Haven, Season 5, Episode 26: Forever

Hey, you know last episode I said that it had some excellent emotional drama, major tragedy and it all was so very well done and seemed to be gearing up for an actual epic ending to the season?

Yeah I take it back – this season finale is so damn saccharine that even the Hallmark Channel would be forced to vomit in the face of all the goopiness

I mean – ghostly Duke appearing (for… reasons) to tell Dwight how to keep his fake daughter. A double whammy of Duke hanging around so the epic tragedy of the last episode can be diffused and

Or Croatoan banished Nathan with Fake!Audrey which lasted, what, 10 minutes? 10 minutes – why even bother with this plot line? Why banish him from Haven all all?

Or Croatoan spending so long being the evil murdering fiend trying to get Audrey to obey by hook or by crook and is then changed by one dramatic love speech? I mean, maybe if they’d spent more time building up to this – but having the big bad be so big and scary and bad suddenly declaring “No, totally team good guy now because of LOOOOOVE!” Never mind the corpses or his hope for revenge or the many many many many times Audrey has said she’s not his daughter – speech about love has worked!

But even all of this pales next to the kicker, the true diabetes-causing chaser of the Barn. The Barn which is powered by Aether and Croatoan is really powered by… love

Love...

Ye gods, really? Did the Care Bears build this damn thing? Love super charges Aether? Which stoned-hippy-wannabe pulled that one out of their arse?

(Also you have no damn clue how many “Power of Love” songs there are out there and how many I had to scroll through before finding the right one?)

Haven, Season 5, Episode 25: Now

We open with some quick recapping of Croatoan and his obsession with Audrey, his daughter, Duke running amok collecting Troubles by killing people and Dwight dealing with his suddenly resurrected daughter

And Laverne still possessing and a house and making the vending machines healthy. That’s just evil. Also, for some reason I don’t think Duke is doing menacing very well – he’s just trying too hard with that slow steady attempt at a sinister voice. It’s too forced. Genuinely sinister people don’t have to try so hard to be sinister. You’ve got eyes that are black from edge to edge, you don’t need to work on the sinister voice

He does foil their plan to repair the broken Aether core (which they need to power the new barn and get rid of the Troubles). They try to use Vicki’s Trouble to fix it (she can draw things and make them real) and Duke destroys the drawing, destroying the core. Everyone then despairs but can’t she just re-draw the core?

Maybe expecting that, Duke plans to kill Vicki and everyone stands in his way – Nathan, Gloria (who is awesome) and, most effectively, Audrey

She pulls out one of her patented “I’m going to defeat the Trouble with emotional speech” to bring Duke back to himself. It should have been clichéd and trite and all Disney-esque – but it isn’t, it really works

I think partly because of the acting and the tragedy but mainly because it draws on one of the most compelling themes of the show (even if it has been dropped occasionally) – identity. Duke is a man who has been struggling against the Crocker family curse since the beginning. There’s even an excellent acknowledgement that Audrey and Nathan have repeatedly sabotaged him in that struggle by asking him to kill people to end some terrible Troubles. He was, from the very beginning, a man who was designed to and pushed to kill people to end the Troubles even while he struggled against that. Whether his own inclinations or resisting Audrey and Nathan’s pushing or refusing Croatoan’s pushing him to be EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS DESIGNED TO BE

Haven, Season 5, Episode 24: The Wandering Gyre

Croatoan has been revealed to be William Shatner, instantly making him 8 bajillion times less scary but still rather creepy in that paternal kind of way with additional shiny super powers. He insists on trying to play the adoring father. He wants her to go back with him to their home wherever that is – which turns out to be very much like ours with both good and bad (terrible décor but it has coffee).

No matter what she says, he insists that she’s his daughter. They then talk their epic epic family issues with him wanting to play happy families and she pointing out that he’s actually killed many members of that family (though we have a final reason for why the Colorado Kid, James, was killed – because of Lucy had killed him, the person she loved the most, to set off the Barn it would have ended the Troubles). His “I’ve killed everyone because I loved you the mostist” is, of course, neither endearing nor reassuring.

“I will kill for you and have killed people you love for you”, is totally not sweet. Even if several books we’ve read will argue that point. Croatoan is also stab proof and brutally abusive – but hey he can heal with woo-woo. Yes, Croatoan can control the Troubles – to him the Troubles are super powers without the downside or side effects.

He also expositions why he was banished – the recklessness he was banished for was to save her life (putting aether into his daughter to boost her immune system). Uh-uh, and the random killings are totally justified by this because….? Oh yes, they’re not.

