of what's coming next judging by the way she goes all soft around the edges again. It's pretty much an exact parallel of how she was with Duke, only Duke talked about a time when Audrey was vulnerable to him and Nathan talks about a time he was vulnerable to her. Without verbal prompting, too. I expect he's been thinking over his relationship with her and/or lack thereof (at least, explicitly stated) and as such he leaps to the first time he realized that not only was he in love with her, he could feel her. They even get the side of his face right, bonus points for continuity, guys. Audrey leans forward, as she did with Duke but here she's the caretaker instead of the person being taken care of, taking his hand and stopping him almost mid-sentence. Nathan's comment about not feeling anything for a long time has all kinds of layers and anvils to it about numbing himself emotionally as well as physically, ow, I was using those toes, writers. We don't get many reactions shots off not!Claire except that she tilts her head in the background and takes a half-step forward as Audrey reaches out to touch him, arms still folded. Her expression, what we can make of it, looks a little wistful, and I kind of assume this is hitting her in the Arla-and-James emotions.
I take a moment to be overcome by the adorableness of Nathan smiling and then not!Claire interrupts saying that anyone could feel Audrey's touch now. Which totally ignores the memory he just spilled out that should be proof positive that he's himself, but she's busy being gutpunched and doesn't want to think about what she's hearing too hard, at a guess. I'd feel sorrier for the skinwalker if there weren't a good, what, dozen murder victims tallied up by now. Not!Claire has a 'wow,' which is so tinged with jealousy I'm surprised she doesn't turn green, plus moving forward. Somewhat aggressive but still with that envious air, and I wonder if there's something beyond the resemblance to James that's setting the skinwalker off as regards Nathan as opposed to Duke. Audrey stops that line of questioning in its tracks by saying she remembers that day, and there's a somewhat shy look and smile at Nathan and then down, away from both of them when she affirms again that it's him. Back up, towards not!Claire/the door to tell Nathan he can go nonverbally, and as the door closes not!Claire comes over to lean on the table with a rather vampy pose. I'd yell here about how evil women are overly sexualized, except we've had plenty of instances of positive female sexuality - mostly from Audrey but some from Claire before she was taken over by the skinwalker. (Cheerleader vampire slayer, anyone?) Admittedly that ran to more of a girl-next-door vibe than the dark femme fatale one, but we need some visual cues. And the skinwalker is bad about not being blatant. Anyway, leaning over, showing cleavage, and cracking jokes that Claire would totally have made to break the tension, but she wouldn't have been aggressive at Audrey about it. Real!Claire probably would have been sitting and leaning back with a more open posture. As she snarks about getting Stan into interrogation, with a very snide tone that suggests she thinks of Audrey as a slut, we cut to...
Audrey breaking the window on Will Brady's door with the butt of her gun! We'll just have to imagine it's the skinwalker's face. It's a damn good thing she found his other shoe before this, I'm just saying, glass splinters hurt. They go inside and it's a pretty big home for a single guy, fairly tidy for all that he hasn't been here in awhile. And he's a doctor of archaeology, which is a callback to Uncharted and makes me giggle. Quips about Indiana Jones aside, it looks to me like he specializes in Native American tribes of the region, just going off the vague color and geometric patterning we see on some of his knickknacks. Don't mind me, I'll just be in the corner demanding information about the Mik'maq tribe. Will hangs a nice lampshade on how there's so much dust and yes, people, he was in a coma, can we please move on? No? Because now Audrey recognizes the puffin earring's mate and she immediately jumps to the exact wrong conclusion. Audrey, honey, you're really stressed, because you know Troubles don't stack like this. Skinwalker plus coma-induction doesn't even make sense for stacked Troubles. One very, very long misunderstanding and an ad break later in which we see exactly what Audrey thinks of the skinwalker, we finally get around to some reveals! Will is as flummoxed and scared as you'd expect when someone you thought was helping you starts calling you a monster and holding you at gunpoint. Poor guy.
