To Serve Man Haven S2E10 Who What Where Wendigo?

Previouslies tell us that Dwight is a bullet magnet, the poor bastard. Dwight just so you know, you can't actually protect people if you're dead or in hospital recovering from bullet wounds and/or cracked ribs. (Kevlar only goes so far.) I tease about the urges under his Trouble because of one part sympathy and two parts ow. Evi was working for the Rev! She swears it was because she wanted to help Duke find out about his past and/or protect him from the Rev, which shows a staggering degree of naivete considering her usual line of work. Also a significant attachment to Duke despite how they clash on a regular basis. And she also severely overestimates her importance to the Rev and his men, getting herself shot and killed when she assumes she's not expendable. Oh honey. You were definitely not used to people playing games this rough. Hell, Duke's not, not entirely, though he's more so than Evi was, as witness his swallowing back grief and rage to pretend like he's going to be a good little follower and find out his answers. Anyone who knows Duke, knows that revenge is probably worth more to him than answers, and that he'll take both if he can get both, but I'd say it's clear the Rev is playing all the odds. We have a last shot from last ep of the Rev versus Dwight-Audrey-Nathan, which is an interesting cluster and certainly not at all representative of Dwight standing in for Vince.

The ep proper opens with… none of Our Heroes! So we have a Trouble that's not what it seems and they're flinging us data as well as red herrings. Yay! Instead, a newscast over the radio, a trucker flossing in his rearview mirror while we hear about a brutal murder of a dental hygienist, really you guys? And oh look they've decided it's a serial killer with so far seven bodies that they know about. They even have a description! I suspect this is because the murders all happened in different jurisdictions and looked like crimes of passion; these are the kinds of things where you file all the forensics and then hope for a break in the detective footwork. Our trucker is halfway posited as the killer as he goes about his business, since he also leers and ogles all over the girl working the gas station who comes out on break. But no! Then a guy fitting the description right down to the rose tattoo walks out and is bashed into by some teenaged boy, who spills his coffee, apologizes, and runs faster. Our trucker seems to think he can go be a big damn hero with the handgun he keeps in the truck for protection. Dude. You don't even keep the fucking thing in the glovebox? It's just hanging out there? Your safety precautions suck and you should feel bad. GET YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER OH MY GOD. Well, at least we KNOW he's supposed to be a moron. Rounding the corner brings a whole lot of animal-tearing-something-to-shreds noises from the shed out back, and then we get monster-shaky-cam footage as the trucker gets shoved hard out the door by whatever was making those noises. DUN DUN DUNN.

Now we get to find out what's up with Our Heroes. Audrey is on her third cup of coffee, Nathan informs us, and about as jittery and twitchy as you'd expect from that. He tries to nudge her into talking about it, she takes a page from the Book of Nathan and refuses to discuss it, citing the laundry list of shit he's just dealt with, to which he out-stoics her and repeats that he didn't go through a breakup. Oh EVERYONE. No, no you did not, Nathan, and Audrey is tired and would like to sleep like a normal person again. I feel that. Audrey will walk away to take witness/victim statements now bye Nathan! The trucker is now insisting that whatever he saw it wasn't normal, and the guy he saw, serial killer or no, didn't look like he had the strength to do that, etc etc. I question his assessment of people's strength, the guy looked pretty wiry-strong to me, but again, we do KNOW he's a moron. Dwight will happily take advantage of both this and his disorientation due to mild concussion, and inform him it was totally a black bear and he's lucky not to have been eviscerated. No. Black bear. For serious. Nothing to see here, sir, move on. Audrey cracks wise about Dwight looking like a Viking, but she's not wrong: a man that size, people tend to defer to him out of a sense that he could punch them but instead he's just arguing with them.

Meanwhile, the cops will take out after the blood trail from the shed. They're assuming the blood is one Rory Campbell's, whose father has already been called down, and it leads straight into the woods. Oh yay a woods search just what everyone wants. And a leather bracelet with the inscription "forever" on it, because that's not creepy and disturbing. Nathan advocates for said group search, call in backup, etc, because that's protocol and in this case it is SMART protocol, given the number of things that can fuck you up in the woods. Audrey is taking the traumatized tack of we can't trust anyone it's us against the world no calling anyone else in, for which I can't entirely blame her, but isolating them further is probably not the answer. And have you forgotten so fast that Duke and Dwight really do seem to be on your side? Apparently yes! Dammit, Audrey, says us and Nathan's face, and roll credits.

