This Quintessence of Dust Haven S5E04 Much Ado About Mara

Haven S5E04 Much Ado About Mara

Previously on Haven! Jodie shoots beams of concentrated light, isn't THAT fun. Dwight accused Duke of hiding shit, which was true, Nathan continued to fixate on Maraudrey to the probable, yes, retention of Audrey's personality in there but let's not forget that this is actually a complex moral and ethical question. Something that I remain unconvinced the writers are aware of, in their relentless pursuit for the Ultimate Love Story. Duke needs to release a Trouble or die! Mara will help him! Everyone who's not exceedingly suspicious of that, raise your hands. I'd sit on mine except I have to type.

We pick up, of course, right where we left off, because they've decided everything needs to be a two-parter this season. I continue to question the merits of that. But anyway. Maraudrey's stuck between Dwight behind her and Duke in front of her threatening to asplode with a Trouble or Troubles at random, at least, judging by what she says that'd be the case. And judging by what happened with the monkey-sewing denial Trouble, which makes it definitely not last-in-first-out. So, yeah, that's going to be ten kinds of fun if they don't direct it, basically. Dwight has taken hold of the Smartest Man In The Room ball and won't be putting it down for awhile. This is not helping our attraction, I'm just saying. But he can compare against currently known facts and establish that evil or not, Mara's telling the truth right now, so he'll let her go do her thing while delivering commentary on the cabin being surrounded. Which I think is as much about reassuring Duke as threatening Mara; I'll be over here DYING of laughter that the Guard is now a soothing presence in Duke's life. Remember that vision of dying at the hand of a Guard-tattooed person? Yeah, I'm increasingly leaning toward that being someone trying to save him, if we get a look at that again. We're going back to quite a bit of seasons one and two, so it's possible. Dwight goes out and we get a glimpse of him being leaderly at Mitchell more than anyone else, who seems to either be his de facto second or the most hotheaded of the bunch and thus the one that needs talking down lest everyone else turn into a mob. I'm leaning toward the second, based on last ep.

Meanwhile even Mara's a little cautious about Duke picking Troubles, because as she was just reminded by way of being chained up, she can still be affected by a Trouble that only touches the outside world. So this could be a chance for Duke to try and get rid of her, if it weren't for the fact that she knows all the Troubles. And so does he! Mara brought lampshades to this party. Mara also has a sense of the dramatic, and the writers will bring it out to play in the interests of restating the process of bringing a specific Trouble out of Duke's blood so he can not explode in a geyser of Troubles. Because ew. Scoville! Guess we'll find out what that one is. Duke will now, while he's right on the edge of doing something stupid and terrified it's not going to turn out right, go ahead and test this little theory of Nathan's! Because when you're jumping off the cliff you might as well try to fly on the way down, right? Complete with "I trust you" which is, in situations like this, at least as powerful as "I love you." As we can see, because that look, those words, and that touch that's designed to keep her from touching him as much as to be contact for its own sake? Taps straight into all the things Audrey and Duke share, and out Audrey comes! I don't know if it's the pacing or the way it's shot or the dialogue whether scripted or how it's spoken or  what, but I'm even less sold on this switch. I know we're supposed to be, but I think the break between last ep and this one was in the wrong place for us to buy it as easy for Audrey to pop out, having just recently been out. At least, I'm guessing that's the logic they're trying to use? Plus Duke, plus helping him with the Troubles. But when it comes this early in the episode we're starting with a week between the tension build and the tension break, and it doesn't work nearly as well. We're trying to have an emotional climax without the foreplay, and it comes off as false. Anyway, she delivers a cryptic line about remember it's not your fault, Mara delivers a harsh line that doesn't seem relevant but totally is about stop blabbering, and I'm noticing a trend where Mara is least convincing when Emily Rose is fresh off of Audreying. I'm not sure where that comes from, but the contrast is too jarring to feel organic. Duke is Trouble-and-blood-let, and we get, quite pointedly, no further information about what's going to happen next just now.

Mitchell is our stand-in for the militant, bloodthirsty chunk of the Guard! Guys your shorthand is getting a little bit annoying here. He doesn't believe Mara can fix people. Duke walks out first and he's not talking until Mitchell pisses him off, which doesn't take much; Mara's doing all the talking about don't shoot, see, there's Duke, he's alive, yay alive, don't shoot? Heh. And then Duke breaks out into gibberish! Well, there's your Trouble, and since the gibberish doesn't also serve as an abracadabra type of spell, or doesn't appear to, that's a good definition of safe for everyone else. Immensely and endlessly frustrating for Duke, I'd imagine, but not dangerous to others, Duke your martyr complex is showing this time. Not that I'm surprised, but it is. Mitchell looks like instead of spitting he wants to kill her. Or Duke! That's a very ambiguously pointed knife, dude, you want to be a little more careful with that thing? For that matter, is this guy ever going to get more characterization than Angry Hotheaded Guard member? That clip of Dwight stating that Mara deserves worse than death gets its context here, and like we figured, he's talking in his role as leader of the Guard, who needs to say something to get someone calmed down. In this case something filled with empathy and acknowledging the massive body count Mara (and William! let's not forget William, we haven't and if Colin Ferguson's tweets are anything to go by the writers haven't either) have left behind. But they need her alive because she's their best bet at ending the Troubles, as far as they know. This is not incorrect! As far as they know. Very key words there. She appreciates that. She further appreciates Dwight handcuffing her, speaking to the fantasies of fangirls everywhere. Thanks, Mara. Thus begins Dwight's interrogation of her, with Nathan lurking at the back of the house. Because that's going to go over well. They're not even bothering to linger on the shot for more than the obligatory this isn't going to end well mutter from Nathan. Nathan please don't go beat up random Guardsmen, that also never ends well for anyone. Go bother Duke instead, that'll be hilarious for everyone. The funny thing is, Eric Balfour's selling the "this is what I mean to be saying" so well that it's very obvious he's being aggressively snarky and generally agreeing with the don't-kill-Mara bandwagon.

