What You Need To Live Haven S4E02 Survivors

Previously, on Haven. We get pretty much the same footage as we did last time (leading to about a second of wondering if someone aired last week's by mistake, that is almost the exact same footage) followed by some informative clips from the season four premiere! So everyone's all caught up, then. The clips (as well as the ep) are noteworthy almost as much for what didn't get mentioned as what did; we'll call your attention to the Cogans in particular. I very much doubt that's a through-line that's been dropped so much as, Audrey no longer exists quite on this plane of existence, assuming the barn still has her memories intact, and Nathan and Duke are the only other two likely to care and they don't have time.

Moving right along to the town's Troubles, then! We get a nice panover of Haven, followed by a frisbee hitting a sign for Founders' Day. Nothing good EVER happens on Founders' Day. It might be a SyFy rule, it's damn sure a spec-fic rule. In Eureka they broke the timestream and started a whole new parallel universe! So we know the whole town's likely to be in danger. Also, we get to be privately amused that it's a frisbee and not a football as it thunks into the first of several poor incinerated victims. If you weren't aware, the inventor of the frisbee requested that his ashes be made into - yep, you guessed it, frisbees. Commemorative ones. Truth, as usual, can be as strange as fiction. I'd say stranger except this is Haven, home of apparently spontaneous combustion. (K: I keep telling everyone, it's not spontaneous! It can be linked to a cause! Just because the cause isn't known yet mumble grumble.) Some nice byplay between the two kids who have to be the ones to discover this Trouble, poor boys. Up to and including the older one being the one to grasp that something is Not Right Here first. And the younger one's named Stevie. While I side-eye the Zuckermans for the possible Stephen King reference (really, you two? really?), the cops get called in and Nathan's on the phone trying to find Audrey even as he shows up at the crime scene. At least the truck's the same. Not much else is. Dwight's peeved that he called Nathan in 45 minutes ago and he's just now getting here, he professes to have been trying to get the FBI to help him find Audrey. Um, Nathan honey? Do you not remember the part where the real Audrey Parker, the one the barn took the memories and personality from, showed up in Haven? And how she thought there was a case of identity theft? And how that whole clusterfuck played out? They probably think you're some kind of crank, calling for one of their agents who probably had to take extended medical leave. We'd also like to call your attention briefly to the mention in both of this season's eps to the mention of 45 minutes as relates to cop response time; Lexie said it took 45 for the cops to get to the bar last episode. We will be watching closely for further instances. Anyway, crime scene, hello Lucassi! We've missed your phlegmatic pragmatism. Standard procedure talk - at least for Haven - is standard, we've got teeth and metal to make an ID and other than that there's no sign of a fire big enough to incinerate a person like this, and she can't have been moved on account of the whole crumbling to bits problem. So, a Trouble? A Trouble! Also Lucassi has a dentist friend with records for just such occasions, and the way he says it makes me want to know ALL about the medical community in Haven that knows the effects the Troubles can have in unfortunate and excruciating detail, and how they've been keeping these secrets for generations of practice. Dwight will lampshade the problem with Founders' Day for us, aw, good Dwight! It might even be a big enough lampshade to fit over him, though I don't like these lampshades. They're pull the cord and set things on fire models. He'd also like to remind Nathan, as Nathan gets another text from another hospital that says no Audrey there either, that the deal with the Guard is to help with the Troubles. Not just run around misusing police resources and being a drain on the town. Nathan is paying lip service at best to this agreement, and heads off to do god knows what.

Because on "until I find her," we pan over to the bar where Lexie's working! Another day, another dollar, she has a significant moment of disbelief and wariness when she rounds the corner of the bar to find William sitting there. No, she did not miss you, William, you ended last episode by being creepy as fuck at her. Also let's just note right now that the passage of time in this bar appears to have very little meaning. I think some of those extras are the same as last ep, the lighting in the bar is the same, we've still never seen the outside of it. It could, for all intents and purposes, be like the barn, only a waystation on AudSarLuLex's way back to remembering who she is. It definitely has some World's End/Restaurant at the End of the Universe vibe to it. No, we do not trust anything to do with any of the things surrounding Lexie, especially William. We have no ability to mark how long it's been since she saw William, it sounds like it's been a day or so, but we didn't see her chuck him out of the bar, so my willingness to believe in the passage of time is pretty much suspended, as a general rule. This is Stephen King universe we're talking about. And we know that the Troubles, the first three seasons of the show? Lasted maybe four, five months, depending on when in June Audrey showed up. Timey-wimey nonsense happens a lot. Also their clothes have not changed one bit, as far as I can tell. The people in the bar are in almost the exact same position and clothes as they were last episode; allowing for some moving around to get another beer or go to the necessary (or pretend to go to the necessary) and there are no timepieces that we can find. Not a television, not a clock, and the music comes from the jukebox and not the radio. How suspicious are we by this point? VERY. Lexie calls him on the very valid point that "do what I say or people will die" is an awful lot like a threat. And he can't manage to come up with anything other than the puppy eyes of but it's not! Really! You should believe me! I am adorable and harmless! Nobody believes you, William, not anymore. We over here are increasingly disturbed that they wrote this role for Colin Ferguson, because if you thought he was maybe leaning on Jack Carter last episode? That's pretty well gone now. He really does love her and is fond of her and proud of whoever he remembers her as, but there's another side to this love, and we're about to see it. Remembering who she "really" is is going to be a process, he claims, and his absolute certainty in the truth of this is what's increasingly creepy. Particularly when coupled with the way he straightens a bit and his eyes go a little colder right at the end of this scene. Not to mention how they're either lighting or altering his eyes in post to be really blue. We keep waiting for that to be so they can go to silver later on. Yes, we're a little attached to our theory that William's a Crocker.

Speaking of Crockers! Yeah, I just don't buy that this cut is unrelated. Wade comments about his little brother going and getting himself declared dead with no will or body being left, Duke takes a jab back at Wade about planning his unexpected death. Which means that Wade is the Responsible One, or at least the one who plans every contingency and looks on the face of it to be an upstanding citizen. Uh-huh. Because we all know that everyone in Haven and especially in this family are exactly what they appear to be. Wade, when you tell Jennifer that she needs a will too, especially in Haven, it sounds an awful lot like a threat. I'm going to twitch for awhile over all the Crocker-to-William parallels here, spoken and visual. Jennifer has that polite smile of you're a stranger and a man and everyone's bigger than me and I've made my way in life by being nonconfrontational, but I bet she's thinking something along the lines of "you are a creepy creepy man don't say things like that." Duke, being Duke, would also like his brother to stop creeping her out, turning the conversation to a not very subtle question about how long Wade's sticking around. That's not an invitation to stay and fish, that's a "when are you getting the fuck out of my bar and my life," by the studied casualness and defensive posture he's adopting. Heh. Wade plans to head back tonight! Yay! We know that something's going to interfere with this, because it's Haven and he's a Crocker! Boo. Apparently Wade lives in New York, the implication here being the city, not the state, and he's been commuting back and forth and his wife's none too happy about that. Well that's not foreshadowing or anything. On which note he's going to go be a good husband and call her before she goes to work! Aww. Sort of, anyway. As much aww as we're getting out of Wade. And that's assuming this isn't all a big lie. Jennifer doesn't dodge around the awkward questions much; we like her for that, but Duke's a consummate dodger. Or maybe that should be and Duke's a consummate dodger. Lord knows he could use someone who's not completely fixated on Audrey, now that Audrey's gone, to call him on his shit. He is, however, pretty well justified in dodging his brother's questions with "away on business," and since Wade probably assumes that Duke's primary business is still smuggling (and there's nothing to say it isn't and he hasn't just shifted operations shoreside), he doesn't ask questions. Well, fine, Duke doesn't want to talk about that, she'll go at this another way, with showing some vulnerability. I don't think she's as deliberately artful about it as most other people in Haven, she just trusts Duke the most out of anyone she's met so far and would like to maintain that bond if she's going to stick around. Maybe strengthen that bond. She definitely seems like the kind of woman who's learned the hard way to trade on looking small and vulnerable, which, ouch. There's all kinds of nasty shit that could have happened to her to start that up. Not even necessarily the obvious. Anyway. She was up late because Nathan wanted to grill her - again? - on every last detail she remembers from when she still heard the voices, and Duke commiserates with her a bit. He's been on the receiving end of his share of Nathan's interrogations, though in this case he can't entirely say Nathan's wrong to do so. He wants to find Audrey as badly as the rest of them, it's just that Duke has a tendency to be far more pragmatic about it. Like, say, why's Jennifer still taking those pills that make her memory fuzzy? (And can we get a drink for memory-altering issues?) If she heard the barn before, and he's not saying this outright, maybe she could hear wherever Audrey is now! But he's right in what he does say (while not looking directly at her, because he feels a little guilty about doing this), that she won't hear the barn anymore. At least, he's probably right! She might hear the bar, though, if we're right about what it is (and we rather think we are) and let's just also note now that bar is one letter short of barn. (What's next, ba ba black sheep? Oh wait, we have Duke for that.) He also admits that he can't quite parse what it was like for her, that it was a few seconds for him and maybe not six months, but probably several months all the same, of barn radio on loop for Jennifer. Ugh. That'd be enough to drive anyone crazy if they weren't already. She's still not going off her meds, is the point here, said with enough polite firmness that it's difficult to worm around that. And Wade will turn back up looking tired and frustrated and all those things you're supposed to look when things aren't going well at home. No, we're not suspicious of him at all, why do you ask. Wade will mention the contractor and the remodel and blah de blah foreshadowing and oh by the way, if Duke fixed up the Gull he could get more money for it than "those two guys" were offering! At which point everyone's hackles raise, including Duke's, Wade tries to pass it off for a moment talking about how he was thinking of investing in real estate but the insurance costs are through the roof. Like a meteor, only in the other direction. Ahem. No, stay on point, Wade, who tried to buy the Gull? And nobody believes that you don't remember their names, that's adorable. They only eat there all the time. Yes, the Teagues tried to buy the Gull, we don't know why aside from probable mistrust of another Crocker in town and no way to know what he knows. Well, Duke's got a mission now! Duke, don't bring Jennifer into this, she doesn't need to be confronted with Vince's teeth. Nobody needs that. Bringing her in will not magically soften him up, either.

