Blood Love & Rhetoric Haven S4E03 Bad Blood

Previously, on Haven: Someone in the writer's room, editor's room, or some management position paid a lot of attention to detail on the previously clips because that's just about as efficient as you can get and still tell the story of how we got here in season four. Good grief. The gist of it? Audrey goes into the barn, the Troubles end for 27 years, so sayeth Howard the barnvatar. The source of her anti-Trouble is love, and every 27 years she has to come out to recharge that power source, whereupon she then goes back into the barn, which acts as an amplifier. Nathan doesn't want her to go into the barn! Nathan shoots Howard to get her back after she goes into the barn. The barn doesn't like this. It disappeared with Audrey, Duke, James, and Arla's body, the Troubles don't end, everyone blames Nathan especially the Guard, he resigns and goes into hiding, Dwight becomes Chief. Like you do when your Trouble makes you a bullet magnet. Duke gets spat out in Boston, makes it back to Haven with the help of Jennifer, who can hear in the barn, finds his brother Wade Crocker running his bar and does his best to try to pry him out of it. For reasons involving both his brother being an annoying pest and the Crocker family Trouble, with a reminder that Duke and Dwight used to have a much more contentious relationship than we've seen this season. (In no small part due to sheer desperation.) Dwight drags Nathan back into being a detective so they can work to stop the Troubles, Jordan follows them both around making dire threats and being in serious need of therapy. (Too bad the therapist's dead.) Meanwhile Audrey is now Lexie and working in what she thinks is a bar, where a man named William is following her around like an extremely knowledgeable and demented puppy. We got all that? There'll be a quiz later.

This week on Haven, we're taking a victory lap. A very small one. Around the couch and hiding behind it again from William. Augh. In the sewers is also a good place to hide from William! Or it would be if we weren't convinced he's a different version of the basement muse. Long story. At any rate, that's where this week's adventure in Haven begins, in the sewers, with a municipal worker griping about Haven's worst infrastructure in the country. And a dead rat who, according to Shernold Edwards, is our first victim of the week! The municipal worker, as we can tell, is our second victim. Doing double duty as our first human victim and the person who discovers the first victim, so, every available role for the person who appears in the first minute or two of Haven! Excellent. The red filter and angle from above tells us he's about to be death from aboved. As, indeed, he is shortly thereafter. Blood splatter on the wall! This was evidently a messy death.

Over at the police station there is a plaque on Dwight's desk that says Chief Hendrickson and that just looks weird. What's also weird is it doesn't look like he's changed the decor much from the previous chief(s), perhaps he sees himself as an interim chief? Perhaps he's just been too damn busy. The one thing that I'm sure wasn't there before is some blue ribbon looking thing on a coat on the coat tree back and to his right. Lacking a good view of it except that it has letters on it, I choose to believe that's a blue ribbon for archery marksmanship because it's hilarious. The only thing more hilarious would be if it's the actor's WWE jacket instead. At any rate, he's summoned the brothers Teagues into his office, bickering as per usual, it sounds like they're using one of Vince's classic cars to drive around now that the van's been totaled, nice continuity there. Why are they there? Either out of tiredness or out of asserting his authority, the former has the effect of the latter, Dwight waits for Vince to ask the question before he looks up from that fax. To send them to New Hampshire to look at a body found in the woods there about six months ago! This may be the first time we've ever seen Vince with that kind of slack-jawed expression on his face. Poor Dwight is all red-rimmed eyes, whether from worry or from lack of sleep or both it's hard to tell and does it really matter? We'll note that Dave is the one who speaks first while Vince is still processing that Audrey may be dead, and everyone agrees that they need to be sure before they tell Nathan or, more importantly, the Guard. The fact that Dwight intercepted Nathan's fax is pretty much what we'd expect out of him, and the fact that he says it came in late last night indicates that he's been working long nights just to be there to collect it. Poor guy. We'll also note that Vince is the one who voices the idea of waiting to tell Nathan, and Dwight is concerned with the Guard. At the moment Vince doesn't seem to be thinking like the leader of the Guard, he's thinking as a man who was and in many ways still is in love with a woman named Sarah, and who can at least somewhat empathize with Nathan who is in love with Audrey. Meanwhile Dwight, not that we ever doubted, is taking his responsibilities as police chief seriously, and has no scruples about crossing streams with the Guard to keep the people of Haven safe. Good man. Dave and Vince will now argue about whether or not Vince should keep the Guard from doing something drastic by way of revenge, because if Audrey's gone, Nathan really did screw their only chance of getting de-Troubled. Dwight cuts into this, making it the second time he's gotten them both to shut up and listen with one or two snapped words. This is going to get interesting if that dynamic continues. So, off the brothers Teagues go, with one last more subdued, more of the tired and weary showing request from Dwight: If it is Audrey, bring her home. In very military intonation, no one left behind bring a fellow soldier back. This is also one of the few times we see Dwight showing strong attachment to, okay, really? Anyone. The man holds himself very isolated from contacts that aren't either through the guard or through his business as cleaner/protector of Haven. So much therapy do you need, Dwight.

Hey, speaking of people who need all the therapy in the world, let's get back to Lexie and William. Actually the segue and link here is "bring [Audrey] home," but oh god does she need therapy and William too, though he'd never admit it. The way all the bar/n scenes pick up right after each other, whereas we get a day or three in between cases on Haven, is another one of those indications that this is Not A Place Where Time Moves Normally, and we've only got one of those previously on the show. She's still holding a gun on William, who's leaning into it and smiling the way people should not smile when they've got a gun pointed at them. Also with the intense and the focused entirely on her and Colin Ferguson why are you this good at being this creepy. Stoppit. She's tired and ranting and thoroughly freaked out by this, as well she might be, and wants to know who the hell she's supposed to be, according to him. We'll start the victory dance the moment he says it's not just about who she is, it's about where she is. Okay, the big reveal hasn't happened yet, but come on. There are not two freaky magical locations that are bigger on the inside in this town. At least we hope there aren't. Why doesn't he just fucking tell her? Not that she swears, because this is television, but we're more than happy to do it for her. He looks genuinely sad to have to tell her this, but says she's not ready. Give it a second, and she has pretty much the same reaction we would, which is to lose patience with this candyass cryptic bullshit. Seriously, when Emily Rose says tired of your riddles it sounds a lot like "tired of your bullshit" She takes a second to absorb that he's not going to tell her yet, then orders him up and off the bar and out of the building, all at gunpoint. Not quite the solid, confident stance she would have had with the gun if she were Audrey, but she's fed up enough that it doesn't bother her quite as much as it used to; she's not thinking about it as much. Plus it's a comforting thing to have between her and a creepy, creepy man staring at her with those intense we-have-a-connection eyes telling her she's not who she thinks she is. He might not react as though he's afraid of the gun, and in fact he reacts as though she's being the irrational one and he's giving her latitude rather than attitude, but he respects the conventions which dictate that the person who has the gun gives the orders, backing up towards the door as she yells at him and demands to know and gives him one last chance, etc. He looks at her, and we get a brief cut to the bystanders who are reacting with odd apathy to someone yelling and brandishing a gun in the bar, then he looks at the door. Then he says "No, I don't," and leaves. There's an incredibly weird pitch to his voice on that line that we've spent awhile trying to parse, and between that, the look in his eyes, and the set of his body as he walks out, we're gonna go with some kind of fear. Not fear of the gun, but maybe fear of failure, fear of her reaction (or lack thereof? if she manages to rationalize it away) when it turns out he can't leave. As we all know it will, because really. There's something about this he doesn't like, and we're betting that part of it's related to his job as far as dragging AudSarLuLex back out of denial and from the bar/n into the real world, and part of it might be whatever he has to see when he's trying to walk out of the bar. He definitely looks braced for something as he walks out, whether that's what's immediately out the door (how far the implosion's coming along?) or what's waiting for him back at the bar, including Lexie's denial/fear/confusion. He still does care for her, he's just also still a creepy fuck who's doing things that, to her, are terrible. And now Lexie is tired. She goes back to the bar, Rhonda's there! Hi Rhonda! And Lexie is glad to see her. She puts the gun in the safe and says she'll tell the other woman later what's going on, and Rhonda tells her to tell her about it after she services the cutie at the end of the bar. We already know, because we're fluent in narrative, who said cutie is. Also because when it cuts back to Lexie he's sitting there drinking his beer at the bar like nothing happened. He'd be cute if he wasn't so fucking scary! And smug. There is definitely some smug when he looks back at Lexie and smiles. Lexie has no idea what's going on, no ability to hide her fear and confusion anymore. So there's some amount of sympathy in the look from William. To go with the smug, and to continue his pattern of softened I-told-you-so's. Sorry, William. We're still behind the couch. And we're not telling you how much of an arsenal we've built up back here.

