Saturday, November 16, 2013

Cries Crescendo To Cantata Haven S4E10 The Trouble With Troubles

Previously on Haven: AUGH IT'S A WILLIAM. Staring into the glass. Putting glowy charcoal handprints on people. Being Flagg-esque. Getting his throat ripped out oh no wait, that's only in my dreams. You fucker. I hope Audrey finds a way to make that work. We'd like a little William-throat-ripping one of these days. In fact, this entire set of previouslies is designed to catch us up on William and nothing but that plotline, which should tell us something about how completely fucked everyone is. I'll also just go over here in the corner and twitch on how first couple listen-throughs I thought that was William with the voiceover. It's Nathan, which confusion should give everyone fits. Yes? Yes. Good. Now that you're all suffering with us, let's begin.


For once we're not picking up immediately where we left off, so whatever Audrey was seeing or thinking about as she stared over Nathan's shoulder in that field we'll leave alone for now. Safe bet that the latter was William and all his fun little revelations, anyway. No, we've got a massive explosion of some kind, everyone's covered in soot and ash and assorted emergency personnel are getting civilians to safety and oh shit it's that guy from Jericho. I guess we know who the Troubled person of the week is! What we don't know is whether or not he started out that way, which is a nice wrench for the writers to throw in the works and get to play with: they can get guest stars that the entire SF/F watching community will know and we still won't necessarily know what the deal with them is until we see the episode. It really changes up the procedural aspects even as they retain some of them. Susie, Cliff's wife, is going to the hospital and though she's conscious, by the noises everyone's making and the grim look on Audrey's face I'm guessing those are some pretty serious injuries. Because, you know, piece of rebar sticking out of her side. Also that's some pretty serious guilt on Audrey's part. Honey, whoever you were, the person you are now isn't the sort to make deals with evil fuckers like William and definitely isn't the sort to be happy about what he's doing, but this is not your fault. Not Audrey Parker's fault, anyway. She really does sound like she's about to break down when she says it's William, though. Duke pulls up and has much flailing and cranky, though he seems to have had the I'm-leaving bullshit smacked out of him most thoroughly. Good. Sort of. This serves to establish the triad as their usual competent, snarky, exhausted but always trying for others selves, and gives them a chance to name Doreen Hanscombe and explain that William superpowered her Trouble. From sand in her shoes to a volcano exploding when she remembers her trip to Hawaii, and she gets to be untouched while seeing the havoc her Trouble's wreaked. Oh, and the Crocker Trouble continues to be off the table, let's not forget. Guilt for everyone! Duke will go check on Jennifer, and by way of providing more adorable couples Nathan says let's go home. We can all take a moment to be thrilled down to our toes that he says home and means Audrey's place.





Because it turns out, yes, they're curled up on the couch, Audrey going over files and casework and Nathan sprawled out much more casual about his paperwork. Which says to me that's routine paperwork and nothing to do with digging up information about William, although Audrey's probably trying to figure out a pattern based on what he's been doing lately, and since she can't be everywhere at once she's trying to make sense of it via incident reports. And she cut her hair! Recently, by the looks of it and by what Nathan says, it looks like they grabbed showers (a shower? I leave those mental images to all your ficcing needs) and fresh clothes and maybe some food. I hope some food, anyway. Nathan, despite all his issues or maybe because of them, isn't having with this obsessing business right now. He'd like to obsess over some other things, like getting to touch Audrey, and I really can't blame him. They've been dancing around this for forever, they have no idea how much time they have left, and in a situation like this there's only so far you can push your brain to work before it shorts out and needs a damn break. I'm not sure Nathan's thinking quite that clearly, but I definitely don't blame him for wanting some make out with my girlfriend time before they rush off to deal with the next crisis. Audrey is a lot less sanguine about this at first, not because she doesn't want him but because her brain is overclocking trying to put things together, and she wants to stop being one step behind William. At least one step behind, we'll note, given how long he's been around and how much he knows or professes to know. But she's asking the right question, one of them! Who does William think she is? Who does he want her to be, who was she to him besides his lover, and go on, ask the $64 million question of if you're even human again, Audrey. While Nathan looks a little frustrated this tenacity is one of the things he loves about her, and yet he also still needs the reassurance from her that there's nothing between her and William. Not now there isn't, Nathan. That need for reassurance also serves to pull Audrey out of her head, which may have been the other goal, as rapidly as Nathan shifts to playful and teasing and adorable boyfriend. There's a Trouble in your bed? Pickup lines that only work on one woman, I swear. Also, stop being adorable, both of you, you know what happens when you get that adorable. Everything goes to shit.


Oh, hello everything going to shit! In the bright dawn of the next day, for maximum making the ordinary disturbing. The Gull's sign is gone, the boats out back are gone, the entire facade looks unkempt and in disrepair. I hope Audrey's not going to fall through that floor. I also take it as commentary on how fucked up things are right now that she apparently changes into pajamas heavy enough to go wandering around in after an evening of sexy fun times with Nathan. I mean, it would also not do to have her wandering around Haven buck naked, that way lies selling the show for sex value (and we all know that's what shirtless Eric Balfour and Adam Copeland in his tight dungarees are for, anyway) but depending on the weather she could be in boxers and a tank top or something, and she's not, she's in something she could roll out of bed, change into jeans, throw a blazer on, shove shoes onto feet, and be out the door in two minutes. Less if she just shoved shoes on. Also they're very deliberately lighting this dawn scene to make her hair look like it's gone back to Audrey Parker pre-bar/n blonde, and it's not until she sits up that it's clear that yes, this is still the Lexdrey hair. Looking a little longer than it did when it was wet last night, but depending on how curly one's hair is, showering does weird things. Out she goes, with snark about this is why she doesn't get pedicures and not too long of a look at Emily Rose's feet, who surely does get the occasional pedicure. The Gull is now a bait shop and not a particularly reputable one, and that's a nice callback to the fact that poor Audrey cannot hold onto a car for any length of time whatsofuckingever. Also, pedicures and decent calluses or no, walking on gravel fucking hurts. I get pretty respectable calluses every summer and I still won't walk on gravel barefoot. Lots of looks to be sure that at least the landmarks are where Audrey remembers them, and down the road with her typical cranky snark over fucking Haven and its fucking Troubles. I love you, Audrey.


Oh, hey, here comes a welcome sight! Though that's a marked car, not Nathan's blue pickup and damn sure not a small squad car, though considering Maine and its weather I support a larger car. That frown of Audrey's as it pulls up and circles around for her says that she thinks she recognizes the person in the car and it's not who she expects, and hello there Officer Crocker! Detective Crocker, actually. The writers apparently have this as a direct callback to her first meeting with Detective Wuornos, which is a nice bit of symmetry if not immediately obvious because of the lack of imminent danger of falling off cliffs. Still. Hot Haven detectives to the rescue! Audrey will be our audience stand-in for the better part of this ep (not that she often isn't, but it's more blatant right now), and burst into a bad case of the giggles. Yeah, if all I knew was Duke Crocker, gentleman smuggler, I would totally be cackling right now. Am cackling, because this is impressively still Duke behind a layer of respectability and protocol. Things our Duke's never really given a shit about, but alt!Duke has had instilled in him along with the desire to help and save people. Aww. This is really cute, in a weird sort of way! He's even got the cop squint. Eric Balfour stop doing that that is unfair. Audrey's default defense mechanism is to approach this cop to cop, in mannerisms if not in outright stating who she is, which is probably the main thing that keeps alt!Duke talking to her and giving her information. Like that there's never been a Wuornos in Haven PD. Which actually makes sense, since we already know that this is a Haven without the Troubles, we know that the Troubles gave Garland Wuornos some motivation to become a police officer himself, last season during Sarah (3x09). Without that motivating factor, it's all too likely that he went off and did something else with his life. Hopefully someone productive that made him happy? I would like a universe in which Garland was happy to exist, somewhere. And then alt!Duke drops the bombshell of being third generation Haven PD on her and oh ow my brain. I'll be over here twitching over Roy and Simon Crocker, HPD while he asks Audrey to hop in the back of the car. Yes, Audrey, you're a suspicious person at the moment, he'd like you in the back though thank you for giving him another LEO tell to run with. That'll come in handy later.


