Previously on Haven, we met Duke and his issues with Nathan, Audrey and her ability to deal with the Troubles along with Garland's faith in her and hope that she'll have some positive effect on Nathan, Eleanor Carr offering to help her find out about her mother (ha. ha. ha.), our introduction to Jess Minnion, and Duke and Audrey admitting that the Troubles are back before Audrey really knows what that means. You're all hilarious. Today on Haven, we have a rather gloomy marina and an expensive looking boat. Yacht? Thing. You can tell exactly how much we don't know about ships in general, but the general attitude of a cruising yacht for the rich people is borne out by three people who are manning the ship and another four at least who are sitting around on their asses drinking beer and being assholes to the staff. Okay, so mostly just one of them and the others would like to know why the fuck they should trust him with much of anything, including having dragged them out there but especially their money. Wally seems like your standard sort of shitty investor and/or scam artist, trying for people to chip in on equity funds blah blah huge deal blah blah failed once and the other three guys are outta there.
As they leave, we see that they didn't even get out of the harbor, and the "galley wench" comes up with the beers, they ran out of imported. Wally thinks awful highly of himself, doesn't he. And now we see what the Trouble seems to be, as he goes rigid for a second and then starts doing an excellent imitation of a paper doll folded in ways that humans don't normally go. OW, we all say, and AUGH says Vicky the galley wench, although by her shock if she's causing this she's not doing it on purpose. Yeah, no, that's the appropriate response to someone's limbs breaking in multiple places from no visible cause.
On over to the station, where Nathan's taking a report from Jess who, the music tells us, has contrived this as a way of getting a date with him. Because Nathan is completely fucking oblivious to when a woman might be interested in him. This is a really excellent deadpan and I have no idea how she keeps from laughing. (Although I'm even more amused that they pulled Copeland to play Dwight in s2, since he at least fits the height if, y'know. Nothing else. And if the cast - god help us - ever reads this, that is NOT A CHALLENGE.) (Okay, maybe a little.) Audrey finally takes a hand, we all giggle madly and also make trollfaces and have I mentioned that a threesome solves everything in Haven? Because this fucking show, y'all. No, Nathan requires Audrey to not only take a hand, but to schedule his damn date for him. I do love and appreciate the fact that even though they clearly have chemistry, Audrey's refusing to stand in the way of a potential relationship with a woman who's nice, not inclined to take Nathan's shit, and capable of dealing with his general aura of "what who me nobody dates ME." Not just refusing to stand in the way, but outright aiding and abetting and conspiring for her partner's happiness. Which is, let me just remind you, a) what genuine love is about, not the YOU MUST BE WITH ME NO MATTER IF IT MAKES YOU HAPPY OR KILLS PEOPLE attitude evinced by Arla and Jordan in s3 and b) is a really fucking nice change from the usual catty bullshit that Hollywood thinks women must engage in over a man. I mean, I'd like it if they got to interact more outside of the Troubles or setting up Jess with Nathan, but I will totally take this. Audrey does question why Jess would shoot a deer, and the short answer is that in most of the northern US, they're a nuisance animal at this point because we went and killed all the damn predators. That's not the one Jess gives, it's more flippant than that, but I can bet that's the real answer. Nathan's still so flummoxed by the prospect of having been set up on a date by his partner and the woman interested in him that he doesn't answer the phone and in fact stammers when he finally picks it up. To more eyerolling and laughing from the women. Jess, I sincerely hope he's fun to be around when he's off the clock, because he's being a huge goober right now.
That phone call, of course, was to bring them down to the marina for the poor bastard now strapped to a gurney. He doesn't have a sheet over his face, so somehow he seems to have survived that. Which means the breaks didn't pierce any major veins or arteries, since I don't actually believe Haven's response time is good enough for a femoral artery bleed. Audrey opens it up with some more teasing and shit-giving to Nathan, this time with a double layer of "that was painful to watch." Yeah, so was the scene right before it. She's got a lot of snark to her, and Nathan is right now not having any of it. Whether that's because he'd rather go on a date with Audrey than with Jess, or because he'd rather not go on any dates, or because he thinks his Trouble will prevent dates from being at all fun, or just because he'd like not to be reminded of being back in grade school and not knowing how to talk to girls, is pretty much anyone's guess. I'm betting on a combination of all of the above, with bonus realization that he still doesn't know how to talk to women, so he shuts Audrey down hard. And yeah, she is incapable of staying out of people's personal lives when she's decided they matter to her. It's one of the things that makes her who she is across incarnations, just as the social awkwardness is one of her defining traits in this incarnation. At any rate, it's time to be all business now and Eleanor has a rather ghoulish grin when she asks if anyone's squeamish. Audrey, be nicer. And OUCH. The breaks as she describes them conform roughly to what we saw on screen, sharp horizontal fractures with no indication of what caused them, the arms at a 90 degree angle to the legs. And at least one of the arms a compound. Yaay. Audrey has some kind of odd black gunk on her fingers from the vic, say, that looks an awful lot like ink or wet charcoal. Some kind of drawing substance, anyway! Eleanor praises her good eye with the rather maternal I-know-something-you-don't-know tone that's getting old already, Audrey already suspects a Trouble (because seriously, ruler-straight breaks don't happen in nature, and not FOUR of them), and Eleanor will now wink not at all subtly at her. Yes, yes, thank you, we get the Crone references, moving along to interrogations.