First let's visit the morgue, though! We have a pan up of Lucassi unzipping the body bag, and whoever on Twitter mentioned that last night, yes, it's a very nifty shot. Turns out the woman is the fire chief's daughter and sister to another firefighter who died recently. Which is the first time we've ever gotten any kind of a look at Haven's fire department, even though I'm sure they're invaluable and busy as all hell. But more to the point, it makes perfect sense that Nathan knows who these people are, and we get something about a gas line that blew the building while Bill Marigold was inside. Aheh. For once, you know, given the meteor storm? I would actually buy that. Yes, Nathan, other people are capable of doing police work, including the unpleasant task of notifying next of kin. Even Lucassi! Who's picked up some of your slack and doesn't look entirely happy about it, though he's not saying anything directly. Lucassi's like that. Sally just got into town, and oh hey, for extra weird, her body looks like her brother's did when they found him, only she didn't take a whole building with her. It's not an unreasonable leap to make, that Troubles run in families, this is a firefighting family, a fire-based Trouble would make the kind of twisted Haven logic we're so used to. Maybe in past generations it could have been used to contain fires, but they've lost the trick of it? Or something. Regardless, it's a pretty logical leap to make and Nathan heads off to go talk to the fire chief before the whole family goes poof into ash and smoke. That's going to go so well! Roll credits.

Oh thank god, Duke didn't take Jennifer with him to confront Vince. Especially since this is about to get very scary, very fast. Vince isn't working at his usual desk today, he's working more in the back for some reason, where we saw them discuss the golem last season. He has a pretty cluttered radius and work area, covered with papers and things. A couple of jars, difficult to see what's in them. I really hope there's not a face in there; unlike our surprised face I'm not sure I wouldn't bet on it being literal. We still don't know what the Teagues Trouble is. Anyway. I will give Vince that offering to buy the Gull was likely a good way to try to get Wade to settle Duke's estate quickly so he'd go away, but you know what would have been a better plan? Not having Duke declared dead in the first place. Seriously. You idiots. There were only a handful of witnesses to what eventually went on at that barn, you didn't have to have Duke or anyone else who got sucked in there declared dead, thereby triggering other people to come in and deal with shit. Between that and the shifty looking around Vince does when he talks about Wade settling the Crocker estate quickly, yeah, no one's believing you, Vince. You're not even bothering with the whole harmless old man act right now, are you. Of course not. Especially not with bringing up the Guard and the Crocker family business. You know how much Duke hates the alleged Crocker family business. You know. And this is one of those points when I want to know just what Vince knows, how that tattoo and the Teagues (or the Carrs) relate historically to the Crockers, and especially how the Crockers fit in with Haven and its Troubles. Vince's anger is much increased and temper much shortened after the six months of watching Haven deteriorate, as everyone's seems to be, but this is also personal. Why is it personal? What is going on here? Inquiring minds. Duke insists that Wade doesn't know anything about that stuff and Vince goes off into a litany of things Duke has found out about that Wade might find out too. Including the box and journal that we never did see the Teagues find out about on screen, just both of them looking at the smaller Crocker box and lying their asses off about not knowing where it comes from. Did I mention the inquiring minds? Because yes. Though this is the first time he's admitted to Duke that he knows all about those things. Duke doesn't pick on that, I'm not even sure he notices, he wants Vince to promise that the Guard will leave Wade alone. That's an awful lot of sentiment for someone you seem to barely know, Duke, not that it's not admirable but I'm not certain it's safe. And I want to know why there's a producer on staff named Speed Weed. I mean, why I want to know Vince's tattoo shows up now. Is that an on-purpose threat? A sign of stress? We'll bet on the former, given the way he takes his glasses off and pointedly reveals his forearm, as well as the initial reveal was clearly a deliberate gesture. Interestingly, Julia didn't seem too aware of her tattoo appearing. Vince wants to know if Duke is going to get Wade out of Haven. We all want to know things, but we don't always get what we want. Duke does not like that tattoo, not one little bit, but he does agree to get Wade out by tonight. Probably he would have agreed even without the reminder of some day this man might kill you, because Haven isn't a safe place to be in general and doubly so if you're a Crocker. Hell, you know? If Duke wants to persuade Wade to leave town all he really has to do is point at the mortality rate and go "I want my brother to be safe pls leave now." He doesn't even have to mention that everyone named Crocker, as Vince so cheerfully points out, has a big fat target painted on their backs. Duke doesn't like the fact that Vince has spent almost this entire conversation threatening Duke in various ways and prodding at his discomforts. Vince just smiles and says everybody needs a hobby and would Richard Donat PLEASE stop looking like Flagg now? Please oh please? That's about the fucking creepiest form of "this man is dangerous" he could possibly project. Ugh. I need a fucking drink now.

Going over to Dave and Jennifer is not like a stiff drink, but at least it's a welcome break from the homicidal tension. So, it turns out Duke did bring Jennifer to the newspaper but not to the confrontation with Vince, for which we can all be grateful. Dave is rummaging through files looking for something, it's hard to say what initially but Jennifer does ask him for a picture of Audrey when she was there last. Not that she specifies when AudSarLu was there last, but she does specify Audrey Parker. And why is it the world doesn't know about what goes on here, anyway? Well, partly because human beings are very, very good at denial, but also because of the two newspapermen! It's a little bit of exposition wrapped in some character development, mostly for Jennifer although we do get both a bit of paternalism from Dave, which we haven't seen lately if ever, and his opinion on the Troubles. This may be about as close as we'll ever see him get to admitting that he or the Teagues bloodline is Troubled, really, because the word choices there are personal and immediate. Like having a supernatural power you didn't want and can't control? That very much sounds like it's from personal experience, even though we still don't know what that might be. The music is more prominent here, minor key and lots of the piano but with more strings than we usually get from Audrey's themes. And yet that seems to be what it's echoing, partly because she's the topic of conversation and her picture is there. Maybe entirely because of that? But it also seems as though they're trying to echo some aspects of Audrey in Jennifer, in the way she functions for the people of Haven at least if nothing else. We'll see if this musical theme becomes a Jennifer thing, too. It'd be good for Audrey to have a friendly woman around, although it's a nice surprise that Jordan came back for a second season. At any rate, we have a discussion of Audrey for a bit, between Dave and Jennifer, and the article he passes her to see Audrey's picture is from Love Machine (2x03). Dave expresses some blessedly restrained confidence that Jennifer will find Audrey too. And I say blessedly restrained because Dave gets just as creepy as his brother when he's excited, and also because Jennifer has enough pressure on her right now, she doesn't need more. She's clearly aware of that, too, by the way she responds.