Back to much less creepy places, not that Haven is the traditional non-creepy place, there's a man with a bandage on his hand screwing a 'Detective Wuornos' nameplate onto Nathan's door. One of those will be important later, the camera lingered on him for more than one-half to one second. Nathan, in his office, is on the phone with Duke and needs him to go over everything that Jennifer heard in the barn before it imploded. Because that'll yield a different result than he got the last time? That actually is almost exactly what Duke asks, not word for word but pretty much the same thing. He'll be at the Gull as soon as he can, because a second or two after we see Dave and Vince walk past with lingering wary looks  in the hall, Dwight pops his head in and tells Nathan they got a call-out. What fun. Duke looks over at Jennifer, who is wrapping up silverware sets for the restaurant and seems to be feeling good, and you can all but tell from Duke's expression that he's as sorry to see that good feeling go as he is sure that it will go. Because fucking Haven. Nathan heads out with Dwight only to run or rather get shouldered into by the guy we saw fixing the nameplate. So that's our Troubled person of the week, then! I love procedurals, they're so predictable in some ways. But at this point we're not watching Haven because it's a procedural, we're watching it for the characters and the overarching story they're telling, which this episode handles with all the grace and skill we've come to expect from the Haven writers. Anyway, Nathan and this handyman who turns out to be someone in the Guard have a confrontation, because no one in the Guard but Dwight and maybe Vince like Nathan at this point, and that's assuming Dwight counts himself as a Guardsman, and then Dwight pulls Nathan away. Nathan's "you get one" comes across more as for form's sake or out of habit or both than it does as genuine threat or response to threat. Today's case is a dead sewer worker hey! We saw that guy! Down into the sewers with Dwight and Nathan, and it turns out the body was completely drained of blood. We'll take a moment to note that Dwight says 'ME' rather than 'Lucassi', which indicates that either Dwight isn't as close to Lucassi as Nathan was or Lucassi's golfing again. So, drained of blood, but the odd thing is there were no cuts or puncture wounds. The body's also not all wrinkly the way we'd expect, but the waxy complexion does nicely. That doesn't match the near-arterial spray that we saw on the wall in the beginning of the episode. (The force was right for arterial spray but the pattern wasn't, yes we pay attention to these things.) Also, Dwight isn't saying anything about any kind of blood spray, so, what, the blood's gone from the wall? Well, if you've seen the previews, you know it is! Because it's moving. On its own. And vampires leave puncture wounds, Dwight, though he's never been the genre-savvy one on this show, that's Duke. Before we can find this out, though, Dwight's phone rings with another drained body. "Seriously?" is right, and poor Dwight sounds really tired. Poor honey. Come lie down at our place for a bit. We promise a stress- and Trouble-free environment.

Roll credits, which are the opposite of a Trouble-free environment and we're currently hiding even more from that Revered Flagg poster than we normally would. Fucking archetypes fucking basement muses fucking William. (No. There will be no fucking of William, he's creepy.) Ahem. The Gull! Where Duke is, against his better inclinations, going ahead and questioning Jennifer again about if Howard might have said anything about where Audrey was headed next. Despite the line of questioning, she seems, maybe not as happy as she was, but not upset, either. If she's feeling resigned or annoyed by the persistent questioning she doesn't show it much, though she does take a halfway swing at Duke's vulnerabilities when she says she remembers Duke calling for her like he never wanted to lose her. Well. Yeah. It's a long-established fact that Duke's in love with Audrey, and he'll even cop to it, more or less. "Special to me" is a way of dodging around the l-word, because using the l-word would mean admitting that she didn't love him back romantically, though she damn well did in every other way, and the past tense helps him deal with it. Jennifer, either now that she's off her meds or now that she's more accustomed to Duke, calls him on that, too. I really wonder about all the interactions we're not seeing between them, because they're in proximity for so much of the time. Duke won't say the words yes, I think Audrey's dead, but he of all people did meet Lucy once (maybe more than once, by that locket) and thus knows what happens when AudSarLuLex goes into the barn: she forgets. Everyone and everything, and comes out with a fresh set of memories. So whether or not she's physically dead, Duke won't think on too hard, but dead as in he's not getting back the same woman he fell in love with? Yes. That much, he believes. Which is both a wonderful foil to Nathan's dogged stubbornness that they will get Audrey back and she'll love him and kill him to fix the Troubles for good, in a writing sense, and a perfectly logical extension of Duke's character, who's always been a little more willing to face reality even when it's a reality that he doesn't like. Well, alright. Let's move onto somewhat lighter topics, like the fresh-squeezed orange juice that Jennifer just made Duke. Aww. Which leads us neatly into it being a thank-you for a place to stay and I think we said last episode that there would be twitching if anyone was staying in Audrey's old apartment upstairs? That'd be Jennifer! Better than Wade, as far as that goes, but we still have the barn-touched Troubled person staying in Audrey's apartment. That, yes, is a little creepy for whole other reasons. (Where the fuck is Wade staying, anyway? I doubt Duke would let him on the Cape Rouge.) But she's yawning as she says no, no side effects from going off her meds. We'll overlook the fact that there should be, because psychotropics and benzos or whatever cocktail they had her on aren't pretty, and go with what she really means, which is that she hasn't been hearing voices. Just unable to sleep because of Wade's mock-celebratory parties of his newfound status as a soon-to-be-single-man. Uh-huh. Lahana and Balfour, by the way, have ridiculous chemistry, especially for a couple of people who haven't worked together before, from the face she makes over not wanting to narc to the stern/stubborn set of Duke's jaw over fuck that, my bar, my rules, tell me what's happening. Sorry, Jennifer, but the proximity of these two things in conversation makes us think that something other than Wade's parties is going on. Assuming he's even having them and not just getting drunk by himself every night, though Duke seems to think it's entirely possible. Also apparently Duke watches Animal Planet and we have to go die laughing over the honey badger reference. Right up until Jennifer catches her finger with that knife and Duke, honey, I know you don't want to touch the blood, but it's not like she's flinging her hand around and trying to hit you with the droplets. Most people are better trained than that. But he's on edge in general over his brother who may or may not be aware of the Crocker Trouble, and now there's blood, and Duke is so freaked out he can't even lie convincingly. Duuuuuke. You know that means you like the girl, right? Just checking. Jennifer's got a pretty good idea that his line about ladies who are hurt is full of shit, but even though we're yelling OH JUST TELL HER at the screen, no, he won't. Of course he won't. She's not gained that much of his trust yet, and if she had we'd have a very different story.