Which Audrey splits up and Nathan just jerks his head once over. He takes the Wall Street boys, she takes the captain, probably on the grounds that if they play against their type they'll catch inconsistencies and logical fallacies more readily. I'm not sure that's true, but it does let Audrey make herself known to another local, so we'll take it. See, the whole not knowing a fucking thing about the parts of a ship? That's kinda what I mean about not being sure that's going to do any good, though I also suspect she's playing that up to see if he'll treat her like an idiot. No, he shuts down all power and so on and so forth the second they hit the dock and it's a top of the line ship for safety and yes, it's a nice boat, Haven's not exactly a tourist destination so this is how he competes with the more usual cities. The victim's nothing to write home about, supposedly, a wealthy tourist with high-end tastes. Heh. The captain doesn't look too shady yet, maybe a little wary of the cops investigating whatever happened on his boat, but he also doesn't look as freaked out by the events as he should. So either he's a local who's in on the Troubles, or he knows what's going on with this particular Trouble. No points for guessing which. Some banter about how Audrey would never make it on Wall Street, that's okay, nor would we. Fishing for sport is boring. Fishing for food only marginally less so. The captain is something of a charismatic man, which makes it easy to dismiss him as a potential villain right off the bat. That's the problem with charisma: it doesn't care if you're a good person or a bad one, and the bad ones are totally willing to use it to get their way. Nathan comes back with a whole pile of nada from the other investors, but a joke about keeping his hand on his wallet. The fact that all their stories line up isn't much on its own, Haven probably doesn't have the manpower to keep them all separated so they can prevent witnesses and/or suspects from corroborating each other's stories. Still, it sounds like Nathan has no reason to disbelieve them for the moment, so we go on over to the crew.
Poor, poor Vicky is still half in shocky tears. Yeah, I don't blame her. The way they have her made up, hair pulled back, doesn't make her look old enough to have a fiance and a second steady job, but I'll take it. Lord knows I know plenty of people who look like they're teenagers when they're sobersrs professionals in their late 20s, early 30s. (Okay, I might be stretching a bit on the sobersrs thing.) She engages in a bit of guilt over, should've come up sooner, to be shut down - gently - by her father. Look, it's a family of deckhands. Jimmy is awfully petulant and not exactly over comforting his fiancee, which is a bit odd though he's also taking an overprotective surly stance. And her father doesn't want her working as a deckhand, and his tone suggests he doesn't wholly approve of Jimmy, either. Vicky's tone as she's quick to remind him that she gets to spend more time with her father this way too indicates she's aware of that. Yeah, this is not one big happy family. She goes on to explain what she saw, which isn't much, and the guys were both on the bow cleaning up, at which point Jimmy chips in with that giant chip on his shoulder. Kid, you're going to need to get better about swallowing that anger if this is your only source of income. Or find a different source of income, which is admittedly likely to be difficult in a small town like Haven. Still, daddy dearest sends his future son-in-law off to muck out the lockers, which sounds like a punishment but also gets Jimmy out of the cops' range so that he can stop making himself sound suspicious. I'd be more suspicious about the potential coverup if this a) weren't Haven and b) Jimmy weren't so obviously a red herring. With that done, Vicky's father will admit as to how the guys they hire the boat out to are assholes and yes, it bothers both him and Jimmy that they work so hard for such assholes, but that's the life they're in and that's part of why he didn't want his daughter to deal with it. Probably there's some subtext on the gender issues there, though nobody is saying a word outright about it. Still, we all remember the galley wench comments, right? Right.