We take a couple minutes now to get to know Rory's father a little; no, he doesn't know about the stamp on the bracelet, where the hell are the Staties and hounds to help find the serial killer and his son who he is going to refuse to admit might be dead. Which, frankly, given that he doesn't show any signs of knowing about the wendigo girls, is pure stubborn denial at this point. Campbell will proceed to be gruff, angry, and otherwise demonstrate that Goddammit He Is A Man And Doing Something About This, even if it's probably futile. (Semi-hilariously, I'm working on this ep the week the #MasculinitySoFragile hashtag made its way around Twitter, so I'm extra-attuned to these things.) He also knows about the Troubles, his family's longterm Havenites, though the way he speaks if he's not one of the Rev's people, he's not that far removed from them. Although it's hard to determine how much of his vitriol is directed at the serial killer for being a serial killer, and how much for maybe being Troubled. "Twisted freak" is a phrase that could well apply to either. Regardless, Campbell senior is damn well coming and he was a Marine and you can't run this with only two people. He's not wrong! He's just, uh, what we might call emotionally compromised. Dwight, so are you, with your insisting that you come along because a kid is missing. You could be more obvious about it, but you'd need a neon sign the size of you saying Lost A Child Once. Nathan's not wrong about the risk, though, or about Dwight's deathwish. Looking back from the perspective of the last five seasons, I would like to know if anyone in this fucking town DOESN'T have a deathwish. (Kitty suggests Dave; I will allow that his is at most subconscious and he seems to enjoy living!)

Duke is not the answer to that question. Duke is even now not the answer to that question, being that he just lost Evi and is pretty much running on rage, revenge, and the desire for answers. Duke is also not the answer to the question of hey, would you like to come chase a serial killer with us? Audrey you ask your friends on the weirdest outings. He turns her down once, then again more firmly when she suggests it might be a worthwhile distraction and offers some sympathy. Not very well said sympathy, mind you. Yeah no thanks, and with that tone and facial expression it seems pretty clear to the audience that Duke's "plans" are going to sync up sooner rather than later with Audrey and Nathan's manhunt. Wendigohunt. Whatever. Instead, Nathan got the Teagues in! Oh goodie, does this mean I can threaten them with a serial killer and/or wendigo until they cough up answers? Although this time Vince and Dave are arguing (again) and Dave is on the side of telling people things. Vince is not. Vince is never on the side of telling anyone anything. I'm pretty sure if he could somehow not-tell himself things he'd do that. Whatever the fight was about, we don't get to hear in detail because Campbell starts to hare off into the woods by himself, like an impatient overprotective parent. Shocking, I know, that you have to handle this! Nathan grumps at him and splits them into teams: Campbell and Audrey, Dave and Nathan, Dwight and Vince. Well that's not significant or anything! It also, to be fair, does put a cop and Trouble-immune person with the complete unknown aside from overly impulsive person, and splits the older two up so that someone younger and more fit is there to watch their backs, and gets the benefit of their woods-knowledge. I specify because this is the Teagues we're talking about, after all. Vince points at Dave all command-warning-like as they go, a silent reminder not to fucking tell Nathan things. Dammit, Vince. He will now proceed to call Dwight out a helluva lot harder than Nathan did on the deathwish, indicating a significantly deeper relationship than we've seen between the two as yet. Asks if it's because he went to see Lizzie, or more accurately her grave, recently, and no he hasn't, but when pressed he finally coughs up that yesterday would've been her ninth birthday. Oh honey. I mean, you KNOW you're doing the deathwish thing, and why, but could you work on not actually doing it in the first place? No? Alas.

We shall be interrupted from Vince trying to talk sense into Dwight's PTSD by creepy screams in the treetops! Vince I don't know what the fuck you think unslinging that rifle's going to do when you know you have a bullet magnet next to you, but okay. Maybe you're trusting to his Ranger unarmed combat to tackle the whatever it is and hold it so it can be shot. Let's go visit Audrey and Campbell instead, where she's grumpy about creepy-and-invisible as a combination, not that I can blame her, and he's questioning her competence. In a fit of incredibly perfect timing, rather than directly answer his question about how well she can track in the woods, she will make him stop macho posturing at her by telling him to stop fucking standing on the blood-and-gore trail. I shouldn't laugh AND YET. This trail leads at first to a dead, disemboweled raccoon, which is a minor casualty to the serial killer impaled up on a tree branch. Also disemboweled and possibly chewed. Yech. Put your macho comments away, dude, and let Dwight deal with the crime scene. Audrey suggests maybe Rory did it, as the last known person seen with the serial killer, which is only good cop protocol, and daddy dearest counters with "but he was almost valedictorian!" Okay, dude, I get that you're upset and all, but you do know that's not an actual argument against your son having killed someone in horrible ways? Right? No, he'll just ignore that. Dave relates the story of the wendigo for those of us who don't actually know it, which turns into what is I think the first mention of the Mi'kmaq and also informs us that this is a state park. Campbell dismisses this as nonsense. I continue to lower my opinion of his intelligence, did you or did you not just SAY that you know about the Troubles? Is that such a fucking stretch? My god. Dwight will now inform us that he's sure those are toothmarks, which gives me all of the eyebrows. Dwight how do you already know what that looks like. What in god's name did you get up to in Afghanistan. I mean, I'm sure I don't actually want to know, but seriously. Vince and Dave argue over telling people about the wendigo some more, Audrey makes Campbell assert even more firmly that no, there's no history on either side of the family of the Troubles, this is someone else and it's still hunting his son now stop asking stupid questions, lady. About that condescending, too. I admire her for not having punched him yet, grieving and scared or no. Further argument will be cut off once again by the scream of what everyone's pretty sure now is a wendigo! Yay.