Time to go to the crime scene, wherein we get a panover the bay that looks similar enough to the panover shots when Audrey was wandering down by the docks at the end of s1 that it makes us a little twitchy. Then again, there's only so many angles of that bit of water you can shoot. Jordan's busy keeping an eye on Nathan, which he calls dead man's watch with a trace of his more usual dark humor. Dwight's willing to talk to Vince about that and get Jordan to back down, interesting that he doesn't think that's something he should do himself. Going through the proper channels of authority, essentially, a nice little nod to his military training. But that's okay, Nathan gets it, he shouldn't die before his proper time and place, and let's move onto the case! No, Nathan, Dwight has a point, Audrey wasn't willing to kill you last time and the sideways uh-huh-yeah-right look he gives Nathan says he doesn't believe that Nathan knowing about it and telling her to kill him will do a fucking bit of good this time, either. He's right. For reasons that he doesn't know about right now, but even if we get Audrey back with all her memories intact, I don't think there's anything Nathan could say to make her okay with killing him. Is now a good time to mention that we really wonder about Simon and Lucy's relationship and if there was something between them, if she did try to end the Troubles by killing someone she loved and it failed? Because that seems awfully scarily plausible at this point, and answers about Lucy Ripley's time in Haven. We demand them. Anyway. Moving along to the case, the new body was found by a manhole cover that's displaced, so either the killer was headed into or coming out of the sewer! That makes sense, Dwight of course has a rough approximation of the sewer lines in Haven but he'll get the map to be sure and also so that people who aren't him can help figure out the likeliest avenues for attack, pun intended. Jordan has an interestingly concerned look on her face as we close out of that scene, probably deciding when she should go stick her nose in the investigation.

Back to the Gull, where Wade's nursing a hangover, so yes, he at least has been drinking, who knows with how many people or how late, and there's a bunch of flags strung along the back above him. Because we're pedantic fuckers, we have deciphered the flag code for you! Numeral 4, Victor Oscar Lima, and one we don't know. Victor is require assistance, Oscar is man overboard, and Lima is under quarantine. All of which is rather appropriate for Haven and incredibly facepalm-worthy; aren't you glad we went through that? Especially if what it means to say is four people require assistance. Which four? Duke, Nathan, AudSarLuLex, Jennifer? Wade? (I doubt that very much.) Dwight? Probably not. Again we're left with a reference to four people, as in that fucking tattoo, and again we have no idea who the fourth is. Argh. Anyway, Duke's got a bloody Mary in hand and a beer in the other that looks more for the show of camaraderie than for any intention of actually drinking. Wade continues to be the no-really-it's-all-about-the-money asshole that we know and love to dislike and are pretty sure is covering up something far more sinister. Or at least motives far less pure. They will now proceed to jab at each other in true incredibly dysfunctional fashion, Wade arguing for not just keeping the place open but that he's owed some portion of the bar's profits and/or controlling interests, and Duke putting his foot down about his boundaries. No, you ass, this is his bar, and what he doesn't say but could is that Wade damn well didn't have to keep the bar open for six months, he could've ensured all the bills were paid off and hired a caretaker to look after it. Or, hell, sold it off. Why the fuck did you stick around, Wade? What made you think that was a good idea? And what do you actually know about the Troubles, because after six months in a Haven without Audrey I do not for a minute buy that he's as innocent and naive about them as he's trying to come across. Neither does Duke, particularly, but apparently we're going to have daddy issues time, Duke not-talking about the probable abuse in his childhood and Wade talking about the neglect and abandonment he feels. I'm sure that there are some real feelings behind that, but I'm also sure Wade's using those real feelings to fuck with his little brother, because he's that kind of an asshole. It works, too, getting under Duke's skin enough to make him try and throw Wade out of Haven again, hey, there's an opening for Wade to ask what makes him in such a hurry to get rid of him! He takes, again, the surface jab about schemes Duke might be running, he'd like to help and get a cut. Nobody believes you, Wade. Duke is too tired and too worn out for this bullshit, and if you don't like the evaluating look Wade has over not liking anything Duke's a part of, you're not the only ones. Cue eyerolling and sighing from Wade over how Duke's used to doing his own thing and maybe they shouldn't live together and Duke. With the Animal Planet again. We'll leave them there arguing over money and daddy issues as the only issues they're willing to discuss, or at least the only ones Wade's willing to bring out as Reasons To Stay, so little do we believe them.

And head on back to the procedural part of the episode, in which Dwight has a cover story about a toxic spill outside of town, so everyone should stay away from the sewer lines. Good not-very-ex-cleaner! As he notes. Here comes the sewer map and yes, we might be a little envious of Shernold Edwards getting to have that prop. It's fucking badass. They plan to bolt down all the manhole covers and pull all the cops and city workers to sweep the sewers! Not a bad plan, going on the assumption that your killer is human sized and shaped. Which it's… not. Oh, look, it's the requisite Psycho scene! With a blonde woman in the shower who could for a moment be Audrey or even Arla, but isn't, and yep, she's dead too. As much as a shower scene can be, this isn't shot to titillate, it's shot to demonstrate that sweeping the sewer lines isn't going to do anything because the sentient blood can go wherever there's water. We don't waste any time getting to this third crime scene, and you might as well start your drinking early. Beginning with Dwight getting the cleaner's kit from his truck and spraying the whole shower down with Luminol. I love you Dwight. I love that you keep this shit around, and I love that you still don't identify as a cop even though frankly, that is cop equipment. Or equipment that cops with enough money get to have. But wait! There is no blood splatter! At all. Yes, we call that weird. Haven-weird, but weird nonetheless. They're still assuming that they've got a human-shaped killer and maybe that the killer managed to clean up that thoroughly. Maybe via Trouble! Which would do it, yes, but human-shaped, not so much, even as they go through the usual cop motions of checking for forced entry and so on and so forth. Telling the uniform on duty not to allow anyone in only works when it's not sentient blood, Dwight. Oh hi, Jordan, you've decided to stick your nose in because it's so blatantly a Troubled crime scene! I can't say she's wrong, she has all the contacts to help the boys figure this shit out, and those two are standing awful close given Jordan's Trouble and the fact that her forearms are bare. Which raises a "why?" question, maybe because it shows off the tattoo? Or maybe she's just tired of covering up all the way and thinks she doesn't have to when she's hanging around Dwight and Nathan and others who know not to touch her. I can't entirely blame her for the latter, wanting to at least feel air on her arms if she can't be touched by anyone else. Oh, hey, while Dwight's focusing on how to get Jordan out of here, she's perfectly positioned to see the sentient fucking blood for the first time! And looks scared by it, too, yeah, even badasses who run around in all black most of the time are unnerved by sentient blood in the sewers. Ew.