With all the witness statements taken, it's time for the usual round of Audrey and Nathan arguing over whether or not it's a Trouble! Nathan, come on, it's a Friday. It's always a Trouble on Fridays. Audrey's gotten to the point of "take a minute, rule out the normal and completely implausible explanations" as a way of getting it out of their systems before sitting down and figuring out what kind of a Trouble they're looking at. I have to laugh, because that is actually pretty sensible. When you're not fully adjusted to the utter crazy of Haven, or heavily in denial about it, it helps to take a few and fling out all the bad suggestions so you can get onto the solid leads. Such as they are. Nathan's got a little smile that says he thinks this is adorable and a little insane and also might just work. Also there might still be a bit of "how are you, an outsider, this quick to adjust to fucking Haven?" Nathan, honey, a three-word explanation isn't an explanation at all and it's not doing anything for the evidence that something hinky's going on. I'm particularly fond of the line about nothing lining up except for the ruler-straight breaks. And, say, there was winkage! Both about the body and probably about Audrey's instincts, yes, you are absolutely correct and Eleanor seems to be the vanguard for slowly easing her into realizing all the weirdness of Haven. Pity about that dying thing in a couple eps. Nathan ceases his token protest, and opens up to Audrey so far as to admit that he'd prefer a normal brutal assault that wouldn't remind him of his own problems. Trouble, Nathan. We call it a Trouble. Naming things gives you power over them, hasn't anyone taught you better? Audrey takes this opportunity to rib him again about having no ability to flirt or recognize flirting when it's bashing him over the head with a haunch of venison, but this time that's because it's safer ground that coming right out and saying that she doesn't give a damn about his Trouble, he's still her partner and she doesn't think he's less capable or human or any of that bullshit because of it. Aww. Nathan acknowledges, for once, what she's doing and okay, time to move along to business again! You two are so fucking adorable and kind of fucking clueless right now. Audrey apparently has a plan involving lunch and nothing Nathan will like, and roll credits.
No, Nathan will probably not like lunch at the Gull. It'll taste good, if he can force it down past the jealousy and annoyance and general distrust he has for Duke. Which they will be confronting head-on, because Audrey wants to bend Duke's ear for a bit! Duke's out back with a tarp and Duke, what are you doing. Besides tormenting Nathan and Audrey by not telling them what's behind the tarp and trying for terrible, horrible, awkward jokes. Duke, why are you hitting on... well, everyone in this scene. I have no idea what's gotten into him, other than the entertainment of teasing the cops and learning something about the newest case. Audrey's most persistent about wanting to know what's behind the tarp; Nathan mostly just looks tired and maybe a little amused and possibly a little confused at the playful but not overly malicious side of Duke. The whole scene emphasizes the awkward nature of putting the three of them in the same room right now; they don't quite know how to interact and they're all sort of hesitant. Nathan quits sugarcoating the tale of what happened to Wallace for Duke, with a gesture that I swear on anyone else would have sexual overtones. Seriously, what the fuck. I'm not at all certain that Audrey intended to make the boom/boom joke, but if they were less tense and awkward it would totally have been funny either way. As it is, it falls flat. Nathan continues to offer information since apparently that's what Audrey wants, and that one line reference about Duke as a boat expert is all the explanation we get for why she's asking Duke all about this stuff. Yeah, no, none of this is going any way toward convincing her that there's not a Trouble at work, nor is it telling her what that Trouble might be, so back to ragging on Duke about what's behind the tarp. Which is like the ocean. He's absolutely right that not showing them would probably be the most fun that he has today, but he does like Audrey and he's still trying to show that he's got legitimate business interests, not just using the Gull as a front for smuggling. Duke's becoming a semi-respectable member of town! Him and his code. Nathan looks like he wants to laugh over the most fun Duke's going to have today, which is odd in and of itself, you guys just kiss and make up already. All of you. No? No. Behind the tarp, a bunch of surprise party supplies for the town librarian's 80th birthday, which Duke attempts to claim he smuggled the lot of from Iceland. With the sort of perfectly deadpan expression that looks like he borrowed it from Nathan while trying not to laugh, and which gets him not believed at all. Nathan has a considering look like maybe he thinks he should believe that but can't bring himself to ruin some little old lady's birthday party over the possibility. Plus it gives him a chance for a shared what the fuck look with Audrey! With that, it's time to move onto the next victim in their weekly rounds, but not before Laverne calls Nathan sugar and doll, thereby giving Duke a perfect chance to tease Nathan over it. Aww, boys. Their days of fighting over every little thing are certainly drawing to a middle.
Up at the real estate office, the uniform's a baby who's only been on the job ten years. Yeah, son, you haven't been around long enough to see the previous round of Troubles. Stick it out awhile and you'll get a better idea of what's going on! This broker has been, well, not to put too fine a point on it? Shredded. Audrey goes to look for the same drawing residue that was at the previous scene, check, and Nathan would love to know what the connection between the two vics is. Say, there's an extremely convenient Alec, Vicky's father, sitting in the office! It's too soon for him to be anything other than a red herring either, unless he's doing it on purpose and trying to cover it up, but it's a nicely placed red herring. I think it was around now on first viewing (which was, admittedly, a good few years ago) that we started jumping up and down about drawings coming to life. Which has as much to do with an awareness of Uncle Steve's favorite tropes as it does paying attention to the cases at hand. At any rate, from there we go down to the station where they're interviewing one of Joe-the-broker's coworkers or his boss, hard to say for sure. She acts like she was his boss, at any rate, and confides in them (does anyone ever say they don't want to spread gossip and mean it?) that Joe was rather ethically challenged. So he's got people who would want to kill him, basically, though she also seems like the kind of snooty real estate agent who would judge clients based on their presentation rather than their checking accounts. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, it's a safe bet that if Joe was working with a less-wealthy clientele then one of them might have blamed him for a bank repossession or something similar. On the other hand, Wallace has two counts of fraud and two of tax evasion against him, so that's a pretty strong link between the vics as morally questionable, specifically when it comes to money. Given all of this, and given Alec as the only person who links the two vics, they will now engage in some wild theorizing about what the fuck is going on there! It's not a bad set of theories, really, since most of the Troubled are shit at controlling their abilities if Alec is some kind of telekinetic then it's reasonable to suppose he can't control it either.
