Meet The New Boss Haven S5E02 Speak No Evil

Previously, on Haven! The Lighthouse! The door! Bye William, we will not miss you. Jennifer collapses! The thinny explodes! Everyone gets separated! Duke's Trouble is hurting people! Dwight is the only one apparently stable enough to take care of everything, which means people look to him, not Vince. This won't lead to anything, I'm sure. We get a brief replay on thinnies, Mara, Vickie's Trouble, and Mara's power and what she needs and how it works. Oh, and Nathan was an idiot some more, which got him shot. Though not fatally, despite an excellent headshot earlier, which is clearly meant to be somewhat ambiguous! Certainly we know Nathan will take it that way.

So! Let's have a look at the aftermath of all this, since this, last episode, and last season finale all take place within about a day, two days. Just to put it in perspective. It's not a very good day or so for anyone. We start out on the spit of land with Nathan quite sensibly leaning up against the front wheel well of his truck while Duke hauls up behind him, because while he may or may not be able to feel the gunshot wound he finally has learned sense about getting shot! Okay, no, that's unfair, this is I think the first time we've seen him get shot without another person around who was going to patch him up or haul him to be patched up the second the crisis was over. So he's holding still in case he bleeds out and waiting for someone to come find him. Wise! Wiser still would have been finding his damn phone, but there's a non-zero chance Maraudrey took it, so. Duke is sufficiently traumatized and wrapped up in his own problems that he can't even look at Nathan while he 'fesses up to the Barrow Trouble being his doing and therefore misses the not all that subtle tells that Nathan's barely with it. But his conclusion is, stay zen, try not to fuck anyone else up. That's completely reasonable and, as he says, next to impossible under the circumstances, and in conclusion, Fucking Haven. Nathan's got some small surprise about this! And it's very, very touching and telling that both of these guys have moved to a place where they do want to support each other, be there for one another, from the aggressive mutual dislike and distrust of s1. Witness the speed with which Duke goes from WOE AND DOOM to oh my god she shot you, hang on where's the damn first aid kit.

First we find out where the damn Troublemaker is. Look, I haven't made that pun all season, I think we deserve credit for holding off an entire episode. Mara's off being creepy and evil some more, and I'm torn on whether or not this scene needs to be this long, but then again, they have the freedom to do more two-part eps with the double order for the season. Which I think means they're taking their time really shoving our faces in, no, this is not Audrey, this is not a good person, and she will fuck with people just to be fucking with them. Also in some ways to test the limits of what she can get away with, in both this and the instance last episode: how do people in this town respond to outright aggression? Do they wilt? Do they initiate violence? Do they even recognize potentially violent behavior when it's directed at them? So on and so forth. I mean, it's a helluva way to test things, but considering Mara clearly doesn't value the unTroubled, and I'd bet both of the people she's killed are unTroubled, it's certainly effective! We can't say with absolute certainty that this is what's happening, but we do know that she's outright refused to kill all the known Troubled people she's interacted with. Not just Nathan, despite Nathan's attempts to make it All About Him. No, you're a means to an end for Mara, dumbass. The attempt to kill him last episode might be Audrey bleeding through or it might be some additional form of geas laid on Mara back at the very beginning. WE DON'T KNOW ISN'T IT GREAT. Mara would like clothes in addition to her new car. Because she wants clothes without bullet holes in them, this leads to a confrontation and a pencil through the eye OH GOD BEHIND THE COUCH NOW. Thanks, guys, we've made it so far without much overt eyegore and now this. Urk. I actually prefer the from-beneath look-up-at-the-scary-thing Dutch angle they use on her for the initial strike rather than the view of woman with pencil in her eye. We could have just stuck with that. But no, we had to ruin my perfectly tasty pot pie dinner. Double urk.

Back on the beach, Duke's finishing up triage on Nathan's GSW and bitching about how he knows too much about getting shot. I am totally with Duke on this one, though it's nice that Nathan's aware that a through-and-through, not bled out by the time Duke got there and no collapsed lung to deal with, means he'll basically be fine. For definitions that include "running around like an idiot and not sitting down to heal the bullet wound," but since when has that ever stopped Nathan. We have a brief exchange of information, because at least Nathan still trusts Duke with intel! For a fucking miracle, of sorts: now Duke knows about the aether (er, black death truffles) and that we don't know how much of it's still in Haven, but none is the best answer. None is also not happening. And he knows that Mara doesn't give a flying fuck about Jennifer, since she can't close doors, just open them. We close out on this scene with the boys actually checking in on each other about their emotional well-being, which oh god so adorable. And heightens the contrast once again. Duke will manage because he's a stubborn bastard. Nathan will deflect out of habit to physical well-being, but Duke's willing to call him on it straight-out: no, a woman who looks like the love of your life shot you, are you okay? Well it wasn't her! QED he's fine! Yeaaaah nobody buys that, but it's a nice attempt at separating out Mara from Audrey, and the first sign we've seen that Nathan is not, in fact, going to just keep running through this brick wall. We hope.

Downtown, Mara in her new, more severe clothes is not even remotely subtle about her arranging this meet-cute with Vickie. Yes, hi, you have something she wants, namely your Trouble. And the thing is, Mara is funny, in that biting hates-people way! Vickie has no idea what to make of Maraudrey in this situation! Maybe she's just having a bad day, that's normal, everyone's got bad days in Haven, more than good ones, lately. Also we'd like you all to swear right along with us, these clothes are in color and overall cut almost identical to the ones Audrey originally turned up in Haven wearing. Go back and look at the pilot. I'll wait. And have a drink. It's pretty much just the cut of them that's more severe, for Mara. Vickie! Come here and draw something, jokes about yoga aside. No, of course it won't be dangerous, don't you trust that face? Please ignore the fact that Emily Rose seems to have borrowed Michael Fassbender's teeth and isn't giving them back. I'm actually more concerned about the not giving them back, we borrow them to bite other people with all the time.