On over to the main stretch of town we go! There's a clothing bazaar and a bike shop and somehow Audrey managed to convince him to let her ride up front, we won't question how because it's a relief to see her there. No, he's not going to the station, he's got an urgent report to take. What on earth could qualify as urgent to Audrey after dealing with explosions and kidnappings and people dropping dead out of nowhere? Well, um. As alt!Duke leaves Audrey with orders to get a psych eval and then he'll help her find her friend, we see that there's been a spot of vandalism. Vandalism is urgent in this Haven. I'm with Audrey as far as that expression goes, but the musical cues would like us to know that the fact that the guy's face is all scratched out will be significant later! In fact, we even get the name of the couple, Brad and Susie, a nice bit of detail for those of us who pay way too much attention to everything on this show. Oh. Well, I guess we know whose fault this is, then. If we didn't before. We just need to get Audrey to the point of realization and figure out how it works and how to set everything back the way it was. Note that I don't say back to rights, because there is no back to rights in this universe. Especially not with William running around. That "wait in the car" order is totally for form's sake as a cop speaking, not out of any kind of expectation that she'll follow through. Oh everyone.






Because no, Audrey will not in fact follow through. She will instead go over to where she sees more familiar faces, in the faint hope that they might have been outside the area of effect or otherwise somehow remember the old Haven. They are currently dressed in the loudest, most garish of clothes which practically screams I'm too rich for fashion sense, but they're also looking at a newspaper or at least a piece of paper which might indicate that they're trying to figure out what's going on too? Maybe? Audrey and I will cling to that faint hope right up until they stare at her with polite confusion as though they've never seen her before, then I will let that hope die a whimpering death. Audrey won't, she'll make a couple of blatantly desperate attempts to connect with them, blatantly desperate because they're not at all subtle or complex. And ultimately futile. Not only are Vince and Dave dressed like the most garish of rich people, they are, in fact, rich people. Snobby ones. Haven is deteriorating! First vandalism and now vagrancy! Oh noes, lawdy, I do believe I shall faint. According to Snooty Vince there's never been any trouble in Haven, at which point he and Dave scuttle off so Audrey can finally get a good look at the Haven sign. Which still includes the goddamned (possibly literally damned) lighthouse, but now also includes the slogan "The safest town in Maine." Even before Haven started having the most gas leaks per square mile of anywhere ever, it was never exactly the safest town in Maine, but this is Mayberry safe. No, this is Pleasantville safe. This is, in short, not at all real. Roll credits! Let's see if those have changed too.


No, no they haven't. And I still want to set Flagg on fire.


When we come back we're over at the hospital, which at least physically hasn't changed much or at least they haven't chosen a new flyover location for it, and Detective Crocker is telling her and us that the nurses checked her out and deemed her fit for whatever it is she does. And then he will go stand in front of room 4010, just in case y'all were curious. Yes, we're still paying attention to the room numbers. We will also make grabby hands at that Haven t-shirt and hope SyFy manages to license it because really. The doc needs to sign off before she's officially released but he considers her good to go, and no, no one named Nathan Wuornos has ever lived in Haven. But it's adorable that he finds her at least credible enough to check it for her. Audrey puts a brave face on it even though she's clearly making a brave face, she'll find him, she always does. Given that she even found him when she was Sarah, there might be some truth to that. But it's still a brave face because she doesn't know whose Trouble is causing this or what the nature of it is, or, really, anything except Haven is different and Duke is a detective and Nathan isn't. So, where does she start? In fact, her brave face is obviously enough of a facade that it prompts Duke to give her his cell phone number on his business card (I'm going to go ahead and assume the number actually printed on the business card is the police exchange for the sake of not getting a headache) in case she needs anything and because he's pretty sure she's in some kind of trouble even if he doesn't know what kind of trouble she's in. That's Trouble, capital T (and that rhymes with P and I'll just be over here now), Duke. Never mind. That's really, really sweet of him, especially when you take it as a detective who just picked up a stranger on a road and who probably has other things to do on a daily basis, and surely has no idea of what kind of time or energy commitment he's signing up for. Audrey's touched. And still amused that Duke's a cop. So say we all, Audrey. Duke takes it with good grace, he blames the hair, which apparently the Chief hates. And so, naturally, he keeps it, as Audrey points out because even in Bizarro Haven she knows Duke well enough to know that he'll find little, annoying ways to rebel. Bizarro Duke seems surprised that she knows this, but it also makes him smile. Continuing along in the teasing she tells him to watch that he doesn't get fired, which leads to the intensely disturbing revelation that the chief is his Dad. So, yes, this is Bizarro Haven not just in the Stepford-style happiness of everyone but also in that Duke has taken Nathan's place by being Detective-Son-of-the-Chief, and also Simon Crocker, Chief of Police??? That is so frightening a concept I can't even begin to tell you guys. And in a bizarro way that does make sense, too, because what have the Crockers ever been if not the self-appointed (sometimes unhinged) guardians of Haven? We get to think of all of this and twitch, and Audrey gets about a second to shoot exclamation points out of her eyeballs before she's called to see the doctor. They share a moment of "well, it's been unexpected" and Duke tells her to stay safe as he leaves, with a hand around her arm. Possibly by way of being warning or intimidating, but also because Duke has always been a bit touchy-feely with people he likes as a way of expressing that liking, and apparently some things still haven't changed. Including his ability to play spot-the-out-of-place-thing, by which look we know that on some level, this is still Our Duke.






And some things have changed a lot. Such as her doctor, who it turns out, is Dr. Hansen. Doctor Nathan Hansen. Yeah, I have no idea how this played out in Alt-Haven, but I can hazard a guess that no Troubles meant no Guard, no Guard meant however indirectly that there was no issue between Vince and Max (or at least not the same issue) and perhaps most importantly, no sending Max off to prison for a crime he may or may not have committed, let's be realistic here, and therefore no Nathan getting adopted by Garland Wuornos. Audrey realizes this a second later, aloud, prompting Nathan to ask if she knew him. So Max Hansen is still dead in this world, I see! And I'm honestly not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. The writers give us the information that they consider Nathan's need to help people, his heroism and altruism, to be in his nature, and the form in which it takes "nurtured," as it were, by his Trouble. In our Haven he's chosen the path of police detective, whereas in alt Haven with no Trouble to take away his sense of touch, he's become a doctor. So, Nath-- excuse me, Dr. Hansen invites Audrey to sit up on the exam table and gives her funny looks for the funny looks she's giving him, finally outright asking if they've met before or something. The answer she gives is yes except no. That's not very enlightening or very reassuring, his face says. He's a doctor, really? Yes, yes he is. He's also somewhat convinced of her physical health but gives her some side-eye when he says that the nurse said she was lucid. Yeah, between the kind of knowing his dad, the yes but no answer to do they know each other, and her surprise at him being a doctor, I'd be giving her side-eye too. Though she's a bit more clear on the distinction between walking and wandering, so that's something. He checks her glands, her pulse. She tells him she was looking for someone but she found him, that the trouble she was worried about (capital T! Trouble!) seems to have fixed itself. Okay. That's one way of putting it. This is still all a bit too Stepford and I'm looking around for the child in perpetual filth and misery who keeps everything running this happily. But, sure, given that it's Haven, why not. Or maybe that child is Audrey? She's certainly been playing that role for a while. We won't find out just yet, instead we'll do a little verbal two-step where Nathan calls her Miss Parker and she wibbles on that a bit before inviting him to call her just Parker, even though she knows the customary thing is to invite people to be on a first name basis, not last-name-no-title basis. Yeah, Nathan calling her Parker isn't going to be the familiar comfort that she wants it to be, not when everything else about him is changed. And especially not when he's using the indulge-the-crazy-person tone like that. Though at least she is free to go. Wherever she can go. Where she'd like to go is out for dinner or something later with Nathan. Let us all note the lack of anything on his hands, possibly a mis-set, possibly a deliberate mis-set as well as being a misdirection, possibly he takes his wedding ring off to do hospital things. Ultimately the point is, she has no cue to know that he's not available and he's saved by the Code Blue, which calls him over to do something heroic and lifesaving (to someone who looks passingly like Garland, augh) which Lucas Bryant looks kind of adorably awkward at. Not entirely sure if that's an actor thing or an actor choice. Audrey looks so proud of him, though. And head over heels. And AUGH FUCK WILLIAM YOU LITTLE SHIT. This day has not been nearly as freaky as your entire life. Punch him, Audrey. Punch him in his smug face.