However it does tell us why Croashatner needs Audrey – because the aether in her makes her super-duper aether user and with that he can make awesome Troubles to flood the place with Aether and then create evil-super-duper powers they can go home with

Duke is rampaging around killing Troubled people while Nathan and Dwight plan to try and stop him. This involves, like so many shows, setting a tap for him and then having absolutely no plans for him when he arrives. Thankfully random conscience shows up allowing them to drug him and chain him up (with special Trouble Chains they had helpfully hanging around).

Haven, Season 5, Episode 23: Blind Spot

Everyone is rallying around – Audrey is going to be targeted by Croatoan so they’re locking down the police station with every bit of security they can while Audrey tries to figure out how to make Barn #2 without all the killing.

This calls for Duke and Nathan to be all reminiscent with happy memory lane including how they’ve always kind of looked out for each other.

Vince has a bit of a melt-down assuming everyone is blaming him for not realising Dave was Croatoan – though it looks less like he truly believes everyone things it’s his fault and more that he is epicly blaming himself while still reeling with grieving for Dave. While he flails around with a knife, Gloria responds with common sense and sedatives. Because she’s Gloria. She gives him an excellent talking to about grieving and reminds us how underused this awesome character has been.

And then someone is randomly attacked and murdered. This causes panic. Even worse, an artistic director decides we need to watch the action via fuzzy black and white CCTV. And something invisible locks Audrey in a room. The CCTV cameras shouldn’t be online so it’s Trouble shenanigans.

It’s not Croatoan, it’s an old Trouble which creates a haunted house (merging a person with a building). It’s apparently Laverne – the woman who runs the police radio system who has been around since season 1. And she isn’t the one who killed the dead guy, Carl – so Croatoan is probably around a swell.

Hey isn’t this a good thing? Having Laverne run defence? That seems to be her reasoning anyway. Laverne is now becoming major security. Which us useful because Croatoan is running amok. Audrey coaxes Laverne into using all her shiny Trouble powers while we get some more CCTV/Shaky camera-angle footage to try and create a fake Horror movie feel (oh please like these three people are going to die?). They do find a lot of blood which has everyone (but me) worried about Duke (they have no faith in his plot shield).

Back to Barn building and the controller stone they have summons Agent Howard – the old Barn guy (who knows what he was). He is the Controller. Unfortunately he is part guy who was shot by Nathan (and he’s bitter about that) and part programme that needs proper authorisation (Audrey isn’t a “real” person – she’s an “overlay personality”). So they need to prove that Audrey is a new shiny personality and not an overlay. Al he can do, via his programming, is dispense “another overlay” and make a new personality for her.

Haven, Season 5, Episode 22: A Matter of Time

Haven is now trapped in the Void – desperately trying to move a huge rock while at the same time feeling all kinds of woozy because humans and the Void are not a good combination (kind of like me and the seaside). William is still convinced Mara is out there, ranting away until Nathan snaps and tells him that Mara is well and truly gone.

Oddly, the cave bleeds Aethur when Nathan throws a rock in frustration. William smugly knows Nathan will now help him so William can give him a new Trouble with the Aether. Nathan isn’t a fan of this plan but lacking options he gives William Aether. And he promptly betrays Nathans and creates a wolf-man to lift the rock pinning him because of course he does.

While being pinned by the big monster, Nathan tries to convince William that Mara only used William and instead jumped right on Duke as soon as she could, never looking for William

In Haven Duke and Audrey look for Hayley who wants to keep her Trouble even as Audrey is sure there must be a downside – there is, it’s dangerous. To emphasise that point they find Hayley merged with an iron fence which looks most unpleasant. She is alive – but she’s stuck on the bars of the fence which are the only things stopping her from bleeding to death.

Audrey writes her off – Hayley is dead dead dead – so can she open the portal please? (She manages to be a little kinder than that). So it’s Duke’s job to convince her – she decides everything is everyone else’s fault and she’d rather die than save the whole town.

Audrey suggests plan B – Duke kill Hayley and absorb her power. Duke vetoes that plan – he’s going to talk her into it.

Duke does both – tragically saying goodbye, telling her she has a chance to do something good and as she slowly dies he speeds things up by pulling her a little further on the bars (lots of praise for this scene – it was excellently tragic). Duke absorbs her power and her blood. Duke has his angsty moment of being destined to save Haven – but what he has to do for it is terribad tragic.

They open the Thinny – and in the void William rescues Nathan and lets him go. For… reasons? Nathan decides to give William his ring so William can find his own way home to his people before Nathan joins Duke and Audrey (I’d laugh so hard if Nathan dropped the control crystal).