Roll credits. We pick up with Dwight walking into Dave's hospital room OOH OOH IS THERE GONNA BE A TALKING TO? IS THERE. Why yes. Yes there is. Just to start with, Vince is going to come off all sad and betrayed over Dave not telling him shit, which is a golden opportunity for Dwight to step into the room more fully and pick up "oh we're doing this now" body language. Nothing major, not even really preparing for a physical fight, but he's damn well gearing up to inform Vince that his shit is not okay and needs to stop. With an attitude of "this is your last warning." Dear god Adam Copeland wherever you went for acting classes during the hiatus, it worked. Specifically he's calling Vince out on not telling him Mara started the Troubles, on the grounds of look, he can separate out Mara from Audrey. And everyone else might not be able to VINCE WE ARE LOOKING AT YOU. Oh, and then he starts talking about things told in confidence, and Lucy and Sarah just wanted to help people, and and and. Vince, your emotional issues with these women are really showing, is all I will say. Well, no, I will also say that Lucy fucking Ripley apparently knew how the Troubles started, and since we now also know that I want to do what the FUCK happened in 1983 EVEN MORE. Did Mara try to come through? Did something else try to come through? Who/what other than Mara, William, and the barnvatar knew how the Troubles started, assuming the barnvatar really did? UNANSWERED QUESTIONS. Goddammit. Dwight is not buying your judgment call argument, Vince, not even with the emotional assertion of you're like a son to me (which, !!!!), look at how he's not buying it even a little. He will continue down the path of you're the leader of the Guard, so fucking lead, by mentioning how the Barrow Trouble's been resurrected, and some of Driscoll's old goons are leaving threats around their house as a result and maybe Vince should, oh, put Guard protection on them? Yes? Technically Dwight could put police protection on their house, but he is, I think trying desperately not to overstep the lines between cop and Guardsman. Vince would like to know how the hell this Trouble recurred, well, it's Duke. Which is a mathematician's answer: informative without being educational, because Dwight is fed the fuck up. Go lead, Vince. Stop staring at your brother and learn about other things. And y'know, I actually can't entirely blame Vince for getting fixated, since he's pretty clearly having Massive Guilt over not seeing this coming, not realizing what Dave was keeping from him, and therefore everything is his fault and so on and so fucking forth. Vince. Honey. I appreciate that you do need to wring answers out of your brother's scrawny neck now, but that means you should delegate responsibility. And that was your one shot at a peaceful hand-off.

Meanwhile Dave's weirdass hovering thing continues to hover! This time in the woods, with a blue filter, which gives us absolutely no data except that it came through the thinny with Dave, which we'd pretty well already guess. Possession still seems like a possibility. Over to the actual woods with the thinny where Vickie's working on drawing it! Ah, yes, that would be an excellent use of her Trouble, assuming it worked. Because we know our narrative causality, it's safe to say it won't. Mara's not even trying, once again, she brings up that she used to paint! Before TV. Because we're visually-oriented creatures and yes, we do like to create representations of the things we see, or the things we imagine. It's a very human thing to do, whether or not that's a word we want to apply to Mara. Vickie's immediate response, not knowing anything, is well of course you're not that old! A lady, etc., Mara you haven't been a lady in a very long time. She even manages to look offended by that, as though with age comes positive things, in her experience of the world. I suppose technically that's true, since waiting around for five hundred years did finally let her out of her prison. And Vickie's eye is good enough to play spot-the-changes caused by the thinny's presence, even if she can't see it without being focused on her art and doesn't know what she's looking at regardless. Time for Mara to be an arrogant, condescending jackass, maybe because she's too lazy (it hurts too much?) to go look at Audrey's memories or even think about what Vickie said about her Trouble beforehand. At least that's the Watsonian reason I'm assigning it; Doylistically it's a way for the writers to remind us what her Trouble even is since she's been hanging around on and off, and more off than on until last season, since first season. Blah blah sculpt your world. Or break it! That even works for a second! We see green, rolling hills and a crack of thunder that might just be the thinny opening, nothing that could identify where this place is other than it's not the void of the lighthouse thinny. That's… good? Sort of good, anyway! We know that ordinary/pleasant seeming things can all too often be taken and warped in King-type universes, so I'll take that with a pound or two of salt. Mara has an honest to god cackle for this, oh man, Emily Rose, does that scenery taste good? She won't take out her wrath on Vickie when she gets back, which is of course the cue to run at the thinny and have it close up on her. Also, running into them must sting like hell, since she visibly avoids it once the opening vanishes. Speaking of wrath, we know instantly that wasn't such a joke, and now Vickie's in for… something. I have to stop here and note that this is an extremely economical, clever way of establishing a few things while skewering the hell out of fridge tropes, and I hope we see a bunch more of that this season. Namely, we've already had Maraudrey refuse to kill/be unable to kill both Nathan and Dwight, which at first seems like, okay, blah blah whatever, she has to keep all the main cast alive, rules of TV apply. Now we have her confronted with a woman who's been, yes, instrumental to characterization (PS pls give us all the Vickie-and-Gloria snark and have mentee-mentor hijinks together kthxbye) but not, since her own episode, crucial to plot. But the one thing we do know and that they go out of their way to establish here is, she's Troubled. She's also of no certain further use to Mara, so under the rules of most other shows, this would be the point where the Troubled pretty woman gets killed to up the stakes and remind us that there's evil afoot. And… no. No, that's not what happens here, instead we get a different pattern forming instead, one where Mara isn't and maybe can't kill anyone who we know to be Troubled. I think what will cement that pattern absolutely for us is if we get a Troubled character-of-the-week next week, who by rights should end up dead, and Mara has a chance to kill them and doesn't. Because they're her children, essentially. So, no, Vickie doesn't end up dead here. Just monologued at, during which Mara reveals that she was an early model, which may suggest that the drawing Trouble's pretty damn old, as far as that goes, and she wants a new one! One with real oomph. Sigh. That can't possibly go wrong. Vickie gets tased to the tune of "I really do like you," which is not what I actually consider a resounding endorsement of positive feeling. I realize the choice here is "or death" but I would still rather have the chicken, please.

Duke's taken to the docks to ask around down by the water, starting with some guy who only looks for birds. The British English jokes I am not making here are infinite, we'll just pass over those and move on. (For the confused: "bird" is slang for "woman.") I think it's kind of hilarious that the extra has this scrunched up face look, where his eyes are half-closed and we keep twitching while Duke mutters that he's not upset with the guy no really in an attempt to keep from eye-sewing him. Oh honey. You know Troubles tend to have a very specific trigger, and "being upset" is so vague and unfocused that it's not really giving you much to work with. I mean, it's the only thing he can go on given how long ago his great-grandfather ended the Barrow Trouble, but still. Irritating. But there's a good suggestion in there, get the Coast Guard to start a coastal search! And we have a moment of reminding us of Duke's usual behaviors, even now, to the point where whoever he does call to start the search asks if it's contraband. No, Jennifer Mason is… I mean, I guess in some ways she's like contraband from the other side! But not in a Duke smuggled her sense.

Vickie's updating Nathan, who presumably is the first person at the PD she could get hold of (reasonable, Dwight's got a lot else going on and is also even more Final Authority than Nathan these days, plus Nathan's the one who knows Audrey best in theory) and would love to know what's going on! Ahahahahaha. Ha. Ha. Sick my ass. Vickie you don't have the experience or really personality necessary to go run roughshod over Nathan about this one, but she does give us valuable confirmation, from that camera focus just before she got tased: yes, Maraudrey took her morgue badge. I'm a little surprised the Low Men didn't retrieve the death truffles Gloria picked out of the victims of the last bunch (4x09 William), but hey, maybe they're not used to morgues, forensic procedure, or anything Out-World or wherever we are in relation to where they're from. Either way, I'll take it. So, yeah, Nathan despite believe that Audrey's still in there is at least taking a shotgun, which as signs of progress go I'll take that. And be grateful he got shot in the shoulder he's not going to be pressing the stock of that thing against, because feeling or no, kickback against that wound's not going to do it any fucking favors.