Speaking of unnerving! Here's Vince's very nice car! You know, the one he stuffed Dave into the trunk of? Driving along, at least until they're not and Vince is pouring antifreeze into the damn thing. Poor Vince. Dave is impatient and therefore not treating the car or his brother very well, Vince is impatient and quietly freaking out about the possibility that Audrey might actually be dead now. Which makes me wonder two things, one relating to the Troubles that I'll get into later and one for right now, how much of his life has he been living in the eight to ten months that AudSarLuLex seems to be in Haven, and how much of the rest of his life has he spent waiting for those eight to ten months? Because at the same time oh Vince and dear god that's unhealthy. That's all kinds of unhealthy. Admittedly I don't think he's been to the extreme that means he's incapacitated in the years between, he couldn't be and have formed/still keep control over the Guard, but it's still unhealthy. And unsettling. Also unsettling is the fact that Vince's tattoo is visible again, which speaks maybe to his stress levels that prevent him from keeping it hidden via Trouble control or maybe to the fact that he doesn't have any need to hide it? On a Doylist level it serves to remind us very pointedly of his allegiances. While we're on the subject, thank you Dave, let's get into more of Vince's head. Dave would like to know what the shit happened at Haven PD. Well, more mildly than that, it's not like he's not aware of his brother's feelings on the Audrey matter. Vince is tired of sugar-coating the fact that Nathan's actions were purely selfish and they resulted in everyone else in Haven getting fucked over. Dave doesn't argue the point, but brings up that Garland was their friend and therefore it is their duty to look out for Nathan. Which. Is also an interesting point, and the first time this has really come up in quite this way. Vince resents the fact that they have to look out for Nathan although he doesn't contradict what Dave says. He does bring up Nathan thinking only of himself again, and adds on the facts that Audrey doesn't exist only for Nathan, which I list separate from the reminder that Vince cares about (okay, we'll go ahead and say it, loves) her too. And here we find another facet of the resentment; not only is he angry at Nathan for condemning Haven to a life of exacerbated Troubles, he's hurt and pissed off because Nathan either did what he couldn't or didn't do what he could, depending on where you stand from this. Vince let her go, but Nathan didn't. And, clearly, Vince thinks he should have. Possibly because it would have been what's best for Haven, but I'm seeing a clear thread of anger because Nathan took drastic action that Vince didn't and might yet get to see Audrey again, sooner than 27 years, and with her memory intact. (Not that it is right now, but they don't know that yet. Nor do we know if she'll pick anything up on her way out of the barn! Isn't this FUN?) After not one but two cycles of this, Vince had pretty well come to accept it as inevitable by the time it got around to the meteor storm again. And then Nathan came along and ripped up every demarcation line of what was inevitable and what wasn't, and now it has to be gnawing at Vince that maybe there was something he could have done after all. Dave, more detached, is more capable of seeing and pointing out that Nathan is attempting to fix his mistake. Vince, more emotional (and yet, notably, not with the creepyass Flagg look he was giving Duke the other episode, this is a whole other kind of dire pronouncement), gives no fucks for anything but making sure that Audrey isn't dead, and angrily claims that if she is dead he will never forgive Nathan for it. Thereby getting at the root of what we're informed via writer-Twitter is the driving theme of the first half of the season. Yeah, you didn't think that theme was going away anytime soon, did you?

Hey, speaking of Audrey, we're back in the bar/n with Lexie! She wants to know how the fuck William got back into the bar like that. He would like to keep playing mind games with her, admittedly the kind of mind games that you use when you're trying to make someone think, but, dude. Not alleviating the creepy. He tells her that this place, this whole bar, it's not real. Which would explain the no-sell response to the gun. And we all know where they are, or at least most of us do by now because where else on this show could be described as not real? But Lexie is pissed and grabs him by the shirt collar and hauls him up (which takes some considerable strength, you try hauling a full grown man up by his shirt collar) and asks if this feels real to him. And again with the no sell. In fact, he folds his arms on the bar and smirks with all those teeth just to make sure she knows he's perfectly calm. Colin Ferguson you give Randy Flagg back his teeth right the hell now. That is not on. That's also not nearly as loving or friendly as he's looked at her on occasion, that is arrogance, and smugness, and security in being right. So, we're all agreed he's a Crocker, yes? (A: Or possibly a Teagues. They have that same creepy knowledge base, and we know they've been around for fuckall forever.) No, we're still not letting go of that theory. Lexie backs down, as he knew she would, and moves off because she's almost as creeped out by him as we are. He just takes a drink of his beer and smirks with his eyes. Are Colin Ferguson's eyes supposed to be teal? Because that's teal.

Back at the Gray Gull we can see that no one has redecorated since Audrey lived in it, which raises even more questions about what the fuck Wade you seemed perfectly at home making yourself at home in Duke's bar, why not live in the apartment upstairs? No? But for Duke, Nathan, and everyone else it makes sense, even Jennifer, who sees and hears how much the boys care for Audrey and will respect her place and her home. Jennifer is hearing the sounds of a lively bar scene! And since we were just in that bar we know that this isn't Wade Crocker, which means the earlier mention of wild parties probably wasn't Wade either. Jennifer goes down to tell him to turn it down? How would you even do that if it was a bar full of people? To tell one of the Crockers something, but it's only Duke in the bar. We get a good, if brief, shaky pan over the empty bar to reinforce the fact that it's empty and the fact that this is setting her world-view a bit askew again. Duke's concentrating on not spilling the cheap liquor all over the counter as he pours it into the bottles of expensive liquor. No, honey, I'm sorry, there wasn't a wild party in here two seconds ago, and Jennifer knows it, so cue torrent of panicked, worried babble at Duke about how she heard the party again and she came down but there wasn't a party and maybe she really is hearing things now that she's off her meds. And maybe it wasn't the barn in the first place, maybe she really is just crazy. Oh honey. There are so many reasons why that's not true and one really easy way to tell, not that Duke will offer readily. But for now, we'll leave the two of them to worry about that and go back to the sentient mobile blood.

Everyone's crouched over the sewer grate when we come in, having determined that yes, there was a giant blood slick making its way into the sewers. Dwight says easily 30 pints worth, which is actually about three people's worth of blood. On average. Jordan even looks grossed out, which serves to tell us both how serious it is and give her some more regained humanity points. The problem is, none of them can quite figure out how this blood is attacking people. Or why, but let's start with the more immediately apparent question, how is a sentient puddle of blood killing human beings. Drowning them? Actually, yeah, I would go with drowning them. But then how does it drain the bodies? So many questions. The next question is, what does it want, or why is it here, and if we've all watched Babylon 5 we know the next question after that is, where is it going? Yes, I just applied the Babylon 5 arc questions to a sentient pool of blood. You're welcome. Seriously, though, they have a map of the sewers so they can track the sentient blood slick's movements in a downtown-wardly direction, coming from one area at the opposite end of the sewer lines that used to be abandoned cabins. The people who have been in Haven for the past six months, however, unlike Nathan, know that at least one of these cabins has been fixed up by Mike Gallagher and his wife after their home was destroyed by the meteor storm. And who is Mike Gallagher? Why, he's that bad tempered man with the bandage on his hand from the beginning of the episode. That does not merit the jar, but we will pull out the bottle to toast a tightly written episode. Drink!