He hasn’t – so they can make the new barn and banish Croatoan. Except, of course, they have absolutely no damn clue what to do with it.

Haven, Season 5, Episode 21: Close to Home

This flashback is terrible – it’s a recap of everything and just draws attention to how flimsy things are. Yes I’m grumpy

Audrey and Nathan are all couply and Nathan even tries to be cure about coffee burns and keeps his shirt off to remind us he can at least come almost close to being about half as sexy as Duke. Of course it can’t last and angsty Nathan is soon there telling her he has to go to the Void to get the McGuffin to make the new barn work. Just as soon as Duke gets back with Hayley

Which he does. After taking waaaay too much time to mope and navel gaze the arsehole has finally returned to actually help (it’s a good thing he’s hot. Though more shirtlessness may prompt forgiveness).

Back to Audrey and Nathan being mopey and romantic and experiencing shortages in the cut off Haven. She also suggests that she should go to the void since the void squishes humans and she isn’t – but Nathan says no for reasons. Duke finally arrives and is greeted with a hug rather than being shunned and hit with axes

Audrey, at least, is duly pissed with him. Duke warns Nathan about his super cryptic vision of dystopian awfulness caused by Nathan going into the void. We’re believing in visions now? The fact he mentions “croatoan” which Duke has never heard of tells them it’s true – but Nathan still has to go. Only this time he has to come back

They brief Hayley about what they need and she’s pretty calm about the whole thing – I mean accepting the ability to walk through walls and completely forgetting a town means she’s pretty mellow about any revelations now. Hayley also uses insight from her mother top realise she can actually hold a Thinny open – rather than just briefly open it, so we have a key to getting Nathan back.

So Nathan ends up in the void which looks like a lot of caves and a spooky forest. And it’s all green lit so we know it’s spooky. Nathan falls in a pit and meets… William. Well that’s Nathan thoroughly screwed – especially when William reveals that machines with moving parts – like guns – don’t work.

Nathan quickly lies to convince William to help him find the old barn to save “Mara’s” life (honest). William seems to believe that because Croatoan could destroy the whole world.

Haven, Season 5, Episode 20: Just Passing Through

Now we’re questioning Dave about the Croatoan killings – he killed Charlotte and there’s a good chance he killed the Colorado Kid, James Cogan (the son of Nathan time travelling and Audrey when she was in her past incarnation of Sarah).

Is Dave even physically capable of overpowering Charlotte?

So time to question Dave about everything he remembers about both murders – he remembers a woman and a Thinny when he killed the Colorado Kid, even though the Thinnies were supposed to be all closed. They need to get into the void to get a “controller” in order to build the New Barn – something they need to do without Charlotte…

They don’t find the Thinny, so they need to find the unknown woman from 30 years ago. And the only way to do that is time travel

It says a lot about Haven that all of this actually makes perfect sense

                                                                          

Stewart Mosely has a time travel Trouble (they’ve used it before for much confusing drama one season) and, armed with a sketch from Vince and Dave, they can go find this mysterious woman.

Audrey can’t go back because she was/is immune to the Time Travel Trouble, so it’s Nathan (who went back before and was the father to the Colorado Kid) and Vince since he actually remembers 1983

So 1983 on the right day, that was easy. Of course Nathan gets distracted by his now-dead dad – who is with Lucy (a past incarnation of Audrey). Nathan pretends to be an FBI agent to ask questions about the woman in the sketch but he should have known this was a bad idea: Lucy knows the woman (Barbara Coulton) is Troubled and doesn’t want FBI attention. Especially since this day is the day Lucy enters the barn. So lots of distracting – especially since Nathan messes up within minutes of arriving and uses a local Haven term which makes his dad all suspicious.

Lucy is sent to distract Nathan which causes some tension when they touch – she sends a warning to Barbara to get out of town.

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!

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.

Haven, Season 5, Episode 17: Enter Sandman

So we have Audrey preparing for a wedding – this is the dream she’s having after being Sandmaned and now in a coma. Nathan finds her and confronts the Sandman (the guy with the coma-causing trouble) and he says “she’s gone.”

Nathan predictably freaks out and Charlotte tries to calm Nathan down from just beating Sandman down just randomly. Dwight interviews Sandman who isn’t that co-operative, refusing to release Audrey, saying “he’s keeping her.” – he transports himself into Audrey’s dream where he is playing the role of her fiancé.