Meanwhile in said morgue, Gloria is doing one of those things that make me so gleeful about her character being in Haven at all. Complexity! An ME who will gladly pick bullets out of skulls but when she suspects rats have gotten into her morgue looks actually kind of afraid. No, that's not rats, that's death truffles rattling in response to Maraudrey's proximity. I think this is either a don't care or a don't remember the use of modern technology, maybe both, because Gloria has the entrance cams to see her coming in with gun drawn, using Vickie's badge and looking ten kinds of shady. And now we have the flipside of what happened with Vickie! We get the older woman who under any other kind of horror tropes would, yes, get dead right here because she's been caught off guard, and Gloria's not Troubled so we have reason to be concerned (even if we haven't consciously identified the pattern), but again: no. They don't even make us wait longer than an ad break and a scene of destruction but no blood and no body to tell us so! Excuse me the rest of this scene boils down to I LOVE YOU GLORIA WE HAVE NEEDED SOMEONE LIKE YOU ON THIS SHOW FOR AN AGE NEVER CHANGE. Loooooove. Even Eleanor Carr from s1 wasn't quite like this; she was the type to keep all the secrets and not share them, much like the Teagues. This is an older woman ME who knows some secrets, shares when she needs to, and outright bullies other people into not being jackasses to her. So much love for not taking shit from anyone. (I am randomly picturing her and Victoria from RED getting together and wreaking havoc. You're welcome.) So! Not only did Gloria save herself by hiding on a morgue drawer, she went and took the death truffles and stuck them down her cleavage, and Nathan showed up with his shotgun before Mara could get as far as searching all the possible concealment places. (I am adding Mrs. Hudson from Sherlock to that list of women I need hanging out with each other.) And no, Nathan, you can't fucking have the death truffles, Gloria might not know what they are but she knows they're important and she would like answers now. COMMUNICATE, Nathan. Best Gloria. Unfortunately we don't get to see how much he is communicating (we hope it's all of it) because at that point we cut to…

Dwight and Duke! Who are the best investigators ever, I have to say. More of this team-up please. Duke is still talking to the, well, not the Coast Guard as he calls it but, his buddies, tasking them all to look for Jennifer. Which Dwight is doing too, right? Right? Yes, Duke, Dwight has also tasked his people to look for Jennifer. It's hard to say whether Dwight's not getting out of the truck because he's not sure he wants to get too close to Duke, which is unlikely as a logical reason since he knows the Barrow Trouble doesn't require immediate proximity, or because he's expecting to roll out of there in the next few minutes. Probably the latter, he wants Duke to come with him to investigate the Barrow Trouble and figure out how it works. And by the look of him, I think he also wants to give Duke a more solvable problem than where's Jennifer and is she okay, because if any one of the three main guys knows about upping yourself with a more doable, easier victory, it'd be Dwight. Talking to the Barrows, researching their Trouble is a solvable problem! Finding Jennifer... that's a lot of coastline assuming she's dead, and an even bigger search area assuming she's alive and running scared. Which I'd be if freaky interdimensional portals had treated me the way that one treated her! So. Duke. Get in the goddamn truck already. No, Duke will insist on staying here in his happy place (we'll find out more about that later) so that he doesn't Trouble anyone else. Which Dwight would like him to know it's too late, he's already Troubled an entire Coast Guard cutter, get in the fucking truck, Duke. All right, Dwight can have sixty of his fucking minutes. Dwight would also like Duke to work on his happy attitude, but somehow I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. It's worth noting, however, that through all this and despite as antagonistic as that whole conversation sounds, these two are getting along a lot better than they have in the past. Dwight's voice has the kind of exasperated concern when you can't just beat your friend till the morale improves and the self-harming behavior decreases; Duke has the kind of dismissive peevishness when you know your friend isn't the source of everything that's upsetting you but you really want to take it out on someone and you're trying not to direct it at someone you care about. A little more literally, in Duke's case, but it's very much a less common type of aww they really do care about each other moment.

Speaking of those moments, we're kind of having one over at the hospital between the Teagues, except with a lot less awwww. Right away Vince has teeth in his tone when he exclaims pseudo-happily over Dave being awake. Eek. Did I mention eek? Give those teeth back to RF, Vince, no one likes those teeth. And where has Vince been, and why wasn't there when his brother woke up? Well, he's been getting some things for his brother, which I suppose is an acceptable reason. Unhealthy food, unhealthy drink, and... porn. Thank you, everyone, I could have gone for the rest of the series without knowing Dave's preferred nudie mag. Vintage looking nudie mag too, I really wonder what's up with that. The anniversary issue thing? Actually, no I don't. Still don't want to know. At all. Ever. They are far, far too creepy for me to want to know their porn habits, especially when Vince is doing the psycho act. Dave amuses us all by not going for the porn, which is the standard thing in such TV circumstances, but instead going for the soda. Dave, that's just going to dehydrate you further. Dave? Oh, why do I bother. Vince will give him a soda just as soon as he coughs up some information, he says, looking even more like Randy Flagg (Jamey Sheridan edition, if you haven't seen the first miniseries version of The Stand go find you a copy, because I'm seriously wondering if the casting director had), and he wants the information now and in great detail, please. The void, the trip there, everything about Dave's connection to it. It turns out Dave was there in 1983, oh really. Does this have anything to do with why Lucy Ripley knew the source of the Troubles??? Are you going to tell us how that happened? No, the answer is no, the answer is always no, unless the answer is here have answers in the form of more questions. It turns out Dave just woke up on the beach, which answers which thinny it was, he was pulled through to "that awful green mist" by something, and then he woke up back on this side with no memory of what happened there but a set of really painful injuries as a souvenir. The same sort of injuries he has now. So, um. Hm. Although actually, now that we look at those bruises, some of which are circular in either shape or in void around the shape, they could be very large suckers on even larger tentacles? If there was some sort of kraken type monster lifting Dave up that would explain everyone's camera angles and looking up in the flashbacks. But we didn't see any sign of such an attack in the cave, so how did some kind of cthulhoid monster from the deep get in, wreck Dave, and get out without anyone seeing? And why Dave? There were eight people in that cave, why him? The only guess I have is that it's because he pissed it off the last time he was on the other side, which then invites the question what dragged him or induced him to go to the other side, and why? And in short, what the fuck is going on? Yeah, I have no idea. Here's another question, now that I think about it, why the fuck she hasn't bothered the Teagues yet; they're in a nice stationary location and they have a ton of data and while it might require a little bit of finesse not to have to kill the entire hospital staff (which is time-consuming and messy, which she probably does care about) around 66% of the time we've seen the room there haven't been any hospital staff in there anyway, and the rewards might well outweigh the risks. Unless she either doesn't want to get that close to the Teagues with three people's worth of memories about them in there, or unless she's scared of whatever's doing that to Dave, or both. I'm kind of leaning toward both at the moment. Anyway. Many speculations, but no concrete ideas or information upon which to base them. I assume just enough of it will be explained to hold together over the next several episodes.