Hey, speaking of drinking, let's do some more of that as we go back to the bar, with a focus on hands! God this thing is well-directed and written. Lexie would like to prove that this bar is real by getting really drunk. I second the motion. Rhonda doesn't seem nearly as concerned about this as she should be, though she does give Lexie the dubious eye and asks if she's good. She doesn't so much as look at William, though, who was clearly the focus of Lexie's upset and equally clearly has no intention of leaving. Normally this is the part where the overprotective friend tries to get between the girl and the creepy guy upsetting her? Even if he does look like cute, reliable Colin Ferguson? No? No. It's almost as if William isn't there, which might in fact be the case as far as the other patrons are concerned. See also, that bar fight earlier where very nearly no one paid any attention, not to yell encouragement or scramble out of the way or join in or what. Lexie doesn't know what. Lexie is going home, getting some sleep, and taking the tequila. Rhonda has a hilarious point about how if it's not real, the boss won't mind! (Which raises questions about, is Rhonda the boss? Or is that someone else? Is it Howard? We'd be amused by Howard. As we offered to punch him in his smug face.) And they share a hug, because Lexie (and Audrey before her) needs her friends. Oh honey. Even William's face says Oh sweetie. You know it's bad when William's face agrees. So, Lexie goes out the door and right back in the door where the music is different, the crowd at the bar is vaguely different (which is to say that people have moved places), and Rhonda is still there talking about good morning, it's going to be a hectic shift. Lexie has no idea what the fuck, she just left it can't be morning already. William's face would like to say I told you so now, though it's still the gentlest I told you so I've seen. Almost parental, in a way. That's disturbing, on top of the probably-in-love-with aspects he's been showing.

We pan back into Haven over a wooded shoreline to tell us that we're in the more remote, less inhabited portions of the environs, and Jordan's got most of her attitude toward Nathan dropped these days, interestingly enough. She seems to be buying into the plan he's set forth to enough of a degree that she'll put aside her issues and work with him, and also she's just tired at this point. Dwight hangs back to take a phone call while we get a brief glimpse into how membership in the Guard works, Mike joined a few years back, hasn't been heard from in awhile, and no, most people don't talk openly about what their Trouble is. I'm guessing Jordan's an exception because some forms of courtesy rituals in our society, as well as the sorts of things emotionally distraught people do when finding a place they believe to be safe, would be dangerous to others. Handshakes. Hugs. All that good shit that Jordan doesn't get anymore. So, Mike! Is not talking to the Guard anymore, because they told him the Troubles would end and they lied, I guess the whole information spreading campaign about Nathan either didn't get to him or doesn't make him willing to forgive the Guard for what he views as a betrayal. This is, we have to say, a nice indication that not everyone who's in the Guard is brainwashed and happily running along either Jordan or Vince's party lines, some of them joined for safety and/or a promised end to the Troubles and without that they want to be left the fuck alone. Nathan's got enough experience back in the saddle now that he's not just taking the martyrdom route of "don't blame them blame me," he'll come at it sideways and ask about the lilies. Which gets Jordan to realize why Mike be so pissed at the world, he's grieving a loss and taking it out on anyone who comes close. The way he glares at Nathan says he does know about Nathan's role in this, he just doesn't care that the Guard thinks they're still helpful. Mike doesn't view them as helpful or relevant to his life, and they couldn't save his wife from cancer. Which isn't a Trouble, but he blames the meteor storm and the Troubles not going away for causing it to recur, and it's been only a week. That's a definite trigger! Whether or not Mike's Trouble was active before then is a moot point, it's clearly active now. And he did have some kind of friendly feeling toward Jordan, the hostility dims when she offers her condolences and comes right back when Nathan tries to question him about his Trouble being blood related. We all know it must be! But Mike's too angry and defensive to give a straight answer and he'd like to punch Nathan. Jordan is still trying to be helpful, but she's clearly not used to talking large angry men down or used to manhandling them, and other than narrative convenience I continue to wonder why she didn't grab a pair of longer gloves, a long sleeved shirt, borrow a shirt from Dwight, it's a long ride up there and she could've changed. But she didn't, and Mike was too angry to remember her Trouble - assuming he knew, but see above for reasons why he probably did - and now she's hurt someone without meaning to. We think. It is, as ever, really damn hard to say, her horror at hurting MIke is real but I find it entirely possible that she felt a passive defensive mechanism like this would be useful for reasons we don't yet have stated explicitly. At any rate, it's done, Mike's alive but knocked out, and Dwight takes charge, like he does. (We'll also note that he says not a word about the Trouble to Jordan, no blame, not even asking her to cover her arms. It could be lack of time or thought, but given the givens we choose to believe a deliberate writing choice that Dwight is making the choice not to say anything that could be construed as blame to Jordan.) Anyway, now they have bigger problems, like a city worker who saw the blood and swears it attacked him, and a cop who'll maybe back them up! Dwight offered sewer gas and hallucinations, but that's only going to work for so long. Jordan mostly manages to damp down her reactions to liptwitches and guilty looks at Mike's unconscious body as they work out that the blood's headed straight for the station. Well. That's no good.

Even less good is that Duke and Jennifer are going to the station, because Nathan needs to hear all about Jennifer's new auditory vision things. We can't call them hallucinations because they're not, but vision implies a visual component to them that's lacking. At any rate! The station is empty due to the case, they take up positions in Nathan's office for semi-privacy and convenience whenever Nathan hauls his ass back to the station, and now we have an unfortunately good idea of why and how Duke ends up all silver-eyed and hoisting Dwight up by his neck like we saw in teasers. Eeesh. First, Jennifer has to freak out some more over her aural visions, she's got the bar crowd but nothing clear as far as speech goes. I have to wonder, given that, if her ability to hear better is dependent on how aware AudSarLuLex is about being in the bar/n, or her willingness to listen, or both. I'd lean more toward the former, although right now Jennifer has a fair bit of denial going on and I doubt that's helping anything; it's likely that her ability and willingness to focus on a clear signal is also a component. This is in large part greater explication of what she was freaking out about down at the Gull, that she's scared of being crazy, scared of being without her meds and crazy, didn't sign up for this. Duke has a look about him of reevaluating his assumptions about the bar/n being destroyed and even maybe the theory that it spat Audrey out when it spat him out, too. After all, what's a few seconds or weeks between timeless entities? He's not saying anything yet, though, both because Jennifer needs to get the freaking out out of her system before she's willing to talk alternate possibilities and because, well, a couple other reasons. Because Duke needs to finish thinking through those possibilities before he offers them up to her, she's not Audrey and she's not a sounding board for him in that way, and because on a whole other subject, the station being empty and quiet is pinging his spidey senses.