In the real world Sandman criticises Dwight for not even knowing his name, how he turned to the Guard for help and he was just used as a tool by them. He’s fixated on Audrey because she’s the only one who cared about him. And apparently he can keep her forever if she commits to him.

Sandman shows off his power – killing one of the people he has in a coma to prove himself to Dwight and to make Dwight back off, threatening Audrey

In the dream world, Grayson is cast as Sandman’s best man (and he can hear in the dream world). Sandman kills off another random cast member as well.

Charlotte decides the best way to get to Audrey is to convince the Sandman to put her in stasis as well, she tries to seduce him and it all goes kind of wrong – he puts her in his fantasy world but on his terms, changing her memory to turn her into Audrey’s Maid of Honour. Though he doesn’t seem to have as easy a time to control her and she keeps noticing weird things. Grayson also continues to question the strange world he’s in and all the patchy memories.

Grayson has been pulled into an extra in Audrey’s world but he doesn’t have the memories that fit the role he’s being forced to play. Especially since Sandman set him up to hire the band and Grayson realises how odd it is to hear music – or hear at all. Sandman tries to demand he be grateful and as he talks Grayson also uses sign language.

Sandman’s control is slipping because of the number of people he’s holding. He drives Grayson out, killing him.

Audrey and Charlotte witness this and run and hide – Charlotte’s own memories are restored and she tries to get through to Audrey, invoking her flawed memories and her own motherhood. The magic mother thing gets through.

Mystery Shows - Madlibs as Plot

A number of the shows we’ve been following defy genre. When we start watching them we can’t be sure if they’re sci-fi, urban fantasy, horror or even something completely different.

Is this because they are so nuanced, so complex or so groundbreaking that they can’t be so easily categorised?

Usually no - they’re just so lacking in information or definition that there’s no way of knowing what genre they are. Ultimately they are tagged as “Mystery” because that becomes their sole defining feature, mystery. Lots of questions with few if any answers and little real coherent world building - and this will go on for episode after episode, season after season.

Of course, a mystery isn’t necessarily a bad - but all too often this “mystery” is an excuse for some horrendously lazy writing. Sometimes I think the writers just paste story ideas on a board and then throw darts at them at random to see what plot line they’re going to pull out of nowhere next. We end up with a long string of “monster of the week” episodes, without even the excuse of monsters to justify it!

This is a different trope from shows which use random ill-explained and completely unjustified decisions or events within a show to drive the plot forward (for example, Falling Skies) because those shows do have a plot - it’s just a terribly executed plot that the writers should be forever shame for inflicting on the public. No, a Mystery doesn’t even have that - Something happens for Reasons and now everyone needs to deal with the Something and next week something else completely random will happen, also without explanation

As the mystery drags without any kind of answers the plot grows steadily more irritatingly empty and pointless - but always teasing the possibility of answers to try and keep fans engaged. Eventually when the writers finally do get round to providing answers they’ve written themselves into a corner - their episodes have been so random and so lacking in coherence that their big reveal can’t possibly answer all of the mysteries they’ve raised

Lost really started the trend of writers including mysteries into a series with viewers watching each week desperately looking for hidden clues. Lost was so popular in part because they convinced viewers that they had a grand narrative which would play out over time and have a spectacular end. From the moment we found that the survivors landed on an island and were not alone, the mystery began. Writers included: Hurley’s obsession with the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 42, polar bears on a tropical island, a plane filled with drugs crash landed on the island.  Who was Jacob and what was his purpose? Who could forget the Dharma Initiative? Both the flashbacks and the flashforwards were absolutely meant to give the viewer a sense that the writers were falling a strict plan. Viewers made excuses for the slow pace of the show claiming that the authors were forced to keep drawing it out because they had no end date.  What started as a very popular show found that it steadily lost viewership for the simple fact that the writers kept asking questions. In fact questions inside of questions would be a more accurate statement.  In the end, it turned out just as viewers had always feared, the writers were making it up as they went along.  As a viewer I can think of no greater slap in the face.  Just throwing things against a wall for funsies while having people spend hours contemplating the meaning of your supposedly deep and detailed show is just plain and simple an asshole thing to do. Well done Lost.

Haven, Season 5, Episode 16: The Trial of Nathan Wuornos

Everyone’s all excited and upset about Kira’s death. Her fiancé Tony has decided to blame Nathan and rile up the crowd by claiming that Kira was the only one whose Trouble could protect them from the lethal darkness. Tony wants to banish Nathan and Dwight won’t because favouritism

I can see why Tony thinks that because he’s all emotional – but the rest of the crowd?

