Sunday, November 8, 2015

Haven, Season 5, Episode 19: Perditus



Charlotte is dead, stabbed repeatedly and picked up by Gloria. Who is using an ice-cream van to carry away bodies – because Gloria. Lots of sadness all round, especially since Audrey has only just accepted Charlotte as her mother (which we should have seen as a death knell right there).


Vince and Dave are still investigating Croatoan when a raging Dwight rages in demanding that killing Croatoan be the new priority – Audrey agrees (having lost both her mother and her son to him. Now that’s a Jeremy Kyle episode right there). Which means having Dave produce another vision

Which means booze and trying to get past Dave’s own reluctance. He has a vision of seeing Charlotte – and a key to Charlotte’s “go-bag” with her notes: but Croatoan also said Dave’s name and knows he’s watching.


Vince and Nathan want to talk to the dead Charlotte in case she has anything more useful to tell them (and dramatic death scenes never tell you all you need to know – the Grim Reaper times his scythe for dramatic flourish). Thankfully death is a mere inconvenience and the Troubled Card Reader Lainy has a sister, Ona, who can speak to the dead.

Nathan goes to see her – and she fails to contact Charlotte. But he does meet Herb, Lainy’s dead husband (I would call shenanigans on Nathan seeing a guy with a scar on his arm and saying “ZOMG DEAD PERSON!” but this is Haven). Looks like Ona actually has a Resurrection Trouble and is surrounded by a little group of dead friends.


Dwight is super-eager to bring Charlotte back while Audrey sensibly thinks that every Trouble has a downside… so where’s the catch. Especially since it’s a new Trouble and who knows what the downside will be? Nathan sides with Dwight – they have to take the risk. So unwise plan it is. Audrey also has Nathan hide the aether from everyone, including her, since Croatoan is after it

Dwight goes to get Charlotte’s body after a nice moment with Gloria (who I awesome). They bring her to Ona – and resurrection happens. Charlotte has gaps in hr memory and Ona urges patience.

That fragmentary memory has sent Charlotte on the run, possibly thinking Audrey killed her. Dwight rages

Audrey decides the best way to fix this is to go get some more magical Troubled Tarot readings (worst idea ever! Where’s the upside?!) Only she finds Herb eating Lainy – yup, we have ourselves a raging zombie trouble! And bullets don’t kill him!


The Walking Dead comes to Haven. Zombies are in. And all the other people Ona have resurrected have also gone wandering. According to the notes Nathan has from the Crocker family notes, the zombies get hungry when they learn how they died. And then they eat the people closest to them

Unfortunately Charlotte is currently with Dwight who is trying to get her to remember.

Nathan tells Dwight the sad truth – but that they still kind of need Charlotte to remember if they want to make the new Barn and cure the Troubles. Dwight is not a happy bunny about this since that means bringing her to zombiehood (he is still clinging to the idea he can keep her human).

Which is when they have to barricade the police station Night of the Walking Dead style because legions of resurrected zombies are hammering on door trying to get to Lainy. Charlotte comforts her and tries to tell her she did the right thing in creating a low budget horror movie.

To save them all Audrey wants to do her standard Trouble solving thing – talk to Ona, let her connect to whatever inner issue is making her Sad Panda and make it all go away (until she has another bad moment and relapses, but that never seems to happen on Haven – you have an issue, Audrey speaks to you and any mental, emotional or personality ish that was troubling you goes away). Dwight objects because this will make Charlotte vanish before she has chance to eat his face. Nathan agrees

Charlotte who has the veto says she’d quite like to disappear before eating people’s faces/having her face eaten, thanks very much.

Ona just can’t accept her beloved Herb is actually dead and would rather keep him around chewing on faces (which will make the next Holiday Dinner hellishly awkward. Does one serve cranberry sauce or apple sauce with faces?). Charlotte gets through to her, the zombies drop and Charlotte gets extra time because PLOT REASONS, and to make a real goodbye (and tell Audrey stuff about her evil dad).

She also tells Nathan the next piece for the barn is the get a controller crystal from the void – which means they need a Thinny – from outside Haven which they can’t leave

She then gets chance for a happy goodbye with Dwight and eats his face dies. Also she tells them how she died

Meanwhile Vince and Dave go hunting Croatoan (this seems silly but Dave’s reasoning makes sense –he thinks Croatoan is hunting him and doesn’t want to cower in fear always waiting – but going alone makes less sense unless Vince has hidden super powers). I do like these two (and kind of think they were wasted)

They find Charlotte’s bag in their office which confuses them – until Dwight, Nathan and Audrey arrive to say Croatoan didn’t kill Charlotte and take her bag. Dave did.

DUM DUM DUM!

Outside of Haven, Duke is having an exposition fest with a mysterious guy who seems to know everyone. He describes the Roanoke colony (that vanished) as cursed – Troubled. All of them together attracted Croatoan – he couldn’t escape the void then so he created the first Crocker, turning Duke’s many times Powhatan Ancestor into a Trouble Collector who was then to slaughter everyone in the settlement.

He then touches Duke’s forehead and in a flash of light shows Duke a vision of Haven, helmet crabs and Vicki, telling him everyone is dead. Except Vince who is blind and tells Duke that Croatoan has won, everyone is dead ever since Nathan went into the void.

He finds a bleeding tree – touches it and goes all Black eyed. Then kills himself – his body tells him he’s the “fulcrum” who will either kill everyone or save them all. Duke then wakes up and then

Duke and Seth continue on their mystery tour – and Duke wants to go alone back to Haven






Am I really cynical for thinking that this Trouble is a convenient way to cash in on the current zombie craze? That’s one of the advantages of Troubles – you can tap into anything. But on the whole I found it a little dull – with zombie saturation all around, these zombies were just too low key, low drama and generally felt very unnecessary.

Really, all the pertinent elements of this episode could have been covered by just having Charlotte leave a detailed notebook or linger a little in a hospital bed before kicking the bucket. Instead it was just a whole “yo, zombies!”


I also find Duke’s whole vision quest nonsense extremely annoying. He needed to go through all this to decide he was needed to help Haven? You mean he couldn’t have figured this out before? He couldn’t have realised as the only one immune to the Troubles he couldn’t have helped? He had to come out of town and have a bad trip before realising this – everyone else is fighting and dying but he has to go baby his manpain on a Road Trip first? Think of the last few episodes – how much easier they would have been if they’d had Duke around to help?

See, this is why I don't like Manpain, because it allows a level of self-absorbed wailing that other characters would rarely, if ever, be allowed to get away with.