And it's easily tested in interrogation! I mean, if Alec's going after only people he believes deserves it, I suppose that makes it harder to test, but he should be rattled enough by now to lose control again. Yes? Only yes if he's the Troubled person. Which makes me wonder about Vicky's mother, by the by, not that we ever get an answer on that. Grumble mutter give to Zim your murderboards. Alec was trying to sell the house, not because he was moving but because he was hard up for money, sounds like. Yeah, I don't imagine being a deckhand pays well. His description of Joe's death sounds even more like a shredder than the physical evidence we had before, thank you so much for those mental images, and now Audrey starts pushing. Right down to the gender issues with Vicky working on the ship that we'd only alluded to earlier! Ouch, Audrey, though that does push Alec way over the line into would have hit her if he'd had slightly less control, and probably into whatever would have triggered his Trouble. While Nathan has one hand on his gun, not very subtly, either. My fault, Audrey? That's all you can say? God, I forgot how incredibly awkward she is to start with when clearing people of being Troubled. Nathan isn't impressed, either. I'm not impressed by her excuse of a bucket of cold water which wasn't apparently to hand, but her point that he's not their guy is well made. Her further point about how this seems like someone in control of their Trouble is also well made. Or someone's in control of the Trouble's manifestation. Yes, Audrey, you should lower your voice when you're talking about the Troubles around the uniforms, not all of them are in on it. Say, lab results are back and now they can get moving on this whole artist controlling people through drawings thing! Excellent. Even if Audrey's stuck on graphite-as-lubricant for a minute or so, Nathan knows better.
Given that, it's over to the art supply store to get a list of people who bought a specific kind of drawing charcoal! And the hilariousest not-conversation about Nathan and his decoupage. It does go some ways toward giving Nathan something he does in his downtime, and some connections to the community that don't involve police work. Apparently everyone thinks he's a sweetie! That's kind of adorable. Audrey is still giving him shit about it, because that's what she does when she likes someone enough to want to get to know them, apparently. They come out on the street with a list of names to Nathan finishing explaining what decoupage is and Audrey still giving him shit. It is, by the way, the sort of thing that takes a very good eye and steady hands to do well, regardless of whatever gender normative shit you want to attach to it. (Actually, looking around, it seems like there's slightly less gender normative shit attached to decoupage as compared to any number of other fine craftwork.) She does, to her credit, make an offer that I wouldn't take at face value either after all that teasing, to be an open book and let Nathan ask her whatever questions he wants. Well, for one thing, she's not really an open book, because who she is right now has been so carefully crafted. I kind of wonder if some of the awkwardness in this episode is due to her already feeling some conflict between who she is at core and who the barn implanted over her, actually, since people have been very much looking to her to solve the Troubles since she got to town. And that has to have some part of her wondering about why even as she tries to solve the mystery of her mother and the cases of the week. And for another thing, it's still possible to probable that Nathan knows she's not an open book, that whoever she seems to be right now isn't who she actually is, so he's not going to ask. Nathan, honey, identity and self-image are way more complicated than you're making them out to be if that's the case, but oh well. He stops the attempt at bonding with asking about Jimmy, who bought that graphite charcoal! Yeah, there might be something of a motive there with Alec bossing his future son-in-law around and general surliness over his work, and they definitely can't just sneak up on him, though I question their immediate leap to Jimmy without going and asking who draws. Because apparently they're still stuck on the telekinesis rather than drawings affecting reality. Guys. Guys. Come ON.
Audrey has an idea that involves Duke. I'm not entirely certain why she keeps trying to involve Duke in their investigations, though I will grant that he keeps his head in a crisis and knows something about the Troubles, which gives him a leg up on most other townsfolk. And he's closer to her and Nathan's age, which means he's not necessarily holding out on her about her mother, giving her less reason to be specifically pissed at him. Generally, sure, he's a pain in the ass. Plus I think she just can't resist the urge to try and redeem his piratical ass. Still, he's not the most helpful person in the world and in this instance I'm not sure why she wants to go hunt down the Endorphin on water. Wouldn't it just be easier to find Jimmy at his place of residence, wherever that is? I know, I'm being logical and all. Duke tries to trade that for parking tickets, gets shot down, and no, I can't entirely blame him for not wanting to fall into the trap of always doing favors for the cops and never getting anything back. Except his reputation as a smuggler potentially ruined. He's not ready to fully commit to any side in this whole clusterfuck, hasn't been given a reason to, and as it turns out when he drops the banter, he has all kinds of reasons not to help with the Endorphin. He'd prefer not to ruin his working relationship with the boat without a better reason than "because you think someone on the boat is doing weird shit." This is, pun intended, a total fishing expedition and though it eventually leads them to the right place, Duke's protecting himself and his interests first. Which is pretty normal for first season Duke!