When Nathan explains to Dwight and Audrey it turns out that Kira isn’t dead – she’s trapped under ground (when they went to get the Aether) and is only alive in the darkness because of her electricity Trouble. And Nathan’s not telling everyone that because anyone going to rescue her would also find the Aether which they need to keep secret from people grabbing it hoping for miracles (when did Aether become common knowledge). Nathan needs a second person to come with him to help save Kira.

With all the panic and lots of confusion over what to do (not say, for example, “hey Kira is trapped, it takes two people, me and Audrey will go see you soon.” Which, y’know, would solve EVERYTHING?!) Audrey decides they need to have a trial for Nathan to buy time – giving the rest of them chance to free Kira (how they’ll then explain that she’s not dead to the angry crowd I don’t know)

Dwight also likes the idea because it takes their justice system out of his hands – doubly important since he may die at any time. Vince and Teague quickly guess exactly what it is for because they’re clever and still bicker. And Tony pushes to execute Nathan rather than banishing him – claiming he has a huge long history of Nathan hurting the town (pointing out most recently that he stopped Duke from leaving the town before he could unleash the Trouble Bomb inside him). This means that a) he has an informant feeding him information he shouldn’t know and b) that he’s kind of got a point.

At the trial Tony begins reciting Nathan’s last few seasons of terrible decisions. This could take a while. Nathan also speaks in his defence

Audrey has to solve the Darkness Trouble which means trying to track down who the Troubled guy is. She hears that there’s a guy who survived the darkness and she goes to see Faber who may have seen them – he and his goons are throwing people into a cupboard for the darkness to chomp on. Thankfully she has a useful deaf man with a debilitating deafness Trouble to help her bring down the guy and his minions. She recruits him to help her. And by help she means unleash his Trouble on the whole school to stop them convicting Nathan

Haven, Season 5: Episode 15: Power

We move forward 2 weeks – 2 weeks of non-stop Troubles and people becoming more and more stressed. There’s a darkness Trouble – something which means everyone has to avoid the darkness or die horribly, leaving only a skeleton behind. Gruesome

I like the vain-lady’s reflective skin Trouble.

Audrey is not getting on too well with mother Charlotte who still hasn’t cured the Troubles. She is getting on very well indeed with Nathan. They keep telling us about a gazillion Troubles happening all the time.

Oh and while there’s a Trouble that kills people in the dark, the electricity I acting up. They need to fix the power plant. At night. With Troubles everywhere. Well volunteered Nathan. Nathan whines that they need to stop the Darkness Trouble – uh-huh I’m sure that is on the to-do list Nathan.

Dwight has also instigated his own law – people who he deems guilty of hurting the group are “banished” (actually a better term would be “outlawed” since they aren’t sent anywhere but the Guard stops helping them). Audrey and Nathan realise this is pretty much a death penalty. Vince agrees with his choice, though Dwight has the guilt weasels.

Vince is also shown another body apparently killed by whatever is in Dave’s visions (no mark but weird eyes). Audrey confronts Dwight on not doing basic police work – like dealing with thieves according to the law and finding missing persons. She also learns about the dead man – the missing man who may actually be the one with the Darkness Trouble – Vince has to tell her about the vision/beast/serial killer including that it killed the Colorado Kid (Audrey’s son. Kinda).

Also rather than banishing people they’re using a Trouble to put people into basically sleeping comas. The Troubled guy isn’t doing well but he’s willing to help. At least it’s not a death penalty, but Audrey is still not amused

Anyway, Nathan puts his team together (including Charlotte and Dave). They set off through a Haven which now has warning signs and traps and all kinds of eerie things around. They lose one member of the party and Charlotte reveals they need more aether to fix the Troubles. A whole stash of it – which means they need William’s stash. They have a detector for it.

They get to the power plant and do some tinkering – and break it. You had one job! While Nathan and the extra go looking for Aethur, Charlotte and Dave stay to fix the plant and we learn Dave is a Half-line, half human and half alien/thingy.

Haven, Season 5, Episode 14: A New World Order

So lots of stuff happened before Haven randomly disappeared mid season for a huge amount of time – Mara and Audrey got merged because her mother Charlotte showed up and decided re-writing her daughter’s personality because she’s not handling her grief in a healthy manner was totally a good idea, Vince and Dave are still running around chasing after the Croatoan thing and Duke has been filled to the bring with naughty bad Troubles and he’s now popping

Which is where we open to him spewing aether out of his eyes – a bajillion Troubles flying into the air. They rain down on a beach and a new batch of Trouble people start causing havoc.