More of an ominous, urgent theme as Nathan drives up to the firehouse. To go with Nathan's ominous urgency! I can't help but feel like there's some Stephen King significance to the name of Marigold, but damned if I can think of what. In flower language, marigolds (originally Mary's Gold, heh, some Pieta significance there?) are for sorrow and sympathy, seems like. It's also apparently still used in Dia de los Muertos rituals, which has absolutely no significance here none whatsoever. Either in the case of the week or in the overall, mourning Audrey sense. Nathan's here to talk to the captain, anyway, not that any of the firefighters are inclined to let him. There's a whole laundry list of issues here in the firefighter's attempt to brush Nathan off, starting with jurisdictional rivalry and friction and the perceptions of what is cowardice and what is bravery and ending with the interesting Haven dynamic that, even if the unTroubled don't know why specifically they're blaming Nathan for everything, they're still going to blame him. Too, there's the fact that Nathan did abdicate a position of responsibility that likely he was expected to hold down for life or at least for a few decades. And that hits home for a group of people who have chosen to take on responsibilities and who depend on each other to hold up their end. The captain breaks up the impending argument-possible-fight, so at least at first we expect a civil conversation out of him. Not so much, as it turns out, just one with more personal grievances. Nathan starts by addressing the concern for his family, but the captain's already lost two members of his family and Nathan just added insult to injury. More insult, depending on the captain's view, as Nathan flat out says he thinks they were Troubled. I'd like to point out, though, that he's getting the captain upset enough that if there were a Marigold family Trouble, the captain or Nathan might start smoking right about now, and he isn't. Not sure if that's on purpose or just Nathan being awkward turtle. Either way, the captain isn't holding with the Marigold Trouble theory, accuses Nathan of blaming his children for their deaths, and says flat out that Nathan should blame himself. Not quite that he blames Nathan, though his previous sentence certainly implies it. His shaking voice and stormy retreat indicate as well that he's trying to be the adult, the responsible leader, the bigger person, one or all of those, and not make accusations that could hurt Nathan's effectiveness as a police officer. At least I assume that's what it is because I'm pretty sure he doesn't give a damn about Nathan as a person.

One flyover later we get to a woman waiting on the side of a road with a suitcase for, ah! A cab. The cab pulls up and stops, indicating that whoever's inside and driving is definitely alive, and the woman continues to talk on the phone. And no, that Haven Herald newspaper dispenser with the headline "Eatery Burns to the Ground" is not relevant. Not yet relevant, at least, but we will include that there so you know we did check. The woman tells the person on the other end of the phone that her cab's here and she has to go, loads herself and her suitcase up and the cab is full of smoke. We can see it, and if we can see it she certainly can smell it. Unfortunately the smoke is coming from inside the cabbie (what? whaaat?) and the second she taps his shoulder to check if he's okay, well, I could make any number of lost his head jokes here. Pretend I made them. Yeah, I'd run screaming out of the cab, too, and a flyover later we have the police all around the cab. In a different position than it was before! Yes, we do notice these things, it's a few feet further down the street. Nathan and Dwight are inspecting the cab, but it's the same as Sally Marigold, nothing but the person burned. What's that on the back of the car? Could it be a #DiscoverHaven bumper sticker? I do believe it is! The poor victim of the moment is a man named Jacob Hartcher? Harcher? Either way, not Jacob Marigold, which puts it most likely at outside the family (can't rule out illegitimacy or cousin-ness), which means someone else is wandering around Haven incinerating people. Oh goodie.

When we come back from commercial they're still trying to find out what the connection between the cabbie and the Marigolds is, but there's nothing apparent. There is, however, a Jordan. Coming into confrontation with Stan, who is a good police officer and not letting civilians into crime scenes. We have developed a theory called the Unfazed Everyman theory which says that Stan is a little-talked-to cousin of Agent Coulson. Thoughts? While we discuss that Jordan would like to know the fuck is this, the fuck is that, and the fuck is setting people on fire. It's not at all surprising that she feels she can barge into a murder investigation run by her friend to ask him the fuck is going on, but it is noteworthy that, as Dwight reminds her of ongoing investigation and he's a real boy police officer now, there's this little smile there. No specific direction to the emotion, but there's more lightness than we've seen out of him in any conversation with Nathan up to this point. It's interesting, for a value of interesting that includes many other and more speculative words, that Jordan's the one to bring this out. Jordan also was under the impression that Nathan's position would be much more of a symbolic role involving him chained to a desk where Dwight could keep an eye on him. Possibly with literal chains, depending on how vindictive Jordan's feeling. Because as much as she does have a point, the viciousness with which she jabs it home is all vindictive and pain. The lightness (tenderness? affection?) goes away at that, Dwight is not giving up Nathan's help and don't even put him in that position, Jordan, because however it goes you'll lose. All right, so Jordan isn't entirely going there, but she would like to remind him that they need Nathan alive. So he can be killed. There's something hilariously morbid about that. She'd rather, if Dwight needs someone experienced in Troubled cases and finding Troubled people, that it be the Guard. She even volunteers to work with him, which is on the face of it more of the same but her tone is softer than she has been in several episodes. Whatever's between them we're not going to get it now, as it turns out, but there's definitely something there. Even if Dwight's being sarcastic about Nathan being touched that she's so worried about him. That sarcasm isn't biting, isn't meant to be hostile, it's more amused than anything else. Jordan's still worried that the Troubles won't end, that she'll spend the rest of her life untouchable and, and again this is notable given how aggressive and angry she's been, worried that Dwight will spend the rest of his life wrapped up in a vest. Note: this is still real concern here, one person for another, Jordan expressing a connection to Dwight that we haven't seen her express to anyone since Nathan. And Dwight is meeting her with it, though he's not behaving in any sort of non-police-chief way. Still, there's that tenderness or softness to his expressions and his voice. (And have I mentioned yet in this episode, that it's amazing how Adam Copeland has grown as an actor in these past few seasons? Because it is.) Whatever their connection was, whatever of it remains, it's not enough to convince Dwight to let her in on this yet. Maybe in another couple cases, but right now he's turning back to the investigation she's not invited to.

And we're back at the creepy bar with the creepy William and his creepy implications. Note again the repeat of extras in the same clothing and lack of timepieces or anything that could mark a specific day, date, or time of day other than "maybe generally daytime." William asks what she remembers about getting to the bar, which is one of the first things people ask when you're in a dimensional pocket and they're trying to make you aware of it. See also: The Matrix, Inception, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. She remembers a string of events that brought her to a bar, but we and William know that it's a fake set of implanted memories. (We would note briefly that if we're wrong about the bar-as-waystation theory, we might still be right about it being in Nederland CO, which is across the country from a lot of places. Including Haven.) We know how we know this, and we would dearly love to know how William knows it. Lexie will also want to know how he knows it as soon as she believes him, which is not right now. He's groping to express to her that she may remember the events and remember feeling emotions, but they're not visceral or intrinsic to her the way emotional memories/memories of emotions are when you genuinely have them. I mean, I can articulate it in terms of memory of emotion and reflective emotional responses, but he doesn't seem to have the vocabulary or the detached concepts. There's a faint chance that this is because he predates psychology and hasn't had a chance to catch up, but it's more likely that he just doesn't think that way. We do, but you've seen how we work. Hey, speaking of detached conversation about emotions, there's also an interesting point in this conversation, after he asks how she felt and she tells him "pissed off" where we have a chance to observe a new set of responses to her. Admittedly this has been going there for some time with her insistence that she's Lexie DeWitt, but we see him swallow back some evident frustration, showing restraint and introducing/reinforcing the idea that this urgency isn't out of his own needs (though he certainly does have personal, emotional needs at play here) but out of some external impetus. He needs her to remember, but if he's capable of even temporary restraint and self control in order to meet a future goal that's more than a lot of emotionally-driven and potentially obsessive people are capable of. Hey, speaking of his personal, emotional needs, let's all note the look-from-beneath hesitancy of the look and the catch in his voice on "did you love him" immediately after that. Then let's all be impressed by Colin Ferguson and afraid of his performance as William. Be very afraid. Along with the "Right?" when he asks that she's been in love before, that's a question that wants to believe he knows the answer. Lexie isn't sure of her answer, is the thing, but he is... sure of some things. He might not be sure of her yet, but we get some good closeups of his face as he's describing these emotions. Experience is all over him, along with weariness. Resignation? Intensity, for certain. Hope... maybe not in the purer or brighter sense, but definitely tenacity bordering on desperation. Someone that she hasn't met in this lifetime is interesting, because there's enough there to imply that whether or not he wants it to be him, he's not sure it is, and he's at least halfway accepting of that fact. He believes he accepts it, we'll put it that way. At any rate, it's all intense and weighty and it's kind of freaking Lexie out. I'd be freaked out too! She thinks he needs to leave, which cues another torrent of you-have-to-listen-to-me babble, and it must be desperation that makes him bring up Haven because there's no reason here to think that the name of the place will make her remember any more than talking about her emotions has. Which it doesn't. She tells him to finish his beer and get out, and we finish with a closeup on his face that all but screams "I really didn't want to have to resort to this." Also "This is gonna suck."