Roll credits! When we come back it's not to the young pair of annoyingly closemouthed men, but the old ones. Hi, Vince and Dave. Supposedly back to work! Dave will now bemoan hospital food and ask for some of Vince's kettle corn, which gets him snarled and grouched at by way of dropping first a single kernel and then an entire handful, by way of what he deserves/what he's getting. All over his paperwork. Ew. The blinds, we will note, are almost entirely closed where they're often open to show us the streets of Haven (and naked dog-men running up and down them, sometimes!), just to highlight how insular and withdrawn the Teagues have become. Have become, I hear you all muttering in disbelief. Yeah, I know, and here we were thinking it couldn't get that much worse! AND YET. To be fair, with Nathan obsessed and Duke grieving and Dwight with his hands full with the Guard there aren't many people with the free time to have a palaver with them lately. Still and nonetheless, this is not giving me much hope that they're going to talk to anyone about what they've discovered/are discovering once there's room to breathe. Vince is furious about a lot of things he wasn't going to talk about somewhere unsecure, I'm going to be over here questioning how secure the Herald really is considering the number of break-ins it's had. Oh well. It's a place they consider safe, is the point, and Dave will eat kettle corn sullenly while Vince enumerates his failings as a brother. The loss of leadership of the Guard is a relatively small thing next to trying to kill him and lying about his origins for apparently their entire lives? Ouch. Though let's also take a look at Vince brandishing that adoption file and note that he didn't turn that over to the others with Cabot's journal, either, or even say he had it. Questionable whether or not it reveals anything everyone doesn't already know, but when it comes to Vince I'm erring on the side of the principle of give to me all your informations, because otherwise he gives us nothing. Anyway. Dave turns around and flings kettle corn at him as he lists off Vince's failings, namely that he expected to be forced to reveal that he was from the other side and shoved into that cave against his will. Yep, you did do that, Vince. Yep, it was kind of awful. Fine. So with a third kernel of corn (drink!) Dave will declare them even, and Vince will bring up the issue of trust. They have to trust each other now, or it's really bad, never mind that they haven't been trusting each other completely for a very long time. Um. Yeah, we'll ignore that logic flaw, because they've trusted each other with so much else that that's written in deeper on their psyches. And despite that statement, Vince demands that Dave lay it all out on the table: what the hell is chasing him, what came with them through that cave. Well, if he knew he'd say! I actually do believe him mostly on this one, but the mostly is the same kind of mostly I think Vince believes him, in that it's not that he doesn't want to share information, it's just that he doesn't want to talk about it and relive it or maybe conjure it up by the mentioning. Dave doesn't know but he suspects, as evidenced by the discussion of the Great Evil William and Jennifer were mentioning. Which is apparently not Mara? Seriously how much evil can you let out of the bottle at once DON'T ANSWER THAT. We've read too much King here to miss the signs of standard King-Style uber evil, we haven't seen them yet, we're not going there. So given that Dave's an evasive shifty fucker, and more so these days, Vince is going to pull out something or someone he calls the Iron Maiden. Uh… huh. That sounds great, Vince! Eat that kettle corn a little more aggressively why don't you. And give those teeth back to Flagg. Speaking of bottled evil.

Dwight is setting up the cabin for interrogation when we come back to our little psychodrama, and psychodrama it very much is intended to be. It's… not selling all that well, I think unfortunately because Mara hasn't been given a personality beyond Cackling Evil or maybe Heinous High School Bitch, and right now we're still meant to find that more interesting and terrifying than the horrible choices people are forced to by that Cackling Evil. Still, the lampshades are moderately amusing if unfortunately Writer Error 101: Demonstrating How Much Research We Did. We may shorthand and often do, to ExpoSpeak or sometimes Technobabble, but the essentials of it are laying out things in clinical that aren't clearly enough demonstrated by what's in front of us. The thing is, no matter how much you call out those psychological tactics, when done properly they still work, that's the point of using them. The fact that they're not causing much of a flicker of emotion or anticipation right now is a good sign that something's going wrong. We appreciate the nod to Dwight's military background, though. As for the interrogation itself, Dwight has just one question: why. Why the Troubles, what's her motivation here, and he's very still and quiet and not letting her bait him into more than an eyebrow-quirk of response. GOOD Dwight. Good interrogator. Have cookie. Mara continues to bait him by hitting up, for those of you who've been living under a rock for the past however many years of procedurals, two-thirds of the Macdonald triad of supposedly sociopathic/serial killer traits. Usually shorthanded for serial killers traits on TV, except in more modern psych theory this has largely been discredited as overly general and even in TV it's starting to be deprecated and called out or parodied, or otherwise played with. The cruelty to animals one is, yes, still a pretty good indicator, but firesetting and bedwetting are as much responses to being in an abusive situation as they are indicators that the person will be abusive (let alone homicidal) in later life. Firesetting can have a number of causes, some of which coexist with predictors for violent behavior but others of which have more to do with a need for control, attention, or both. And bedwetting is not only too general, there are enough physical as well as psychological causes for it that without more than two corresponding symptoms it might as well be left off any list of diagnostic criteria ever. (Actually the abuse cycle and those who break it and those who fall into it are MUCH MUCH more complex issues and people than is usually portrayed on TV, which  tends to discard those people who have successfully broken it as well as focusing on people who were abused and grow up to be abusers rather than those who were abused and continue to find abusive situations because that's all they know how to handle. Occasionally you get a person who was abused and grows up to be a crusader for the rights of the abused, particularly as a protagonist in a procedural, even more occasionally you have a Very Special Episode which holds up the abuse survivor as a comparison to the unsub of the week to show that not everyone who is abused grows up to be a serial killer or spree murderer, but generally it's the abuser who grows up to be some form of monster who gets the bulk of the show time and the bulk of the attention. I HAVE RANTS ABOUT THIS OKAY. .... Plus I severely doubt we're going to find abuse in Mara's childhood, there's nothing in the narrative to suggest it so far, at least.) Dwight isn't much interested in this bait except for the fact that Mara's monologuing, which means he might be able to nudge her toward talking about something genuinely useful to him. First of all he would like her to drop the "I'm a fucking psycho" act in the interests of laying a couple cards on the table; and now she knows he knows she needs the death truffles. There's a lot of leaning forward and sitting back to demonstrate both dominance and nonchalance while Mara stonewalls him about no, see, the Troubles are for fun! Just fun. That's it. Nobody's buying it, so Dwight brings the snark about name-rank-serial number with almost a genuine smile because he doesn't actually expect a response. I also think he's deliberately using the fed-the-fuck-up tone, close to mocking, because we know he's perfectly capable of holding it together under extreme circumstances. See also, ex-Ranger. Though I totally expected "who you are what you want" because I'm a bad B5 nerd. Or an excellent one. Your choice. Mara will now proceed to assert that she can cure the Troubles! Hands up everyone who believes her without proof. Especially since the only thing we've seen her do thus far only suggests altering/releasing/giving Troubles. Dwight raises this very point! Lying to save her life would be a great plan right now, so she'll demonstrate by curing one person. HANDS UP WHO BELIEVES HER. But it falls under acceptable risk, and it's not like there would be a shortage of volunteers even knowing that risk.