Charlotte and Audrey stay with unconscious Duke while Nathan goes back to the police station and Dwight to try and stop things falling apart. Dave and Vince drop in as well so Nathan can tell everyone what just happened – and they can all tell us they have a town full of newly Troubled people all with Troubles that are set off by strong emotions – and they’re all panicking. Bonus, there’s a fog around town which isn’t letting anyone leave (which, for the planet, is probably a good thing).

Dave tells them about his Croatoan visions after so long keeping his secrets, and their theory that something big and bad will come from the void and destroy everything and it’s now here in Haven. For bonuses, the cops they’ve sent out to try and stop chaos breaking out know nothing about the Troubles and are not making things better. Dwight and Nathan head out – because taking the leadership out of a central position is really the best option, right.

They again discuss, in case we’ve missed it, how being trapped and panicking is really not what the Troubled people of Haven need and Nathan tries to get Audrey to go after a guy called Joe who may be behind the mystical fog wall.

Duke has woken up (and has both guilt weasels and runs after his family’s research) leaving Audrey free to Trouble wrangle with Charlotte’s help but she’s nervous because alien/dimensional/whatever people are not immune to these Troubles. Charlotte actually wants to leave town using her ring to travel through the “Thinnys” and go home (to alien world) and abandon the people of Haven. Audrey is not a fan of this plan. More, Charlotte doesn’t actually understand the Troubles – in fact, the cure she’d designed with the “barn” (remember that? Audrey would kill Nathan and solve the Troubles?) would have killed all the Troubled people, therefore ending the Troubled

Audrey is very very disapproving of this and calls Charlotte out on her bullshit and tells her to get out of Haven – her home.

Haven, Season 5, Episode 13: Chosen

Charlotte is Audrey/Mara’s mother! Dwight is shocked that Charlotte has been lying and doesn’t understand since Charlotte is way too young (ignoring the fact that Mara has been around for centuries); she reveals she’s about 1100 years old while Mara is 600. She says the proof of this is the ring which everyone in the family (including Mara) has (because “immortals” is definitely an explanation that is more reasonable than “mass produced crap made in China”). She adds that she’s from a different world, far away, that is separated from theirs – and it should stay that way. Dwight is super huffy and refuses to speak to Charlotte, summoning a guard instead.

Charlotte’s plan is to take Mara away and try to undo the damage she has done. She explains that the “void” between their world and our world is where Mara and William got the Aethur. Charlotte intervened and set up the Barn to teach Mara the error of her ways – Audrey isn’t best impressed by Charlotte stealing personalities so she can teach her daughter a life lesson. Charlotte also hopes it made things better because she hasn’t figured out yet how to fix Mara’s damage. Nathan finds this all very boring since it’s not about Audrey he doesn’t really care – but Charlotte thinks that 2 Maras can’t exist in the same place so, in theory, if Mara goes home Audrey will be fine. But she needs Mara – so Nathan plans to bring her to him

That damage segues us to Duke at the Gull who is getting tetchy and throwing out Troubles at an annoying customer who shatters several things including another person. Which is really messy.

Reports of this reach the police who arm up and are ready to head to the Gull, except a random Trouble seals them in the armoury, much to the confusion of Rebecca and Dwight.

Nathan and Audrey plan to head over but Nathan goes to get coffee (Audrey is having a cold spell) and Mara gets in the car with a gun. Unsurprisingly, she refuses to see her mother instead she sends a message – either Charlotte opens a Thinny so she can leave (alone) otherwise Duke will explode and cover Haven in a whole new batch of super-terrible Troubles. She then hits Audrey (just so we’re clear she’s super, and rather gloriously shamelessly evil) and leaves.

In the hospital Gloria is causing a scene, possibly to cause a distraction to allow Duke to visit Charlotte and possibly just because she’s ornery. Duke explains his problem and when he takes off his shirt we see he is covered in black handprints.

Audrey returns to speak to Charlotte to try and figure out her identity crisis and deliver Mara’s message. Duke overhears their conversation including the fact he’s a Trouble bomb – Duke decides to leave. Because that’s completely sensible; regardless, Charlotte won’t let Mara through alone and she can’t stop Duke exploding.

Next Trouble – a group of school kids are trapped on a boat completely encased in animate rigging, ropes and net – and seemingly crushing the boat. Everyone gathers there to try and help remove all the ropes and keep the boat afloat and Dwight guesses it’s the same locking Trouble as the police station. Audrey and Charlotte also arrive and they have a plan to stop Mara – Mara’s personality has been pasted over so many times that Charlotte thinks that if they’re recombined the goodness in Audrey, that has come from Mara(ish) will reform Mara and she will choose to stop.