Audrey will not punch him, which, okay, is probably good since that's a security guard walking past, but she does want him to stay right there. So she can get the cops. Or some backup of any kind, which she is sorely lacking right now. William is both smug and a bit mean, doing a funny thing with his ear that might mean something later so I note it for the record, as he points out that he looks clean-cut and has the sense to keep his mouth shut about weird shit, while she's here for a psych evaluation. And who are the people of Haven more likely to believe? Yeah. It's also a bit ambiguous as to which 'he' she means, though safe to say it's either Duke or Nathan. Also not unreasonable for Audrey to think that William did this to Haven, in fact, that's rather what we were thinking when we saw the previews for this episode. Something along the lines of "Fine, you want the Troubles to go away? HERE. HAVE A HAVEN WITH NO TROUBLES." But, no, he didn't do this to Haven, and he sounds even disgusted by the possibility that he might have. Which is odd until he goes on to say that someone's Trouble stranded them in this boring tourist trap. Ah-hah. And also, um. I'd really hate to see what you consider exciting, William. Also he's dropped any pretense of being either normal or benign, his eyes are completely dead and I don't know what Colin Ferguson has done to his usual adorable smile but this smile makes me want to hide behind a whole stack of couches. While I'm realizing this Audrey's realizing that if he knows what's going on he must be immune to the Troubles too. Oh look, Colin Ferguson has creepy soft voice tricks to go with his creepy creepy face. And while I'm addressing his voice there's also a little more smoothness than there has been in previous roles of his, a little more confidence that lends crispness to the enunciation of his words and invites fewer interjectory particles. Anyway. He repeats the whole we're connected thing, although this is the first time he's emphasized it in that word particularly, and Audrey repeats the whole I am not connected to you you monster fuck right off. I may be taking a liberty with adding that last part, but it's implied. Meanwhile William has decided that he needs to get her back to the old Haven so she can remember who she is, and to do that he's going to need the old Troubles! Oh goody. Nathan, oblivious to all of this, walks on by and into an intersection of hallway to greet his wife and daughter. Yeah, that's what I said. Audrey is... shocked is probably the predominant emotion right now, over heartache, because it is alt-Haven. William's predominant sentiment is mocking. Complete with excessive gushy voice. Audrey's voice is rather fake herself, but she wants to be glad that Bizarro Nathan is happy, so that's what she'll say and try to convince herself it's true. And she sighs and she likely does believe that Haven is better without the Troubles. Which means it's time for William to spoil the moment by smugging it up some more and telling her that, deep down, she likes the Troubles and wants them to stick around. Well, it may be deep down, but given the information in evidence at the moment I'm not sure that's such a brilliant and unforeseen deduction, you know? She was able to help people, she was valued and special, and here nobody knows who she is and she's actually kind of a nuisance if you believe Bizarro Vince and Bizarro Dave. Who wouldn't want to go back to being special and valued, even if they also believed the world as a whole was better off this way? Though his voice does suggest a deeper knowledge than we're at all comfortable with. William would like the old Haven back too, but for his own reasons, and if she's not going to help then he's going to do it his own damn self. Let's add to the implicit threat in that by making a more explicit threat and groping her hair. Ew. Everything about William, his reaching for her, his swaggering posture, his smile. Ew. Don't get too comfortable, William, it is impossible to be comfortable with you around. Go away and leave Audrey to contemplate Duke's business card in peace.


Over at the Haven Herald apparently Vince and Dave still run the paper! Unlike our Herald, this office is tidy to the point of OCD, practically. No papers strewn all over their desks, little netbooks sitting out with assorted documents instead, these versions of the Teagues brothers are fully in the digital age. Probably at least partly because they're comfortable showing off their wealth (the facade's even a little better kept too), but also, and mostly, because in a Haven without the Troubles the Teagues have less need to keep secrets. And we're reversing roles here, as well, though not turning off the bickering in the slightest! Vince will be arguing in favor of people's right to know about the homeless bag ladies overrunning the town whereas Dave poo-poos this and doesn't want to incite a panic. And wants to know since when they've been journalists. Aheh. Cue William walking in with his mock-charming smile and his dead eyes and his latching the door behind him. He's not here to place an ad, he's not here looking for someone, he is I supposedly technically here about a missed connection, thank you for that lampshade alt!Dave, but he's really here to commit murder. On account of we know he's capable of putting on a better facade of congeniality than he is right now, and instead he's sort of halfway between evil smarmy fucker William who taunts Audrey all over the town and hopeful sad puppy William from the bar/n. Bouncy and hopeful and taking great glee in the mayhem he's about to cause, and this is so unbelievably creepy, dammit, Colin Ferguson, I want Jack Carter back. Not this shark-toothed bastard grin you keep pulling out. Yeah, we all know what one way or another means, don't we. The Teagues look like they have a pretty good idea, too, or at least some clue that this is a very dangerous man, which says some interesting things about their levels of perception and own dangerousness, even in this supposedly nice, Trouble-free Haven. Not that we're going to get a chance to see what might be behind that.


At least we'll break up some of the extreme Sorcery with a lunch meeting between Duke and Audrey oh my god Duke you have manners. The kind of old-fashioned manners that say a man stands when a woman walks up to the table, were you going to pull her chair out for her too? Because so cute if so, though she waves him off before he can follow through on more than standing. And he really wants to help, just in case she was in any doubt about that! No, she wasn't, this might not be her Duke but he's still got the basic personality traits that make up Duke Crocker, and I'm just going to call it here: alt!Duke wins The Best for this episode. Audrey wants to warn him about William and given what William's been doing and saying to her over the course of the last few days, subjective time, I don't blame her for being rather incoherent about what this threat is and how bad it's going to get. Predictably, Duke takes offense at the implication that he's incompetent, and Audrey's backpedaling isn't doing very much because she jumps right back in with, let me help, let me find him for you, let me fix this. Because one of her defining traits is the desire to be of use, after all, and in this Haven she's not of any use. Or wasn't, until William showed up and started declaring that he was going to make Haven go back to the way it's supposed to be and he wouldn't be delicate about it. Now she can be of use and she has a guilt complex about it even if she's not entirely certain how far that guilt should go, just that she feels responsible for William's presence and fuckmuppetry in a way that goes beyond her knowledge. Duke has that whole cop lean back and swagger attitude going on, small town cop about to break out his knowledge in front of the big shot FBI agent, or supposed agent, anyway! It turns out Audrey Parker does exist in this universe as well, and presumably she's still tiny and brunette and hasn't had her memory wiped by the barn. Maybe she even has that boyfriend still. Undercover is a rather on-the-nose way of putting AudSarLuLex's entire existence, yes, thank you for that whoever wrote that line. Hey, speaking of identity and things we'd like to know, William's last name? Does he have one? INQUIRING MINDS. I doubt that if he has one it'll be as enlightening as we hope, but we're also well familiar with the concept that names have power, and if we could get the rest of William's name (or his true name, since I'm not actually sure William is his name so much as something he allows others to call him) we might have some kind of a foothold on him. For that matter, I'm sure that AudSarLuLex's true name is going to be a major plot point for the rest of this season, since it hinges on her remembering who she was to William. But instead of Audrey coming up with a way to persuade a Duke who doesn't know her that this is serious, he'll get a phone call about William's handiwork. Oh fucking yay. Just what we wanted.