Time for some more of Duke and Jennifer! We still don't even a little bit buy that the cuts from the bar to Duke and Jennifer are accidental. What is interesting is that so far it's both of them, not just one, and Jennifer is tied to the barn somehow and Duke is a Crocker. Which may make our Crocker theory invalid, or may mean that the Crockers are more tied to the barn than we thought. But it's a thing. A definite thematic thing. Which you can bet your ass we'll be paying attention to. At any rate, Jennifer's pointing out the thing that Audrey actually mentioned very early on when she first arrived in Haven, though in more clinical terms back then. There's this picture-perfect small town Haven, and then there's the mermen and the people like Nathan and the people like Duke (who Jennifer, we must note, still doesn't know is Troubled himself), the Haven on top and the Haven underneath. Interesting that she's learned about the Glendowers, and incredibly annoying because we would love some goddamn names on who the fucking founders were since it's fucking Founders' Day. (Actually, we may be getting something of that list: Teagues, Crockers, Glendowers, for a start. It's just a sideways list. As always.) Still want to know all about the weird persephonic mermen (and why, given that they're persephonic, is it the men who have to go to the underworldsea?) and how they relate to everything; it's possible that they're there to bear witness to the love triangle, maybe? That would be a very Stephen King-esque thing to do. And given all this, why does Duke want Wade gone so badly but her to stay? Well, he's not going to give the full and complete answer to that, far, far from it. Partly he doesn't trust her with that information yet, partly he doesn't want to scare her off by explaining the Guard and the whole wanting him dead thing, and partly Duke's just used to dodging and evading and telling stories to illustrate a point. In this case, we get a retelling of the sled incident in which Nathan had a compound fracture of his arm (1x02 Butterfly) but his Trouble had kicked in so he didn't feel it, minus the mention of Nathan's name. Wade puked, apparently! In Nathan's telling of it, a girl named Lisa Botke(y?) was the puker, but given the circumstances there may have been more than one kid throwing up, Nathan was in shock even if he didn't feel it, and it's possible that Duke's embellishing. Hard to say which of the three are at play, Duke's not entirely happy about remembering this incident for her benefit but it's one of the, mm. Less traumatic options available to him, I'm guessing. Also notable is the fact that Wade was there for a visit, meaning he wasn't normally living with them, meaning parental split of some kind or another. It's also possible, though nobody here seems to believe it, that Wade isn't Simon Crocker's biological son and they're half-brothers? I severely doubt that, but it would be an interesting twist! At any rate, Wade freaked out in a crisis, Duke carried Nathan to the hospital and went back to sledding, or that's what he claims. There's a hint of that old roguish boyishness about him as he concludes the story, Jennifer doesn't know what she would have done in that situation, which may be more of a reflection on her past self than her current self. Duke thinks based on her current self, she would've done exactly the same thing! It's a cute way of expressing faith in both Jennifer's ability to help them, her willingness to do so, and also a certain confidence that she can handle herself in Haven where he doesn't think his brother can. It also completely overlooks however Wade might have changed in the past 27 years, but hey, what's a few assumptions between manipulative stories. Jennifer does seem touched by Duke's show of faith, and I have to wonder how many people she ever had in her life to support her, since packing up and disappearing out of Boston with hardly an onscreen word to anyone is a pretty good indication that she's got, oh, about as many ties to people outside of Haven as Audrey did when she walked in. In case you wanted some more parallels. Now that they've had their little moment, Duke wants to go hang over his brother's shoulder until he gets the fuck out of town, Jennifer is so not getting in the middle of that, which shows eminent good sense, and she'd like some saltwater taffy. Duke then directs her to the only decent coffee shop in town, with undertones of we'll meet up there after, and they're kind of cute and awkward at each other as they head off. Especially Duke, who seems to have no idea what to do with this perky-but-unsure strange woman, particularly when he's still got a torch for Audrey who, let's be practical, and Duke's better at pragmatism than Nathan, may not even exist any longer as the woman he loves.

We have mists around the Gull as Duke tromps in, and a brother sitting with a partially-empty bottle of tequila? I think, anyway. A bottle of hard liquor that's not quite half-empty and have we mentioned yet this recaplysis that Camargo's amazing with the nuances? Because he is. Playing drunk when you're not actually drunk is really damn difficult, and doing it for a character who's clinging to shreds of dignity and restraint is even harder. Because he just communicated in a look the heavy-lidded mopey drunk face that tells Duke that Wade is not going to be able to drive home. Well, fuck. On that tablet in front of Wade turns out to be a nanny cam of his wife fucking the contractor, and can I just say that I wouldn't want to be married to the kind of guy who'd install a nanny cam if he thought I was cheating? Because ew. Fuckssake, dude, there's this thing called TALKING. And communicating. I hear it's good in marriages. Granted, it's possible the nannycam wasn't his first stop, but from the word choice and tone there even accounting for the booze it doesn't sound like it. Duke has some sympathy all the same, like you do, and also has a great deal of concern for what exactly this means for his deal with Vince. Which he's not expressing as yet, but there's a look there of "how fucked am I, how fucked are we, and how much is Vince going to fuck with both of us as a result of this." Camargo continues to bring it with the slurred-but-overenunciated tones of the very, very drunk, and we continue to side-eye him and wonder if this is a setup to keep Wade in Haven, and if so on whose part. Wade's? Marcie's? The contractor's? Someone else who sent the contractor in to seduce the wife? WE DON'T KNOW ISN'T IT GREAT. But we're betting on a setup from somewhere. Especially given the way the rest of this scene plays out; Duke feels an obligation to help his brother because of blood and because he owes him for coming up to deal with his estate over the last six months. He might not be fully happy with the way Wade's dealt with things, but still and nonetheless, there's the weight of obligation there. Which Wade will take full advantage of! He won't go back until he can lock up his assets and serve his wife papers? Wow, dude. You are a real charmer. I'm not wondering why your wife cheated on you, if I ever was. He also has the kind of job, trading in tech stocks, that he could do anywhere. Which explains some of the tech nerd geek vibe and also the interest in finances, real estate and the like, that he expressed earlier. There's some nice physicality, too, as Wade gets up, using Duke and bits of the bar for balance because he swears he's not so drunk as to be out of control but he does need someone to lean on. Literally and figuratively both. I'm wondering how much of this is Wade acting drunker than he is to get Duke's sympathy, though I'm betting if this is a setup from Wade that he went ahead and got that drunk knowing that Duke would spot a fake. Though Duke's got some side-eye for that bottle that says he's wondering some of the same things we are! And they'll figure something out, as Wade goes off to cry or puke or whatever by himself. At least he's not doing it at the bar.

For our third incident of carbonized people (drink), we go to Jennifer! Who's got her taffy from a shop called the Sisters, aww, we're betting that's a sneaky nod to the Zuckermanns having written this one, and now she's grabbing her coffee. Change goes in the tip jar, bag of taffy oops stays on the counter, it's one of those easy mistakes to make because you've got your hands full. Which under the circumstances I'm still not entirely willing to buy as a mistake, maybe her Trouble has some of the same keeping her out of reach of other people's deadly Troubles as AudSarLu's does? Given, barn, ties to. I don't think it's conscious on Jennifer's part, if it's real, and we don't have enough just yet to call it a pattern so much as a single very close call. We also can see that there's several other people in the shop, we've got a woman on her laptop, a guy by the window, the barista, a woman who comes in right as Jennifer's leaving with a can for something or another, and the guy who walks out ahead of her and was next to her at the counter. Also, something about that perky "Thanks!" and throwing theories around in chat just made something resolve, and it occurs to us that Emma Lahana is dressed and has her hair cut and is, in body language, playing this like a somewhat less goth/rebellious teenager Claudia Donovan. From Warehouse 13. Aka, the caretaker-to-be of the Warehouse. Well NOW we're all severely disturbed. I think at this point the only new character free from suspicion of being the new barnvatar is Wade, and that only because we know he existed prior to when we saw him on screen for the first time. The ominous music chimes on a closeup of the bag of taffy as Jennifer leaves Black House Coffee (and can we just facepalm a minute for the Stephen King nod in the name? I knew we could! Drink!) and she remembers it! Just in time to go back in and be not incinerated along with everyone else. That kind of implies it's an area effect Trouble, which is interesting but not yet relevant. To her credit, she lets out a single scream, I wonder if she'll ever want to eat taffy again (probably not in the near future) and turns and runs out the door.