Our final pair, now everyone's split back into their teams, gets to talk about wendigos! Thank you, Dave, for any kind of actual information ever. Nathan says he saw the sneaker prints but they were about eight feet apart, which, okay, I just got up and did a few probably very weird tests that concerned the cat, but even given a long loping stride I can get up to about three feet, and I'm 5'6", so not only are we talking twice as fast as normal human, Dave, we're talking about Dwight's size or taller. Which, once we find the teenage girl wendigos in question, gives me a lot of Um. By twice do you mean like three times? At any rate, Dave claims never to have seen one, but he certainly believes in the Troubles, and the ending to that might even be that he believes that a Trouble might exist to make people behave like wendigos, or to have originally propagated the myth. Except no, we now have suspicious crunching in the underbrush.

Surprise! Not a wendigo! A wild Duke appears! He uses shotgun pointed at Nathan's face! It's surprisingly not effective. For one, Nathan also has a gun; for two, it's Duke, so all he gets is narrowed eyes and the Nathan equivalent of "what the everloving fuck." Well, it turns out the Rev and three of his goons are what the everloving fuck, and he wants Nathan to put the gun down because the goons are all aiming at Nathan. Just in case we needed more demonstration of what an arrogant fucking asshole the Rev is. Correctly identifying the main threat, Nathan turns to point his gun at the Rev, up until Audrey wanders in with her gun up and pointing at Driscoll, which combined with nobody standing down on her "three" is reason enough for Nathan to go back to aiming at Duke. I mean, it's decent tactics: you've got a known good shot and the leader of the pack, you start there and hope the unknowns are slower than they look with those rifles. All of which have, let's note, scopes attached. I feel kinda sorry for Audrey by now, not only is she paranoid and twitchy and inclined to shoot all y'all assholes, she's getting a heftier dose than usual of the "we're all manly men here and know things you don't and are better than you so why should we listen" style of sexism, which is definitely not helping with the paranoid and twitchy. Nathan points out that assaulting a police officer is a felony, which it is, add deadly weapon onto that, and the Rev comes back with the asinine "just protecting our own." Uh… huh. Nobody believes that. Audrey doesn't want to believe that Duke's gone over to the Rev's side of things, and challenges him on it openly. Not the smartest move, since all he can really do is parrot the concerned citizens line and let the Rev take it from there. They're out to help hunt the serial killer and save the boy! That's… sweet. Helpful. By which I mean you are totally hoping this is a Trouble, Edmund Driscoll, and that you get to shoot someone or have Duke shoot them and activate his Trouble. Also you're an asshole. Unfortunately, Campbell is either not familiar with the Rev's machinations or sides with him more than he does the cops, or he's just a straight-up pragmatist, because he's still not wrong when he says they need the numbers. Nathan would like a more up close and personal "what the fuck" with Duke, who says no, he's insane for expecting results out of the same thing over and over, and Evi's dead. Basically, he can't change what is, he might be able to change what will be if Nathan will stop getting in his way, and technically none of what he says is actually lying to either of them. He hasn't made a date with the Rev, he's using the Rev and hoping it pays off faster than the Rev using him. At least that's the strong implication. Audrey is too upset and fucked up to get that message, by the worry and rather hectic color to her face.

And she'll prove it as they go along their merry, having swapped out partners somewhat. It looks like Campbell's gone with the Rev and his men, maybe hoping to be leading a squad-shape of people? He seems like the kind of guy who takes issue with not getting to be at least a squad leader, insert eyerolling here. Nathan and Audrey are paired back up, leaving Duke and Dwight paired and, presumably, the Teagues together once again. I'm not sure how I feel about that last. I mean, less damage to everyone else, but fewer chances to pry intel out of them. Anyway. Audrey thinks Duke's entirely lost it, which isn't entirely inaccurate. He's certainly lost a lot of his usual inhibitions, and considering how counter to normal society they run, it shows more than it otherwise might. Nathan continues to be the voice of reason, pointing out this is within the range of normal responses to loss, though Audrey also has a point in that pointing a gun at someone who's at least an ally if not a friend… not so much with the normal. Whether by Duke standards or everyone else standards. Nathan hopes he's bluffing. Everyone hopes he's bluffing! Audrey is sure the Rev's men were not bluffing, and expresses some general willingness to, if not shoot them in the face, at least be prepared for that eventuality before one of them gets shot in the back. This is so not the way to win friends, influence people, or avoid bloodshed. I'm just saying.