He doesn't remember anything until she flings the earring at him, at which point I'd bet on a combination of the motion plus the touch memory of it brings back a flash of Erin, no last name. And this is the point at which we started going "wait, is he the only survivor of the BGK?" But first we need to have more fumbling around, which is fumbling that Nolan North is quite good at so I'll let him get on with it. Looking staggered by remembering his friend, and scared by what that might mean. That something terrible happened, which it did, because he's clearly not prepared to deal with the number of conflicting emotions associated with that earring. Audrey's not buying it for a very long time, which is still more evidence of how stressed and scared she is. Though at least she doesn't shoot him. She wants answers too badly for that. Will brings up the excellent point that we've been waiting to sink into her head, which is that she thought he was causing the comas ten minutes ago and even if he is the skinwalker, she needs him to fix the current Trouble. Thank you, Will. Why couldn't you have stuck around and provided common sense? Sigh. So, fine, they're not on the same team and she still thinks he's guilty, she gets to explain to the amnesia-droid what the fuck a skin-guy is. I'm so entertained by his refusal to call it by its actual name, probably due to the fact that he does know local legends and while his Trouble is one thing, local legends coming to life is quite another. She'll show him! Because let's traumatize the guy some more, why not.
First we have to visit with a pair we'd like to traumatize into TELLING US THEIR DAMN SECRETS. Oops, was that my outside voice again? It's also worth noting that they're so inseparable that not even Audrey and not!Claire will try to separate them for questioning. They claim that they'd know if each other was the skinwalker, and I actually do believe them. They're about a gajillion years old and appear to have spent most of that time either living together or being close in other ways, letters possibly if they weren't in the same town, daily visits and phone calls if not, so presumably they know each other well enough to be able to tell if one of them was suddenly replaced. Which doesn't at all mean they would tell Audrey. Not!Claire, entertainingly, looks frustrated and bored by turns at the proceedings. I suspect this is because she expected being interrogated by Audrey and "Claire" to be easier than being subject to torture by "Tommy." Sorry, skinwalker honey, they really are just that infuriating. Well, I'm only a little bit sorry. They actually say outright "we're not pod people" which I'm pretty sure is something that turns up in at least one Stephen King movie, and then they fucking giggle again. At which point I have to go murder someone. Did we mention that giggling pairs of supposedly grown if not ancient adults is a Stephen King trope? No? It is. It usually means nothing good.
Audrey is sick of it too. She tells them to quit it, then points out the fact that they were tortured by the skinwalker for information, and I think what she's leading up to is that they're both pretty ridiculous, innocuous, or downright odd as prisoners the skinwalker might take. The Teagues go out of their way to present themselves as bumbling newspapermen, is I think the point Audrey's trying to make, so it's suspicious that the skinwalker would take them, and yet that's not the point she eventually makes. Or rather, not!Claire gets there first. Hey, uh, skinwalker? You're getting a little obvious here. Her body language throughout this scene is exasperated and aggressive without being overt about it, too: sprawled across the table and getting into their space, but in a distinctly feminine way that looks submissive even though it's not. Though she/it too brings up the valid point that the Bolt Gun killer shot Nathan and left the Teagues alive and relatively uninjured, going by how well and quickly they've recovered. (Or they really are immortal, heh.) And yet. Not the point Audrey was going to make, and she gives not!Claire some side-eye for it. YES, Audrey, that's the skinwalker. Now will you listen to us and put the fucker at gunpoint? No? Of course not, that would end this episode way too quickly. I do think not!Claire is finally losing patience with the Teagues at this point, or at least getting annoyed enough to make slip-ups like that.