And no points for guessing who that one person's going to be! Hi Jodie. Duke is, by those expressions, being comforting and checking on her, expressing annoyance over the Trouble, and expressing more annoyance that she's trying to pull all the blame and martyrdom onto herself. You can't have the martyr's ball, Jodie, Duke and Nathan are plenty for one show and Dwight's going to be making grabby hands at it all episode. Dwight, you've already got the one, you do not get to have all the balls. And that's as far as I'm going with that joke. With Duke not able to talk but able to express sympathy and concern very expressively via his eyes, she'll keep holding onto the Martyr Ball a little longer. Namely, telling us a little bit about how she lied to her kids, Gavin didn't run off he's dead, not because of her Trouble but because he was going to do that One Last Job that gets you set up for life and… well, it definitely turned out that way, in the much more immediate sense than anyone wanted. Say, does that "it's all my fault" resonate with anything prior in this ep? Is that going to be a Clue? SHOCK. It's a well-placed hint to the Trouble(s) of the week! No, I'm not being sarcastic this time, it's actually not badly placed, repetitive enough to notiice but not specific enough to place it unless, like us, you pay excessive attention to every detail. Jodie hopes that his Trouble doesn't prevent understanding of others, just communication with them, which is a reasonable concern to have! But he nods, and going again by the facial expressions I'm guessing something like yes, he'll tell her kids but no, it's not her fault at all. How much would I give for outtakes on this episode? SO MUCH, YOU GUYS. So much.

With trying to communicate with a desperate woman and not being able to and, probably, not wanting to get poked in the soft bits when he can't actually deflect with words like he's used to (seriously Duke you know that's your biggest weapon and you just gave it up to protect others? maaaaartyr), Duke will now not-quite-storm out of the van and get pounce-grabbed by Nathan. Nathan Wuornos. That is not how we sneak. Go back to the academy for morebetter sneaking lessons. Nathan would like to file a complaint about his 24 hours. WELL, NATHAN, PEOPLE WERE UPSET. Also Sasquatch is smarter than both of them put together. Duke's FACE does a most marvelous job of communicating this, as well as the "no shit Sherlock really" when Nathan identifies the gibberish as his latest greatest Trouble from Mara. Nathan will now give the umpteen-millionth iteration of his speech about BUT AUDREY, this time appealing to Duke on the grounds of BUT HAVEN, because Audrey will help Haven! Mara won't! This… well, that's true, and they don't know the extent of Mara's powers, but this is the first time Nathan's made an argument about making Audrey the dominant personality in that body that isn't just "but I wants the sexytimes lovings!" A protracted one, anyway. It's even an argument I'll accept without as much grumbling over the morality of it, because desperate times do cause quite a bit of desperate measures and shit most people wouldn't do normally. If we have a few more of these conversations that highlight how shitty it is that other people are deciding Maraudrey's life or lives and death or deaths, I'll take it! Duke's frustration with not being able to say yes I know I saw her is only equalled by the oh god I have the disgusting diary of my family's fucking curse that came out of my brother's grave expression. Poor Duke. Who, as they watch Dwight come out of the cabin, will proceed to look up at the sky in classic Fucking Haven pose and say something that I will bet amounts to exactly that. Or possibly Goddammit Nathan Why Do I Keep Listening To You. I believe the Tumblr summary of Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes: A Friendship can apply here: NATHAN NO. NATHAN YES. *sigh, furious swearing* Duke also yes. This is not helping me not ship things, you guys. All you Nuke Proliferators, feel free to wave your flags.

We shift over very briefly to Dwight and Jodie, where he's doing his very best calm and competent leader of the Guard impression. I continue to assume any loss of control previously was a very, very deliberate tactic to make Mara think she had the upper hand. Jodie's response to Dwight not trusting Mara is rather shortsighted, but being that she's the traumatized one here I'd much rather Dwight be the one thinking of all the possibilities. And there aren't just the two options of cure-or-die she lists, and that is, really, the trouble. Word choice very intentional.

And now we're back in the cabin, because Nathan hasn't made enough poor choices for one lifetime. Duke is clearly attempting to deliver some sort of if you hurt us/him speech, but it doesn't come out well when his 'all right then', or something similar by tone, comes out as "Froggy leg cream." No one's even going to try to decipher what's going on here. Thank god, because that could eat up valuable eviling time. Instead, Mara will attempt to push Nathan in the jealousy buttons by referencing Colorado, and the Moment that Audrey and Duke shared. It was, in fact, very steamy! As many a Duke/Audrey fan will attest to. Unfortunately he can't exactly explain this on account of he's kind of Babel'd right now. Although this is a handy way of showing us that even writing doesn't work. Thank you, everyone, now I want either tacos or an Invader Zim marathon. (A: Both. Both is good. Can both be our reward for finishing this one?) (K: I'mma sing the doom song now!) Oops, Dwight's back. Maybe the Invader Zim marathon later. Dwight is not interested in hearing whatever Nathan has had to say, largely because Nathan's been squandering his trust capital on stupid shit like trying to set all this up without the help Dwight could have given him if he'd let him in on this plan from the beginning, why no, I don't have opinions on this at all. I am opinionless. Like a politician. Dwight is not a politician, Dwight is a soldier and a leader and does not have time for this sales pitch bullshit, and Duke and Nathan are both getting locked up for being meddling twits one too many times. I'm sorry, I love them both, but this whole lack of communication until the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour is not helping dick. Extra bonus Nathan you're being an ass points because Dwight is still within his first year of assuming a responsibility Nathan threw away because, the envelope please? Audrey Parker! Yeah, that's got to chafe.