For now, I think we must be doing one of those near-realtime episodes with this one, because we quite blatantly just skipped travel time and not much else getting to the Barrows'. Dwight's still on cleanup duty, in this case they're going with saltwater corrosion to explain the lighthouse this time to which everyone may safely say: really? REALLY? It's a fucking lighthouse, it lives on the coast, saltwater corrosion? That's like saying oh, the building failed to stand because gravity pulled it down: you're supposed to FIX these problems in BUILDING them. Christ, people. Duke only has a small lampshade for this, because it's a real problem and he's got bigger ones to focus on, and Dwight is more concerned about explaining shit to people living here than to the rest of the world. Which heightens both his concerns about the Guard and about the rest of the town freaking out, getting scared, and the sense of Haven as an island unto itself which the rest of the world doesn't generally affect. (Still wonder if we're going back to Colorado at any point this season.) Concerns about the lighthouse will have to wait while Dwight and Duke go investigate the break-in at the Barrow residence oh that's not good. At all. Part of me wonders if Dwight considered doing this on purpose, if he's that cold, or if he just desperately wanted to trust Vince that much that he didn't try putting Guard on the house himself. Maybe a little of both. It's pretty obvious he's blaming himself, in his tone of voice and facial tics, as he goes to turn over the youngest Barrow's body and hope like hell he's not too late. Oh Dwight. I mean, also blaming Vince, because Vince do your damn job, but Dwight's former military and Vince's right hand man and former/present Guard, and he's got a lot of protective instinct built up even without being chief of police. No, he's not sewn up, no, Duke, you looking at him isn't going to make him get sewn up, no, this isn't your fault although I can see why he immediately leaps to guilt as well. Oh honeys. Let's just blame the Rev's men for being terrified shitheads who think beating up the Troubled will solve anything ever and leave it at that, okay? And Vince. Definitely and Vince for not doing his job. Fortunately the guy's alive. Unfortunately, given the amount of blood not just from the head wound but coming out of his nose, we've got classic TV signs that he might not want to be, when he first wakes up. Time for an ambulance.

And time to cut over to another patching-up sequence! This one involves Gloria taking on live-body duties in addition to her more usual dead ones, which I figure is something every ME has to get used to in Haven. Which is another callback to the similarities to Eleanor Carr, now that I think about it, who had to bully Nathan into sitting down and getting checked out in the fucking pilot. How many of these pilot callbacks are we going to get this season, I wonder. Or s1 callbacks. At any rate. We have dialogue-based callback to s2, with mention of Audrey II, and commentary about the "original" Audrey Parker. Well… yeah. (Hey, Nathan, how does it feel to know that both Audrey and Sarah had actual women they were patterned off of that you might have fallen for? Do you ever think about that?) Ahem. Gloria's evidently been brought up to date on a good bit of what's going on, probably the entire AudSarLu thing, and compares Audrey as being worn like a disguise. Which undoubtedly brings up uncomfortable skinwalker memories of Arla Cogan as it fucking should. She offers him a joke about online dating which is kind of adorable but doesn't quite land, because Nathan's lost in grieving and flailing about. But one of the things we get to love about Gloria is that she boils it all down to a single sentence: Audrey was real, Mara is realer. Note the careful use of tense shift in there; Mara is the current threat and problem they have to face, understand, and overcome if they ever want the Troubles to end, let alone get Audrey back. Leaving aside the entire question of the morality of getting Audrey back. Yes, she used your gun, Nathan, what else what she going to do? Use a… oh, yeah, I mean, a pencil would work too. As the random tech comes wheeling in the body. Yes, she did that too. Yes, Mara is fucking dangerous and she's going to keep killing or injuring people who have things she wants. Things, information, whatever. Nathan gets that I'm going to do something fucking reckless and probably stupid look, and snags up the death truffles and shotgun over Gloria running down the litany of pencil-in-eye body, two Coast Guard guys (Duke's going to enjoy finding out about that), Vince wants to talk, Gloria wants a nanny and the money to pay for it please and thank you. I love a woman who's not afraid to state her needs and wants even when everything's going to shit, and stick to it as much as she can. Gloria would like Nathan not to do the stupid thing, that's a very oh-shit look, but there's not much she can do to physically stop him and she's got plenty of other problems.

Nathan's stupid stunt, not that we couldn't have predicted exactly this but I appreciate them putting it on film, I also appreciate the slight Dutch angle that makes him seem much smaller than the truck he's standing next to. Overwhelmed. He's going to go be bait for Mara and take the death truffles with him! Half of that isn't an awful idea, since he does know that she tried and failed to kill him on the beach, and he has no certainty that she actively tried to kill either Dwight or Vickie. We can see the pattern because we're zoomed back from it; I'd be surprised if anyone in Haven picked up on it until they started really comparing notes. And frankly, Nathan would usually figure this out by… bouncing it off Audrey. Oops. But since Maraudrey's got access to police radio, he'll broadcast that he's going to be bait! Yeah, that doesn't sound like trap at all. I mean, obviously she won't be expecting Nathan to be clever, because memories or not (and however much she doesn't want to access those memories?) Mara thinks everyone else is an incompetent, powerless moron next to her. Ah, hubris. I do love hubris in a villain, it makes for an easy pitfall. Possibly a literal one! I'm good with that. I'm just hoping Nathan really is going to be clever enough and cold enough to pull it off.

Over at the hospital we have one of those urgent walk and talks as emphasized by the pullback shot following our merry band of Dwight, Duke, and nurse-lady walking towards the camera. It also helps because Adam Copeland is a very tall man and getting him in frame with petite women cannot be easy. We seem to have a thing for shows with tall supporting actors with their roles built around them who end up playing heads of police departments and who require nifty framing tricks. It's a niche. We like this niche. Anyway, the Barrows are all clustered in their son's room, but it's been busy enough in the hospital that it might be some time before anything more than immediate palliative treatment like, oh, surgery can be given. The nurse is understandably tense, and also pissed off that Driscoll's band of thugs is back and using her people for target practice. Whether 'her people' includes all Troubled (likely) or just the Guard and Guard affiliated (unknown) it's hard to say, or maybe she's just pissed at a guy being jumped in his own home? Either way, the underlying point in that last aside is that she's looking to Dwight in an enforcement/leadership role. For now, that could just be because chief of police. In the future, well. We heard rumblings last episode, and now it looks like they'll bear fruit. Not death truffles, though. While Dwight goes to start talking to the family Duke's going to go over and check if anyone matching Jennifer's description has come into the hospital! Dwight gives him this look like he's not sure that's such a good idea, because Dwight is the sensible one in this episode, but he'll allow it. Because really, what's telling Duke 'no' going to do? Another nurse on duty (is maroon scrubs lady an actual doctor? or head nurse? do we know this? where's a hierarchy when we need one?) reassures him that if Jennifer's there, Holly will find her. No, not with her eyes and mouth sewn shut she won't. Duke does have a second of having a oh-dear-god-this-day headache expression, but there's no indication other than that of how he's responsible for this Troubling attack, and thus no real way to stop it. Poor babies. Duke's just going to, um, yeah. Get out of the way and in fact out of the building, although with the Coast Guard boat full of people that he was nowhere near at the time I don't think that's going to help. Poor everyone in this episode. Except Mara.