Nathan's idea involves Jess and a tranq gun! I have to go, um. Kitchen now. To die laughing. 50 ccs of diazepam is, um. Guys? I realize that's one of the safer drugs to coma someone with, but that's still WELL above the coma dosage. Oh for fuck's sake, Audrey, no, seriously, don't do that. You want him ALIVE. Sigh. Okay, fine, whatever, Jess is a badass and will put it in his neck if any screaming or bleeding or other weird shit happens. She is correct that that's the fastest place. I just severely question not asking, say, Eleanor what the wisest course of action here is. Sigh. I know, I know, this is TV, we're not supposed to go around searching for things like "LD50 diazepam." But this is us, and we do. They're just going to talk to him, Nathan doesn't think this is as big a thing as Audrey's making it out to be but he also feels bad about maybe putting Jess in danger, to say nothing of giving her the date that wasn't what she was expecting. Nathan, honey, the kind of woman who's going to fall for you knowing what you do is not going to be the kind of woman who expects everything to go according to plan. Though Jess would like that date to happen sometime after this all gets sorted. I don't blame her, really, a nice meal and maybe some making out is a great way to unwind from possible mortal peril. Nathan's much more dubious about it, though that might also be because he's trying to compartmentalize that for dealing with later. So, they go down the hill to talk to Jimmy, who's only too willing to respond to Audrey's attempts to get a rise out of him as though they're attempts to commiserate. Well, whichever works to get him talking! Speaking of getting him talking, um, he can't anymore. Or hear. Or see. I'd crack a joke about the see/hear/speak no evil thing here, but it's not very funny. They do a really good job of selling this as fucking scary, in fact, no matter whether or not you've seen the Matrix. Nathan waves Jess off, because the weird shit isn't happening to them and clearly Jimmy's not causing it, though frankly the kindest thing for him might be some kind of coma. That kind of sensory deprivation is liable to make anyone go fucking bugnuts given enough time.
Which is, as it turns out, exactly what Eleanor plans to do when we come back from ad break. Keep him sedated for awhile, presumably cross the bridge of temporary induced coma when she comes to it. I doubt she thinks it'll take that long, but sometimes the Troubles don't work out so well. She teases Audrey about needing some downers, too, which is perfectly reasonable and establishes her as the older, wiser mentor figure. Sort of a mother figure, but frankly Eleanor is way, way too Crone-ish for that. And now I pause and ponder an essay about AudSarLu's three incarnations and tracking their Maiden-Mother-Crone traits. (Specifically, I'm wondering if Lucy's the Crone and Audrey's the Maiden, but we have way insufficient data to determine where Lucy falls.) Ahem. In all our laughingly-so-called spare time, and provided more information on Sarah and Lucy next season... maybe! At any rate, Eleanor brushes off Audrey's apologies for intruding on her home, the hospital wouldn't have taken Jimmy without health insurance even if they'd had a fucking clue in hell how to handle this. Cue a joke about the perfect houseguest, which I will sort of grant although bedpans and bedsores and all that shit is no fun if this goes on for any length of time. Eleanor's established humor as one of her coping mechanisms, she says for winter in Haven (which is probably bad enough without the Troubles) and Audrey takes either literally or metaphorically to mean just the Troubles. Only we know it's June or July now, so I'm going to assume she's taking it as metaphor. Plus it lets Audrey feel out how much Eleanor knows and is willing to tell her about the Troubles. Which is not a lot, though in hindsight I would guess Eleanor had a damn good idea of why the Troubles were here. That little chuckle and look away from Audrey when she asks? Plus the sort of hesitation before "some cosmic test of our character." Well, of Audrey's, certainly. Not that Audrey believes she's going to pass, and she'd probably get more out of Eleanor this scene if her body language were more confident. But this isn't a scene about Audrey proving her worth, it's about her being nervous and needing the reassurance of an older female figure, witness the massively contrasting body language between the two of them. Audrey, hasn't anyone ever told you that if you're in doubt as to your strength of character, you're doing fine? No? I guess Eleanor gets to, then! In a sort of roundabout way that starts off first by reassuring Audrey that she's doing fine, while Audrey then freaks out a bit about the specifics of the current case, because she knows that the thing that's hurting people knows she knows and they're all knowledgeable here. Some more than most, as Eleanor sits and looks sort of fond and maybe a little bemused that Haven's messiah figure is looking to her for emotional support. Still, it makes no never mind who Audrey really is right now, it matters who she believes herself to be, as she points out that the FBI doesn't train for the Troubles. No, but a certain Agent Fuck You does! Trial by fire, anyway, and I am by now about 80% sure that Eleanor knows about Agent Fuck You. Goddammit WHY DID SHE HAVE TO DIE we were so close to ANSWERS. (K: That's exactly why she had to die. Bastards.) Hmph. At this point the conversation turns to the Troubles more generally for a moment, why can't Audrey bring herself to leave, and Eleanor knows the answer to that too. Charms. By charms do you mean spells, Eleanor? By spells do you mean the fucking barnvatar? ANSWERS GIVE TO ZIM. Fucking hell. Though we go straight from that to, what does Audrey really want? An easy out, or someone to remind her of what the right thing to do is? It's pretty much the latter, and Eleanor sits back in her chair like Audrey's a prize pupil who just gave the right answer and ARGH FUCK YOU TOO. Audrey knows when she's been manipulated, but she's also not, I think, overly pissed off about it because she does want to stay in Haven and learn what makes it tick. Well. Since you mention it, Audrey...