Audrey has an expression of oh fuck, and also of well what the fuck now. Yeah, I don't know what her next move is, but Duke just found out what William's last move was. Which means their next move is to the murder scene. The first one in 42 years, Duke says, which puts the last one in the late 1960s, probably '69, which is a date we have absolutely nothing on in Haven verse proper. Not a Trouble cycle, the closest we get is a note that Vince thinks the last of the Carver line died out around 1960. Which sounds like it's the sort of date that's significant to this Haven by its sheer lack of significance to the other one, and I kind of figure that's a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference, too? Maybe? At least that's the only thing I can come up with. Audrey's expression is unfortunately not even a little bit surprised and Duke calls her on it, he'll bring her to the scene with him on the grounds that if she's LEO she'll be useful and if she's his unsub then maybe she'll give something away. At least that's the logic I'd use, and the sort of layered logic we're used to seeing from our Duke, so I'll assume it's true here as well. At the Herald, Vince appears to have been first to die, single slice to the neck, looks deep enough to have severed the windpipe (so no crying out) on the one hand and not deep enough to cause arterial spray on the other. A very precise job, in other words, and exactly what we'd expect out of William. I wish I could say I'm at all surprised that he's killing people himself rather than having his lackeys do it for him or manipulating others into situations where they kill people, but I'm really, really not. I'm a little surprised he's doing it right out in the open like this, except that once he gets Haven back the way he wants it theoretically none of these deaths will have happened and therefore it doesn't matter what he does now. Sort of like Groundhog Day logic, only taken to horrible, horrible extremes. Even alt!Duke who hasn't confronted murder cases himself is pretty blase about this, suppressing his horror and doing his job. Oh honey. Both of you. Vince was caught by surprise, yeah, that's about right for how they staged it, and Dave practically looks asleep, not caught by surprise. At least until we see the defensive wounds on his hand with the long blonde hair stuck to it oh is THAT why you were grabbing at her at the hospital. You sneaky evil fuck. Audrey has roughly that same expression on her face, except saying "the guy I told you about grabbed my hair at the hospital and was already planning this murder when he walked away from me and he's pinning it on me so he can make you jump to his tune" is… actually leading with the story about the hospital might make her marginally more believable than what she does say. Babbling out about how this is a setup and being emotionally distraught is not actually going to persuade alt!Duke that she's innocent, it's just going to make him haul her out of the crime scene before she can contaminate it and down to the station for questioning. (K: I would have led with wouldn't the defensive wounds on his knuckles leave corresponding injuries on my FACE? That aren't there? But that's just me.) (A: Which brings up the interesting point of where the fuck are the defensive injuries that should be on William's face. Maybe he blocked with something large and heavy, maybe they're on his arms instead, lord knows he wears enough suits, but grumble.)


At which point Duke wants the truth! Duke, honey, in this universe I'm going with the old standby: you can't handle the truth. And he can't. He's not equipped for this whole alternate universe thing, he has no frame of reference for it. But he's asked, and Audrey's so off-balance from having Duke-but-not-Duke in front of her, and wanting to trust him like he's her Duke, and not to mention the fact that William has already upped the stakes by killing the Teagues, she'll give it the ol' college try. Killing the Teagues, it should be mentioned, is not just an idle choice, it's a deliberate and blatant fuck-you. It's saying, if I'm wrong about how this Trouble works and they stay dead, I've taken away two of your best sources of information. It's saying, yet again, I am here to fuck your shit up and I don't care who I hurt or kill in the process. I'll even enjoy it. Yeah. Audrey lays it out in as few words as possible only she's forgetting that she should probably be treating Duke like he's one of the Troubled people who doesn't know he's Troubled. That would be a more sensible emotional tack to take, the easy lead-in, the careful build-up, but that's not something Audrey has in her right now. And we can see Duke's face close down completely when she references William again, because let's not forget: nobody except Audrey and the Teagues have seen him as yet, and Audrey's the crazy one. Duke's about to walk out when she plays her last card, the I-know-you card, and there's a lot of stuff in here that's completely not applicable to this version of Duke and maybe she shouldn't have said it? Except it points up the last thing she says about how they trust each other. Between that and the boat comment, we can see some of the pieces starting to click, not just that she knows some things about him that nobody who's a stranger should, but that she has been treating him with trust and respect and as a partner, of sorts, even though she has no reason to do so. 'cause she really, really doesn't, in his mind at any rate, and it's natural to most people to balk at that kind of assumption of trust when there's no prior history there. Unless you're as good a con man as William is, but this isn't that kind of smooth talk, this is the genuine desperation of a woman looking for her old friends somewhere under the layers of Stepford Haven. Aaand they've got another body. Whoops. Well, hey, that should exonerate Audrey, if she was locked up at the time! Duke's being extra-cautious, though, and keeping her until they've got time of death. No, this still isn't about William finding the person whose Trouble caused it, though given the fantasy-fulfillment nature of her Trouble it's not wholly implausible. It's about continuing to fuck with Audrey and take away another line of inquiry, even if Doreen Hanscombe in this universe doesn't know anything it's a reasonable bet that Audrey would've tried to find her and work from her circle of friends and acquaintances. William, have I told you lately how much I hate you? We close out of the station on the usual cry of the aggrieved innocent. Yes, Audrey, yes he can. Sorry.


Dr. Hansen has apparently been called to this scene as Haven's temporary ME, and cue the most hilarious scene ever. Oh boys. Lucas Bryant is taking the opportunity to play up the puppy eyes and mancrush aspects he rarely gets to as normal-verse-Nathan, and Eric Balfour is the standoffish cop who certainly doesn't remember any such third grade hijinks. He is sobersrs and above all that now. Dr. Hansen is an enormous goober oh my god Nathan. Seriously? Wow. He babbles, he's awkward and nervous, he's learned NONE of the control that he has as a cop. Fidgeting with his cuffs, hesitant but eager in his speech, and owned a Han Solo lunchbox in third grade that he still remembers, of course he does. Oh boys. The actors are clearly having SO much fun with this, too, and we'll just be over here munching popcorn and giggling. It's not as adversarial as the Nathan-Duke relationship in any of the seasons, but it's awkward and confusing and they're clearly drawn to each other in some way nonetheless. And they have no idea why, and if this Haven is similar in most respects to Troubled Haven then it's likely one of the reasons Nathan remembers Duke is because Duke's the one who picked him up and carried him to the hospital when he broke his arm sledding. But it's not manly to say it out like that, you see. Did you both have to ask and answer the thing about a fulltime ME? Because we all know the answer to that and none of us like it and may this universe's Gloria and Lucassi be sipping little drinks with umbrellas in them, wherever they are. I'm just saying, they've earned a break or three. No, Duke would like to put the awkward jokes aside and ask about Audrey, was there anything unusual about her? Uh, no comment, which is not about confidentiality, it's code for "I found myself confusingly attracted to her and I'm married so I don't want to talk about it." At least I'm pretty sure. Oh, hey, she's not in any database anywhere? That doesn't even merit the jar, though I am a little surprised Duke's managed to run down all those records already. Then again, not much else to do until William started killing people. And Duke's interest? No comment, which has more of a cop overtone to it but also some of that same confused attraction. Note that we haven't seen a wedding ring on alt!Duke, presumably he never met Evi, presumably he's still something of a ladies' man. Presumably no Jennifer, either, since she seems to have been created by the barn in some way, not that we have any kind of an answer on that yet either. Grumble.