To get help! As it turns out when we do a flyover and come to rest on the cop cars and the crime scene tape and the Nathan heading into the scene. Yes, Nathan, this is still your fault and shit's still getting worse. Lucassi has a Look for that. And commentary about how he'd almost prefer Pompeii's superheated volcanic gas to this, at least that has a known cause and a known way to survive. Or, you know, not. There's some ennui in there, maybe Lucassi's tired enough of cleaning up bodies as a result of the Troubles that he's bordering on suicidal, though probably passively if anything. Lost control of the car and went into a tree kind of deal. I'm side-eying him. Please don't take our Lucassi away from us. It's exactly the same as before, only more vics, and Lucassi's struggling to hold onto that phlegmatic attitude as he talks about making IDs via metal and teeth again. This is, in many respects, the large struggles of the town to hold itself together writ small on someone who, up to now, has been a bedrock of snark and quiet confidence that they'll get everything sorted. Now that that's been shaken up, even Lucassi has some cracks around the edges. Well, so much for the crime scene proper, Nathan will leave the doc to his work and try not to be a constant reminder of why everything sucks now and go bug the witness instead. Awesome, Nathan. Way to be feeling and sympathetic. The way he walks up to Jennifer alone tells us that this is not going to be a calm, careful interrogation of the kind where you're gentle with the traumatized witness, no matter what the uniformed cop tells him to be. (Who is, I believe, Lucas Bryant's wife again. Aww.) How people stay in business in this town is a VERY GOOD QUESTION, Jennifer, and we're glad you asked it. Probably partly because the Teagues own half of it? I'm just saying. She wants Duke, too, as the only person she knows to speak of and trusts at all in this town. I don't blame her. She also can list off a surprising amount of detail about the people who were in the coffee shop, and seems to know what they need to ID the bodies without being prompted - that could be a line reference missing, but if it's not that a very interesting bit of awareness that she's bringing to this. The way she's shaken up does seem to be genuine, though her protests to Nathan about not remembering seem less so. Nathan's also not very genuine in his sympathy, he's mounting all the right things for a cop to say to a witness to violent crime but his face is set, tone brusque and insistent, and he's shifting his weight from foot to foot like she's keeping him from something more important than this. Nathan? You suck right now. I hope someone comes along to hit you with a cluebat. Dwight and Lucassi have almost identical expressions of "do we need to come over there" during the interview, but then they get down to the work of figuring out who's missing from the five people Jennifer just described. Which has one of those brilliant humorous moments that Haven's so good at inserting just when all seems bleak and hopeless, with Dwight's love of coffee and knowing the exact change for an Americano. We love you, Dwight. Never change. At any rate, we've got the nose ring on the barista (is that intended to evoke some parallels with Lexie and her nose ring? because it's succeeding), the guy who ordered the Americano, the woman with the laptop, the woman with the fundraiser and all the coins in the coffee jar. Which leaves us with the guy with the coat with brass buttons! I love how nobody's questioning the fact that Jennifer tossed them all the metal components they'd need to ID the vics. I also love how, because this is a Trouble and it's Haven, nobody gives a shit about Nathan picking up the coffee can for the fundraiser with his bare hands. Turns out to be a fundraiser for the fire department, and what kind of coats do they have? Oh yeah.

We interrupt this series of rapidly drawn oh-shit conclusions for Duke's arrival and subsequent white-knighting for Jennifer. Hey, that's some kind of role reversal there. Dear lord. He is not best pleased by Nathan's high-handed approach to dealing with someone new to the Troubles, hey, dipshit, maybe running roughshod isn't the best way to go? No? We're going with the "can you identify the man in the coat" and the "come with me right now" method? Jesus, Nathan. Duke's going to haul him off and attempt to talk sense into him, though right now it's coming across as more protective and overbearing in a different direction. Boys, if you don't knock it the fuck off I'm going to get out the ruler again. Duke's got a point, though, that dragging an untrained civilian off Trouble-hunting when she's been up all night answering questions about her own Trouble is a stupid, hazardous plan. They might not have time for a better plan, but they do need something more useful than "stick her in front of the Troubled guy and see what happens!" Yeah no. No, Nathan, nobody believes you when you say you're done screwing up, because you're so target fixed on Audrey that even if you have all kinds of reason to keep Jennifer alive you would totally throw anyone under the bus if it got you closer to finding Audrey. Excuse us all while we facepalm at him.

Well, at the very least Duke's not going to let him take Jennifer out Trouble-hunting by themselves. Someone with experience and a cooler head has to come along and ride shotgun. GOOD Duke. Have a cookie, even if your motives are impure. I'm pretty sure Duke's had precious few pure motives in his life, and he used a lot of them up when he yelled at Nathan to let Audrey go into the barn and make her own choices. He's allowed to be a little selfish of the person who rescued him right now. Or, maybe not allowed, but it's understandable and somewhat less worrying than Nathan's creepy obsessive behavior. Anyway, they pull up to the fire station where all the guys are in their dress blues for Founders' Day. That said, that makes identification a little trickier, if for no other reason than the identifying marker that seemed to be uppermost in her mind is now shared by almost everyone in the firehouse.

Nathan is his usual curt self, though this time it comes across less as sullen and more as taciturn urgency makes Nathan sound ruder than he means to be. It wouldn't even be noteworthy except that everyone in Haven with a few exceptions have been hostile to Nathan, who has been belligerent right back, so some curtness that isn't related to that is actually refreshing. The captain will now order everyone onto the trucks to avoid any more confrontation than has to be there, and take on the job of confronting Nathan himself! This time he shuts Nathan down without listening to or hearing him. I have a question, though. If all they need is a list of names and some pictures, couldn't they have gone to the station and pulled driver's licenses and photos? Couldn't they have sent her down to the firehouse with Dwight? Or Stan? No? No. It's okay, though, because the guy's photo is right there on the calendar on the wall! Isn't that convenient! Well, yeah, maybe a little, but it's not straining the bounds of credulity too much that they did it this way instead of that, I'm just griping. Duke isn't a police officer and Nathan's no longer used to active police work, and distracted, so the path of least resistance/most officiousness isn't unreasonable. Besides, if they'd gone the pull driver's licenses route it might have taken them longer to get out the full story of what happened. Whereas here they have a handy firefighter to tell them! Hello handy firefighter. We appreciate you. It turns out that Don the Troubled was in a fire with his partner Bill Marigold when his partner died in a gas line explosion, whereas Don was shielded by a retaining wall. He left Haven after that, came back for the Founder's Day celebrations, and the survivor's guilt triggered his Trouble. Is still triggering it, really. Poor kiddo. For those of you who've never heard the term or had it defined for you, survivor's guilt (here is a PDF overview for more reading) is a particularly insidious form of post-traumatic magical thinking in which the subject feels guilty for surviving a trauma or tragedy, often an event that causes one or more deaths, because he or she believes he or she had control over the circumstances of the trauma or tragedy. Magical thinking, because it has no basis in reality or fact, but the guilt feels nonetheless very real to the sufferer, who will find ways to reinforce it in the behaviors of those around him or her and in the events that follow. In this case, Don might have felt that the woman collecting donations for families of firefighters picked that coffee shop to remind him that he "got his partner killed." Or he might have believed that Sally came there to blame him for her brother's death, regardless of what either of these women's actual intentions were. And Nathan's probably right, the poor guy probably has no idea what he's doing, especially since he most likely excuses himself and staggers away when the feelings of guilt and grief overwhelm him enough to trigger his Trouble. Nathan's also the one who brought lampshades of knowing from guilt to this party. Heh. Still and nonetheless, Duke has a point. At that medal ceremony, surrounded by his firefighter brethren, Don's Trouble is going to go apeshit.