So! The "healing" scene, for a value of healing that not only fails to rid Jodie of her Trouble but also involves Mara being a sullen Evil Bitch some more. Seriously you guys can we get some characterization on her? Beyond a couple of line references we have to interpret, because this is not the time for single line references? Please? No? No. She will wax eloquent about having given this Trouble to Jodie's several-times-great-grandmother (interesting, does this make it one of the gendered Troubles?) (and if so how if at all do the gender-linked Troubles correlate to ones Mara gave versus ones William gave? note that this does not even a LITTLE get into transgender issues, not that, sadly, I would expect that out of any show, even though this one has a couple good Troubles for it, like the skinchanger Trouble and the chameleon Trouble and I'm digressing again, aren't I. I'll stop.) and thus she knows what she's doing! Please stop directing Emily Rose to have the rough equivalent of a teenaged superpowered snit, people, I know she's capable of better. We also don't get any view that really indicates that Mara's palming the aether, or rather anything to demonstrate her doing so. The position of her right hand sort of indicates that she did while the boys were getting cuffed and dragged off, but it's subtle enough that it's only visible on a couple rounds of playback. One terrified of hurting more people because ACK THE LIGHT sequence later, Mara's "cured" her! Or, y'know, just made sure nobody could see her Trouble. Or given her a different one in addition. We have options, here. A friend of ours mentioned that this is very much Angelus locked in the cage, in which case goddammit I want the internal argument-struggle for dominance scenes that they've been teasing toward all season. Will we get them? WHO KNOWS. By the end of this ep, it's looking like the answer's no. Anyway, Jodie feels less like death warmed over (I had to!) but still consumed by guilt for killing her sister, and Dwight reminds her that she's got kids to live for and take care of now, sends her off with a ride into town, and puts Mitchell on the logistics of making sure the kids will be there for pickup. Well, that'll be a problem, Mr. Hammond, the phones are down.

You know the beautiful nature of Duke's current Trouble and this blog? We can totally interpret his reaction to Nathan asking (you care, Nathan, stop trying to cover it) as a go-fuck-yourself. And will! It's an emotionally loaded question right before dead birds start falling out of the sky, oh hey, we've seen that before. No, it's not the Trouble from Consumed, you guys. First of all, Duke didn't kill the guys in that episode (assuming his original Crocker Trouble was even active at that point - we have no evidence either way) so he can't have it be his Trouble. Second of all, they've already established his current Trouble is gibberish, and he hasn't as yet manifested two at once, and there's a shitton of Guardsmen around. So can we not leap to conclusions, Nathan? Duke will indicate this with body language and also fuck you help him open the fucking Crocker journal.

Back to interrogation! Or as Mara would like to remind us, negotiation. Except she's reminding us through yet more exposition that's about twice as long as it needs to be. Guys, this awkward blathering about the interrogation tactics manual? Particularly the clinical use of interrogation tactics manual combined with deeply emotionally sourced gloating, which jars in the ear. This is way lower quality dialogue than I've come to expect out of Haven, this feels awkward and overwrought where the specific phrasing suggests it's supposed to be clinical and scalpel-like. I'm not sure who hiked left when they should have gone right, but, guys, at least some of you have the experience to know better, and I expect better out of this show. For those of you who are wondering why I'm making such a fuss, yes, villain dialogue is hard to do without diving headfirst into the realm of Ming the Merciless and, well, Brian Blessed screaming DIIIIVE. I mean, if you want the ham and cheese sandwich, go for it, but Haven has never served us ham and cheese before and I don't think they mean to do so now. WIth the tones and expression Emily Rose is using, she should be pulling on Dwight's emotions, and she isn't. With the words she's given, she should be pulling a Hannibal Lecter or at least a Clarice Starling authoritative, matter of fact recitation, and she isn't. Actually with what we've got in the script, hm, I'd go for the pedantic evil teacher thing which gives a range of intonations available but some very specific cadences and I'm digressing again, aren't I. Anyway. Clunky interrogation scene is clunky, is my point. Dwight intends for Mara to cure everyone outside, and then the rest of the town, and him last! She intends to get her hands on William's balls first. (Look, we went nearly three and a half episodes of recap without making that joke, I think we deserve a goddamn medal for restraint.) Which should really raise the question of, can Mara cure the Troubles without the aether? Can she cure them at all? Dwight only knows that she appeared to, and he should damn well know better than to trust someone like Mara. That said, he's down to playing hardball with her, at least by appearance, probably to back off and start a new round of negotiations now that they both know what his ultimate position of rot in chains with no guarantee of personal safety is. That's the stick. There would have been a carrot. I have confidence in Dwight. Sadly instead of confidence in Dwight's interrogation skills it's time for Mara's plotting to pay off! They have a problem, and it's pronounced dead birds and an evil girlish cackle. Yes, thank you, we do all know that you planned this, Mara, was it really that bright to admit it from the get-go? Sigh. This is probably how you got caught the last time.

Meanwhile back in the chains, oh look, it's a family tree and the Crocker description of the curse. So what I want to know is, what the fuck made a Crocker kill anyone out of this family line? It looks like one of the most harmless Troubles ever, which is not par for the course. I mean, the fact that it apparently keeps forcing the Troubled person to try and communicate even though he knows it's doomed, that could eventually drive someone to suicide I guess, but why that? Why not have AudSarLu help solve it? Where was she for this one? Alas, we shall get no answers. Roy was the one who dealt with this Trouble, and okay, wrecking a harbor ship and then becoming Troubled and then being eaten up by dual guilt and inability to communicate would I guess lead you to do some either suicidal or dangerous to others things. We don't get to know what those are, because the Crockers didn't care to explain it. But it's guilt-triggered! So, Nathan, it's your turn to be Audrey again. He will talk Duke through releasing his guilt over Jennifer's death! I… am not actually all that okay with this because it's a) the most awkward grieving process in the world and b) stop giving Duke manpain he has plenty of legitimate reasons to be heartbroken with or without Jennifer's death and finally c) this happens way too quick. Just admitting that he feels guilty will fix it? O-kay. That's. Yeah, way too easy. I mean, I understand that compressed for time here, but given that some of these other conversations are getting pulled way too long I'm going to stop before I start ranting any more. .... Okay, one more thing, where was this "it's her decision" when Audrey was making her decision to go into the barn, Nathan, huh? The lady's decision always has to be respected except when it results in heartbreak for you? Although I will accept the chronology of this as character growth. Or at least hope it is.

Okay, really done now.

Speaking of done, that bird Dwight's holding is probably pretty well done. It's solid, he says, as a rock! So we've got solidified falling birds, boiling water, and a curling rake. I have to admit, I didn't put this together either at first, especially not in conjunction with the one guard being cautioned away from the spitting keg of boiling water right before he doubles over and his eyes cook in their sockets. Well, turn white and blind. See, cooking in their sockets I would have gotten it! Not a quick burst and then screaming and blinded white eyes, both because that could have a number of causes (extreme cataracts?) and because blindness whether physical or magical is usually shorthanded by white eyes. Mind you, the level of pain-response here is somewhat greater than a usual white-eyed thing, even if we are having flashbacks to last season of Sleepy Hollow. Anyway. Oh crap looks all around.

