Sunday, November 1, 2015

Haven, Season 5, Episode 17: Wild Card



Dave has more scary dreams – a vision warning him of a woman being attacked.

So he and Vince go to check it out… alone. C’mon guys you have more brains than this. They find no killer – but thy do find the woman alive. Unfortunately, like everyone else exposed to void-beasties, she doesn’t remember a thing. Dwight hopes Gloria will be able to do something

She can’t use her lab because of a random Trouble. Goria is always awesome. She can’t restore memories –but she can test if people have lost time. They realise they all have, that day – the beastie has been around.

Now Charlotte and Dwight are all couply and romantic (and clearly just woke up together) – and Dwight address the whole immortality thing when she raises the idea of them living “happily ever after.” So she’ll still look like this and he will lose that impressive torso (thank you Haven by the way).

She and Audrey go to the massive stack of Aether which they have to control/convert together. Charlotte’s plan is create a new non-killy barn.

There’s a random man ranting about horsemen of the apocalypse. In any other town that would just be random ranting guy – in Haven it means a man being trampled to death by invisible horses, of course.

Later Dwight and Nathan find another body who looks burned and pummelled. Both dead men had roman numeral tattoos – but different numbers. The body helpfully has a list of names attached which may take a while to look up because Haven no longer has phone lines or internet or computers.

Dwight has a random bruise which Nathan turns into a sex joke which then goes into the deepe end of talking about dating immortals. And Nathan gets a Roman Numeral X while Dwight gets VII. Not a good sign.

Charlotte and Audrey, working with the Aether, get their own numbers VIII (Chalotte coming with a lot of fatigue) and II (Audrey can’t see). Dwight realises this is just a bit too targeted – though Audrey and Charlotte have to continually push to keep working on the Aether despite both being incapacitated. They also have doubts about their skill to control the Aether since Mara learned all her skills from her dad – which is a nice exposition lead in to daddy being all dangerous and obsessed with his research which got him banished.


Nathan and Dwight find the list of names belongs to tarot cards readers and go interview a card reader, Lainey. They find the deaths are linked to the pictures on numbered cards, and both the dead men are customers for her. But Lainey protests she didn’t draw cards for them – though the four cards for Dwight, Nathan, Audrey and Charlotte are all laid out. She protests she never drew those cards, she doesn’t remember doing it – which points to the void beasty.

They catch up with Charlotte and Audrey and this is the first time Charlotte hears about the void beastie. She tells them “Croatoan” is the name of a monster. And she thinks it killed her Audrey’s daddy. They guess he’s hunting Troubled people and taking the Troubles. They do have a solution – the new Barn will send all void-stuff (aether and Croatoan) back to the void. Which is why Croatoan is targeting them.

As Dwight starts to die from his card, Nathan flails around and randomly decides the only way to save him is for Lainey to finish his reading (they don’t know how to turn her Trouble off – and her Trouble might be like Dwight and Nathan’s). The next card is the Devil with more downsides but he’s alive. So hey let’s draw more cards for Audrey and Charlotte! Such a good plan! Both feel better and can work on the Aether before the new cards kick in. They also have a breakthrough on how to control the Aether – it has to be desperate emotion. Focusing on what they’ll lose to the Troubles they control and condense the huge cloud into one form.

Charlotte is worried about drawing “the Lovers” card and stays with the chained up Dwight while Audrey goes to hide the Aether. Then Charlotte runs off on her own, much to Dwight’s confusion.

Audrey begins to fade out of existence thanks to her new card.

Nathan has a better idea – re-deal for all of them, rather than following Croatoan’s question, they can follow one Nathan’s. Good plan. Nathan asks the question “what fate did we earn”? Ok that’s a shitty vague question!

This gets them the “judgement” card which Lainey says, since their cause is just, means they can overcome any obstacle. Everyone has their curses removed

Except Charlotte – who left her ring behind with Dwight. Because the Lovers has brought her ex-husband back to her – Croatoan. He demands the Aether and she tries to stab him

Audrey arrives and finds Charlotte, dying. Charlotte tells Audrey that her daddy is Croatoan and furious about Mara




Duke and Seth are looking for someone who can heal Duke’s many Troubles, following clues to someone who claim they can suck black goo out of someone. They find Sam who claims he has the curse, the burden, of being able to “draw the Darkness from others.” Maybe he’s a Troubled person. But, as Duke sees very easily, it’s all just a scam (Duke is experienced with scams). Still the scam contains enough knowledge of the Troubles to make Duke ask questions and learn about a man who told him that 500 years ago a demon couple came causing curses with Aether - again, far too on the mark to ignore.

So time to find the old guy – who is dead with the symbol of the void on his grave. While moping, a man appears with answers













I can’t even begin to describe how little I care about Duke’s little vision quest. Especially after the action happening in Haven.

Because a lot is happening after so many season we’re now finally rushing into some answers and revelations and a real sense that something is actually going to change and get done.


I do think there was a bit less of the whole apocalyptic feel to this episode, which is a shame. I liked the gathering dark and panic that had been drawn on the last few episodes. I can’t imagine people who had lived through that would just stand and stare while a man ranted on about the horses of the apocalypse coming.