Over to Dwight and Duke, where Duke is still mildly caretaking as he reminds Dwight to do up his laces. Awww. And then snarks at him in the seconds after over if he's going to a Renaissance Faire. And how exactly do you know what a Ren Faire is, Duke? Are there photos? Were you running a con with Evi? PLEASE SAY THERE ARE PHOTOS. Ahem. Feel free to picture Duke with your favorite Faire performers now, lord knows I am. On a more somber note, Dwight appears to be hallucinating his daughter in ballet outfit. Dwight. Please go get that PTSD with dissociative features checked out and medicated. Please? At least this seems to be common enough that he knows looking away will break it, and turns out Duke's vanished on down the way, just in time for another creepy scream. Because every scream means a scene change, we move back to Nathan and Audrey, with a fairly adorable bit between them about the singleton squirrel chattering and yelling means it's scared shitless, not talking to another squirrel. Apparently Nathan read a lot of gun and hunting magazines as a bored kid in rural Maine. Aww. Wait, what's this? Is it a green girl's bloodstained sweatshirt? IT IS. Audrey wonders how many people this thing needs to eat, assuming it's even a wendigo to start with, and then we get multiple bloodcurdling screams. Yes. You are surrounded by wendigo. ENJOY. They don't have time for that, though, because Rory comes pelting out of the underbrush to be caught by his father, we don't know where the hell he turned up from, and Rory would evidently like very much not to be near other people right now. Well that's suspicious as fuck. Even more suspicious is him trying to get away from his father who is, while overbearing, to all appearances a decent enough dad, and immediately taking the blame for the serial killer's death, in one of the most unconvincing displays of "I'm taking the blame for someone else" I have ever seen on any show. It doesn't seem like anyone's buying this line of bullshit for an instant, with Nathan taking point on yeah, so, give us specifics? What'd you do exactly? Only they will now be sidelined by one of the Rev's men staggering out to the beach with a bitten leg shouting about being bitten by a very fast human-shaped thing. Sure, he claims it's human, but we all know what trauma can do to memory, so let's just go with humanoid for now. Rory takes advantage of this distraction to go dashing back into the woods, much to his father's dismay, and Audrey and Nathan conclude that it's not after him but the wendigo are after them.

We cut after the ad break to a long shot of the group going out to the lakeshore and starting to make camp. However much they may not want to be a cohesive group right now, nobody wants to get eaten, so sticking together until they know more is probably a good idea, yes. And then it's night, and the Rev and his men don't have a fire started though there's the beginnings of one set up. Dwight, go Ranger at them until they buy a clue. Nathan looks to be walking over to offer to help, or something, it's not clear, but it gets Duke and Audrey alone by her lit fire, no symbolism here at ALL that's just the footrest I turned the anvil into. We will now have a massive clash of communication styles: Duke is coming over to ask for firestarting tips as a peace offering, and Audrey sees him asking her for help after lying to and threatening her and hers. Neither of them is wrong, they're just approaching everything the wrong way for the other, which results in a hissed screaming match over whether or not Duke's trustworthy, knows what he's doing, etc. Eventually Duke calms down, sits down, and explains that yes of course it matters that Evi's dead and one of the men over there killed her, that it's ultimately the Rev's fault. But he's getting answers dangled in front of his nose and he can tell they're to an enormous puzzle, and he doesn't need to tell Audrey outright how much that matters to him, and that she knows what it's like. Meanwhile she goes quiet and rueful because she's in the awkward position of having to admit even tacitly that she believed the worst of Duke, only really being able to say welcome to the club. Yeah, it's a shitty club, you don't even get t-shirts. And now she'll meet Duke on his terms and tell him that dried grass and animal dung burns forever, which finally gives them the opening to talk about a) Audrey's self-doubt and lack of self-image and b) that Duke believes in her, no really he does. It's glossed over with gentle teasing, but that's what it amounts to. She will now offer him the reminder that some answers you don't get to unlearn and you might really fucking wish you had, and Duke has some kind of a reply for her, probably on the order of yeah but not knowing is killing him, except it's wendigo time again.