Back over to the woodpile of bondage and grief therapy, Duke's flipping through the notebook and only now realizing that "it's not your fault" is probably not something Mara would say. No, Duke, that was not Mara talking, or at least not as herself although we probably have pretty well determined that that is indeed Audrey. And if Nathan's guess is right, although given the circumstances there are plenty of reasons for Audrey to try and reassure Duke that it's not his fault, Audrey has to at least have some access to Mara's knowledge and memories to know what emotion anchors the Scoville Trouble. He's not quite there yet, though. He's still stuck on Audrey was out for Duke, therefore now Duke knows he's not crazy (which Duke does readily admit he thought, so say we all and continue to say) and she's in there and they can get her back! They just have to get Dwight to stop treating her like Mara. And that is where Duke puts the brakes on, Dwight's not crazy either and nor is he stupid, Mara is dangerous and acting as though she isn't in the faint hopes that Audrey can take over for good is both crazy and stupid. That said, no. Duke has no intentions of sitting around, and also Dwight was foolish enough to leave him unsupervised with paperclips. Well, maybe not so unsupervised, they make it all of five steps before the Guard and Dwight come up. If I were Dwight I'd be getting sick of this too. Dwight's happy Duke can talk again, it means he can confront the boys first about getting free and second about the birds and the bees and the -- no? No, the birds and the blinding and everything, he doesn't care as much about the environmental stuff but the harmful pieces, yes, let's focus on those. Dwight will also challenge their base assumptions about Shit Mara Told Them (but not Shit Mara Told Him, at least not yet out loud, c'mon, Dwight) as far as just one of Duke's Troubles coming out at a time. Since we've only had the one that Mara helped draw out (seriously, the leeches and bloodletting symbolism here is all OVER the place) thus far, that doesn't make a firm pattern for yes, they can only ever come out one at a time. (Although when William was running around Troubling people, he only ever worsened, woke what was there, or created a whole new Trouble; we've seen a Trouble split between two families but not two Troubles stack.) We will accept that when Duke just bleeds they only happen one at a time! See also not knowing Mara's limitations. And then Nathan has to start in on Audrey again. Because Dwight is making it worse! He is! It's awful! Nathan, if you shared information and didn't act like a broken record with everyone and stopped lying all the time, I think everyone would be a lot more willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I am just saying. Duke will now broker a deal! Because lately he's been the more trustworthy one, bathe in the irony. I'm sure the writers are. Especially because Dwight knows him well enough at this point that when more dead birds drop, there's been nothing visible to trigger that kind of emotional reaction. Therefore: Duke will shoot Nathan if he tries to steal Mara, Dwight will not talk to Mara, they will all figure out the immediate problem now please and thank you. Duke why would you say before anyone gets dead. You know what happens when you do that. He is, however, right that he and Nathan have the most experience seeking out the Troubled and talking them down, outside of Audrey, who's rather indisposed at the moment.

Other things that are indisposed includes the Teagues' relationship. As it turns out, they're engaging in this hilariously petty bickering in front of someone else, which is why it's about Strunk and White and dangling participles rather than the Guard, the Troubles, and all the things they don't like discussing because secrets. Sigh, you two. So much sigh. Although whoever wrote the Fucking Haven bit about running telephone poles, that did have me laughing two days later. Anyway, someone else is this Iron Maiden Vince referred to earlier, who is a couples/family counselor of some kind, fifties-ish, and not taking any of their shit. I like her already. Hi, Maddie, please to be sticking around? She's old enough to be coded as sexless (there are so many issues with that but you know it's true, alas) and therefore not a threat to Maraudrey's primacy as heroine figure! (You knew we weren't going to leave without a deeply annoyed jab at that one, right? Because still annoyed. Even more so with Audrey reduced to begging men to help her. Are you KIDDING ME.) She would like them to know that they're extremely fucking hypocritical for sending her all those people to fix and never coming themselves. AMEN. I… can't entirely tell if she's flinging Freudian analysis at them as a joke or because she really believes it; I'm going to hope for a joke because YES DO MOCK THEM. God, it's about time someone made them uncomfortable enough to question their beliefs. Someone not each other. But the matter at hand is missing time and violence, which is at least a sign of how desperate they are and possibly a sign of how much they do trust her. That's interesting! I will definitely take that second one as a maybe-positive sign. Okay, repressed memories is a pretty good indication that she's semi-serious about the Freud shit. Well, everyone's got their faults. And if we start in on a Freud rant we will be here all day so let's not. In conclusion, basic attempts at therapizing them have led to Strunk and White grammar arguments, so let's divide and maybe conquer. I think she's only the second person ever to call him David rather than Dave, Vince being the first and that rarely. (Generally when he's in deeper shit than usual.) We all know this isn't going to end well, right? Of course right.

Back at the cabin of Jack Bauer Lite, Duke and Nathan have evidently finished quizzing the Guard members present on their Trouble, leaving them with a standard See Something Say Something caution and me with an urge to draw up If You See Something, Say Something posters for Haven. Someone smack me, please. Duke comments with what sounds like surprise that they know a lot about their Troubles. I hope that's not surprise and rather annoyance or resignation or he'd-hoped-but-no, because if you're going to be surprised that a population devoted to protecting and helping people live with their Troubles doesn't keep careful track of their own Trouble, then really how thick are you? I'm going to go with that note of dammit-I'd-hoped-but-no, because clinging to faint hopes is what Duke does these days. Anyway, there's one Guardsman left, a younger one named Rhett? I'm waiting for the jokes here. And, um, no. He is unTroubled. He joined the Guard to meet chicks. I, um.... No, I got nothing. I'm sort of with Duke, but other than that I got nothing. They get about five seconds to blink at that before the kid doubles over in pain screaming that it's not him, stop it. Whatever's happening to him it's affecting his stomach first. Then his eyes go white. Then he stiffens up and falls right over about as rigidly as a living actor can do, really. Dead as a post. Well, shit. And we're back to the Duke with stacked Troubles theory. I have to admit, if anyone could have stacked Troubles, it probably would be a Crocker.