Speaking of Troubles going apeshit, hey, it's William and Lexie again! In the bar that totally is not part of the barn really we swear. Okay, at this point we're not even going to pretend we don't believe it's the barn, or a place like it. Especially with the weird lighting effects they're doing in here that gives everything a sort of gaussian glow to it, not to mention making Colin Ferguson's eyes do that sparkly sapphire thing. Especially when William feeds us lines like "I can't leave," and in such a tone that makes us think the 'can't' is more literal than figurative. Lexie is having none of his shit today, assuming it is a comparative today, and points out that he's being very creepy, somewhat threatening, and has a gun in his pocket. I have to bite back a couple of jokes about him being happy to see her but, okay, we'll go with that. We'll also rewind that a couple of times to eyeball the gun parts on the tray, because I think that's less disassembled than it is when we see the tray of parts later. At the very least I'm not seeing him take out the spring. Still, as far as disarming himself goes, that's a very thorough show of here, let me give you my gun and remove that from the field of play. Personally I also would question him about a hold-out and maybe a pat-down (not for that reason get your minds out of the gutters) and especially because anyone who is competent and comfortable with guns enough to break one apart like that? Is competent and comfortable enough to at least think about putting on an ankle holster. But this is Lexie and not Audrey, and Lexie doesn't think like that. I do think he is genuinely sorry for upsetting her, just as I think he genuinely cares for her, but the fact remains he's going to keep doing it. And she's going to keep not believing him, no matter the half-relieved "yes" he gives when she mentions the being in love thing that he wants her to buy into. She will, in fact, give him a long speech consisting of some interesting implanted details (she's 31, she was born in Tucson), tell him to take his gun parts and leave. Which, as if on cue (which they have been cued, haven't they) here comes the squirrelly looking fellow from earlier! And he's brought a friend, how nice that he has a friend. Oh we have all sorts of theories about this setup, and it is a setup, and if you don't think it is we are having very different interpretations of this show. Let's enumerate some of them quickly while Weird Psycho Guy and his Looming Bastard Friend are standing there being threatening, shall we? First of all, we knew there was something William didn't want to do but felt he was going to have to that would be coming up, because he, like so many others on the shows we watch, is incapable of controlling his face. This may well be that thing. Secondly, that was awfully convenient timing for them to pop up the second she tells William to get the hell out of her galaxy bar. Thirdly, there is so little tension in William's face and body as to be a bit on the amazing side; his hands are relaxed, his shoulders are hunched but more in the way of exhaustion than of fear, and his facial tension hasn't notably increased from how it's been the whole episode. Fourth, his word choice and tone aren't that of someone who's afraid of the very large man who's just walked into the bar with a threatening Neanderthal expression, it's more of a "look what you did" tone. Fifth and I promise this will be the last one, he is offering absolutely no context on why these people want to stop him or who they are, up to and including not liking the people who are going to die to these people who want to stop him and are obviously (a little too obviously?) willing to do violence to achieve that end. Normally this would be where context goes! Except here the only context, we believe, is that of William trying to get Lexie to think, believe, and remember what he needs her to. The one caveat to all of this I have will take us into a brief tangent here: it's entirely possible that he arranged this setup deliberately and with pre-meditation, in which case they could be in the barn or they could be in Nederland, CO, or in Boulder, or Derry, or where the hell ever. I also find it possible that he didn't arrange this setup on purpose though, and if they're in the barn then it's entirely possible the barn is reacting to his urgent need, providing him with the appropriate props, as it were, to get the job done. We have a theory (yes, another one) that goes something like, if Nathan shooting Agent Fuck You Barnvatar disrupted the barn in some way that it wasn't able to complete its routine, and if AudSarLuLex is stuck in this state, this is not the Audrey Parker whose love and empathy helped her help the Troubled. Which means the barn has a lack of fuel, so to speak, to halt the Troubles, which might be what William is talking about and why he's here. If this theory bears out, well, there's a whole complex snarl of who has free will and is William even William or is he a construct of a William, but. The point is! This is neither coincidence nor accident, this is a fucking setup.

We'll get back to the fucking setup. First we have to deal with the fucking creepy bastard, by which I mean Vince. There are a lot of fucking creepy bastards in this show all of a sudden. Vince is back at his more proper desk, by the positioning and the familiar clutter. He's examining some things with a magnifying glass! I wonder if that's direction or if Donat just picked up a magnifying glass and decided this would do for the two seconds it took Kate Kelton to hit her floor mark. So, here's Jordan! She's pissed. She's so pissed, in fact, that she's taken her gloves off! I wonder if she did that just outside or if she touched someone already. Erk. It's also as good as any of a place to note that she's in a little more color than she was last season, which is to say she has a burgundy-ish jacket on. Symbolizing a relaxing of her attitude, to go with the tenderness shown to Dwight? To symbolize that she is playing the voice of reason and not the antagonist, even if that voice of reason is bitter as all hell? Hard to say. It's also possible that her question of does Vince know what Dwight is doing is genuine, given Vince's apparent and relative lapse in control of the Guard. Vince is so unconcerned he isn't even looking up. Dwight, at least, still obeys his orders. Jordan will now register her objection that Nathan's out there risking his life and put her open and bare hands on the desk an inch or so away from Vince's as she does it. Which is about as close as one can get to a threat without saying "or I'll...", really. Vince's response, though, is interesting. He moves his hand about an inch back from hers, though we do know he took note of the position of her hands by the tilt of his head, but other than that he seems to give not a fuck for the implied threat. And at his age, I'd consider it a strong possibility that she could kill him pretty easily just between the pain and the heart strain. Vince may or may not consider that a possibility, but he still gives no fucks, and will instead address her, hmm. Not quite outright insubordination. I do believe Jordan when she says she doesn't want to lead the Guard, but when she says she wants Vince to what she really means is she wants him to lead the Guard in a way she feels is right and proper. Which, you silly woman, is the same thing. She leaves, though, making this the second time Vince has backed her down. Are we going to go for the hat trick? I suspect we are!

It's a parade! I assume Vince is in the office while Dave covers the parade, just to point out some obvious. The new Chief is giving orders not to approach but to find Don Keaton and radio for backup. Good man. It's all fun and games until people start turning into charcoal briquettes, which giving Don a fresh heaping of guilt and distress certainly would do. Nathan has a little lampshade for Dwight not wearing his vest. Dwight, if I were you I'd worry about bullets every day, you're a freaking cop. You work in a building full of people with guns. No, right now there are no flying bullets, that's just to address the lack of vest on Dwight, and I appreciate that they thought of it. Over to the Nathan-Duke-Jennifer huddle to discuss the problem of how the hell are they supposed to talk this guy down without making him feel even more guilty and thereby triggering his Trouble! Nathan has a solution for this! He's going to piss the guy off. That's... actually not a bad solution, since the guy's Trouble doesn't seem to be activated by anger, though Duke brings the lampshade for "hey Nathan, you've been acting like a jerk for awhile now," in a more subtle, less jabbing form than they'd usually use. It's also the same solution Audrey used on the last person who had a fire-related Trouble, although to different effect. Is this going to become a Thing in Haven, piss off the firebug? Well, first they have to find the firebug, but I will be amused if this continues as a Thing. Also amusing is Jennifer's question of Duke being an auxiliary police officer. We will now take a moment to remember Duke's habitual and vociferous dislike of police officers, and laugh at him for the question. There are a lot of people at this festival. And a lot of people in navy uniforms with brass buttons. Well, crap.

Dwight's sense of humor, as always, is morbid but entertaining. Fortunately they don't get to the seeing smoke part just yet, Nathan spots Don Keaton sitting on a bench with his head down looking like he's trying not to puke or pass out or both. I'mma go with both. Nathan stops Dwight from going over and talking to him with the same logic he used on Duke a moment ago, only with different phrasing and more explicit so we don't hear the lackluster repetition but we do hear the emotional reasoning of it. Which is good, tight writing, exactly what we've come to expect from the Zuckerman ladies. Dwight dislikes everything about this case, but goes with it as being the best of a bunch of all bad options, and he'll evacuate the area. (K: Is this where I say I still want to play pat the bunny with his face?) Handcuffs come out, everyone starts moving away, Nathan places Don under arrest and everything seems to be going well enough until Laverne (HI LAVERNE) gets on the horn and makes the medal announcement. Well, shit. It seems like Don's having trouble focusing between the medal and the being placed under arrest, and ideally what Nathan would do here is reiterate the arrest and accuse him of something less than murder. I'm not sure what, but something. Anything to keep him angry. Anything to avoid telling him he didn't do anything wrong, which is of course exactly what Nathan does. Because it's true, and Nathan's not a guy naturally inclined to be mean, recent behavior aside. Oh Nathan honey. Oh Don baby. Oh everyone. Don's guilt doubles in strength because that's what it tends to do initially when you try to fight it with logic and you're not a bad person, etc, and Nathan's arms start smoking. Well, fuck.

We get some nice quick beats in the music here to ramp the tension without shifting the focus as Duke and Jennifer show up. And, wisely, stay back and don't draw attention to themselves. Let's not get more people crisped than we have to, especially since Nathan won't react. Again. Last time ice, this time fire, I'm trying really hard not to make the Robert Frost jokes but come on! Ahem. Nathan won't react, but Duke and Jennifer would, and making the connection between Don's upset and people getting hurt or killed would cause even more guilt, leading to a most likely destructive spiral of self-loathing and Troubledness. That's bad, GIR. So let's not let Jordan near him, okay? Her brilliant plan is apparently to touch Don Keaton and render him unconscious from pain. Which might work if we had any reason to know that that would be the result. Given that the guy can cook people pretty instantaneously, can we not try that? Since it's Duke saying this, Jordan isn't likely to believe him, and is likely to want to use her power on him. Lovely. This will now escalate to gun violence as Duke is prepared to do anything necessary to buy Nathan more time, and he's going around armed as well. I'm not even going to ask why he's going around with a gun on his back, there's more than enough reason here. Jordan is unimpressed. Jennifer is fiercely defensive, aww! Duke seems to take strength from her defense, and Jordan seems even more unimpressed with Duke's new friend, but the upshot is, none of the three of them are going anywhere.