Anyway. Enough frothing at the mouth about that, time to froth over Nathan being a dipshit. Jess brings out drinks, probably hot drinks by the look of the mugs, because one easy and small solution to freaky shit happening is tea, dammit. Or cocoa, or coffee, but something hot and soothing is a good bet. She's trying to lighten the mood a little, offering first the obligatory will Jimmy be okay question and then a half-hearted joke. They're both still rattled, but Nathan's too turned in on himself to let Jess draw him out and make it better, so instead he lashes out and tells her to go home. Nathan. You're being a jackass. She just wants to help, with emotional support if nothing else, but Nathan doesn't care and he's busy freaking out all over her about this case and he's lucky that Jess is by and large a pacifist. I'd have smacked him one for the shock value even if he can't feel it. Because that is a load of patronizing bullshit, none of them have the first clue what they're doing with the Troubles and just because Jess isn't Troubled (that she knows of) doesn't mean she can't be useful. Sigh. She also points out that he came to her, to start with, which will apparently only lead to more self-castigation. Nathan, have I mentioned lately how you don't need an Audrey so much as a fucking therapist? Pity Claire wasn't a good match even before she died. Jess takes him at face value, not so much because she doesn't know how to break through his walls of idiocy as because, I think, she judges it not worth the effort to bother right now. And not worth the personal cost to her. Which is a totally fair thing to say. Audrey comes bearing the distraction of, so guess what Vicky teaches? Art!
The art class she's teaching right now looks to be one of those community center type deals, since the age range is mostly adults and somewhat more diverse than I'd expect for a college of any sort. She answers the door to the cops and is apparently hoping for word about her father! Um. Well that's not good, especially as nervous and worried as she seems about papa Alec. So nervous, in fact, that Audrey immediately calls her on the lying and takes a harder line of, we could take you to the station. Which only makes Vicky close right up, she knows they have to arrest her if they want to take her anywhere, and if they're only trying to help they can fuck right off. Well, she's too well-brought-up to swear at the cops, but it's pretty much her attitude. That is one very, very terrified woman. Nathan would like to commend Audrey's choice of tactics, and yeah, really? That's not how you handle terrified persons of interest, no matter how suspicious you find their behavior. Behind them, the sign reveals that it is indeed the Haven Community Arts Center, thank you for that, guys, and okay, we've established that she's worried about her father and she's hiding something. Again. In case people didn't get it the first time. Let's go to her house and see what we can see, shall we?
Nothing much interesting at the house itself, which is locked but the window blinds are open. By contrast, Nathan points us to the garage, where there are blankets in the windows! Uh-HUH. But this door is open, and not just open, the padlock that was on it has been cut. DUN DUN DUNN. Not that the music does that, because it's still ratcheting up the tension for the reveal of what the drawings are and do. And this is clearly Vicky's drawing studio, or was before someone tossed the place most thoroughly. Nathan steps on a drawing, and we pan out to see him do it, and oh hey that vase just exploded. It's amazing they don't both have their guns out now, though I guess it wouldn't do a lot of good against an unseen telekinetic enemy. No, nobody believes that was the wind. Someone took down a bunch of probably portraits in a hurry, it's amazing that there hasn't been more damage to people or property due to damage to the papers, but oh look, there's one of Nathan that they missed! Which Audrey will tap so Nathan can go flying back into some shelves and okay, now can we stop denying the obvious? Yes? THANK you. After the ad break, Audrey's put out an APB for Vicky, I guess we can arrest her for illegal voodoo drawings? Hah bloody hah, Audrey. And Nathan comes up with the point that her drawings affect things as well as people, which means the whole town could be in danger. Oh goodie. But Vicky as the attacker makes no fucking sense. Guys. You GUYS she clearly doesn't have to be the one acting upon the drawings once she's made them, haven't you ever heard of blackmail? They are really... I'll give them the drawings affecting reality to some degree, but the behaviorial stuff this ep they're really dumb about. Anyway, they're going to go chase down Vicky for answers, that's a good start, but Nathan neither wants to leave his portrait unguarded nor does he want to touch it. Yeah, I can't blame him there, he doesn't really know what the subject of a drawing touching one would do. So give it to Audrey for fuck's sake... oh fine, a uniform will come watch it and Nathan will come up with one of the usual Haven half-baked reasons for doing so.