Speaking of spidey senses, hello poor uniformed cop. You're going to die soon. Blood-o-vision says so! And seriously how do you not know something is wrong the second the creepy pool of sentient blood touches you? This is Haven, when something touches you you should immediately look to make sure it's something benign, like a spider, or a copperhead. Why are you talking on the phone while it crawls up your leg? Ew. Ew ew ew. Although that… no, that still doesn't really answer the question of how it kills, that's just blood over everything. Is it drawing the blood out scalp capillaries to start or something? Which would sort of make sense, there's a massive supply there, but still and nonetheless. Okay, fine, Trouble, it's a Trouble, it's magic, we're going to stop trying to make it make sense beyond that. Especially because Duke's first reaction to it is oh fuck let's block the door. DUKE. You're a better escape artist than that, go the fuck out the window or something. Please? No? No. We know that Jennifer belongs in Haven because she's acting to help before she starts asking questions that can best be summed up as What The Actual Fuck. I'm pretty sure the blood could get through the jacket, but it's sentient enough to take a more subtle approach! Nathan isn't answering his phone, probably because he's busy hauling Mike's body through the woods to a car. Or he's driving, one or the other. Message left! Jennifer also belongs in Haven because she sees what's right in front of her and identifies it as such, though she has no idea how to deal with it. Does this remind anyone else of a certain police chief's description of a certain young woman?  Because it should, and that's on purpose. I should add that she sees and accepts what's in front of her to the extent that her fear, or so it seems, sets her Trouble off again, though all she's getting still is the crowd noise from the bar/n. Duke, in his attempts to figure out how to help her, ends up in the right position to look up at the light fixture. I love that the smuggler who would totally death-from-above people if it were tactically sound to do so is the one who remembers to look UP. Like hardly anyone ever does in these things. He gets dripped on, of course he does, and apparently it's all Troubled blood now that it's joined the mothervein? (Yes, I had to.) I guess that makes sense. Also it's running away from him, which makes us snort a little. Duke making Jennifer get away from him makes sense, too, hello hot silver-eyed Duke. Though it's much less hot now that we have confirmation about some of our theories. Jennifer makes the rather logical leap that silver eyes is what happens to people who get blood-sucked by this thing, under the circumstances, oh hi, Nathan and Jordan and Dwight, let's have her babble all of this out! Having a character who does the torrential babble thing is, I must say, highly useful for rapid-fire plot exposition for the benefit of other characters' need-to-know. No, Duke's not dead or a walking blood-ghoul, he's himself, albeit a pissed off and frightened version of himself. He really did think he was going to die? Oh Duke honey. That's cute. You know better, though, blood does not have an arm or a tattoo, and maybe it was more like he hoped he'd die instead of absorbing the blood, because that makes the cure for this really obvious. And unfortunate. Exchange of data, yes, unconscious guy is probably the one doing this, which means he's not in deliberate control of it. As usual. Jennifer would like an explanation for Duke and his Trouble, which everyone sort of hems and haws around and Jordan offers the half-explanation of an evil sponge for Troubled blood. Pardon us while we go die laughing. This also has the effect of not forcing anyone to address the part where he can kill people and take their Troubles away from the family line, which despite Duke's performance on the SHUT UP JORDAN, is something I don't think anyone wants the outsider with a weird connection to the bar/n and/or AudSarLuLex to know. So now they have to find the evil sentient Troubled blood again in order to deal with it, and someone watched either The Shining or the Blob, I'm going with the former because we don't have any other blatantly obvious King references yet, because here it comes pouring out of the outlets and woodwork. Literally.

After commercial break, we have a standoff. Between sentient blood and everyone else. Seriously, I cannot even. No, Dwight, if you spread out it will point right at its target! Which is not like weaker, but is like data, and we do love us some data around here. Duke calls it, Dwight has the next most hilarious line in this pair of scenes about the blood being mad at Nathan. I want to know how many takes this group had to do to get through those two lines without dying of laughter. I just. Really? Mad at Nathan. But yes, everything in this town is mad at Nathan, thank you Jennifer, and now is definitely the time for action. Dwight has an option! Which does not involve bullets, please stop calling it a shot, Dwight. No, we're not letting go of the fact that the guy who's surrounded by people with guns all day is a fucking bullet magnet. Even if personality-wise he's the best fit for the job. Taser does do something (I have to wonder if anticoagulants would do anything, come to think of it), but nothing is working long term, oh hi Mike, nice of you to wake  up and join the party. The upshot of all this hasty dialogue is, yes, his Trouble activated when his wife died and yes, he's upset with Nathan but he doesn't want him dead and he certainly didn't want those four people dead that Jordan tells him about either. Basically, the sentient blood is out of his control and he knew he needed to be careful with it and thought he hadn't let any spill down the drain when he cut himself earlier, but oops, even a couple drops was enough. Meanwhile Jordan has a resigned, horrified look on her face, the gloves are coming off, and it's only because Jennifer doesn't know what her Trouble is precisely and that she's hanging behind everyone else that she gets away with this. It's actually a very similar sickened look to the one she had on when she was trying to talk to Nathan about Ginger last season, the one that says she hates what she's about to do but doesn't see any other way. And in fact, on the grounds that Duke should be the absolute last resort for this, nobody wants to know what this much blood would do with his Trouble? She's right. She's a human taser, and worse than Dwight's police-issue thing, so let's see what comes of it! About the same as last time, only more pronounced: it runs away from her. Plus Dwight yells at her. So it can feel pain. That's good to know. Less good is the fact that she looks almost disappointed when she stands up and is still alive. Jordan, honey. You need so much therapy and someone who's not Nathan to solve the problem of being able to give you hugs. That is absolutely the look of someone who's ready to commit at least passive suicide but wants it to be in the line of her duties. To meant something. Well, it helped a little but not enough, so here we go again with the reformation of the sentient blood blob. Yes, we're going to keep calling it ridiculous names, because it's one of the more absurdly old-school horror Troubles we've seen yet. It's also, as a point of random interest, one of the most ritualistic/magickal Troubles we've seen, extra k intentional. The Troubles run through bloodlines, well, this is Trouble being in the blood in the most absolutely literal fashion.

And over to one of the most enigmatical and annoying bloodlines, hello brothers Teagues! Sitting outside the morgue. Dave looks serious and Vince refuses to move out of the chair. In fact, Vince looks like he's trying very hard to quietly die right here and now, as he says, he's not supposed to be here identifying her body. In fact, and going by his depth of acceptance of the 27 year cycle of AudSarLuLex's return and departure, he probably also resigned himself to the notion of her, looking the same as she always did, standing over his grave. This is too much like standing over her grave, which is a thing entirely opposite to what he had accepted, perhaps even wanted. Dave is still being the most practical one, pointing out that they don't know that it's her (Vince seems to have already decided, but Dave is limiting himself to known quantities right now) and they need to go in there and identify or not identify the body to know for sure. Vince is terrified; this may be the most humanizing moment all series for him, even above the moments where his love for SarAudLuLex shines through. Terrified, and vulnerable, and after all these years dealing with the cycle of Troubles this is one thing he's not prepared to handle or do. It's a humanizing moment for Dave, too, offering to go in and identify the body to spare his brother that pain. For the first time in maybe the entire series it's not about secrets, or about the history they keep, or about the Guard or Troubles or bloodlines, it's about Vince having a moment of empathy and realization, about Dave's love for his brother both in the offer to do what Vince can't and in the act of simple and comforting touch (which they hardly ever do), and Vince's regrets. And about the love Vince has or had or, well, has? For Sarah, who became Audrey, which we are invited to relate to as the much more familiar love for Audrey that Nathan has shown through three seasons, now. And now, as with Nathan on the other side of the barn door, Vince is on the other side of the morgue door and afraid that she's in there. No more Troubles, or Haven townspeople, it's just about being terrified that the woman he loves has gone where he can't follow.