So. Why didn't the Bolt Gun unsub kill them? Well, maybe because they know an awful lot about this town. Emphasis on awful, Dave giggles. Shut up, Dave. And what else did the Bolt Gun unsub ask? Well, he wanted to know about the Colorado Kid, they don't know where he is, end of story, Audrey doesn't believe you, Vince. At least you're not giggling, but no one believes you. I might believe that they didn't know where the Kid was, but given the glance down on "and still don't," I have some suspicions about what they've been up to the past few weeks. Throughout most of this scene neither of them look at Claire, only at Audrey, which may speak to how important Audrey is to them right now or it might speak to them being suspicious of Claire, it's hard to say. Neither of them knows much about the skinwalker (or at least, about this skinwalker, we think) but they do know about the Colorado Kid, Audrey, the barn, Haven, and many other things we all would like to know, and they probably could guess by the thrust of everyone's questions who knows something they shouldn't. They're also, we should remind everyone, excessively skilled at lying through their damned teeth with no one the wiser. Although in this case the Bolt Gun unsub knows they're lying. Actually I would know they're lying even without that, Dave, come to think of it, repeating the question is a ridiculously obvious tell. Quit it. Vince in particular appeals to Audrey by her name, which is an equally ridiculous rookie trick to build rapport, both of you guys are better than this, don't make me bang your heads together. On second thought, do. It might make me feel better. Again, not!Claire says they can't go yet and Audrey overrules her (which is a full on pattern by now, the skinwalker trying to cast aspersions on each person's story and Audrey overruling, and that can't be improving the skinwalker's temper any), but this time she points out that she knows they're them and not the skinwalker because they're not telling her everything. Again. The laughter stops on 'again', replaced by a determined and stern face. I approve.
Hey, speaking of the skinwalker, that factory looks familiar! Oh, crap, it's Will and Audrey walking up to it. Well, Audrey walking Will up at gunpoint and telling him about victim #2 who had her lips cut off and one of those puffin earrings right next to her. Will is understandably upset at the prospect of being made to look at someone whose lips have been cut off, but he gets even more upset when he sees even half of her face (the half that hasn't been mutilated) as he starts to turn up the blanket. Upset and clutching at the back of his neck/head, and again we start chewing on the possibility that he's the only survivor of the Bolt Gun Killer. Which means only a little more than bupkiss right now since we know the Bolt Gun unsub is a skinwalker, so positive ID is out, but maybe a little more information would help? Yes? Maybe? He remembers her now, Erin, how she died. And apparently she died and he was intended to be killed as collateral damage, presumably, by the skinwalker. Or, worse, he was going to be an innocuous skin to walk around in and do horrible things as, rather like poor Grady. Only instead of obliging the Bolt Gun unsub by dying, he lingered in a coma for what turns out to be two months. We also don't get any info on the unsub other than that s/he's a good few inches taller than Erin, which means nothing since we don't know if she was in heels or flats and we know the unsub's prone to taking skins as the opportunity presents itself. And Audrey doesn't believe him at all right up until he says he couldn't have killed Erin, he loved her, he'd never told her, he was waiting for the right moment, and now I have no toes, feet, or lower legs from that anvil. But it gets between Audrey and her issues, fears of the skinwalker, and now she can connect the dots.
Over to the hospital for the last bits of confirmation, along with the looming deadline emphasized by the discoloration creeping up along people's necks to their faces. Tasty. So, yes, Will was in a coma, the machines kept him stable but if they ever pulled the plug within twelve hours he would die just as the people of Haven are about to die, so there you go. (We take a moment to be geeks at his chart, and yes, all but the last of those is an anticoagulant to prevent blood clots; the last, Atacand, is a med for hypertension, which he would also be suffering from in a coma of the sort described. That said, the list only really makes sense if you're in House-universe.) From this we determine that his brother and sister were there to see him home and be with him in his final hours, and the fear of that death was what caused him to wake up. And send everyone else into a coma. He knows a lot of what happened and the medical information because of the idea that people in comas can hear what's going on around them. (There is some anecdotal evidence that this is true, too.) So he heard the doctors discussing his condition, his siblings discussing their plans, his sister discussing his lack of a love life, and his brother discussing the t-shirt. And of course, This Will Come In Handy Later! As with all even slightly clunky dialogue, which this is. I give the actors props for selling it, particularly Nolan North, but this is a bit clunky.