Back in the Barrow hospital room, we have about four members of what appears to be the generation or maybe half-generation of people born… probably shortly after Sarah's day, I'd guess somewhere between Sarah and Lucy judging by that age-range. People who vaguely know the family legends but don't know how the whole thing works. And then the youngest in the hospital bed because, why, again? Was he just the easiest to find for the Rev's people? Because we know damn well that it's not always the youngest in the family to get the Trouble, or even only the youngest. The matriarch, though, she's got some small comfort to offer, in that her father was a boy when the very last round of sewing happened, so he might have something. Which puts him at… 90-something, probably, I'd go with born 1920 or shortly before given 1929 is the last round. Nine is old enough to have that kind of memory form, though, particularly around a family secret and traumatic event. Which suggests that the current matriarch was born, yeah, right around Sarah's day or shortly before, and the others are all the generation after her, maybe, it's hard to say with siblings and large families and marrying in. (Shut up I do not have a kinship chart fascination you have a kinship chart fascination.) This is incredibly well done, and I would believe that Barrow the Eldest does, in fact, have some mild memory problems and/or dementia, but he looks clear-eyed and welcoming right up until Dwight tries to ask about the family Trouble. At which point he doesn't clam up tighter than a Teagues, he instead goes and starts babbling about Lettie and her amazing imagination and isn't that wonderful Mr. Chief of Police. Which is probably one part instinctive protection of the family to one part self-protection from bad memories. Poor love. Colette Barrow will take a hand in ruining the first half of that so that he only has to fight the second part, and, okay, he was twelve. That's definitely old enough to know and it's, what, still about 2011? 2012? so they're talking to about a 91, 92 year old man, ouch. At any rate, he had a sailing instructor who came by to give him bad news about his family's lack of money and therefore no more sailing lessons for him. Apparently the fucking monkeys existed back then SOMEONE BURN THE DAMN THINGS. Not because it'll do anything, just because they're fucking creepy, okay? Dwight is very careful and gentle in prompting him to talk, but he is prompting him and eventually gets out that if you give a Barrow bad news they get sewn shut. That's… really rather awful, and not something that a twelve year old could control, since the implication is that he's the one who did it. Oh honey. On the upside, we know what'll work on Duke. On the downside, it's going to take someone else, possibly someones else, getting sewn shut. Ow.

Into the midst of all this comes the Troubled nurse/head nurse/doc, can we get a name on her soon since she's been in a couple eps? I like her very much and I don't actually care if she becomes a romantic interest for Dwight, I want her to stick around and be awesome and tell Dwight about the mood of the town, the hospital, anything else that's useful like that. Yes, Dwight, you need to step up and do things, more things, because Vince won't and the Guard's looking to you now. Enjoy that. Specifically in this case the nurses are talking about leaving because they don't want their faces sewn shut, a reasonable response albeit based on insufficient data, and Guard Nurse is, despite Dwight's protests that he'll work on getting emergency volunteers in, informing him that the Guard itself needs to fucking work. Which it doesn't, right now. But as a show of good faith and trust in Dwight's leadership she will also tell him that they have a Jane Doe recently found washed up on Eaton's Neck. That's only slightly better than Kick 'Em Jenny's Neck, really, thanks guys. Dwight's already pretty damn sure of what he's going to find when she opens that bodybag, but he's resigned to having to do it, and I think it's incredibly telling and moving that through the grief the first thing he says is to give her her name back. On top of names having more power than usual in Haven, that's very much the attitude I'd expect from an ex-Ranger who believes you do not leave your buddies behind, and you do right by the honored dead. Jennifer, sadly, was dead before she hit the water, she didn't drown, so whatever happened to her in that cave it did in fact kill her and it does mean there was nothing anyone could have done. Not that that's going to help with anyone's guilt. We can see Dwight aging about a year as he looks at her, too, which a) oh honey and b) holy goddamn, Adam Copeland. I will further note here that he's gotten good enough to have chemistry with people he's never worked with before and might not work extensively with on the whole, because while Supinder Wraich has some pretty good credits if a moderately short list, that still takes skill. On both ends. Also for those who are easily amused, she's 5'3" according to IMDb, making the camera-cheats to fit her and Adam Copeland in the same frame even more impressive. You're welcome. I wonder if they had to find her a box.

Vince being the one-track-minded person that he is right now is taking Dave's X-Rays to... Gloria? Eh, sure, why not, if she's a medical examiner she actually is a doctor, as well, or she might be a coroner who trained as a doctor, and either way, she certainly knows how to read an X-Ray or a CAT scan. The salient point here is that he has twist damage, severe twist damage, from something unexplained. Which reinforces the notion that some giant tentacle beastie did that to Dave, but what and how it got around without anyone seeing is still a mystery. Gloria would not like to solve that mystery, Gloria would like someone else to solve that mystery so she can safely go nightfishing. Gloria is a sensible person.

Another flyover takes us to the office, and a slow, low-lit pan around the room takes us to a flashback to, what is that, the second or third episode of the first season? One of those early-on sweet moments between Nathan and Audrey, as Audrey was settling in to Haven. Second episode, I think. With the silly hat and the silly flannel and oh Nathan. To contrast this, Mara will now call him! From Audrey's phone, given that Audrey's face is what pops up on his caller ID. At this point the difference is audible, and props to Emily Rose for that, there is no trace of warmth or anything other than hostility in Mara's voice. And greater enunciation and crispness, no hint of a drawl from anywhere on the East Coast. There's also no beating around any bushes from either of them, she wants the aether, he wants her in a position where he can get her. She is not about to let that happen! So Nathan will have to be cunning, although not terribly cunning because as mentioned before, hubris. He's also pretending or at least heavily implying that he's making a deal with her against someone's wishes, and doing her a favor in the process. This whole bit about him letting her leave alive and giving her only one death truffle and she can either use it to get out of here or stay and suffer, it's repeated over and over again in terms that suggest he's doing this, this is his choice and his action, and she already knows everyone else is looking for her. Or she has to, she's egotistical, not dumb, and she does have all of Audrey's memories. She also does pause some before deciding to taunt him over his newly discovered spine, so she's definitely considering something. A few more taunts and threats later, not one-sided at all, which is an interesting attempt to smack her in the emotions she may or may not have, or wake Audrey up, and poking some more at his belief in his and Audrey's undying love, and she agrees to meet him at the thinny in the woods she tried with Vickie. In light of this why she didn't expect Vickie to show up with him, I do not know, she seems to be too busy making threats at Nathan about Troubling him and how unpleasant she's going to make things for him. Hubris. And ego. No wonder this doesn't end well for her. She actually has these traits in greater degree than William, which is impressive, considering the extent to which he was a smarmy git.