Meanwhile Nathan is still working on talking Don down, first by showing him what he's doing because that's going to alleviate his guilt, Nathan, really? Seriously? That's if he believes it, and people in Haven are adept at denial, I think they practice it from birth. Nathan will go on to prove it and, again, feelings of guilt? That we were trying to avoid? At this point it's a race against time as to whether or not Nathan can talk him down before he turns into a crispy critter. Or as much of a one as you can get with a main character. It also serves the purpose of outlining how the Trouble worked and how all the deaths were caused, even the one we didn't see the before and after shots of. Poor everyone in this episode, really. Don's not yet ready to believe his partner's death wasn't his fault, and one can't really argue that he didn't cause the deaths of all of those people, even if he didn't intend them. We're going to really feel the absence of Claire Callahan in Haven in the next few months, I think, or rather see it because in the aftermath of the meteor storm I bet Haven definitely felt it. Nathan'll do his best, though. Helped by the convenient presence of a kid in an I Heart Haven Fire Dept shirt. Oh great. The saving grace here is that now Don knows what his Trouble does, he can attempt to stop it, attempt to exert some kind of control. Nathan will help him by jamming a lampshade on his head! Er, calling his attention back over in his direction, reminding him that sometimes bad things just happen to good people (Haven is kind of the poster town for that), and that guilt does not fix the problem. Fixing the problem fixes the problem. He also invokes the It's What S/He Would Want clause, because really, unless Bill Marigold was an utter bastard he wouldn't want all these people to die because his partner felt guilty. And Nathan, too, is doing exactly what Audrey would want him to do. Some combination of these helps. And maybe it's just time, and Don's in a place where he can hear and understand this now. Nathan calls Dwight over to get him out of there, and Duke moves in now with Jordan and Jennifer in tow. The question and answer about if Nathan's all right has a couple of different meanings, and one of those yes's is a blatant lie. But he's probably a bit better now. I wonder how many of these Troubled person interventions are going to be a simultaneous exercise in Nathan dealing with his own issues? Thankfully, it looks like only the first three (Drink. Lord knows we will be by the end of the episode), which is just enough to establish a pattern and not enough to be annoying with the manpain. Jordan is fed up to here with the manpain, not to mention Nathan running towards danger. Not to mention, and this is very important, Nathan has done a lot of stupid and mean shit in Audrey's name and for Audrey's sake, which may have had good consequences but that does not negate the fact that it was stupid and mean shit. Pretending to be in love with Jordan (and by now it's pretty clear that most of it was pretend) was a dick move. Destroying the barn wasn't mean-spirited necessarily, but it wasn't the smartest thing he could have done ever and he certainly didn't try for any consensus on it before he went and did it. (Not that there was exactly time but still.) And while there's ample evidence to show that Nathan isn't inherently a bad guy, as Duke helpfully points out for us, Audrey is a big part of the reason for why Nathan's doing what he's doing now. Just as Jordan's hurt feelings and hatred of her Trouble are a big part of the reason why she's saying what she's saying now. It's an interesting display of people doing maybe the right things for the wrong reasons, or the wrong things for the right reasons, or weird things for reasons that are explicable only from their perspective. In short, people are being people, well-rounded and well-drawn. And in Audrey's case, perhaps drawn entirely differently now. Duke points out to Nathan what we've already discovered, that maybe Audrey's been re-programmed with a different set of memories and as an entirely different person. In which case, it'll be really, really damned hard to find her. At least until she comes wandering back into Haven, as she always does. Neither of them are happy about the idea. Duke is resigned, Nathan is finally coming around to resigned to the idea. Thank god.

With the tension ramped down in Haven and Duke's no-shit-Sherlock comment to Nathan, we return to the bar/n. Where tensions are high and Lexie looks somewhere between scared and confused. Tweedledee and Tweedledum have moved in to stand over William, emphasis on over in Robert Maillet's case, fucking hell he's got nearly half a foot on Adam Copeland if the listings are right. I want to see a loom-off now. Ahem. I'm not buying Weird Psycho Guy's act about hurting Lexie if William makes a scene, though it'd be easier for him to sell if William looked like he had an ounce of concern for his safety. Which he doesn't. Weird Guy's attitude is more convincing when it comes to Lexie, who is actually scared of him, and I feel like he's more willing/inclined to hurt Lexie than he is to hurt William. Maybe believes himself more capable of it. Maybe just is a/is the embodiment of a generalized dick, depending on if the bar/n is spitting these guys out for Lexie's benefit. WHO KNOWS. The point is, Lexie starts with the cops and moves onto trying to get other people in the bar/n to help. William, still looking completely unconcerned with his physical safety despite that "too" Weird Psycho Guy threw out there, does the whole look-I'm-harmless-see-how-harmless act and I don't for a minute believe that the line about what she thinks she is is intended solely for the dynamic duo's benefit. That apology also looks perfunctory at best, probably because he thinks he's still trying to help. Also because he actually does say "Let's go" under his breath there. William? You're kind of freaky. No, nobody in the bar/n's going to help William, they're just there for local color. An empty bar would be too weird and lead to Lexie accepting that things aren't what they seem much sooner. (Side hypothesis: if they're in the barn, or a place like it, most of the trappings are AudSarLuLex's mind trying to get to the nearest place of safety she knew. Most recently? That'd be the Gull. You know. Where Audrey used to live.) It's also worth pointing out that the barn and the bar serve a similar purpose, in a way, since they went with the mental institution trappings for the barn, those are both places people go into and end up talking about their problems in life. Plus the whole warm and diffuse lighting thing is rather the inverse of sterile white diffuse lighting. Alright, then. Nobody's doing anything, not!Kurrgan's being the muscle while Weird Psycho Guy is doing the verbal menacing before turning away from the bar, and as they walk William out it suddenly looks like it could either be a procession to an execution or a leader with a pair of heavies. GEE. I WONDER WHICH IT IS. William's back is straight and his head is high, so if it's an execution it's one of those proud martyr ones, and while we can readily believe that William Crocker, if it is he, is familiar with martyrdom, we still don't believe he's not in charge here. We also see a twitch to William's mouth that almost looks like he's starting to count in his head, and indeed, we get one-two-three shots of him with his back to Lexie headed out the door, interspersed with several shots of Lexie trying to make a decision and one of the gun in pieces on the tray. Just so we remember that it has to be assembled before being fired, which she does with the kind of rapid precision you only get if you've been trained to it. WELL then. That's one way of convincing someone she's got someone else's memories lurking around her brain! One warning shot into the wall, which has William biting back what looks like a smile as he turns around to blink at her. I get the feeling he'd punch the air in victory if he were a little less good at controlling himself.

We cut to ad break and come right back to Tweedledum trying to threaten Lexie, who's having none of it and still operating on very Audrey-like instincts. She even sounds a little more like Audrey for a moment there when she orders them out of her bar(n), albeit a version with less control over her anger. Warning shot into the floor between his feet, the kind of warning shot that again, you need training for. William, meanwhile, has first a smile and then a full-on grin when she shoots again. William. Good sir. Control your face. Weird Psycho Guy looks far calmer than anyone who looks that weedy and potential spree killer-esque should after two shots have been fired, but it won't take a third one to get them to fuck the fuck off. Just the threat of one. And they don't actually start to leave until William's nearly back to the bar, and by that point he has his face under control enough to be calmer, having done one of those hand-to-mouth/nose gestures of hiding smiles, hiding tells, hiding lies. He's still radiating that kind of quiet pride that's so goddamn creepy in context, but he's not preparing to perform the Hallelujah Chorus in six part harmony all by his lonesome. And now the implications of what she just did sink in, and Lexie would like to know how she did that. Well, honey, when a barn's built for a woman someone dislikes very much… no, wait. Wrong speech. William doesn't have anything other than the moral equivalent of an I-told-you so for her, delivered in a different phrasing and with a manner that's less grating than most people's I-told-you-sos, but still and nonetheless. Now she's pissed off and scared, because William being maybe-right means she's maybe-wrong and no matter what, she just did something she has every reason to believe she doesn't know how to do.