I'm going to be over here laughing that in the entire couple minutes they've been talking, nobody has gotten the Rev's fire started. On some level I'm sure that's for the symbolism, on another level I love the gender commentary, and on the purely Watsonian level I wonder if Dwight was just hanging out all "I've stayed rougher places overnight without a fire you can all suck it I don't like any of you that much." Because you know he knows how to light a fire from nothing, it's square in Ranger training's wheelhouse. At any rate: wendigos! Form a perimeter and watch the idiot ex-Marine go charging into the darkness to "take the fight to the enemy." Oh my god dude you are so lucky you're plot-vital and don't get killed you are everything wrong with the military. The Rev will back him because of course he will, Duke's "amen" is so fake-hearty I can't believe he fools anyone, and Nathan will go charging after him because he doesn't want Duke to get himself killed. Aww honey. I have no idea what Dwight thinks he's doing other than trying to protect the idiot civilians, but we leave the Teagues standing on the shore with a very OH GOD WHY US pair of looks on. Well, you guys, when you insisted on keeping info from everyone…

See, this is what happens when you charge into the woods in the middle of the fucking night: you trip and fall. In Nathan's case, all but facefirst into a dead and disemboweled deer. Yeah, I'd freak out and grab up my gun too if I heard someone approaching. Except it turns out to be a teenage girl, who identifies Nathan by name and begs him for help, then proceeds to order the growling little sister "no." Don't eat the nice cop, Sophie. Nathan wants to know no what, in tones that suggest he already knows and would really like not to have it confirmed. Sorry, Nathan, the oh-shit is intensifying, Sophie's hungry.

Audrey will now look for Nathan. WHY DID YOU ALL SPLIT THE PARTY. YOU ARE ALL BEING DUMB. Has nobody ever seen a horror movie? Honestly. Plus you know damn well there are multiple potential hostiles out there, you're being even dumber. Reverend Driscoll, you should also know better, though I suppose you think your faith will keep you safe as well as warm at night. Sigh. Certainly his self-righteousness is strong enough to do something by, though I'm not sure the something is printable. They have a nice little talk about how Driscoll put everyone at risk when he let them all go play action hero and by the way where's Nathan? He doesn't know. But he's gonna kill all the Troubled and fix Haven's problems, and I'm quite certain he's talking to Lucy and maybe Sarah as well when he says she's been coddling them for too long and getting people killed. Not that Audrey knows that, though by now she might suspect. She is very visibly considering shooting the bastard as he walks away, not that I blame her, because anyone who says shit like yeah but we'll kill the right people is definitely suspect and probably going to hurt someone innocent (again) sooner rather than later. Instead she demands to know where Nathan is once more, getting nothing but the Rev turning his back and walking away on her, like he knows she'll never shoot him. LITTLE DOES HE KNOW. Not in cold blood, anyway.

Nathan finds her instead! Nathan I honestly do not fucking know WHAT your thinking was when you tackled her from behind and covered her mouth with the hand still bloody from falling over the deer carcass. You're goddamn lucky she didn't manage to shoot you and was too surprised to put her hand-to-hand to use right away. Lectures can wait until later, though, right now he has two little girls in trouble (and Trouble) for her to help. The older is named Frankie, presumably for Francesca, and we enter creepy children and exposition land! Some fumbling around for explanations later, not that I blame the poor kids, Nathan takes over and explains that their parents dying in a plane crash set off their Trouble, they can survive on any raw flesh but hunger for human, and moving out to the middle of nowhere helps them control their Trouble so they don't have to smell people and think prey. Oh honeys. Okay, then what about the body? Apparently middle sister Amelia has, um, control issues, and possibly issues with wanting to control it, and Frankie won't say it outright but yes, she thinks Rory could've lured the serial killer into the woods for his girlfriend to eat. "Way too intense" is code for something unpleasant, without knowing the details of the girls' idiolect I won't hazard a guess as to specifics, and we don't get any more exposition because first off, Sophie's starving and having literal stomach pains as a result, poor kid, and second of all the Rev's men are coming out again. Fucking seriously? You couldn't go back to the camp and stay put like normal people? For fuck's sake. Frankie gives them a couple locations, one where she and Sophie will hide out and the ranger's station where she thinks Rory and Amelia might be, we get our first glimpse of wendigo movement as a sign of their trust in Audrey and Nathan, and Audrey is now not going to let the Rev kill these girls. Aww Audrey. This is a really shitty Trouble, too, my god, who did what to Mara or William to get that one and can I have a time machine to give them a nice lively bear to eat?