Back at the police station Vince is doing a bad job at hiding the fact that he's doing something clandestine. Really, Vince? You are the worst at undercover right now, I want you to know that. Looking up and down the halls is a blatant tell that you're up to something, and in this case it's Vince behaving badly rather than the director or someone resorting to cheap tricks to indicate that this is a clandestine meeting; we know Haven's capable of better than that. So, no, Vince is distracted, that distraction is leading to some of the shoddiest leadership and clandestine work ever, and come here so I can smack you. "Is that all", he asks, so it's some kind of file, maybe on CD by the look of the package. And the person he's asking for it isn't all that sanguine about him having it either, he wants to know why, he's hearing rumors. Vince shuts this down with brusqueness and glaring which, Vince, in time of crisis and with your hold as shaky as it is, this is really not the time. I mean, really a lot. I cannot express how much this is not the time, how distracted are you? Fortunately for my sanity Dwight is coming up to explain to him a thing about exactly how distracted he is, and to prevent him from leaving. And while Vince isn't inclined to tell Dwight what he's doing here the officer/Guardsman is more than happy to tell his Guardsman Chief that Vince asked for the dashcam footage from when the lighthouse collapsed. Twenty points for tactical thinking, but fifty gazillion points from Slytherin for personnel management, dude. Especially with the looks that officer is giving him, he is really fed up with Vince. So say we all, officer. So say we all. Vince is at least feeling not in power enough that he's going to try a partial explanation on Dwight to see if that buys him any leeway. It won't. The snapped few words isn't as harsh as it could be, but he's not giving Vince any choice either, and he's treating him as a misbehaving subordinate. Not a good sign considering he doesn't have a right either as a subordinate to Vince in the Guard or as a police officer ordering around a civilian who isn't even being held for questioning, let alone under arrest.

We'll start with reaming Vince out for not sending protection to the Barrow house when he was told that the anti-Trouble crew was nailing dead raccoons to the door. No, Vince, Dave is not a good excuse at this point, it would have probably taken you one phone call which you could have made right then. Or you could have asked Dwight to make the call. Either way, it could have been taken care of in that scene if not immediately after that, you didn't, and so that young man's injuries and loss of whatever it is he's going to lose, possibly his life, are on you. No, Dwight is not calling you out because he thinks... well, he's calling you out because he thinks you're falling apart more than being lazy, and no one here thinks what you do is easy, Vince, and you know it, so quit trying to be all disrespected patriarch. More than anyone you should know better than to pull it on Dwight the ex-Ranger who led a unit in Afghanistan. I will allow as Dave and the Troubles and the Mara thing could all be connected, but jesus Vince this is not the way to go about finding that out. And yes, keeping secrets from Dwight, who is a Guardsman, a damn competent investigator and deputy leader and at this point the Chief of fucking Police of Haven, a former cleaner (former/current?) and general all around good asset to have? That's just fucking stupid, Vince. You are not in a position where you can afford to be fucking stupid, not even Nathan is in that position although given that Nathan commands fewer resources right now he's got more flexibility than you do, and even he's not that stupid Vince, come here so I can smack you some more. Or not, Dwight's perfectly happy to do it for me. Including immediately turning right back around on Vince's lie about not keeping secrets from him, Vince, really? The sad part is all of this idiocy on Vince's part is entirely plausible as a character, he's been falling apart for several episodes right now. I still want to shake him. He will then accuse Vince of holding back information about Mara and everything else to do with that in order to protect the memory of Audrey, because... well, no, I will buy that because Vince and Nathan are both in love with Sarah and Audrey respectively, in either case, with another incarnation from the body that is now Mara. Duke, at the moment, is distracted because of Jennifer, although I don't entirely blame Dwight for being wary of Duke's connection to Audrey, too. And while they're arguing about this Nathan will come up just as Dwight's talking about hunting her down! Yay! Some mitigating factors here, though, Dwight's yelling dies off at the end of that, and it doesn't end in "torture" or "kill" type phrases. Nathan doesn't look as upset by that as he might be otherwise, and I think we can pretty much put it down to that rant ending in 'make her undo everything she's done.' Since, or at least Nathan can twist it that way, it might end in undoing her takeover of Audrey, as he sees it! Yes, I'm still pretty sure Nathan sees it as Mara in Audrey's body, rather than Audrey being the preferred personality of a woman who was originally Mara. They still seem to not be getting into that. Before we switch over, note that most of Dwight's conversation with Vince was filmed in full conspiratorial through-the-blinds mode, when they weren't focusing on one face or another. At least partly because this isn't general knowledge, although the secretive attitude seemed to be almost perfunctory, too.

Nathan's turn! For conversation, not reaming, Vince makes good his escape while he still has some shreds of dignity and self-respect hanging around him. No, Dwight brought Nathan here to tell him that he's identified Jennifer's body. Worse than that, the Barrow Trouble is triggered by denial, so, it's a good thing Nathan didn't get it, then? Sorry, cheap shot. But that does go with Duke sewing up first the guy who was getting search and rescue, then the guy who was helping Duke search later, the Coast Guard, anyone who could tell him about Jennifer's body. And now Dwight intends to pretty much put himself right in the line of fire. Or needle, or whatever. Nathan thinks this is a bad idea. I think this is a bad idea. I think Dwight could pull it off, but I think it's a bad idea. And so does Nathan, and so Nathan's going to volunteer to put himself in the path of the creepyass monkeys while Dwight handles the rest of the crap going on in this town. starting with the guys who beat up Henry Barrow. Fair enough, let's just hope he makes his appointment with Mara. Hey, speaking of, are we all good and knowledgeable here? We are. Nathan is now on board with this whole making Mara undo the Troubles thing, again, possibly in the hopes that it brings Audrey back but he's not saying that right now and judging by the look on his face, that's a very faint hope. He's got that sort of grim deathseeker face on. I'm not sure I like that either. Dwight doesn't like anything about this. Poor Dwight.

So. Down to the docks goes Nathan, so much for Duke's happy place. I think Duke really does know what Nathan's come to say before he says it, but he's firmly in denial and firmly in I Will Not Hurt My Friend mode and so it takes, y'know, actual words. Which is probably a large part of Nathan's motivation, I won't say it's not martyr complex because of course it is, but Nathan of all people stands a good chance of actually getting the words out before the Trouble takes hold. Duke would rather talk about Mara than about Jennifer and the search efforts, just in case we were in any doubt about his avoidance and denial. Oh honey. Nathan leads into it slowly, about as gently as I think he's ever tried with Duke, guys this is not helping me not ship it, for the record. This is Duke and Jennifer's in case of emergency, meet here, decide what to do, preferably run away. It's also a way, as it turns out, of getting Duke to admit to some degree of his grief, as we continue to Jennifer having taught Duke to play Pooh-sticks oh my god that is the cutest thing ever. I'm sad all over again, just like they intended. You fuckers. But unlike previous dates Duke wants to take Jennifer away and spoil her after all of this awful and get out of Haven, which is incredibly demonstrative of how far in denial he is because we know Duke is as incapable of leaving Haven as everyone else in this cast. Particularly when he's having to handle all the Troubles ever killed off by the Crocker line, it doesn't make sense, he needs to stay in a place where there's people who know how to walk around potential time bombs. And how to help him calm down and deal. Like this! Nathan starts with not thinking she's coming back, which isn't the same as outright saying it, and it buys them a little bit of time. Enough time for him to keep pushing, they were both there, he heard Duke say she'd stopped breathing, she's not coming back, while his eyes and ears get sewn shut. I think this is the first instance of ears, too, which I would tend to say is both poetic license and Nathan's specific "I heard you say" phrasing; if that's deliberate that's really fucking impressive and if it's not it's still very useful. He does, just barely, get out that Dwight saw her body (and I briefly wonder if Dwight got sewn right there too) before his mouth goes, too, and Duke proceeds to freak right out despite having been told that he needs to let go of the denial. Well, yeah. That is kind of what happens when you've been sewing people up and now your best friend's sewn up to the point where he can't breathe.