And after the break we're back at the Teagues! Accessing repressed memories will in this case be done by the good old-fashioned TV method of hypnosis. With a pen rather than a watch or something more rather than less ridiculous, okay, I'll give them that. Plus this makes for a good demonstration of trust in Maddie, and also what I would consider to be Dave's rather low threshold. Yes, you should really take notes about Dave's hand going to the slash on his leg oh my god seriously that's an open wound just hanging around. GUYS. That looks like it needed stitches or superglue at the very least, come on now. A bandage? Something? No. Grump. I'm not even sure if I'm grumping at the writers or the Teagues for this one. Yes, what happened in the cave is directly related to those injuries, but in the interests of Dave not self-harming during hypnosis let's make sure his hands stay put. Fair! When he closes his eyes we start off with a couple of horror-angled shots of happy daylight forest that then changes straight to blue-filtered nightmare time. Oh goodie. He's running, or at least the given POV is that of something running, and as the angle progresses it's clearly so close to the ground that I would argue it's something on four legs instead of two. Dave are you a werewolf? Some kind of werebeast? Because that's going to get mildly hilarious really fast. There's a pause, like he or the monster (assuming they're not one and the same) is listening/watching/scenting something, I give the list here because the background noises are deliberately distorted beyond range of normal human hearing and vision is highly suspect. Oh look a deer! And then we see that someone/thing rammed into the deer head-on, nearly blacked out, and hands and bare forearms. Which might mean naked and might not! Who knows! Not us. The deer looks pretty dead, too. That's… really incredibly weird and not at all helping with any kind of knowledge. Is Dave the monster? Is Dave possessed by the monster? What kind of a being is it? Is it really a monster at all or just misunderstood? I ask that last one with my tongue only partially in my cheek, given how thoroughly we've had that trope all over the place with the Troubled before now. Is it a Trouble of Dave's? WHAT. He certainly appears to have some ideas, by that oh-shit look he's wearing, for all the good it's doing when we don't get any fucking dialogue.

Back at the cabin of Evil Gloating, Duke is accusing Mara of, well, giving him stacked Troubles that are now causing havoc around the cabin. She doesn't admit to it, but she doesn't deny it either, which should raise some suspicions and pulses and unfortunately doesn't give us a direction to go in. Outside, Dwight's been called to the scene of the death, but there isn't really much they can determine from dead body with white eyes. Plus that exploding gasoline container is a distraction. Or rather, exploding pile of sticks? And near empty gas container with fumes? Something like that. A Guardsman puts the fire out, but that's enough to kick off the chain of events in his mind to link combusting gas, dead birds as being cooked birds, disappearing cell phone signals, and it's not that hard to figure it out from there (or at least we figured it out along with Dwight) what's going on. Dwight orders everyone to get in their cars, close the doors. Rolling up the windows would be good, too. Hey, Mitchell's a lot less abrasive and a lot more good lieutenant even just in tone of voice when he's confirming he got a text out before the signal went dead! I'm not sure it counts towards characterization of him as an individual, but it's something. And everyone goes scrambling, loudly, for their cars as Duke wonders what the shit happened now inside the cabin. Mara seems pleased that he figured it out, or at least amused, and we see that the cabin isn't proof against the Trouble because that plant there, definitely dead. Mara suggests more for amusement sake, it sounds like, that Duke join them in the cars. Which at least gives him the cue that it's not him! Though he'll spell it out aloud for the sake of the audience.

In the car Dwight is also spelling out that it's microwaves that are doing this, which means it's all one Trouble not stacked out of control Troubles. And now they just have to link it up to how it started when Jodie was allegedly cured! Dwight may be, that might be his bad feeling, Duke, when we cut to the cabin again, definitely has. Which is fine as far as that goes, along with him deducing that she now has a stash of the death truffles, but why in Mid-World, End-World, or In-World would she admit that she doesn't have any more without coercion or without it clearly gaining her something? She does gloat about palming it and using it without Nathan and Dwight seeing, and we all know she loves to gloat, which is going to keep getting her into problems, but beyond that? Hell if I know. On the other hand as her gloating shifts to Jodie's new Trouble, it does serve to emphasize both how much she needs an audience (which might also tie into why the Troubles, though not without more information) and how much she rolls around in her own cleverness. Shut up. We're not nearly as bad. For one thing we actually have a moral compass that's not permanently stuck on "experimenting on people for fun and profit."

Yeah, with that information and a bit of science babble from Dwight (who still hasn't put that Smartest Guy In The Room Ball down, Dwight, share your balls) they manage to figure out that it's Jodie, and that she can't have gone far. Duke's going to go get her! As he appears banging on Nathan's window out of nowhere. Dwight reminds us and cautions him to use his truck as a microwave shield, and off he goes! Not very far, as it turns out; Deb's crashed and died, safe money is that she died and then crashed actually, and Jodie has a broken leg which explains why she's still in the car. And throwing off microwaves like a mofo, because yeah, that's a distressing situation. And then we have to confront the fact that she knows something's wrong as soon as Duke doesn't leap out of the car to help her, and he has to tell her that she's still Troubled, it's just a different and in a way more deadly Trouble, now. Because that's going to calm everything right down. He does open the window and the first thing he tells her is that her Trouble isn't gone, it's been made invisible. So, um. Take deep breaths? No, that's good information to have, at least, even if it does cause Jodie to instantly freak out that she killed Deb. Well, directly, yes, indirectly Mara bears the responsibility here, Jodie was just the weapon. And then the transition from that to the original stressor that triggered her Trouble is pretty much nonexistent, and it's jarring, but the conversation that follows is much less so. Apparently today the part of Audrey Parker will be played by Duke, as he regurgitates the lessons he's learned because of Jennifer, that someone else's unrelated death is not your fault, but the result of the choices that person made. There's no immediate indication that this will work, but the piano background is certainly suggestive.

Maddie's turn to freak right the hell out in the office and not communicate a word of what happened! This is not making me feel any better about either her relationship with the Teagues or whatever the fuck is going on, and while I'm aware it's not supposed to do the latter I'd really like some fucking answers somewhere in here. She's not even doing a good job of lying about how it didn't work, Dave fell asleep and snored and maybe Vince will be an easier subject! Ahahahahaha. Ha. Ha. On all counts. Dave rolls his pants leg back down, which suggests he had it up either subconsciously or deliberately as a trigger-mechanism for the memories. I am right there with you, Maddie, he should get that looked at. She will now call Vince in for his "appointment" aka freaking right the fuck out over the phone. SOMEDAY someone is going to spit out the most salient data the second a person answers the fucking phone. It is not this day. This day is for oh my god you won't believe it, and nor will we because we get Death From Above and blurred-at-the-edges vision monstercam while Maddie screams. Awesome. Great. This is so not what I signed up for, you guys.