Morning dawns with some kind of Native-sounding? music, which gives me all of the eyebrows since I don't know enough to know if they did their research and picked something non-appropriative and also appropriate, or if this is kind of godawful. I'm also somewhere between amused and facepalming over Audrey's face superimposed over the landscape of Haven's natural beauty, which could possibly scream "this woman is an integral part of this area" louder but again, neon signs would be needed. Anyway. Campbell is tromping around with the Rev's men, and Amelia and Rory are at the ranger's station. Now that I look at that I have EVEN MORE eyebrows because yes, actually, the Amy-and-Rory Doctor Who run had started by the time this season was in production, so this really seems like some kind of a nod. (You want too intense, Frankie? Try hanging out waiting for your beloved for a thousand years.) Rory brings her water in the morning and wow does she look like shit. Apparently this is because one or both of them had the bright idea to treat the obligate-carnivore part of being a wendigo as though it's a drug addiction that can be cured by waiting it out. Um. You guys are impressively dumb. Amelia I have sympathy for because lord knows she's got a bad case of middle sibling syndrome and just wants to be special without being ostracized. Rory is an idiot and should be punched. This bit is a bit disorganized and unclear, too, we don't know when they decided this. Was it after she ate the serial killer? And one or both of them was shocked, disgusted, horrified, some combination of all three by it? Can a wendigo go that quickly from one feed to ravenous to the point of loss of control? We don't know! And we've only seen one person, one deer, and one raccoon ripped open as food sources, so honestly what the fuck. With bonus what the fuck for are none of you pragmatic enough to look at your needs and actually eat the entire goddamn carcass of whatever it is? Rory proceeds to get up close and personal. Rory do not act like you're going to make out with the starving apex predator have you lost your tiny mind? Both of them? Honestly this ep can be summed up as UGH TEENAGE BOYS WHY. Because as soon as she shoves him away he decides that she can't actually hold out and this isn't like addiction and she needs food! If I didn't need to type, my hands would be glued to my face.

Somehow or another they've managed to split into two groups of five, with Our Heroes being in the group that should hopefully reach the cabin first: Audrey, Nathan, Dwight, and the Teagues. Then we've got the Rev, Duke, Campbell, and I only counted two goons this time around, maybe they sent wosshisface who got bit back home. The point of this, however, is Duke and the Rev having a brief little conversation - well, lecture - about how important moral certitude is and blah blah blah could you sound a little MORE like a cult leader, Driscoll? God he's creepy. Duke thinks so too, but he's doing a decent enough job of hiding it, and more importantly he's letting the very genuine interest in having a conversation with the Rev about his father and his supposed destiny to save Haven show through. Which is the bait the Rev's dangling in front of him, because while he's very very bad at people in some ways, Driscoll does know how to dangle bait and lead people just a little further down the garden path than they think they're going to go. This is how he's been a successful cult leader for any number of years! He's definitely been around, by the sound of things, since Lucy, although I think he'd only know of Sarah and women prior by oral history because he seems to be of a generation with Garland, or maybe in between Garland and the Teagues, making him a child to adolescent in Sarah's day. (The actor himself would've been seven or eight, as it turns out.) And we all know that the Rev's idea of saving Haven is to have a Crocker kill all the Troubled people and then presumably kill himself and rid Haven of all Troubles forever and aye, yes? Yes. C'mere, Driscoll, I need to punch you - oh okay, sure, a rock to the head works too. Really, Rory?

Yes really. And not only that but he's gotten Amelia from the ranger's station as everyone comes up on it, Nathan first scooping up the cup of water and no, no fires, no nothing that would indicate how long it's been. I would suggest that maybe if someone else had picked it up, they could see if someone had been holding it a long time by residual body heat? But alas. Fire would've been their best clue, though, and there is none, and oh by the way Duke would like to announce that the Rev's gone and no he didn't hear anything. How much that was willful not hearing anything because fuck the Rev and how much that's Duke flailing around going BUT I SHOULD BE BETTER THAN THIS, who knows. Another goon would like us to know that it's "that thing" and yes indeed wossface went to the hospital. As you do, for bites. No wonder they didn't get much searching done after that yesterday. Dwight will track them! Campbell confirms! Honey, Dwight is a better tracker than you ever fucking were, quit it. (There's an argument to be made for them as mirror images in this ep, honestly, though I don't believe we know about Dwight and his Ranger training yet.) Audrey calls a halt and a that's nice boys but you're just tracking whatever's in front of you, how about we use the knowledge Frankie gave us? Yes. That is a good idea and you should feel good for having it, Audrey. The Teagues will stay behind in case of extra wendigos and it occurs to me that I have a question: how in seven hells did they manage to get everyone updated on the exact nature of the situation in this environment? Was it just after they separated into groups for the morning, or what? Dwight and Nathan and Audrey will book it for Frankie's corner of the park to get her to be a good big sister and help them talk Amelia down, assuming that's necessary. Or control her physically.