Haven, Season 5, Episode 12: Chemistry

So, to carry on from last week – NO DUKE NOOOOO! Post sex talk between Duke and Mara discussing finding the Aethur, fixing Duke and Mara trying to convince him she cares.

Nathan and Vince meet, Vince is still super suspicious of the very suspicious Charlotte while Nathan is now softening in her because Audrey is sick and in Nathan’s world, Audrey > everything else. Nathan also tells Vince about the Aethur being stolen by one of the Guard.

After investigating, Nathan and Dwight conclude the Aethur thief is Kirk (finally confirmed his name) who has the suffocation Trouble (I saw it was him from the CCTV pictures. I’d be smug but that would just make me more competent than Nathan and Dwight but that’s hardly something to be proud of).

Dwight goes to see Charlotte and tells her all about Duke’s Trouble because he loves to share.

Speaking of, Suspicious Charlotte warns Audrey she’s getting worse and asks more questions about Audrey’s uniqueness (to go with her creepy stalker file). Charlotte continues to be concerned about how very bad Audrey is and Audrey grows more upset and angsty. Vince arrives to rifle through Charlotte’s things and tell Audrey his suspicions – and finds and shows Audrey Charlotte’s Audrey/Mara/Lucy/Sarah stalker file. Might want to hide that a bit better Charlotte. Vince takes hurried copies on his phone. Back to Vince’s office where they discuss what Charlotte could possibly want and Vince points out that the photos suggests Audrey doesn’t age – definitely a plus.

Audrey tells Nathan about Charlotte’s suspiciousness (what will he do now? On the one hand he’s healing Audrey, the centre of his existence, but now Audrey, blessed be her name, is having doubts!) Nathan realises Charlotte is studying her, and Audrey then confesses just how sick she is. Nathan overcomes his quandary by getting mad at Duke instead. Nathan decides to get the Aethur from Kirk and use it to lure Mara out (risking Mara getting Aethur for the sake of Audrey? Of course!)

Which is when Duke gets a call from Mara telling him someone is breaking in – he hears her scream and fight on the phone. When he gets there, the room is trashed, there’s some dramatic blood staining and Mara is gone. I’m going to bet on a secret Mara ploy, personally. Duke does find a button in the wreckage.

Dwight goes to a bar to talk to some guy about how he’s falling for Charlotte – what, in case we missed it?

And Duke goes to see Gloria who is surprisingly gentle in telling him how wrong he is. Anyway she uses her computer to identify Mara’s kidnapper – Kirk. How did Kirk even know where Duke and Mara were? Anyway Duke arrives at Kirk’s at the same time as Nathan so they both get to snarl at each other. Nathan can’t believe Duke is trusting Mara (nor can I), Duke thinks Mara will help him save the town (which I don’t believe Nathan cares about). The two struggle – and find a pair of clippers with blood and hair on them: it looks like Mara’s hair. Nathan doesn’t care if Mara has been tortured (so long as she can help Audrey – note the town is not mentioned). Duke knocks Nathan unconscious and steals the Clue he found.

Haven, Season 5, Episode 11: Reflections

Nathan tells Audrey about finding Pete’s body and realising that the plague ended at exactly the same time – which points to Duke doing the murder/cure thing, which he did. They realise he’s with Mara – and that Audrey isn’t well which she is avoiding facing because she suspects it may be linked to her not being real.

Meanwhile rumours that Charlotte can cure the Troubles have spread and Kirk with his happy suffocation trouble decides to confront her about it – because she can’t magically pull a cure out of thin air he gets annoyed. Dwight rides to the rescue and Charlotte says she wants more Aethur and Dwight continues to aim for a relationship.

Trouble of the week time! A waitress calls someone asking for extra shifts and sounds desperate- and then gets sliced into pieces – he hands cut off and her head.

Move to Duke and Mara and Duke has a problem – he’s gone through the journal and he can’t find any more “safe” or “manageable” Troubles to vent. Mara needs Aethur to fix him. Mara continues trying to worm into Duke’s good side – having every chance to escape but not taking it.

Duke calls Nathan for the Aethur and Nathan is duly unimpressed with the whole Mara trusting but Duke points out the utterly epic hypocrisy of that and adds that while Mara may indeed try to destroy the town with Aethur, at the moment Duke only has epic town-destroying Troubles to unleash so may as well try. Nathan refuses and Duke takes it as another indication of all his friends failing him

Duke goes to steal the Aethur but it has been moved from the safe (apparently without telling Dwight).