After the ad break, we get the realization kicking in, and Duke isn't and really shouldn't bother trying to look at Nathan while he lets her go. I swear to fucking god they've used that very song before, oh, there we go, our obsessive attention to detail pays off: this was last used over the montage where Duke killed Ben so the baby would stop killing people every time he cried, and Jennifer looked wrecked and everything was awful. Thanks, you guys, we needed that. A number of shots of her in Duke's memories, from first meeting through to admitting maybe she's Troubled to all the little happy/intense moments of, yes, we know this is a relationship moving fast and formed under extreme conditions, but it makes us happy. And it did. It was probably the happiest we've seen Duke… possibly ever, on this show, because I don't buy for a second that he was ever really happy even in s1, let's all remember he was only there because his father made a six year old promise something very big and binding. So. He has her scarf from the cave in his pocket still, oh honey, and now he will symbolically drop it onto the water and admit to himself that she's dead. Doesn't even need to say the words because we can see it in his face. Hey look! Now Nathan can breathe. Presumably, hopefully, that means all the other people who got sewed can breathe and see again too, but we don't really have time to fit that into the ep and that would be traditional for this kind of Trouble. And… now he can't even cry. Because of that Trouble, which he knows, which is making this even harder on him. Lucky for both of them that they've got a relationship that doesn't linger too long on the emotional components in words, anyway, just in deeds. Words of comfort about Jennifer being special and her coming to Haven not being on Duke, he was just the convenient catalyst, which is certainly true. And deeds, or at least statement of intended deeds, being that he'll go and hand Mara over to the Guard to let them try and make her end the Troubles. Aheh. Aheheheheheh. We'll see how well that one goes over. Not least because Nathan's straight back to his grim deathseeker face every time he talks about this plan.

Over to the woods with Nathan in his big blue truck with conspicuous shots that avoid showing anyone but him driving. Maybe Duke's with him! Nah. Duke wouldn't want to hide from this. He does get out of the cab carefully, maybe like he's being cautious maybe like he's hiding something maybe a bit of both. Mara's been lurking in wait in such a position that she can come up from behind him, okay, yeah, sure. Cue snark and banter about take your shirt off, I like the beefcake, which is moderately hilarious except where it's not at all. (Flip the genders. Now laugh. Yeah, I didn't think so.) He gives her explicit directions to where it is so she'll stop feeling him up, as is only right and proper, and he has brought her a whole one death truffle. Aw, it's true love! Look, if someone brought me even one death truffle I'd consider it a pretty good showing, wait, I'm not supposed to want that. Oops. While Mara banters and snarks some more about being surprised Nathan's letting her go and she and William still have work (seriously, woman, where the fuck do you think you're getting him from? this thinny did NOT look like the void thinny he got pitched into, is it just easier to open thinnys from Mid-World or whatever that is? DATA DAMMIT), she proceeds to split the one death truffle into two. I can't say I'm surprised that works, and I can't say I'm surprised that Nathan didn't think of it, considering he still isn't really used to magical theory on this level. So, fuck, maybe she only needs one, ever. That's not good. That's a whole new steaming shitpile of not good. (I do like, though, that Nathan may be becoming Audrey-like to the rest of Haven, in his ability to talk people down from their Troubles/talk them around to helping by using them where possible. That's a way of honoring Audrey's memory I can wholeheartedly get on board with even if it does play to Nathan's martyr complex.) Mara refuses to leave Haven, she claims she and William have to "perfect your gifts," whatever the fuck that means. I don't like the sound of it. Nathan doesn't like the sound of it. Nobody in their right mind should like the sound of it. Instead, she's going to Trouble Nathan some more and build on his devotion to make him morph his body and battering-ram down the thinny for her. That's an impressive difference between her and Audrey, now that I think about it: Audrey is much much better at lateral thinking. Mara believes she has all the power and doesn't need to bother. Which is why she can get blindsided by Vickie making noise in the truck and engage in a brief bout of combat. Very brief. Nathan's pretending to be more stunned than he is, I think, and Vickie makes the struggle for her sketch believable enough to get her hand crushed in the door. OW. Dear everyone please stop hitting all our squicks, okay. It is, however, a very clever plan, involving Mara, a tree branch, and not being immune to what the world does to her even though she's immune to the Troubles. Have a tree branch to the face and cuffs on your wrists, and fly away, little death truffle. Fly away and Trouble Nathan no more. He's bothered enough by having knocked out Maraudrey, and with her knocked out he's obviously having a really hard time remembering that no, evil psycho twit who wants to hurt people and kills without much compunction is running this body right now. Sweetie. This is where you get a friend to stand over your shoulder and be your more sensible voice of reason.

Meanwhile, back in Haven proper! Back in the hospital, actually, Vince is showing the dashcam footage to Dave and I am falling out of my chair laughing that the footage starts at 11.21. For those of you who aren't old as hell like me, Back when X-Files was on all the important phone calls happened at 11.21 at night, or sometimes 10.13. So that's a nice little homage, there, because I guess that could be a coincidence but the odds would be one in a very large number. So. They go in at 11.21, the lighthouse collapses and they all get knocked out of it and moved very far away at 12.19, and that's a lot more time than we expected considering they were only in there for the end of an episode. Vince also points out that they didn't hear the noon bell which rings from the lighthouse. Since they were in it or, well, under it, it should have been blasting their eardrums, and they didn't hear anything. Not even distractedly, considering what was going on distraction would have been understandable, but. No. Not even that much. The easiest answer both given what they know in-universe and given what we know is that they went somewhere else when they stepped into that cave, some sort of in between the in between place? But we have no confirmation of that, just the theory based on what little we do know. Argh. It would be traditional. It would also be traditional to have time running different in that liminal place, but that much difference is still a good sign that something else happened. An Action Was Taken That Nobody Saw. Or maybe more to the point, remembers? This is reminding me an awful lot of the stories of the beach with the Colorado Kid murder and Lucy Ripley, just in case we needed yet another fucking parallel here. Guys, any fucking time you, for a value of you that includes both writers and Teagues, would like to cough up WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK HAPPENED back in '83, preferably in fucking encyclopedic form with fucking annotations, that would be fine with us.