Except when they get to Frankie and Sophie, Sophie is incredibly sick and needs to eat. Real food. Preferably people food. Oh yay. Well, Dwight's paternal senses are tingling so he's taking this one and Nathan and Audrey can go with Frankie to deal with the genuinely problematic Troubled person. To be fair, this is a pretty easy cost-benefit from his perspective: worst case scenario, sure, he gets eaten, but the person immune to the Troubles and her partner the chief of police are still alive. Plus a little girl who can't really be blamed for her Trouble is alive. I mean, it assumes that Dwight's life is expendable, but you know he got that one ground in really thoroughly in Ranger training, so we basically can't work on any other assumption, at least not until he gets to be the chief of police himself. (And even then it's only a different degree of expendable.) It also has the bonus effect of taking him away from all the people with guns while doing something necessary and useful: it's still dangerous, sure, but he can potentially outwit Sophie's Trouble and the dangers of the woods. Not so much the bullets. So! He scoops her up, he is not taking her to a hospital with all the people and blood around, good Dwight, and Audrey is basically asking Frankie to track her own sister by scent. Oh everyone. Sucks, but would suck more if she got shot by the Rev or his people. SPEAKING OF WHICH. Rory is encouraging Amelia to eat the Rev because he was going to kill her. Rory you are taking all the wrong lessons from your dad, since this one seems to be "do unto others before they can do unto you." Amelia is not exactly happy about this but she's not exactly in control, either. Oh, and the others are coming so he should presumably go the fuck away. Not that he will immediately.

And now for some incredibly adorable paternal Dwight with Sophie, talking about the Nutcracker and who she wants to dance in it someday. The prince! I love you Sophie never change. She's far enough out of it not to hear the past tense in "my daughter loved ballet," which means she asks for her name, and Dwight gets hit in the mildly distracted due to gutpunching and oh look that's a bear trap. Well. This should be fun. If by fun you understand I mean painful and I'm going to wince every time we have to see his leg. Like this is the part where it gets really clear just how far his training extends, because normal people, even extraordinary ordinary people, do not have these kinds of OW FUCK okay assess the situation reflexes that he does. Meanwhile Rory is pulling everyone away from Amelia and the Rev by running off and calling for help. Sound a little less convincing, kid. Amelia please get better taste in boyfriends. One with some brains he's not keeping in his dick would be a great start. Duke and the Rev's goons go haring off toward the sound, lacking anything else to go on and needing to back up Campbell as he chases the sound of his son. Frankie, however, would like them to know they're being tricked and there's blood in the opposite direction. Point of order: are you sure that's the Rev's blood and not Dwight's you're smelling? I mean narrative convenience says yes, she's right, but I'm just saying, if her senses are that good it's a valid concern.

And that is in fact a lot of blood, though mostly it's hidden by soaking into his dark pants and/or being trapped under skin and muscle by the trap. Dwight tries Feat of Strength! It is not effective. He tries Tug The Trap Stake! Still not effective. Fucking fine, says Dwight, c'mere and eat me, kid. Starting with the arm, so he's not actually trying to die right away. Just get maimed a little. He can live without an arm, and she can't live without food, and he is food, QED. No and also hell no, says Sophie, you're gonna save me! And then she proceeds to basically be a lion lying down like a lamb. Oh kid. See, Dwight, this is what happens when you bond with people, they don't want to hurt you. Especially little orphan girls in need of parental figures which you willingly provided. Dork. A lot more pulling at the stake later, which must be incredibly painful (but not as bad as it's going to be!), he proves her right by getting it out of the ground, getting Sophie back into his arms, and walking off with the bear trap still dug in. Have I mentioned his terrifying fucking training in the last two paragraphs? I think I should again.

Apparently eating a serial killer is fair game, pun intended, but eating the Rev isn't? O-kay. I am 100% sure that Rory deliberately enticed the serial killer into getting eaten, although we don't know if Amelia was too hungry to resist or took part intentionally. Either way I have all of the UM for this: I know the psychology at work here, I even know it's legit and not the writers pulling things out of their collective ass, I just want to sigh at the monkeys now. She flails around a bit with blood-licking before cutting him loose and telling him to run, a thing we know damn well he won't do. Because of course he won't, he needs to cleanse Haven of its sins. I hate you so much, Driscoll. Cue a speech about how evil will always out, you have to cut it off where it lives, BLAH BLAH FUCKING BLAH. I mean, I loathe him and all he stands for, but we should note that he's also profiling himself when he says this shit. He really does hate humanity, which includes himself, and thinks he's the most pure which isn't saying much, and he knows how bad he is therefore everyone else should be killed. Ew. Ew ew ew. But I'm pretty sure it's what's going on in his head all the time, to say nothing of as he's about to kill the girl who just spared his life against all her instincts and needs. Nathan and Frankie come up just as he's about to stab Amelia, and while I believe the wendigo could've taken care of the problem, Audrey seems to've done a flanking action. For lo, there is a gunshot, the girls comforting each other, and a very startled dead Reverend Driscoll. That was an actual straight to the heart bullet, too, proper center of mass and everything. Textbook, as opposed to TV. Behind him, Audrey is equal parts terrified that she was nearly too late, terrified about everything this means for the future, and, I think, scared that she took some satisfaction in killing him. That is very thousand-yard-stare by the time she's lowering her gun.