On over to the holding cell, where Stan is a cop in every reality and comes bearing Audrey's lawyer. Goddammit, William, can't I cut your throat right here? There's a floor drain and everything, and cement and cinderblocks are easy to hose down. We and she knew he was the lawyer straight off, of course, she hasn't been charged with anything and so hasn't been assigned a public defender, and no one else in this town knows her from a hole in the ground. For extra bonus mean, it seems William has spread about tales of Audrey's insane-sounding behavior, predicting her response to Stan the Permacop and making a joke out of her fear and anger. So, about that throat cutting? Yeah, Audrey is pissed at him and in no mood for his shit right now or, safe to say, ever, and no, she does not think being mocked is funny. No matter how much you try to play up the just like her card, William. No, we are not going to look back on this and laugh. There's something peculiarly old-fashioned about his lean-back head-tilting smile type gesture, as though he were being that man-out-of-time again that he was in the bar/n. It does not alleviate the creepy, nor does it mitigate the arrogance of all of these assumptions he's making and the attitude that she's being unreasonable not to cater to them. Audrey is still not amused, and he killed the damn Teagues. Okay, yes, we've been frothing at them for episodes and seasons, but William actually went out and fucking killed them. Because he thought they'd lead him to the Troubled person. Why he thought that, I have no idea, it's not as though this Haven has that much in common with our Haven. Once again, he seems to find this funny, and makes comic lightness out of his frustration. Still not funny, William! Come here, let's see if your head will fit through those bars. From there it's a simple jump to picking up Doreen's murder, no doubt that smile after he says "not her" is because he carved that in her fucking forehead. Still not funny, William! And since being funny isn't getting him anywhere, not that he is, he'll come get up in her personal space or at least on her bunk and ramble a bit about how he hates legwork. Thank you, Mycroft. Or Patrick Jane, for a more recent example, a lot of these are that style of mock-playful arrogance. Which fits straight into the type we've been talking about: fucking Sorcerers. (Probably what got us into this mess.) But Audrey's good at legwork! So she's going to go find the Troubled person and he's going to provide motivation in the shape of, well, threatening the lives and happiness of people she cares about. Because what else does William know how to do but threaten lives to get what he wants. We saw that, not that we were aware of it at the time, in the bar/n when he said she needed to get out of the bar/n or many people were going to die, and we're seeing it in a much more direct and personal way now. In case we were in any doubts as to his state of mind, too, he refers to his intended victims as people Audrey Parker cares about, and then in the next breath proceeds to say he'll do whatever it takes for her. Yep, still thinking of these two as different people, and didn't we just leave this party with Nathan? I believe we did! Whereas Nathan was willing to love Audrey or Lexie or whichever of them loved him, or all of them at once if she loved him, William is fixated on the one he remembers, whoever she is, and he is willing to go a lot further than Nathan was to get her back. So he's going to go and go a little further, complete with condescending talk about how she's being cranky and this is for her own good, and she gets to sit in jail a while longer. Yay. About that throat cutting.


One flyover later and Nathan's playing ME again, cause of death was broken neck, manner of death was homicide. How does he know it was homicide? Well, because she was propped against a tree and 'not her' was carved into her forehead, that's pretty indicative of a homicide. Definitely post-mortem mutilation, by the lack of drippy blood, though William might also have cleaned it up to make the message clearer. Duke crouches down to take a look with the weary sigh of a cop, a person who's looking at another person who is dead and shouldn't be, and Nathan crouches down with him. Reading off the 'not her' as 'nother, oh Nathan. Why are you such a goober in this 'verse? I will add that this might entirely be a Sherlock Holmes reference to the Rache-Rachel debate, with different endings depending on whether you're reading the original or watching one of the derivations. That is a pretty famous one. But yes, Duke is correct in that this reads as two words and not the one, because she was indeed not the one, and why are you such a goober, Nathan? He is right, though, that she wasn't killed here, that someone dumped the body here. Staged might be the more accurate term. Duke keeps looking her over, finds fiberglass shreds under her fingernails, so that's interesting! Also interesting is the time of death, which Nathan puts at four hours ago. Duke would like to register an objection to this, but yes, it is possible. Even likely! And Duke's only objecting because it rules Audrey out as a suspect, since she was in custody at the time and she was his only lead. Suspect. Lead. We interrupt this mild confusion for Nathan to take a call from his wife, or not, since the call seems to pretty much only exist to establish that she's calling him and then hang up again. Also to establish Duke's impatience with a makeshift local doctor ME, more for the lack of crime scene protocol, I think, than in any implication that he doesn't know how to properly examine a body. ME would be the right title, though, ME is the one that requires the medical degree. Just so you know. Let's hang a lampshade on the dynamic duo real quick by having Nathan say it's been great working with him and he thinks they make a very good team. You have no idea, boys. Oh, you have no idea.






Over in the Haven jail, Audrey's hold is up! And her lawyer says they have to let her go. Heh. Audrey tries once again to warn Stan about William, but William's done his job a little too well and Stan dismisses her as a nutjob. Possibly not even waiting for her to get out of earshot, because that's friendly. The second she's out of jail, though, she makes her way over to the Hansens, because William was threatening the people she loves and that list starts, as far as William knows, with Nathan. No matter what 'verse we're in. Nathan's house is apparently large, well groomed, as appropriate to a presumably wealthyish doctor, with an absolutely hideous mailbox. Seriously, what the hell is that thing, McDonalds chic? Here comes Nathan out of the house, and he looks to be intact, so Audrey can breathe a sigh of relief for about three seconds before the shocked and panicked look on his face registers. Well, before her presence registers with him, too, and he turns around to stare at her half-accusingly. The other half is still in shock. He recognizes her, and probably is linking her to the disappearance of his family because she's the only other weird thing about this day, but since he can't link her any other way he dismisses her from possible solutions and leaps to the only one he knows: the cops. His wife and daughter are missing, that's what you do when people you love are missing, you call the police. Even in this ultra-safe Haven he knows that, if only because people sometimes go missing off of cliffs or on obscure hiking trails or out on boats. In the midst of grabbing for the phone, however, it rings! It's his wife, thank god. Audrey, that is the fakest smile of relief ever, mostly because she suspects what's going on right now. Yeah, that's his wife's number, but that's not his wife, and as we all find hard surfaces to plant our faces against Nathan says in a slightly stammery voice that it's someone named William. And he wants to talk to Audrey. We saw that one coming from two universes away. After the break Audrey doesn't quite beg William not to hurt Nathan's family, but it's close. More in the tone than the choice of words. William continues to be that terrible fakey-fake jovial style that, oh I'll just go right ahead and say it, was one of the hallmarks of our dear old friend (and by friend I mean that fucker) Randall Flagg. And of course the well-being of the Hansens is up to her, if she brings him the Troubled person who turned Haven into Stepford, he'll let the Hansens go. The sick thing is, he'd do it, too. It's not that he runs around killing because he took a fancy that day, it's that all he's got is a hammer and every single problem, big or small, looks like a nail. And by nail I mean murder. Besides, if they're still alive he can always threaten their lives to get what he wants out of her later. God he's creepy. The cheerful smile over in Maureen Hansen's direction is not helping, that is not the smile of reassurance, that is the smile of "Hey, guess what, you're not going to die today after all!" Go 'way, William, you're scaring the children.