So, speaking of her, let's see how she's doing in the bar/n with denying that anything weird is going on. Or at the moment, trying to get the one friend she thinks she has in this place to admit that something weird is going on. Rhonda skims straight off the surface of everything Lexie says, the exact opposite of Audrey and Jennifer accepting the weirdness at face value. Everything Lexie says is taken as having a sideways meaning, in whatever way it comes out sounding normal, as though this is a normal day in a normal bar in Normal, Ill. Meanwhile William is watching, and while his eyes are doing that 'oh sweetie' thing his mouth is smiling slightly, almost smirking, and did I mention he's a creepy fucker? Because he is. With his head cocked to one side watching Lexie struggle. He slides back and forth between proud and sympathetic, more sympathetic when she finally comes to him for answers. Downright sad for her when she asks if she's dead, which makes me wonder all kinds of things about what he is. That's the kind of face people make when they're dead and they're trying to get their loved one to go on living even though the grief will be hard etc. That's the oh sweetie I love you and I will always be here for you but you have to go do this great deed now and I'm dead/a spirit/a barn/something now, I can't go with you. That's exactly what that face is. It might be comforting to know that William, who and whatever he is, does have feelings for AudSarLuLex? It's also still unsettling.

Speaking of unsettling, back to the Blood Monster! Blood for the blood god. Mike still can't control it. Jordan can only shock it for so long, that's not exactly a permanent solution, and it's still adorable that she looks automatically to Dwight as the authority. I still wonder what spraying it with anticoagulants would do. Jordan suggests they try to contain it, but there aren't that many tupperware containers in the station. In Mike? Jennifer suggests, not knowing the rules of how this works, but then none of them do, really. No, Mike can't reabsorb 30 pints worth of angry blood, but Duke can! Not that Duke wants to, but he could. Nathan doesn't want him to, either, and now we have a jar with a surprised face in one hand and a trollface in the other. Duke doesn't see that they've got a choice, and he isn't willing to let this Troubled blood monster hurt Nathan, so sticking his hand into the blood pool it is! Complete with an abortive attempt by Nathan to physically restrain him which both Duke and Dwight block him from. Point of interest, that's about the same angle with the hand grabbing down as we saw from a different angle (for the tattoo) in Vanessa's Duke death-o-vision. He spends a few moments twitching and making gurrgling noises, but when Dwight tries to touch his shoulder and see if Duke's okay Duke will spend that entire blood pool for extra Potence to hoist Dwight up by the neck! Let's all take a moment here, too, to appreciate that it's Dwight, Mr. "Next fight's gonna go differently" himself, who checks on Duke first. It is, as we expect, Nathan who talks Duke down from the silver-eyed high, though. In fact, the way it's being blocked, Dwight interposes himself quietly between the two of them, which is. Interesting. Not necessarily indicative of anything except that these three are becoming quite a stable triangle, but interesting. And to the betterment of Haven. Everyone will now go split off to look for more traces of blood, also known as let's leave Duke alone because he's creepy or because he should talk to the new girl alone about his powers. In Nathan and maybe Dwight's case, depending on what he's observed, it's more likely the latter. In Jordan and Mike's case it's definitely the former; we saw Jordan's face when Duke reached down and touched the blood, and she's definitely still got her Crocker issues. Though she may be developing some faint traces of sympathy, not that she will ever ever speak those out loud unless under some kind of extreme duress. Then again, this is Haven. Duress happens a lot, particularly around Crockers. Wait till she meets William. Oh, was that my outside voice?

We close in tight on Duke and Jennifer for their little talk. She opens with some levity but also some sympathy by way of trying to gauge the situation and how to talk to him about that, maybe that's something she picked up on her own or maybe it's something she learned in therapy? (If so, this town could use another therapist, even an amateur one.) And as we've come to expect and love from her, she goes immediately for the blunt approach, which is that Duke didn't trust her enough to tell her about his Trouble when she cut herself. I suppose that's the more benign form of distrust, wait till she finds out that he works as kind of a Troubled/not-Troubled blood test and this whole debate over whether she's crazy or Troubled could have been solved by wiping a pinprick's worth of her blood on his hand. Heh. Duke is still coming down from the high, and it's definitely a high by now, telling her his Trouble is "ugly." She brings up the pain, but there's no pain. It's a rush, Duke compares it to heroin (and that pause suggests maybe he does know from personal experience rather than anecdotal, or the person who told him he was close to/watched detox), which sounds rather apt for what seems to happen to the Crockers. Which he next refers to, Simon, Roy, his father and grandfather both corrupted by their Trouble, and Duke doesn't want to be next. Doesn't even want his brother to be next, as much as they're on each other's nerves and almost at each other's throats. (Yes, go on, speculate what happens if one of them kills the other, lord knows we have.) He wants his brother out of Haven so he can have a normal life, whatever that means to Wade. While Wade still has a chance at a normal life. Duke, honey, your brother's been in Haven for six months. I wouldn't count on him having a normal life anymore. And between one family member's one time death and the cheating revelation, not to mention Duke's return, Wade's had more than enough hits to the emotional centers to have potentially been triggered for his Trouble. Just because no one's bled on him yet doesn't mean he won't go silver-eyed if/when it happens. At any rate, we'll leave Duke to his recovery and his denial.

Dwight takes the cuffs off of Mike because really, legally and practically, what is he going to do? Mike knows the precautions he has to take, and there's no way to prosecute him for the four deaths even on manslaughter charges. And Dwight's more of the Neutral Good sort, law isn't his thing so much as order. Nathan goes out of the office probably to check on Duke, but gets intercepted by a very dark-looking Jordan. Let her tell something to joo! She would like to impress upon him that she is done. With this shit, with her shit, and with this town. Stopping the blood pool was as much about not caring if she lived or died as it was about protecting, let's be fair, Jennifer and Mike and Dwight. Nathan and Duke were collateral rescues in this, Nathan only because they need him to stop the Troubles and Duke she knew would be all right. Mostly. The gist of it is, she is 100% done with living like this, unable to touch anyone without hurting them, which both highlights an aspect of humanity that very seldom is addressed, the importance of benevolent to affectionate physical contact, as well as exploring the possibility of what happens when a person can't just succumb to their Trouble? We've seen a surprising number of suicides by Trouble despite the subject never being dwelled upon as a suicide. Shumway, Piper Taylor, Garland Wuornos all succumbed to their Troubles in one form or another (Shumway not directly, but rather by committing suicide in the midst of his Trouble to prevent it from recurring and hurting more people). Lynette may have arguably committed effective suicide, though it's hard to tell if she could ever be brought out of that painting. Cornell Stamoran may have simultaneously committed homicide and suicide, that takes some talent. Hopkins the Gravedigger was the only one so far who committed suicide because of the Troubles, but not by anything to do with his own Trouble; he forced Duke to kill him. (We're not including Toomey in this on the grounds that there was no body, he might turn up after the Troubles shut off wandering around on the hillside having just had an alien experience. Who knows.) Jordan no doubt would like to join that list, except she can't. Her power acts on others, it doesn't act indiscriminately. So she is stuck like this until Nathan can find Audrey and end the Troubles, or until she decides to end it herself, and she isn't quite there yet. She might not ever be there. She's far enough down that line of thinking to not care if she dies in the course of doing Guard work, but she's not quite at the actively seeking to end it, point. And this is still more discussion than we've ever had on that subject, on this show. Which, given the number of related incidents not to mention the number of Troubles that likely would drive a person to that point, is interesting. Closer to a cry for help than an active attempt, and also to drive home the fact that Nathan this is why you don't fuck with people's emotions like that. Not that this seems to connect in his head at all, which is funny because in the absence of the only person whose touch he's able to feel with the Troubles active, too, Nathan has also become a bit of a death seeker. More than usual.