So, now that we all know what happened, let's uncurse every-- oh. You mean that's not how it works? No, Will, sadly that's not how it works. Audrey theorizes based on several months of dealing with Troubled people that in order for the rest of Haven to wake up he has to go back into his coma, and we know it makes sense both because of how the Troubles work and because the laws of the narrative say so. Though, surprisingly, Will is actually fairly sanguine about being put back into his coma. Maybe not so much sanguine as accepting. I suspect some of the attitude here is, if he woke up once he might do so again, and he doesn't want to be responsible for everyone in Haven dying. He comes to it awfully quickly, but he's also spent most of the day assimilating information he thought was ridiculous eight to ten hours ago or so. So it's back out to the ambulance, the gurney, and now Audrey's the one lagging behind. She likes Will, and so do we, we don't want him to go! Will's all "welp, I un-coma'd myself, I should be able to re-coma myself, right?" Oh Will. Add that to the list of reasons we don't want him to go anywhere. And yes, I guess I will say it, I sort of wonder if part of the reason he's doing this isn't to be with Erin again. Maybe just a little. Plus, aside from his siblings, he doesn't seem to have a lot of connections in town. We also have the obligatory "take this and remember me" moment with the stupid puffin earring. And no words, because that doesn't need a lampshade, Audrey's quiet look of "really? seriously?" is more than enough.
I have a similar look for the whole next section of dialogue, because now the anvils are, well, you know that Tiny Toons cartoon (and if you don't there's always youtube) where the duck's running around the stage fleeing anvils that keep trying to land on his head? That's what I feel like right now. We'll start with Will's "So I guess this is goodbye," (Bang!) and go on to "It's been real" and using her full name which isn't fucking real at all. (Bang!) And go on to "I'll see you around," followed by "Really? That's the best you got?" (Bang! Bang!) The first because of course she will, she seems to end up seeing everyone who's Troubled in Haven, the second because she's spent most of the last few episodes trying to figure out how to say goodbye to the people she loves. And not coming up with a way. Oh, hey, there's a bigger anvil "Yeah, I gotta get better at goodbyes" (Bang!) and "You have to. It's for the good of everyone else." (BANG! Those anvils are getting bigger!) "Still sucks." (BANG!) "But you're saving lives." (BANG!) "Might never see you again... but, have to do it. I'm out of time, right? If only I had a few more hours." (BANG!!!) "A few more days..." "Days? If I had a few days, I'd fight this tooth and nail." (BANG!!!!! ← 5!) "Maybe it isn't over. Maybe you can keep fighting..." beeeep. (Which sounds suspiciously like 'bang.') That last one I think was meant for Duke, sorry Audrey. Anyway, of course now everyone starts waking up, including the ambulance driver, and she tells him to get Will back to the hospital. Complete with the by-now-standard story of a gas leak, which Audrey does a thoroughly awful job of selling and I expect that the ambulance driver will give it some side-eye once he wakes up and gets rid of that crick in his neck.
Audrey is, however, sending Will back to the hospital, because now she knows he's alive in there and she's not going to just pull the plug on him. There's an awful lot of overbearing, I-know-what's-best attitude coming from her in this scene that gives me the beginning of the screaming willies due to the echo from last episode when Jordan got to have that attitude. And even though Audrey's only doing this in one instance, that's an attitude that's all too easy to extend to other situations. Like, say, going into the barn because you feel you have to. She has to deal with pissed off family who are calling her on her authoritarian behavior, at least, but she still runs roughshod over anything like an explanation of how she knows all of this. On the other hand, she does provide an explanation, so I'm not exactly tossing her in the closet with Jordan's ilk just yet. Just saying that Audrey needs to watch her actions very, very carefully if she doesn't want to end up like that. Meantime she'll drop some more anvils at us about "maybe he can come back" and "we can hope that he will," and at this point neither one of us is doing anything but headdesking the particleboard into smithereens. Audrey, honey, Freud called, he'd like his slip back. The brother is aghast that they nearly killed him, we get a lampshade the size of Haven on her "see you around," and that's it for Will. Aww, Will. I liked you! I'm glad you didn't get deadified for the skinwalker's use!