With those teeth put away for the moment, Nathan is in full on panic mode. Again, he's got the instincts to care deeply for others, especially those who are his family either chosen or by blood, as well as the desire to do something immediate to fix the problem. It's just that in this universe, all his ability to fix the problem centers around being a doctor, not a detective. (Dammit, Bones!) Though his first instinct is exactly the right one under any other circumstance, it's a very bad one here. Not least because Audrey hasn't met Simon Crocker in this universe (and let us all be thankful that we didn't or our heads might have exploded) but also because the only sign of an intelligent, capable cop on the force right now is Duke. And presumably Simon, but since he's Sir Not Appearing, we have a whole one good detective and a bunch of redshirted unis. Not something Audrey wants to throw at William. Not something likely to pry William out of his evil cannery. Seriously, we checked, that is the same goddamn cannery that Arla was using last season. We kind of hate you all right now, Haven writers. Just a little. Nathan will ask the highly relevant thematic question of who are you, and no, we're not diving into it right now, we're moving along to the issue of trust and choice and no, he really doesn't have any. Lucas and Emily are nailing this beautifully, by the way, the expressions of two people who are in love in a different universe, who have a connection one of them can't explain in this one, and who are struggling to communicate let alone to know what the right thing to do is in this universe. So, to solutions, which Audrey can offer, is there anyone new in town? Anyone out of place, different? Let's start working the case, in other words, except this being alt!Nathan he's not capable of working a case with her, he's just going to flail about and list off all the things that are weird right now. Everything that's happened since she came to Haven, because let's hammer on the anvil of everything is Audrey's fault early and often this episode, shall we? Just to build up to that reveal at the end. Okay, except for the vandalism, which is also new! And definitely not along the lines of something William would do, and Audrey knows she didn't do it, so it's a clue! A veritable clue, Holmes. This leads her to the flyer to the guy with the scratched out face to the confirmation that yes, Susie is married to someone new and different in this Haven and say, there's an open house! Time to go charging off to an open house, while Nathan looks like he's been run over by a steamroller. Well, he kind of has, and he doesn't have all the coping mechanisms for steering Audrey that he does in Troubled-Haven, so he's pretty much just along for the ride since she's his only lead.


Back over at the police station Duke is engaging in a truly epic fit of ire and frustration that they let his only lead walk right out of the station without so much as a "don't leave town" or an ankle bracelet for monitoring, anything. Presumably, oop, yes, there he goes with the find her. Which, okay, I suppose yelling find her to a bunch of uniformed cops with bikes and phones is like putting out an APB? And now he'll go into his office where his laptop is, presumably to put out that APB. Only Audrey's left him a thoughtful little note on his laptop! Aww! Apparently it's a list of William's possible targets. On this list, in no apparent order: Nathan Hansen (good Audrey, you remembered), Duke Crocker, Dwight Hendrickson, Claire Callahan (because of course she's alive in AU Haven), Garland Wuornos, Julia Carr (wouldn't she be off Peace Corpsing? Maybe not. Covering all bases, regardless.), Eleanor Carr, Rudy Lucassi, Gloria Verrano, Jordan McKee. Well, that's a reasonably comprehensive list at least. Everyone Audrey's had a connection to, for more than an episode or so. We could theoretically add Jennifer to that list except, maddeningly, she and Audrey haven't had much of a chance to sit down and bond yet. The only other name I might ever think of to add would be James Cogan, assuming he even exists in this reality. No Troubles, no time travel, no Nathan in the past, no lovemaking, no conception, but would something else have happened? Or is Audrey Audrey wherever she is, and there was no Audrey in this world until she came in? Thinky thoughts. At any rate, that's something to go on, which is more than Duke had a moment ago.


They have reached the open house! Where Nathan and Audrey are posing as a couple, for maximum headtilting at the ways in which this universe is fucked up, and the realtor couple are saying that it's a great time to get into the market! According to realtors this chipper it's probably always a great time. But say, who's that guy? And now we come to the twisted solution to the twisted problem, it's Cliff, and Audrey will deal with this. This is pretty much textbook act like you know what you're doing and everyone else will stand down and let you handle it, even if one of them was just checking you out for physical injury and clearing your psych eval. Nathan's not in any shape to argue, anyway, and hey! Cliff's incredibly relieved to find someone who knows who he is, and admits that he thought the legend of the Troubles was just an old family joke, and he didn't think anything would come of it. Yeah, honey, you did. Because your wife died and you were grieving and the only thing left you could think to rely on was, maybe my Trouble can make this not have happened. Very Labyrinth-esque of them, it sounds like the magic words are in fact I-wish, which is fairly traditional in these sorts of cases. And every wish has a dark side to it, all magic has a price, yes, we know this rule too. So now Susie's alive but she has no idea who he is, and in fact thinks he's a creepy stalker. Not that anyone can blame her for that thought. He could wish it different but he'd have another downside to it, and wishing that downside away would create another, and it sounds like the family legend is basically, wishing for things with your Trouble is a black pit of suck, so don't do it you morons. And since William's been taking the tack of every problem is a nail to be murdered, she has to ask the obvious question of, what happens if you die? Not quite that bluntly, but close enough. She would like Cliff not to have to die for this reality to vanish, no matter what she would like from Nathan or for Cliff, we'll nod in the direction of that parallel briefly, and no, there will be no making of trades. There will be no negotiating with terrorists. I mean William. Who is basically using terror tactics, shock and awe chief among them and I am not doing the full Monty Python sketch to this, he's not that funny. Or that cute. She's right that all William wants is her, though not about the timing on that, and I'll pause to note that they haven't tried to touch skin to skin this episode (thank GOD) and thus we don't know if in this reality their static shock thing is still a thing. Safe bet is yes, but it's an interesting query. That we don't have time for, because here comes Duke! To yell at Audrey about how he is the cop and, by implication, this is his town which he knows better than she does - true, in this reality - and would she maybe consider letting him do his goddamn job? You guys, while you're arguing, Nathan and Cliff are making stupid decisions and leaving you in the dust.






After the break Audrey isn't quite going off half-cocked, maybe three-quarters cocked. Nathan's going to exchange Cliff for his wife, this can't happen, William is a psychopath who can't be allowed to get his hands on anyone else, all running around in her head at top speed, so there's some merit to Duke attempting to shake or yell her out of her frenzy. Though his question of "do people put up with this where you're from" is fucking hysterical. It's not so much a matter of people putting up with it, no. More a matter of not having any choice or room to breathe. He's not much calmer, but he does point out that everything leads back to her, which is a tacit way of asking her to explain her damn self without losing face as a problem solving cop or accusing her of being complicit in these hellacious activities. She does take it a bit as an accusation, pointing out that she did try to warn him. Well, he believes her now. At least the part about William being fixated on her, which is all he has to believe in right now. They can agree on that at least, and now that everyone's calm enough to think and act with more clarity, they can figure out where Nathan and Cliff are going. Firstly, to William. Secondly, and for a more concrete location, they don't know where William is but Duke has a GPS fix on Nathan's phone, which means they can track him. I'll take a second here to wonder why the fuck no one got a GPS fix on Maureen's phone, but it's possible Duke just started at the top of the list and/or ordered IT to get a GPS location on the phones of everyone on that list. And Maureen wasn't on that list. And Nathan, as yet, has not actually managed to complete the act of calling the police. And does Duke really believe Audrey? Well, she was right about the boat and he always did want one. But did he always want to be a pirate? That is the question.