So. Along those lines, let's go over to Vince and Dave in the morgue. Vince goes through at least one false start of identifying the body, as we could imagine he would, but rather than balking at pulling back the sheet he's remembered another identifying mark; that scar on her foot (Resurfacing 1x12). Because apparently this is the season with the endless callbacks to the first season. For those who don't remember Vince treats us to the only important details for purposes of this scene, before the morgue attendant/coroner/whoever that is pulls back the sheet to reveal... an unscarred foot. I really rather thought Vince was going to faint. Now he's the certain one and Dave seems to be the one who needs to see the poor woman's face to know it isn't Audrey, insisting upon it. So we pull back the sheet to reveal a woman's face, and we have absolutely no idea who this woman is.

At the same time William is telling Lexie, no. She's not dead. (Let us take a moment here to appreciate that in the promo for this episode the pulling back of the sheet was juxtaposed and angled with Lexie asking him "am I dead" in such a way as to heavily imply that yes, she was. We knew it was a lie, of course, but they do have some masterful cuts here.) And that love and tenderness is back as he tells her, she is very much alive. Which echoes through the bar and down to the insides of Jennifer's skull! Yay! Wait, no. So, Lexie is alive, this place and the people in it are not. And all it takes is for her to say she believes him, and blink, and everyone disappears. Simple, non-ritualistic, inelegant, the kind of thing that sometimes has a goblin greek chorus screaming "That's not hard, is it?" Or maybe that's just me. In any case, it's not about the words here, it's about the meaning and intent behind them. She's giving up, she's accepting his truth of what this place is, and poof! There go all the constructs. Except Rhonda, (Is Shernold Edwards a Beach Boy's fan?), who is still pouring beers at the bar like nothing's happening. Poor Lexie, who seems to have been adopted by this construct she's come to know as Rhonda, and now she has to let go. (A: I still say that this looks like the creepiest reverse Touched By An Angel walkthrough ever.) (K: I don' wanna be touched by the William angel, can I be touched by Castiel Aziraphale instead?) (A: Take it up with Misha and whoever has the film rights to Good Omens. Or is that rites.) It's also sort of telling about who Lexie is that her figure of reassurance is someone who wants to go home, relax, and watch "that movie where all the hardbodies take their clothes off." I can only assume that's a reference to Magic Mike because otherwise the only thing I can think of is The Full Monty. And that's the other show with the people with strange powers and fairy tale worlds in Maine. So, Lexie goes over to say good bye to Rhonda, who finally shows some vague signs of knowing or accepting what's happening to her by the little twitches in her face as she repeats the performance of being just the older bartender. Lexie closes her eyes, and Rhonda fades away right in front of us. William watches these proceedings with something between sorrow and pride, sort of grief at loss of innocence while knowing it has to happen and pleased with Lexie's progress, again almost parental in the sense of his protegee is growing up except for that love is not parental when he's letting it show. Back over to him, who hasn't faded away, with a sort of a 'ta-da' gesture like she's putting on a brave front, because this, too, seems to be a shared AudSarLuLex trait. Now what? Well, now apparently William puts the teeth back on for this "you're next" speech. Next for what? A heart attack in fear? Because that's where I'm headed.

The police station. That's more normal, right? Vince is talking to/consoling Mike, and it turns out that Mike knew family stories about his Trouble and how if he let a single drop of his blood spill it would go after the person he hated most. But he didn't quite realize it was true in any sort of deep down sense, and he didn't realize he hated Nathan that much. Dave has brought the lampshades, he might even be wearing one on his head (A: Pull the feather and it lights up!), when he says that Mike was probably just looking for someone on whom to focus his pain. While staring right at Vince. Just in case his brother missed the point. Which Vince didn't, he is in fact taking the lampshade and attempting to jam it onto Nathan's head with talking about losing loved ones and having to work together to build a new Haven and letting go of old grudges and Nathan will just walk off now. At least Dave understands! Nathan seems to need the sense choked into him again, this seems to be a start-of-season thing. Yes, Nathan, the Troubles are back, no matter how much you want otherwise. Yes, Nathan, Duke and Audrey are friends, and Audrey is fated to disappear when the Hunter meteor storm hits. YES, Nathan, you fucked up, now fix it instead of trying to martyr yourself. We're not quite at the midpoint, yet, so he's still a moron. I'm not sure if this is a deliberate pattern in the writer's room or what, but it's turned into a pattern.

All right, then. Over to the Gull, where at least everyone is not quite so willfully stupid. Duke and Dwight are having some bonding over beers time where Duke apologizes (again, I don't buy that 'nope' of Dwight's, though I think they both accept that he's doing it for the humor value) for throat-lifting him, and Dwight jokes that at least he didn't get wet this time. We all remember Duke shoving him through the air and off his boat, yes? (Business as Usual 2x12) Yes. Dwight is actually feeling better about the whole event than Duke is, though not by much. They half agree to drink to a day without the Troubles, but Dwight seems to still be trying to make Duke feel better about what he did by saying how he came in handy and calling him a hero. Just as Wade walks up! Wade Crocker, MOMENT KILLER. And also potentially already drunk, at least by the expansive way he comes up talking. Or maybe that's his prepared to be hostile voice. He wants to know what Duke did! Dwight answers him with a long drink of beer and a "catch you later, Crockers" because while he's warmed up to Duke, Wade has not proven himself worth two wet shits. Wade would still like to know what he's talking about. What they were talking about. I will confess to feeling an iota of sympathy for Wade here, they're not being at all subtle about shutting him out and considering he already has ostracization and abandonment issues (which, come to think of it, probably contributed to his trust issues and the nanny cam), that has to hurt a fair bit. Still. Wade. You could be less of a dick. That would help. Jennifer provides an excuse not to answer, anyway, as she comes up all out of breath and telling Duke he needs to call Nathan, stat. And Wade still has no idea what's going on.

Jennifer is still hearing Audrey's voice, talking about being trapped inside a place that isn't real, and now they're finally up to speed that she's still inside the barn. And yes, it's still imploding, as William confirms. Actually, William says outright that she knew this place before as the barN, even though Lexie prefers bar. Bar, barn, same difference, same victory lap around the couch. This is also, by the way, one of those weird little verbal tics William has that aren't quite the average smooth modern speech, tics like "a local beer" "It seems that" and at the moment, "Call it what you will." Tics that belong to someone either more formal or more archaic, though what that indicates we're not sure yet, apart from our pet Crocker theory. Funky speech patterns aside, yes, the barn is still imploding. William says dying, which is also an interesting choice of phrase, the last person to anthropomorphize the barn may have been Howard, but if not him then it certainly was Vince. The barn is dying, and it's taking her with it, unless they act quickly. So, he's throwing his lot in with her, then. At least that's one indicator that he has her best interests at heart? Still don't trust him. But she's not exactly long on options, here.

Next week! William continues to be cryptic and creepy! Lexie has found Audrey's hair and vocal intonations! Creepy children get in on the creepy threatening act! And the ring around the rosey rhyme, always good for an element of eerie and suggestion of mass death.