At this point they're going to go visit the only living victim who can still talk, too, who might be able to give them some answers while they wait for uniforms to do their job and track down Vicky! Well, that's reasonably sensible. Wallace is exactly as belligerent and surly as you'd expect someone who was already an asshole to be under the circumstances, though I'm willing to cut him more slack on account of the four broken limbs and traction. Which, by the way, breaking limbs is a classic enforcer thing to get people to cough up the money they owe you. I'm just saying, since we're getting to that part. Audrey's not having any of Wallace's shit and they do, indeed, all but walk the fuck out of there. It's true, they don't need him to solve this case, it's just much easier with his participation. Turns out he owes the captain $300K for a stupid football bet. I'm with Audrey. Never bet on the Jets, dude, even if they've been improving in recent years. Joe Santamoro might've owed Richards money too from poker games, or real estate deal that went bad, the latter being far more likely as a motive for outright murder instead of aggravated battery. Turns out Richards' deal is that he's looking for dumb rich people who get into financial bed with him and then he chews their wallets out with interest and loan sharking. Aheh. Yeah, that's a pretty clever gig, and people might not blink at him twice for it if he hadn't graduated to murder and battery. It is kind of hilarious, given the usual visuals of muscle for a bad guy, to have tiny young-looking Vicky be the muscle for Richards, though it's never that simple, guys. Fortunately a patrol car picked her up so they can go ask her while denying Wallace any of the answers he wants! No, dude, you don't want these answers. These answers come stamped with a side of What The Fuck that you won't believe.
Down at the harbor, Vicky's sketching. Well this is going to end well. Specifically, she's sketching the Yacht Club. That's at least a little safer than any number of other things she could be sketching, I suppose. Not much safer, as Audrey points out, especially if she's adding in people. Which she doesn't seem to be? Yet. She tries to deny what she can do, not with any real hope of succeeding in convincing Audrey and Nathan so much as defaulting to what she's supposed to do as far as being a blackmail victim goes. Or one of the Troubled who can do really, well, troubling things. And now she's terrified for Jimmy, Audrey, nobody's buying your "he's okay." That's the "he's alive" tone, not the he's actually okay tone. And now it all comes spilling out, Richards is keeping Alec hostage and forcing Vicky to draw whatever he wants her to. They take her up to the gazebo-y thing of private confessional, we've seen this one in recent eps! With de-aged Duke and Nathan, and the poor woman who could only eat cake, for starters. To further indicate Audrey's evolving role within Haven, she's taken up a position of casual comfort, sitting close to Vicky, while Nathan stands watchdog over them, feet braced and ready for action. We don't so much get a stressor that triggered Vicky's ability this time, just that she gave Richards a sketch of a seal, which he crumpled, that poor poor seal. Which led to him telling her that her father owed him a lot of money but she could work it off if she gave him some sketches, which led to battery and homicide, which led to Vicky telling him to fuck off, which led to kidnapping. My, this Captain Richards is a regular charmer. He also apparently wants to buy the Haven Yacht Club and will destroy it if he can't have it. But wait, it gets worse! She drew a lot of people, including Jimmy and, as she says, half the town before she knew what she could do. It only works with the first sketch (which makes sense by the esoteric rules we're playing by here) and Richards has the sketch of him. AND to top it all off, we get a moment of facepalming about Audrey calling herself an out of towner, but the upshot is that there's a sketch from a lookout point that could destroy the whole town! Yay! I think this is actually the first time the entire town is so clearly in danger, and Audrey's response? Call for backup. Which is a holdover from FBI days but also, really, what the fuck are you going to do? We know her Trouble-dispelling ability only works on the people themselves, not on the inanimate objects they affect, so while she could maybe keep a sketch from having power if she was touching Vicky the whole time she made it, that's no way to run a railroad. Not to mention other old proverbs like locking the barn door after the horse's been stolen. Yeah.