On over to the evil cannery we go, hissing and spitting all the way. Where William is being a condescending ass, and I think he actually does intend to try to have on something of a good-guy front this time and the cracks in his facade are too broad and deep for it to come across as anything other than Evil Douchebag. Nathan feels kind of bad but not too bad about trading Cliff for his wife and daughter, and frankly it's the daughter that's got my attention more. What the hell. And so we have a successful hostage exchange, because while William is fucking evil, and right now he's very solemn and serious about it instead of tittering evil, he'd also like to consider himself a man of his word. Maybe, too, there's a very tiny part of him that can relate to what alt!Nathan is doing for his family, though he would never admit it or call it relating or empathy, because obviously these people are less-than. Because fuck you, William, that's why. It turns out, as Cliff talks without prompting, that he didn't even know which Trouble he was dealing with until it leapt up and smacked him the face, possibly on account of why would he bother keeping track of such petty details. Again, they're beneath him. So is torture, which doesn't mean he won't do it when he believes it's his only way out of this. Which he does, since Cliff professes that he'll never wish for Haven back the way it was since Susie's dead there. Not to mention, if he wished it back, chances are extremely good that there would be something even more off and wrong than in the Haven we came from. We know Cliff's a dead man sooner or later, he just doesn't know it yet, and William apparently wants to try to do this the way that doesn't involve a murder, since he could do it via coercion instead. I'm sure in some twisted way that makes sense! It's also interesting that he's so desperate that he doesn't take the route of emotional and verbal manipulation; we have plenty of evidence to indicate he's extremely competent at it but he's devolving more and more into an inability to view anything in the long term. Audrey, or whoever she was, is right within his grasp and he will not slow down for anything at all, let alone think of a more effective long-term way to accomplish his goals. And this will, I'm fairly certain, prove to be his undoing. I can't wait.


Back at the Hansen residence, Nathan is, um. Leaving again. He instructs Maureen to essentially lock themselves in their house and set the alarm, the police are on their way, and he's going to go fix what he broke. Because Nathan is, in this or any 'verse, a good person who doesn't actually like it when good people are in bad situations, and even less does he like putting them there. It might not be his fault that everyone's in this mess but he traded an innocent man (and a man he doesn't even know, let's not forget that, but it's Nathan and he is at heart one of the good guys) for his family, and he needs to help get the guy he put in danger out of danger. Oh honey. Meanwhile and back at the cannery of evil, Duke is Weavering into the building with Audrey right behind him since, well, no gun. And Cliff is tied to a chair. No crying out, thank god, he sees them coming and kind of blinks once or twice but that's about it. Sadly, he doesn't need to react. William was lurking behind that stack of crates and saw them coming, and he's armed to boot. No, I don't know where he got that gun, nor does anyone else. Thankfully post-production hasn't done anything to his shadow, which was one of my first guesses, but there's definitely something to be said for the William-and-his-very-crisp-shadow imagery we're getting in this shot, pointing his gun at Duke, mostly. A bit like the William-and-his-reflection shot we got last episode. I don't like either of these. He does have the drop on Duke, though, and there isn't anything Audrey or Cliff can do, so Duke complies. Against standard police training, I might add. Then again, nothing about this version of Haven is standard. Audrey sounds so tired when she asks William to let Cliff go, poor woman. It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. And Cliff isn't going anywhere, William needs him to get back to old Haven. Duke attempts one of the usual lines, about everyone walking away from this, but William's looking to Audrey for his cue. Sadly, her nodding pleadingly/hopefully was it. By this token he knows that she cares about Duke, even this version, which makes Duke fair game for shooting a few times in the chest. Yay. Complete with "aahhh, you're pissing me off" expression, William does not tolerate rivals well. Not only that, Audrey's screaming at him and trying to go to Duke afterwards! How unreasonable, right? William's admission of wrongdoing is as spurious as his apology, especially when he goes right on to say that none of this matters. And he doesn't mean in the sense that this is an alternate Haven that will get wiped out when everything goes back to normal, either, William truly does not give a shit about us mortals. Humans. Whatever dividing line he draws. Audrey would disrespectfully disagree, which at least prompts William into a moderately informative, somewhat wild-eyed rant about how she's got to stop with this savior from the Troubles act because, dun dun dunnn... the real her made the Troubles. And this is why she has to keep coming back, and keep fixing things, because she made them. This shouldn't be as much of a surprise as it is, given that we already know she's physically and mystically capable of it. If she and William are the same thing, and he can make the Troubles, then so can she. The question is, why. And with trying not to get too much into she's-the-protagonist-it-must-be-for-a-good-reason type logic, yes, it's possibly that she did it for the same or similar reasons William likely would have in the beginning: for shits and giggles. It's also possible, though, given that some of the Troubles are potentially beneficial (Keegan/Novelli's plant control, Caldwell's weather control, Wuornos's earthmoving skills) that she did it to help the people who lived there, to give them opportunities closer to her own abilities at the time. And then, like Prometheus punished for bringing fire, she was punished by all her gifts turning to curses and being forced to take care of everyone, cycle of Troubles, and on and on. We have it from the writers that William is telling the truth about this part, so at least that much we can take as fact, that Audrey made the Troubles. But were they always called the Troubles? What was the context? That's the problem with these fuckers, they always lie with the truth, because the truth without context can sound exactly the same as a bald-faced lie. Whatever the reasons or circumstances, he does genuinely sound and look almost angry as he says this. Colder, at least. Much more piercing around the eyes. Audrey, as well she might, looks shocked and about to cry.






We're still at the cannery after the break, and William's still ranting about her making the Troubles. Not only that, he actually pouts some when he says she's being punished. Not so much that he's pouting that she's being punished, it's more like, somehow he's being punished alongside her? Which goes along with him being trapped in the barn, really. Her punishment wouldn't bother him nearly so much if it didn't affect him as well. Audrey goes distant for just a moment, looking back a season and thinking out loud that that's what Agent Howard said. Which is when we get maybe our first break in William ever, there's a tiny movement of the mouth and a slight eyedart down and to one side. Down, back and forth, mainly to one side, and back up at her again before she can realize his carefully constructed face is slipping. We're going to go ahead and interpret that right now as William doesn't know who Agent Howard is at all, let alone what he might have told her about her true nature and the Troubles, but it's also possible that he only has a vague knowledge of the barnvatar creature called Howard, and no certain knowledge of what the barnvatar knows. Or, for that matter, he could have been caught out in a half-truth (unlikely for this particular sequence given what we know from the writers, but possible) and hoping that she isn't going to figure that out based on what else Agent Howard has said. A final and what we consider least probable theory is that this is regret, if the punishment came from him. Regret over what he's doing to her, if nothing else.  We don't know for certain anything about what he was like back in the beginning, after all. Still, we're going with our first guess, which is that William has no fucking clue who Agent Howard is, and that's the first time he's been rattled like this. The first time she's surprised him like this. She looks up, though, and tells him that's not true. The being punished thing. We all remember what Agent Howard actually said, yes? She asked, "Am I being punished?" and he said "It does seem that way, doesn't it." Nothing about what was actually going on, just that it seemed like a punishment. Hence, now, Audrey rejects this thesis, and William is forced to physically back away while insisting that this punishment point of view is the correct one. He doesn't look or sound nearly as certain as he has prior, though. He does offer evidence that he knows because they did it together. Please stop, that sounds gross. I will say, though, that by the time he's done being a mocking little shit again he actually sounds desperate. And he's using the word 'home,' which is an interesting choice for him, given how disgusted he is with Haven and everyone in it. Though, there was that hillside. While all this is going on Nathan is now sneaking up on William, and doing a decent job of it for that matter. It helps that Audrey's distracting William by essentially giving him sad puppy eyes. Which is a nice bit of turnabout since he was giving her sad puppy eyes all through his own episode. He's buying it hook line and sinker, too. Despite it being a rather big turnaround from where she was, he's back to the old William from the bar/n again, all intense and focused on her and worried about her and nodding. Idiot. So, Nathan comes up behind him and points his gun at him and has the most timorous "freeze," which Lucas Bryant must have done on purpose just to contrast with our Nathan. It's pretty hysterical. William is not impressed. Or if he is he's not showing it. Nor is he sad and softer and concerned again, we can actually see the brittle shell snapping back into place as he gets this thoughtful frowny face and decides that "this" might do the trick. And by this he means shooting Cliff in the head.