We'll put a pin in that for now and do some mopping up around Haven. Dwight and the fire captain escort Don into a fire truck and, we hope, to someone who can get him some fucking therapy. Pity about Claire. Nathan and Captain Marigold exchange a nod, more hopeful on Nathan's end and more well-it's-a-start on Marigold's, but it is. A start, that is. Jennifer's standing with him, which leads me to think of the cuts from the bar/n to Haven as related to the barn more than to the Crockers, at least at this point. Maybe. We have yet to be sure, here. One of the bandages around Nathan's hand has come unwrapped and Jennifer fixes it for him, because even if he could feel it would be awkward. As it is, we get the reveal to her that, yes, it was Nathan in the story about the sled, which only seems to startle her for a moment, and she lets Nathan draw the reveal of his Trouble out as he needs to. Which is an interesting display of tact on her part, though she does 'fess up to knowing something about Nathan's Trouble already thanks to Duke. For a change, there's not really a sneer from Nathan over that, just a quiet little "yeah, that'd be the kind of story Duke would tell" not-quite-smile sort of expression. Yeah, I'd be kind of searching for something like "sorry dude, that sucks" to say in response, too, but Nathan points out that this is how he can help people. We would at this time like to question how he's not nothing but scar tissue at this point, in the literal sense as well as the figurative (though at this point in time he's more of a gaping raw wound of angst and self-recrimination and martyr complex), but anyway. In that case Jennifer's glad she's not normal either! The implication being left at, because it lets her help people and that's a thing that she wants to do. All right then. One of these days we're going to get some answers out of that woman.

That day is not today, nor yet tonight. Tonight we're at the Gull again! Where a still-drunk Wade is pouring drinks for everyone, shooters, in this case. VERY drunk. Drunk and social and loud! Fortunately for us, this actually does look like genuine inebriation, which means he spills all kinds of interesting little tidbits that Duke might prefer he not share in public. No, Wade. Do. Please keep sharing. Give to us all your family background. The upshot of this is that for whatever reason, their parents were split up and Wade went with Mama Crocker while Duke stayed with Simon. I say went with because it sounds like Wade grew up, maybe not in New York (which is the first non-Boston non-Maine East Coast city we've heard boo out of) but definitely south of Haven (not that this narrows it down any) (K: I vote for Derry, for extra Crocker reference points.) and visited every so often. Simon being a douche, he turned their visits into competition, at least from a kid's perspective. Kids have a pretty good idea of what constitutes competition, usually, so I'll give Wade that one as probably being accurate in end result if not in motive. Simon probably thought of it as toughening up his boys in case of the Troubles landing on them, or somewhat like that. Trial by passive aggressive combat, seeing who was best to follow in his homicidal footsteps. The fact that Duke was apparently his father's favorite makes me wonder if there was an early indication that Duke was the one who'd inherited the Crocker Trouble and maybe Wade didn't, but since Troubles seem to awaken in people due to stress I wouldn't rule out Wade picking it up this go-round. Duke is even less thrilled about the fact that Wade's spewing all of this out in public with a couple of drunk young women staring at Haven's resident bad boy. Yes. Do go find someone else to eavesdrop on. Wade has this idea that Duke won, which he definitely did not, not by Duke's standards, but wait! They'll show everyone! Ah, drunk logic. Of the Crocker brothers ride again variety. Because, you see, divorce papers will take awhile and so he'll take Duke up on the offer that was never explicitly made and stay in Haven! Hooooo boy. Maybe he can be drunk the whole time! He seems like the kind of guy where if you can keep him drunk enough, you can actually steer him, but that's probably the line right before falling over and passing out in a puddle of his own vomit. So maybe not. I also feel like, however drunk Wade is, he knows exactly what the fuck he's doing when he announces to the whole bar that his little brother's taking him in and giving him a home! Isn't that sweet! Meanwhile we all grit our teeth and hope that by "right here" he doesn't mean "in Audrey's old apartment." Because ew. Duke would also like to object to the part where Wade's buying the bar their next round, because that's his source of income his brother just poured out. Dammit, Wade. Cue Vince, who has some teeth for how Wade's still enjoying his time in Haven. Also a couple of flunkies from the Guard, which we have never seen him drag around before. Probably because of how much more dangerous the town's become lately, and possibly to emphasize his Man In Charge position. Duke has this I-hate-my-life-I-hate-this-town-I-hate-you look on, which he uses to good measure on the flunkies but can't really say anything to Vince. Poor Duke.

All this clusterfuck leads to him heading out back for some peace and quiet, which is also where we can find Jennifer! I wonder if she'll take Audrey's old apartment. Somehow I think yes. She's thinking over her medications, evidently, and I will note right here that it's a bit unrealistic for her to only be on one. Lucky woman. She talks about how scared she was, how powerless she felt on hearing those voices - Duke's voice - and you know, among other things? This is probably why she's clinging so hard to Duke. At least it's the reason that we have evidence to go on with, she's clinging to the one person who's emblematic of the fact that she's not crazy. That the things she was hearing really did happen, somehow or another. And the fact that she's not latched onto Nathan in any kind of similar manner is interesting, since it suggests she didn't start hearing the barn until after Nathan left it for the final time. Maybe that she didn't start hearing it until after Nathan shot Howard, for that matter, because we know the barn played back the scenes with Audrey and Howard in such a way that Duke could hear them, too. Or maybe just that Nathan's too crazy himself right now for her to feel secure in attaching to him, but still and nonetheless. It's a very human motivation. A very barnvatar motivation, if she's the new one, would be keeping the local Crocker who's aware of his Trouble from getting out of her sight. Ah, well. Layers upon layers. I hope you like onions, she says, referencing one of those interview videos. But back to the scene! Where Jennifer admits that she's realized how badly the town needs Audrey back, how much things are falling to pieces without her, and if she can do anything, even the thing that scares her most to get Audrey back, she'll do it. Cue dramatic pouring out of the pills! Thank you, Duke, for lightening the mood with the first joke that came to mind. A more compelling argument but not one in keeping with lightening the mood is that giving the drugs to someone else just in case it gets to be too much for her to handle is a valid plan as well. Duke, if you're so sure she's Troubled, you know there's a way to test that, right? I'm just saying. Though "hey gimme some of your blood" isn't exactly conducive to instilling trust, so I can understand why he'd wait to break that one out until she really needs the proof. Presumably that'll happen if/when she starts hearing voices again and she's back to wondering why the fuck she thought it was a good idea. Sigh. Alright, we'll end on a note of as much hope as they've got right now that the Troubles might get fixed.

And we'll go back to the other bar, again from Jennifer and Duke, can I be done twitching over this now? No? Dammit. Picking up right where we left off, they definitely shot this as one scene and then chopped it at sensible points for pacing purposes, but it works well. There's a slight sag that's all the indication Lexie's going to give right now that William's right, she can't come up with a better explanation. So now he'll push his point and hammer on it a little more, that was a semiauto pistol and she assembled it in under ten seconds. Looking up the type of gun he's citing, that's actually more of a standard military pistol, not a standard cop pistol, although frankly anytime someone says Sig Sauer these days in cop shows we think of cop standard issue weapons. I don't remember who popularized that one, but it happened. It's a thing now. Speaking of guns, Lexie's not afraid to hold one to William's lying manipulative face which has very little trace of all that affection and tenderness now and tell him, okay, fine. Then cut the bullshit and start talking about what you think you know! William is still not even a little bit afraid of being threatened, though in this case above and beyond the supernatural aspects, I expect he's relying on her no longer operating on cop instincts and also on the fact that she's within range of efficacy for holding someone at gunpoint. Even with the bar in the way. In point of fact, he'll lean into it so that he takes more of the efficacy out of it, which is a fucking creepy move no matter if it's tactically sound or not. The more so because fucking Colin Ferguson pulled out fucking Randall Flagg style teeth and expression from somewhere and you'll have to pardon us, we're hiding under our desks now. You know how we said we'd get the flip side of the soft loving gentle William? Yeah. Yeah, this is the hard, embittered, determined to do his job at any cost William. I don't like this one. Can I go back to watching Eureka and bask in Jack Carter now please? And also, jesus goddamn, Colin Ferguson.

Next week on Haven! Some kind of fucked up blood-based Trouble, which of course means Duke's going silver-eyed at some point. Why he's pissed enough to choke Dwight out over it is a mystery for next week, as is why Jordan appears to be more on the case than before. Lexie and William continue their discussions, and someone's body was found 4-6 months ago and stuck in the morgue since then. They're sure cutting it to make it seem like that's Audrey's body, but I'm betting it's actually Arla's. Which: FUCKING FINALLY.