Okay, Duke is like backup, I'll give her that. Duke is like very good backup, because he's the best liar out of all of them; the main reason we can see his tells is that we're looking for them. He's brought the wine he mentioned delivering to Richards, and proceeds to give him dirty looks over talking about where Duke got the wine from. Dude, he's a smuggler, and that was a trick question. Okay then. Paranoia for all! Duke's just a little too deliberate in his movements, forcing more casualness than needs to be there, which is the primary tell that he's up to something more than appears on the surface. Some quick negotiating on the price, and commentary on how things will start picking up for Richards. Heh. That's one way of putting it. And then the car with Audrey, Nathan, and Vicky pulls up and yes, do let's send Duke belowdecks. That is a BRILLIANT idea. I support this plan wholeheartedly. Nice job of lying with the truth, there, and this time Richards does pick up the drawing of... whatever that is, probably Haven itself, as we get the confrontation music and the walk up to meet the three. This is not a negotiation. If this were a proper negotiation instead of a delaying tactic, they'd have their guns out and be ready to actually shoot the fucker. But it's a delaying tactic while Duke finds Alec and the drawing of Richards, so they make some empty demands and Richards proves on camera what a villainous villain he is by monologuing and exploding the steeple on a church. We will also now laugh in hindsight about his order to draw Audrey and Nathan, because we know a second drawing of Nathan wouldn't have worked and we have reason to believe a first one of Audrey wouldn't have either.
Okay, okay, you're a villain, dude, we get it. Can we get you to stop gloating? No? Fine. Because Audrey's going for her gun to serve as even more of a distraction while Duke comes up from the boat with Richards' sketch in his hands. Yeah, no, now you're done, dude. Pokity poke, down he goes, down the sketch goes to be carefully snatched by Audrey, and yes, Duke's sorry he took awhile. But between the door lock and the safe lock it probably did take a couple minutes to grab everything. I would just like to note, by the way, that if you're going to blackmail someone, you shouldn't tell them everything like where you hid the voodoo drawing of yourself. Richards is a villain, but he's a dumb villain. Even dumber for tackling Duke with his portrait in hand right at the water's edge, and Vicky and Alec are too focused on their father-daughter reunion to pay attention; in fact, the only person available is Nathan. And they have to be careful getting it out or it'll tear, and do you know how fast paper becomes waterlogged, even heavy quality art paper? REALLY fast. As they're demonstrating with the dying Captain Richards on the dock. I'm not convinced Nathan's trying very hard for the drawing, but I have to admit it was probably too late by the time it got submerged. One dead villain, two alive family members, three concerned people who help the Troubled. A ha ha.
Back up to Eleanor's house, where we get to see that Jimmy's recovering (apparently Vicky can repair damage done to a drawing as long as it's done on the original? that's useful) and that Audrey's trusting Eleanor to give him his portrait. And possibly to take care of a number of other drawings, too, hard to say but it looks like there might be some other things in that portfolio. At any rate, he'll be fine, Eleanor has a Mexican farmhouse aesthetic going on for which I side-eye her mightily but we don't really have any further data to go on, and she would like to remind Audrey that she kicked its ass. Yes, thank you, o Crone figure. Twitch. Now share all your knowledge. No? No. Instead Nathan's pulling up to Jess' house and going to go apologize in his extremely idiosyncratic fashion for being an asshole. By which I mean never saying the words "I'm sorry" so much as implying that he's sorry, and that he hopes it's not too dangerous, and he'd like to try again. The subtext is pretty much text with this one, though I will note that that looks like one of the bottles of wine Duke brought on board the Endorphin when he was setting Richards up, and assuming that is the stupid expensive 40 year old wine that's possibly a very nice gesture on Duke's part to let Nathan take a bottle and use it as a make up present to his would-be girlfriend. Even if it's not super expensive wine, it's still interesting that Nathan got one of those bottles, whether or not he paid for it. Inquiring minds would like to know if it really was the super expensive wine and if Duke lied to Nathan about it and only took the usual, y'know, $20-50 for a decent bottle. Who the hell knows. Not us! But speaking of Duke, we'll head over to the Gull for an even more loaded scene with him and Audrey, where she's decided to run up a big bill as a way of giving Duke a big tip and thus saying thank you for coming through. Awww. I think that's kind of adorable. Duke does, too, judging by that bright-eyed grin he's giving her. I swear I don't remember the love triangle being this pronounced this early on, but it really is. Audrey proceeds to thank him, quite sincerely, which gets her a moment of sincerity before he waves it off to joke about his parking tickets some more; this whole scene sort of alternates between joking about the serious stuff because they're not ready to talk about it in the open yet and talking directly about some of the serious stuff. Lightening the mood, but also in that repartee asking her if she's going to do him favors as well. Not of the sexual kind, just of the reciprocity kind. Much like with Nathan and Duke, it seems like Audrey and Duke blow up whenever they're nice to each other! I guess that's more or less true, yes, and Duke tells her she should lower her expectations. He is so not used to having anyone expect him to be a good guy, in any sense of that phrase, and he's deeply uncomfortable with these expectations. Audrey allows him the out, though, for now, by pointing out that she's drinking this swill. Which is probably quite a decent martini, since Duke prides himself on quality of his establishment, but thus the joke is pointed on at least two levels: that she isn't expecting as much of him as she could be, and that she thinks he's capable of living up to quite a bit more. All in good time, however. All in good time.
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