And with that gunshot, Audrey wakes up. In bed. With Nathan. In her proper apartment, but not her proper clothes, so we know for sure that that all happened. Nathan, by contrast, is shirtless, because the writers love us and want us to be happy. Not that we get very long to appreciate the pretty of Lucas Bryant's chest, because he's largely under the covers and because Audrey has just sat bolt upright and declared that they need to kill William. WELL WE'RE ALL FOR THAT. Or at least, we were. This makes it time to round up the gang at the Gull after a panover, during which we can safely assume Audrey explained at least in brief and general terms, what just happened. It's a mark of how many alternate Havens and assorted reality-warping Troubles are out there that nobody looks stunned by this at all. Duke's got his gun in the back of his waistband as usual, he really should get a holster for that one of these days. And he's stymied not by the alternate reality but by his being a cop. A good one! Audrey, you're enjoying that aspect of it a little bit too much, not that I can blame her considering there's precious little else to enjoy about that alt-verse. Up to and including the part where William shot Duke point-blank. Three times, if we're counting. (We are. For the drinking, you see.) Audrey, could you sound a little more genuinely happy about the part where the Teagues are alive? Though this is helping with making her our audience insertion point this ep some more. Duke wants a bigger gun. Duke, for my money you can have a fucking rocket launcher. (K: The last time we killed Flagg with modern armaments we used a nuke!) Nathan's on the phone, confirming, as it turns out, that Susie did die of her injuries during the night and that Cliff was found shot dead, either because the shooting in alt-verse carried over or, as Nathan suggests, because once the alt-verse was destroyed William knew who to go for and shot him before Cliff could wish it unTroubled again. Audrey, stop lying to Nathan. AUDREY. The music cue is the one of "you stupid fuck you're lying and keeping secrets again and this is going to come around to bite you on the ass sooner rather than later," and I am so not happy with her right now. Though it does go somewhat along with what William keeps describing her as, high-handed and sure in her rightness. And righteousness, probably. On the other hand, she does have a distraction and a potential location, maybe he's using the same or a similar hideout? Fiberglass boat repair and we'll quietly writhe over the product placement, really you guys? Just because it gets our attention doesn't make it a good way of getting our attention. So, which of the three options is the furthest from where they found Doreen? That'd be one that's already a cover for someone's weed harvest. Oh my god I love you Duke. I love both of you for the joking about nice work, Detective Crocker, and Duke pouting, and not quite managing to call shotgun first. You are all the adorablest and totally trying to give Audrey some normalcy back and I love you for it.


I do not love the evil grow shack - excuse, dry shack? Whatever. Which is currently strung about with flags in varying colors (and not Flaggs, we only have one of those types around, small enough favors that I'm not much for saying thankya right now) and surfboards and the like. William is wiping his hands on a rag and utterly, utterly unconcerned by the presence of three people with guns pointed at him. I think the rag's actually more for show than anything else, he's certainly not going to pull a Lady Macbeth and be consumed by guilt anytime soon. Oh, and for extra bonus points this guy is uber-shady? The bulk of this speech will be conducted with William's smug fucking face half in light and half in shadow. Again. Audrey, on the other hand, is very, very consumed by guilt, as well she might be right now. Not for what she supposedly did in a past incarnation, setting aside the question of whether or not that's her "real" identity, but for what she's not doing, which is telling the boys and trusting them to be able to differentiate between what William says, who she is now, and the truth. And to believe that there is a greater truth than William is telling, which, come on, they should absolutely be able to leap to for much the same reasons we are. Context is imperative. But no, William's going to let the cat out of the bag, or try to, with his smug gloating face and his announcement that she wants to shoot him for wholly other reasons than Duke thinks. No, I'm pretty sure the fact that you shot one of her best friends in an alternate reality is still factoring in here, William. You fucker. He's just doing this to sow discord and uncertainty in the ranks and especially in Audrey, nudging her toward reckless action. Or Nathan, or Duke, he'd be satisfied with any one of them, really. Audrey, as she is now, has done a lot of things? But shooting a man in cold blood even though he's done the same to others is not in her makeup, she still believes somewhere deep down in the inherent power of law and order and doing the right thing for the right reasons. So she hesitates, and in that hesitations gives William his opening to declare that he likes them! Sure. Like a cat likes a mouse right before he pounces on it. Does that count as liking? Because he likes them, he'll tell them everything they want to know about who she is and what she's done - what they did, with all kind of deliberate and insidious implications in there. Lurid ones, he's trying to paint a picture for Nathan's green-eyed monster to take hold, and with that last jab about connection it sets Nathan off. Dammit, Nathan, he was going to TELL YOU STUFF. Data! He promised data! And fruit of the poisoned tree, yadda yadda, but even from lying with the truth you would have had something to go on. Now you've got nothing.






Oh, no, you've got some data all right, but this is definitely not the way anyone wanted to acquire it. You see, they are connected. Physically. As in, any injury perpetrated on William happens likewise to Audrey. I don't know if that's any injury committed deliberately, any accidental injury, any injury committed by a Troubled person, any injury committed by the person AudSarLuLex currently is in love with… we have a lot of potential options here and while there's a way to rule some of them out none of them are good, since it involves hurting Audrey. Or at least the potential for that. It also doesn't tell us if any injury Audrey sustains, William does as well, which definitely requires causing her harm and the boys aren't likely to go for that. On the other hand, this does answer some interesting questions about the whole killing the one you love solution they've got. Maybe it was William she was supposed to kill. And maybe in killing him she was supposed to kill herself as well, which would absolutely fit with all the other data we have - admittedly, so far? From William. What it doesn't fit is the great evil, is there an evil greater than William that would come through? Or is that because the wording of the myth is so vague as to be unhelpful, and it's trying to get Audrey to commit an evil act that doesn't solve the Troubles, then go in the barn and forget, then not kill William, rinse and repeat until we get, well. Here. Where here is defined as first Duke and then Nathan dropping to Audrey's side to try and administer some vague attempt at basic first aid, while confirming that yes indeedy, that's the same wound. Duke, much to his dismay, has to be the one to save William so that they don't both bleed out. This is still not helping our earlier theories about him being a Crocker. At fucking all. Fade to black! I think the question of whether they'll survive isn't in much doubt. What shape they'll be in until then, why as mystical non-human? beings they can't heal themselves, and if or how they can snap this connection? Those are the real immediate questions.


Next time on Haven, we finally meet these Darkside Seekers who've taken over Vince's Twitter account all season and they are, by the sneak peek, exactly the kind of douchebags we were expecting. Righteous and clueless and disinclined to read other people's body language as meaning, no, seriously, this is dangerous and maybe you should believe us. Sigh. No points for assuming one of them ends up dead by mid-episode, and you'll have to pardon me while I shriek about Carpenter's Knot being on a truck parked out front. Either that's a callback or we're doing chameleon shit again and I don't WANNA do chameleon shit again. Or skinwalker. Or anything. Not that but Haven doesn't have its fair share of identity issues, and maybe this is just a callback to those. We can hope. Tentatively. Oh, and Duke's willing to kill people on either Audrey or Jennifer's behalf. Yeah, that's not really a surprise. The bigger surprise is that he's making the threat outright.

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