To add injuries to insult, Colette Barrow is here to inform Vince that because of his fuckup her son may never walk again. To add insult to injury, Vince's apology is perfunctory at best. Seriously, Vince, please tell me that after this you do not wonder why you were deposed by the Guard, because at this point I'm just wondering why they didn't dogpile you and leave you to drool in your own semi-consciousness. Yes, she has heard that Vince was warned the Barrow house needed to be, ahem, guarded. Yes, it was probably Dwight who told her, because that look is definitely a you should have done X when you had the chance/when I told you type of look. Dwight is officially Done With Vince's Bullshit and so, as it turns out, is everyone else.  Or at least everyone else in this room. Colette certainly is! Because when Vince ashamedly admits that that is true she smacks him one! YAY! It probably hits more in the symbolism than it does in the face but it's still the smack I've been waiting for for this and a couple other episodes. With an added "god damn you" because she has nothing else to say to him that can be aired above the watershed or on basic cable, and then she storms out. Leaving us to deal with the Mara situation! Nathan has reported in because he is being a good Nathan and let Dwight know that he's got Mara and is waiting for him out on the highway. And, no, I agree with Vince and Dwight that among their first concerns, after the wellbeing of everyone involved in capturing her (or in the town. Or on that coast.) should be whether or not Mara is all right, for exactly the so-we-can-interrogate-her reasons Dwight suggests! I never claimed to be a nice person. I'm not sure Dwight ever did, either. To underscore that, he then goes on to say that yes, he told the Guard that Mara originated the Troubles because she's dangerous, Vince, and no, they will not be bringing Mara to the Herald. ... and for fucksake, why the Herald, Vince? Is that not the least secure location ever? I appreciate that you managed to pull off interrogating Arla in the Herald, but this is not Arla, this is something far worse, and, no. No, the Guard will not be bringing her to the Herald on your order. In fact, the Guard will not be doing anything on your order from now on. You've spent all the cred you had with them, and you spent it carelessly. Dwight, meanwhile, wants Vince out of the way so he can lead the Guard not as a power grab for the sake of power, but because people were getting hurt, which likely does more to win over at least the people in the room than if he'd done it through backstabbing and manipulation. Not that Vince made it that hard. Vince's last ditch attempt is apparently a Because My Bloodline excuse which, um, no. Sorry, but no. ... also holy god, those are both some very large men in that room, as we see on the face-to-face confrontation side shots. Interestingly, given the size of both actors, they could be filming this as much more confrontational than it is, but they aren't. I think ultimately because this isn't as important as some other confrontations could be. Vince still has his Flagg on, but he seems to be turning away and back to Dave and leaving it alone for now. I still wouldn't turn my back on him, well, more than physically, and sometimes not even that. Dwight orders the Guard to meet him at the old cannery really why god why. why that one. again. third time. finish the bottle. Ahem. And then it's the final warning, showdown, something between the two, where Dwight gives Vince the I like you, but don't get in my way speech. Literally, those are the words he uses. I actually kind of want to see Vince attempt to do an end run around Dwight and then Dwight smack him down. Mostly because no, I don't think Vince is going to let this slide, and I think Dwight is better for the town right now in general. Also Dwight is less fucking annoying with his tight lipped fucking secret keeping. He's just generally refreshing. We love Dwight.

Duke doesn't appear to have moved from the docks since he accepted that Jennifer was dead. Oh honey. Which is pretty reasonable, he's miserable, he can't really help with Mara, he doesn't know WHAT might happen if he gets around her and gets upset again. In whatever direction is required to trip a Trouble. Plus: miserable. Not thinking clearly. I'm not entirely happy about him not helping, but I understand entirely why he would think he couldn't/shouldn't. Instead, here comes Gloria to be quietly supportive at him, which makes me assume that Nathan told her about that as well, about Duke having all of the Troubles. So now she knows that Duke can't cry, and she was married to a man like that for a number of years. Of all the people to come offer comfort while being aware of how not to push buttons too hard, Gloria would be my top choice. What she has come to offer is a thing for him to do, to lay Jennifer to rest because she has no next of kin and neither of them wants to put her in a potter's field. I have a hold-up moment because we know Duke has the gravedigger Trouble (2x12, Sins of the Fathers) which, um, urk. No, Duke has a solution to that, too, after the probably-intentional morbid humor of "don't get me into (T)rouble. Take her out on the Cape Rouge and give her a burial at sea. Gloria will now lampshade the yes-I-know by struggling not to cry, herself, and when Duke says he really misses her, well. She really misses her son. In completely flat, blameless tones that say they have shared grief now, and she knows Duke can't cry and why, and she's sorry the whole thing is this fucked up. Which it really is. If Gloria turns into a surrogate maternal figure for Duke I may laugh and laugh. In the way where it's not really funny but it's very, very human. Oh everyone.

Over in the woods Nathan is getting a message from Dwight, which is just touching base, and goes to I guess say good-bye to Audrey and close that up in his mind for good, considering what they have to do. It's not the worst idea in the world, although getting close enough to touch potentially-faking-unconsciousness Mara would not be in my top ten choices of anything. Still, it's Nathan. His common sense when it comes to Audrey has always been at least a little lacking, and we're impressed that he's come this far in terms of expediency and the safety of others over his need to have Audrey back. Mostly that safety of others part, considering the danger of having Mara on the loose. So, one last good-bye, and then hauling her over to Dwight except no. Because Audrey twitches awake, and it at least seems to be Audrey at this point, we are not at all ruling out that this isn't Mara laying groundwork for very much fucking with Nathan's head. We're also not ruling out that it isn't, because especially in this show memory writes personality in a lot of ways, although sometimes personality clings through to bring memories back (2x03 Love Machine). In any case, it's an option that we're going to wait and see what happens on, especially considering that Vince referred to her last three incarnations as being 'somehow the same,' indicating some consistent force of personality. Oops, now Mara's awake, with Nathan leaning over her like the Prince in Sleeping Beauty. Which means Mara gives the response I for one at least would probably have, the get away from me you freak type response. The rest of it is fury and fear, and attempting to suppress that fear considering she's not supposed to be at the mercy of a Troubled person! It's supposed to be the other way around! Prudently, Nathan's got her hands bound to or around something above her head, so she can't even reach into her pocket for that death truffle she made and squirrelled away. And off he drives to the cannery of doom! Or arguably away from, based on the previews for next ep, it's hard to say for sure. Yay! And crap.

Next up on Haven! Mostly scenes we've done before with the heart explodie and the bra and Nathan and Duke both with their oh crap faces on. Lady Hi-Beams there is completely shooting the mood, though, my freaking ballet teacher used to have us orient and square our hips by having us pretend we were aiming hi-beams so, um. Yeah. I got nothing. We'll find out about Laser Hips next episode, I guess! And hopefully who changed Nathan's mind about Maraudrey, since I wouldn't be in the least surprised if she did it for him.