After the ad break, Nathan's finishing up what I can only imagine is a cursory examination of the scene and comes over to where Audrey's stare has gone more sad and resigned than horrified. Nathan, if she had been aiming for his shoulder she would've broken all the LEO training that her reflexes have, regardless of how she got them implanted. She doesn't have time to come up with an answer, let alone that complex of an answer, before everyone else comes running up to the sound of the gunshot. Frankie and Campbell are on the same page for at least a few moments: both of you fucking stay away from each other you are bad for people. I kind of wonder if the writers were trying for a modern Romeo and Juliet thing, because if they were they failed to hit the actual points and made the trope of love at first sight very hackneyed and teen-infatuation, but that's a rant for another time. I will say they kept the part where all the adults are fucking up in! Because they are, and Duke is getting the most fucked over, arguably. Certainly he'd argue it! One of the goons tries to claim she's a monstrous freak and the Rev was a man of god, which is exactly the kind of logic I'd expect from a brainwashed cult follower: some people are worth saving and others should be killed! Yay! Sigh. Nathan declares it a clean kill per police protocol before anyone can try to put Audrey on trial or shoot her in the middle of the woods for killing their Rev, which is probably for the best because I don't even want to know what Duke would've ended up doing with that. By the look on his face, he doesn't know either.

Cleanup and aftermath time! Sophie's okay, she's getting morphine to stabilize her and then the girls will all be driven off. Nathan, while I agree with your concern, I think Dwight's field triage skills are in fact still better than yours. (By s5 I'm not sure! But now, yeah.) Rory and Amelia say a tearful and still incoherent goodbye, seriously, their relationship is the least explicable part of this ep. I understand teenagers do dumb and/or weird shit as they're figuring out how to be adults, but we just don't get a lot of explanation for why or who instigated or anything else. Though I continue to suspect Rory of being an asshole like his dad. Amelia says now she knows she's strong enough to "get through this," and all I can think is what, were you a vegetarian for ethical reasons before now? Or considering it? Give me SOMETHING to hang a hat on here that's not just "horror at eating raw meat." Oh well. Dwight drives off with a significant pause and panover of the photos of Lizzie he keeps behind his sun visor. Along with his keys. Dwight. You are not security measures for your truck when you're not in it. Sophie takes note of the pictures, and I think Frankie does as well; Amelia will be off in semi-oblivious land because she's had a hard few days. Nathan exposits for us, after putting some pressure on the Teagues about yes he does want to know quit hiding shit from him not cool, that the girls are going to live out by the slaughterhouse until the Troubles are over. That's actually kind of sweet, and should definitely fix the majority of their issues. Would that everyone's were so easily solved. Socialization is another problem, but hopefully Dwight has some ideas on that score.

Vince would like to know what the hell happened out there, I'm pretty sure if this were HBO he'd've said fuck, not hell. Audrey's watching all of this go down while she leans on the hood of Nathan's truck like it's the only thing keeping her upright and anchored to reality. And now Duke comes over to talk. She offers up that there'll be an inquiry and she'll have to justify not aiming for the Rev's leg, which I continue to think is bullshit. No, in the real world it's not always that clear, but in this situation it was very clear that the Rev was going to kill Amelia if he wasn't immediately stopped, and law enforcement training is VERY firm about aim for center of mass. Whether or not that training is a good thing is a whole other kettle of fish, but by protocol, Audrey did exactly right. Duke does not want to think about that. Duke would like to know what the fuck why does he not get to know all of the secrets the Rev was dangling in front of him and it's her fault and so on and so forth. Actually it's Driscoll's fault for being a narcissistic murdering abusive fuckwad, but he's not there to blame and Duke's not exactly rational right now. Neither is Audrey, who would like to know if Duke would've stopped the Rev from killing that little girl. It's a fair question, the way he's acting, not that I think Duke thinks so. He claims not to know. I'm pretty sure we do know, and he's responding that way out of being hurt that Audrey thinks so little of him. And then again, he did essentially just say that Audrey should've prioritized letting him learn secrets about his past over saving someone's life, sooooo there's blame enough to go around on both sides here. When challenged, Audrey stiffens up and refuses to back down from "I did what I had to do," after a list of responses that are kinda worrying in how much they sound like the Rev. Fighting a war? Who is? Without the Rev as their leader, what exactly do you think is going on here, Audrey? And she looks about as fragile and careworn as we've yet seen her as she walks away and back over to Nathan. Just in case we didn't know whose side she'd picked.