Back at the cabin of Endless Bickering! Dwight rolls up with Jodie in the weirdass passenger seat that is not from our world side of the pond, and since he's not getting cooked in his own car it's a good indication that it's safe to get out! Or at the very least her being in there ought to make everyone else safe. Dwight sounds the all clear, the Guard start piling out of their cars, Dwight heading towards the cabin, Nathan heading to intercept him because the man does not know how not to monofocus. Oy vey. Let's all have a brief argument in front of the Guard about how Dwight can't talk to her like Mara and whether or not Mara can help them! That'll calm everything right down! No, not really. Nathan attempts to push Dwight's guilt buttons, which don't work because that button is permanently stuck down, extra bonus responsibility for being in a leadership position again, and Dwight just reminds him that Mara is their best bet at ending the Troubles. As Far As You Know, Dwight. Let's not forget that, although even if she can't end them herself she might have information that could lead them to ending them. Have we all forgotten the kill who you love clause? I think a lot of us have. I think I wonder if it's relevant anymore, but you never know, the point is there are alternate ways, and Mara might know them. So, okay, yes. Even if that comment about finding leverage sounds a tad desperate.

Dwight opens with the body count, which, really Dwight? Or is this your way of hoping Nathan's right, because the hell does Mara care about body count. Which she will now point out to him, along with a puzzled bit of snark thrown in Nathan's direction. Dwight attempts to point out that it could have killed her too, at which point Mara shrugs it off as saying the beams are narrow enough to get out of the way of. I question, severely, the wisdom of "if you feel the heat, move a bit" because by the speed with which those people got dead you wouldn't have time to move before some considerable damage was done but, sure, you go on thinking that Mara. And now for the eminently predictable bantering back and forth and eventually mashing down on the button that is Dwight's daughter's death. About the only thing interesting we get here is that she does refer to it as her mission, which might be her adopting his terminology or might be her own frame of reference, and her determination to get him to kill her. That determination and gloating is probably what starts setting off alarm bells in his head, though god knows what kicks him into picking up Nathan's advice of talking to her like she's Audrey. Desperation? Quite possibly. But he does, pulling on a nice emotionally powerful memory, when she went into the barn. He doesn't sound like he thinks it'll work, either (mostly he sounds tired), until she repeats a line we have in flashback a couple seconds earlier and, hey! It's Audrey! That hug she's about to go in for would be heartwarming except for the chain on her ankle dragging her and us back to reality. Okay, not that much of a drag for us, after all the awkward emotional beats on this episode I'm not as sold on the Dwight-Audrey reunion as I should be. But it's still a decent juxtaposition. And now, once again, Audrey is begging the men in her life to help her. Because that's what she's been doing all series oh wait, no. Goddammit, you guys. Extra bonus goddammit for not spitting out the salient information the instant she has a chance. That is still not this day.

Dwight comes out of the cabin with the gloomy pronouncement that Mara called his bluff, is that what was going on in there? I'm... actually not sure. There was quite a bit of dramatic frothing and certainly that was one side effect, but I'm not sure that wasn't to goad Dwight into doing something else. Either way, the point is, Dwight spent his hole card and got a glimpse of Audrey, and now he's a believer, and if you're not earwormed by now you should be. That does not mean, however, Nathan, that he is convinced bringing Audrey back is the best thing for the town. Audrey was never able to erase the Troubles and Mara still might. I'd say that's a vanishing possibility at this point, but it hasn't been ruled out. I'd also say at this point that Dwight is desperate also to put the brakes on Nathan however he can manage it. The absolute second Dwight admitted to seeing Audrey Nathan steps up with his whole intense eyes and you have to do this thing now face and, um. No. No, that's not going to happen just on Nathan's say so. It might happen because Duke brings up a very good point, if Mara can access, however unwillingly, Audrey's memories, can Audrey access Mara's memories as easily? He offers up as proof that Audrey knew about the Scoville curse even though Audrey wasn't there. I offer up as counter-evidence the fact that at the moment "it's not your fault" is a perfectly reasonable thing to say to any of the boys in Haven and it's not actual proof of anything, but it is at least evidence. A further round-robin of speculation with circling camera-work to give us the impression of rushing this along even when they're not, leads us to the thought that if the barn suppressed Mara so that other personalities could be dominant maybe now that the barn is gone, Mara's out, or at least her memories are? Well that certainly .... seems not to have happened. I mean, it sounds plausible at first blush but let's all remember that the barn imploded along with the barnvatar at the end of season three, and it took until a whole different set of circumstances involving William for any of Mara to come back at all in season four. And yes, that couldn't have happened if the barn hadn't imploded but William is the causation factor here, not the death of the barn. Guys. Guys. No, they're off and running. And pointing out that giant honking logic flaw does not actually mean Audrey doesn't have access to Mara's memories, just that that's not a good proof for it. So, okay, from that assumption it's an easy call to make, that Audrey would want to use that knowledge to help people and stop the Troubles, she was going to go into a creepy magical disappearing reappearing barn to do that. So! Let's try and bring back Audrey and see whose memories she has.

Meanwhile back in the land of other people losing their memories, Vince is coming in with all due haste like you do when someone calls in a panic and screams rather than finishing the call. Except Maddie's just packing up! Why are you packing up, Maddie. Oh, not only has she lost the solo session with Dave, but she lost the bits before it too. That's interesting, and suggests either there was something in the time leading up to the hypnosis that's nonetheless important or that the whatever-it-is doesn't have good fine control on hours/minutes of elapsed time. Maybe it just has, since Maddie walked in that door, as an ability. Maybe both things are true! I would not mind both. It doesn't take them very long from Dave walking in the door with a cheery sorry-I'm-late! to reach the conclusion that something is fucking with them, and in the one-on-one they found something, and let us dive for the notepad in the hopes of recovering it. Good thought, Vince, and stoppit with the teeth already you're looking more and more like an old, tired Randall Flagg these days. And I rather think the older and tireder that type gets, the more dangerous they are. Okay, notes, notes, heeeere notepad. Well, Maddie does see that she had the initial session, and that she induced hypnotherapy (all glory to the hypnotoad! ahem) and… nothing. Except on the following page, Croatoan, written over and over itself and circled until it looks kind of jagged. Oh that's not good. I mean, even leaving aside my annoyance over fucking Roanoke being overused in speculative fiction, that's still not good, because it's potentially (okay, highly likely to be) a specific King reference to Storm of the Century. In which a great evil comes to visit the town and demands that they sacrifice a child to be his heir and protege, with the implication of it being a cyclical thing. Extra bonus twitch because Little Tall Island, where it took place, has already been mentioned in Haven. Extra extra bonus twitch because there is a destroyed lighthouse in the miniseries. Oh goodie. This is not giving me good feelings about Dave being what it's after, potentially, particularly not when we link up great evil with memory loss with Colorado Kid with everyone's memory loss back then too. Is this thing the barnvatar? Or the same species as the barnvatar? Since we know the barn and Howard are linked to AudSarLu's memory loss every cycle, does that mean this is a… feral barnvatar? Or maybe more sickening, are all the children Howard placed for adoption of the same species as he is/was, are they all capable of memory-wiping and part of this is Dave losing control over his abilities? In which case does Vince know about it, or did he find out about it back in '83 and have his memory wiped? Or did he never know? As ever, getting something that can be plausibly linked up with many other events in Haven doesn't give us answers so much as half a dozen new questions, and I really really hope they don't drag this one out for the sake of plot too much longer. Because we've been sitting on this one for-fucking-ever.