Over to the hospital, where presumably everyone and their cousin is getting checked out after the 'gas leak.' I swear, one of these days we'll see that have an effect on the show rather than in the Herald's cover-up stories. Anyway, we're here for Nathan, not for bad cover stories, and he's smiling again. Not all big and goofy like I know Lucas Bryant can, but small and quiet and glowing and all for Audrey. We get some more eyerolling and banter about the gas leak story, and then they're right back to being awkward teenagers and cops at the same time. It's kind of impressive how regularly they've been managing that. It's been a long day but she's looking forward to a few more, callback to their phone call at the beginning of the ep, at which Nathan's smile dims at the reminder that she's likely to be leaving soon. Oh everyone. Zoom on the puffin earring and she's had a break in the skinwalker case, which is not quite what Nathan was hoping for as a topic of discussion, either, but he's her partner and he'll listen. Hey, is that another anvil? At least Audrey recognizes this one as such, and she's going to stop and apologize to him now. THANK YOU. Now kiss. Or at least use your damn words about what you mean to each other, fuckssake. Though I will also take Nathan reaching out and touching her, which I think is the first time he's done that short of major trauma, and giving her reassurance that he's still here. That's a pretty major step for him, and at this point he's sounding like Duke this season, with his calm assurance that they'll find a way to keep her here. Though he's still not saying what the 'this' is that they're going to have time for. Mutter grumble trollface.
That evening, back at the Gull! Or more precisely at Audrey's apartment, since they tend to do a more patio or lower-level focused establishing shot if they're doing the Gull proper. Audrey and Claire are going over the paperwork and I'm getting a bad feeling about this. And by a bad feeling I mean we were muttering at Audrey about where's your gun this entire scene, right up until it was too late. But I get ahead of myself. The skinwa-- er, Claire, no, really I promise, doesn't want to talk about the Bolt Gun case immediately, it, er, she wants to talk about how Audrey feels about having to leave in a few days. Audrey feels like if she can just catch and talk to the skinwalker then maybe she won't have to go away, maybe the skinwalker can tell her about the Colorado Kid and the barn and her, and then maybe she won't have to go away. I'm not sure if this is what not!Claire was hoping for, but I'm pretty sure it's not what she was expecting. The look down and to one side indicates either disappointment in Audrey not knowing what she hoped Audrey would know, or disappointment in herself possibly for feeling empathy with someone else who doesn't know all these important things she wants to know. Or possibly hiding her frustration by not looking at Audrey as well, that's always possible. Or some combination of all of the above!
Audrey declares mission accomplished, back to the skinwalker case, because she still doesn't want to think about leaving, not when only thinking about it and talking about it to Claire won't do anything but remind her of how little time she has left. So, okay, not!Claire agrees because that's about all the information the skinwalker's going to get out of her for the moment. And back to the interrogation with the Teagues about their prior interrogation, when they only told not!Tommy about the Colorado Kid and the barn and wait a second. Now even Audrey knows this one for sure. Only she freezes up, and when she corrects herself to agree with not!Claire she looks for all the world like the proverbial deer in the equally proverbial headlights. She starts to cover herself by talking about how the barn upsets her, but now she turns away as she babbles and not!Claire tells her to hush. Accompanied by flashback, in case we hadn't gotten it. (Bang? whimper.) Her pokerface is worse than usual. Actually both of them are worse than usual, the skinwalker hasn't slipped up nearly that badly before. Possibly that's a deliberate slip to see what Audrey does with it; possibly it's due to the stress of the past couple days. The tension only drags on a bit longer, though, as Audrey turns away to hide her expression again, before it faceplants fully into the dirt accompanied by the skinwalker pulling a gun and asking what gave her (him? it?) away. Dun dun DUNNNNNNN.
Next week on Haven: Duke and... snakes? Duke, please don't become a Pentecostal. Audrey gets pistolwhipped by the skinwalker, much to nobody's surprise, and we FINALLY get a look at that Frankenaudrey. Hard to say for sure without it being on a face if it really is an Audrey mask, though. Dwight's back and... speaking for the Guard? Dwight, please don't be working for the Guard, I thought you were past that and I like you. HI ARLA. That's totally Arla Cogan, and the chances of us being right about her being the skinwalker just went up astronomically. The question, though, is is she the actual original Troubled person whose Trouble is skinwalking, or is Arla a very old skin? Also, Nathan and someone who's probably Audrey are dancing at a high school reunion. Aww. Maybe. Yeah, after taking a closer look at the promo stills, that looks like a very similar dark lace top to the one they cued us that it wasn't Claire anymore. I'm going to be over here demanding murderboards, dammit, how the hell does that Trouble work if she can get an Audrey mask by patchwork?
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