Back at the cabin apparently we're having a not so fast moment, despite the fact that everyone was ready to charge in and shake Audrey out of Mara when we cut the scene. Nathan is only now surprised (which is either an error in script timing or an indication of how little Nathan's thinking past his reflexes, in this case I'm going to go with the latter) that Audrey appeared for Dwight because, well. They talk around it some but basically the gist is, because she was never in love with him that way. There's even some evidence for that because Audrey never manifested for any of the people who thought she was Audrey before, and also we get Nathan shrugging and insisting that he's fine with Audrey loving? caring for? whatevering Duke, indicated by way of her coming out for Duke. Who isn't buying that any more than we are, but it's still funny. And it's fucking hilarious when Duke takes that all the way to the final extrapolation that Dwight's the latest, at which point Dwight verbally backs the hell up. Oh everyone. No, after circling around that they manage to land on the correct answer, which is that it has to be an intense emotional trigger, and helping people with the Troubles definitely would do it. All right then! That's a workable plan, and one that has more to go for it than Nathan's stubbornness.

The plan will be shot more like your standard horror-interrogation sequence, too, whether that's because of what they're doing to Maraudrey or what's about to happen to Audrey is left as an exercise for the viewer to parse. We will parse it as the former because this whole fucking scene is a nice neat summation of all our problems with free will and consent as far as who's getting the body. It's not a fucking game of blindman's bluff, people, it's at least two people's lives you're talking about in that body alone, to say nothing of the rest of the town. Dwight, at least, is cognizant that he's doing something pretty fucking awful here. Duke I think might be. Nathan? Nah. As Nathan's punishment, I guess, for being a fucking moron, he will discover what happens when you reveal to Mara that you know something she doesn't! There's fisheye lens on all the circling closeups of the guys, too, just for added bonus intimidation factor. Ew. Their emotional blunt force trauma ranges from first time Nathan and Audrey had sex to Dwight and his daughter and how much survivor's guilt he's carrying to how well Duke knows Audrey, right down to knowing it was her and not Lexie. I mean, on some level I'm mildly to moderately impressed with how well the three of them are working together. It's a level several below the layers of OH GOD EW at this deliberate manipulation. Right down to unchaining her and proceeding to ignore Mara's demands not to be touched seriously. I need the steel wool. I hope I was supposed to need the steel wool after this scene. Do we all remember the fansplosion following the rape scene in Game of Thrones that the production higher-ups (most to, what, all? men) said totally wasn't a rape scene? If you don't, the internet does. Yeah, this is giving me the same horrible overwhelming force and complete vulnerability of the victim vibes without any clear sign that that's what was intended, and given everything else I would like at least a couple of those clear signs. I'm going to hope this was intended to be essentially a scene of mental brutalization, because thinking otherwise makes me even more sad and angry. And all of that said, it is a lot of really crucial information that they get out of her for a change, while Dwight looks appropriately chagrined in the background. At least someone retains a moral compass here, and I'm taking that as my hopeful indication that we are meant to feel bad that they're doing this to Mara.

Also also, you know those internal struggle scenes I mentioned? Between Audrey and Mara? Yeah, I'd actually be a lot more sympathetic to damselifying Audrey if we had some indication of just what it was like in there, because right now the writers aren't selling me on the awful. Audrey's been through a lot of awful! What could warrant her damselification in this manner, come the fuck on. Sometimes the scary thing does need to be shown at least a little. Anyway. She doesn't have much time, Mara just found out she's in there, implying Audrey's been running around trying to keep Mara from knowing all of this time. FUN. Not. And death of personality scares the shit out of her, possibly because it's not death it's imprisonment? That's sure what it sounds like, and I'm sure that's what Nathan will latch onto next episode. The upshot, though, is that Audrey can't remember before the cave… um. How is she remembering the emotions attached to these three? Is she just getting flashes? That was a very poorly worded bit of dialogue and gives us no clarity whatsofuckingever. But she doesn't have access to Mara's memories, just whatever Mara's thinking about at the time, and neither she nor Mara can cure the Troubles because Mara is a lying liar who lies. In other news, the surprised face jar has not in fact hatched a Horseman or a Kindred, that was a vicious lie. In other news, yes, Dwight, you're fucked. Hands up who's surprised that Dwight's the one who gets them on track to find out anything useful ever? Yeah, thought not. But that's all they get before Mara shoves Nathan backwards and starts issuing death threats again. Starting with all of them, and then leading into the much more immediate and to the point Audrey. The very last look on her face is slightly more Audrey than Mara, which suggests it's a struggle still to do, but I'm not at all sold on any likelihood at this point. I am very, very tired, internet, of the writers believing in the great love story above a great story about really knotty ethical questions. If you can't have both, your great love story is essentially saying "fuck everyone else I got my lover back," and while that works under certain limited circumstances, in a situation where everyone else is in clear and present danger, not so much. I'm just going to point you all at the ending of Cap2 again, whether or not you ship anyone with anyone in that movie, and replace lover with best friend, okay? Okay.

Next week! They're back to airing Friday in the death slot, which does not make anyone sanguine about the chances of getting more after these 26 eps. Not that we were sanguine to begin with, that's the kind of shit SyFy does when they're declaring a show over or almost over, but that's like sounding the death knell right there. Duke may be sounding a death knell for Audrey. Nathan's taking her on a case anyway. Everyone's switching bodies! Oh god. This should at least result in hilarious, hilarious acting challenges. If half the outtakes on this season's gag reel aren't from this pair of of eps I will be very disappoint. Also this one with the gibberish Trouble. Oh, and suddenly Nathan's saying not to unchain her, though whether or not the her refers to Mara rather than some other her who got bodyswapped is an open question thank you trailer editor.