Dwight checks in on Vince and insists that Charlotte is completely legitimate even while Vince points out she has no official standing and that he’s trusted a complete stranger with their secrets. Dwight’s gut is sure she’s legitimate. And how can you argue with a gut? Aaargh This is despite the fact that she came to Haven to look at Dave’s leg so she WAS there on official business (or so she claims) so there should be a record

To the Trouble of the week and Gloria is on point and she hates Charlotte as well (Gloria is, as always, glorious). Audrey interviews the dead woman, Marcy’s, boss who is just a terrible person – having zero sympathy for anyone having money troubles and referring to the Troubled as “those people” who should have warned her. Let us hope something eats her. However since we’ve pointed out her daughter Samantha I’m laying odds that her daughter will be the Troubled one. We also learn that Samantha is dating another employee Grace - yes, we have Haven’s first ever LGBT person!

Audrey continues to be ill so Nathan suggests she go see Charlotte (do they have no doctors in Haven?) While getting checked out Audrey asks Charlotte why she hasn’t reported about Haven – Charlotte points out that she could ruin her reputation making such a claim without proof. Audrey wonders what will happen when she does have proof which is all left ominous but Charlotte does hold that Haven does need help. We also learn that Marcy, the dead woman, wasn’t Troubled so someone else’s Trouble was behind it

So Audrey wants to see Grace who found the body only to learn Nasty Boss woman fired her for being Troubled. She’s kept Samantha away, but she tells them about Terrance who may know where Grace is (she’s also apparently called around people to get them to shun Grace). Terrence looks like another victim of the Trouble, having bulked up massively then lost it all while holding big weight over himself. This is a very very loosely connected physical transformation Trouble (Marcy was “falling to pieces” with debt so she did).

Audrey spots Grace in a crowd and wanders over the interview her – Grace sends Samantha to run before Audrey arrives (yes, going with “I told you so” here). They go to the hospital and Audrey has a meeting with Charlotte who warns her that her whole body is degenerating at a rapid rate.

Haven, Season 5, Episode 10: Mortality

Apparently Dwight has enforced Charlotte’s quarantine on Haven – which almost locks Audrey outside (courtesy of Rebecca who actually think rules should apply to Audrey, the very idea!) but Nathan arrives to correct her on this and recap last episode: plague setting off Troubles

At the police station a potential source of the Trouble is in the cells, Victor. He handed himself in to try and be kept away from people. Except when they interview them he tells them every time he touches someone, he sees how they will die some day which has left him really not wanting to touch anyone. He had the sickness – but it just triggered his Trouble (maybe he was the first one sick). He also decides to grab a gun and point it at them – only briefly though before handing it back.

Audrey’s also getting sick herself and as Victor helps her he sees her end – he says she and her “twin sister” go at the same time. More details would be helpful at this point.

Audrey doesn’t follow that up because she’s looking at the created bears and realising that could be her – they assume Duke split her from Mara, but she lost her Trouble immunity: maybe Duke didn’t split them, maybe he created Audrey. Maybe Audrey isn’t real. Nathan responds to this very genuine and fascinating conflict with sappiness. Audrey collapses coughing – I know, that much gooeyness makes me want to cough up a ling too.

Dwight has taken Charlotte out on a little trip into the country to tell her about the Troubles – by showing off his. Surely they can find a safer Trouble than this? She sees the bullet impossibly hit him so then he can explain the Troubles. She’s very sceptical though. She gets over it and applies what I’m going to laughably call science to the disease: she decides Dwight can’t get the disease because the last stage of the disease is to trigger the person’s Trouble but his Trouble is always on.

Kind of like how you can’t catch a flu if you’re already sneezing… wait…

And they’re going to use Dwight to make a vaccine which he says is important since some people have Troubles that could liquify the town (which also means telling Charlotte that said Troubles exist). She decides she needs a pure sample which means she needs something that creates Troubles, apparently – she needs Aether

Knowing about Dwight and Charlotte being all friendly, Duke makes a terrible decision and decides to let Mara go so they can find the disease Trouble, resolve it and get rid of Charlotte so he doesn’t end up with her experimenting on him. Which means getting Mara to fix the Trouble – she points out she needs Aether which has Duke make an even worse decision and decide to get her some. They do get briefly swapped at the quarantine but this is the worst quarantine ever.

Haven, Season 5, Episode 9: Morbidity

Dave has another dream about colonial massacres, Croatoan and deer turning to women and portals. Take more water with it, Dave. His infected leg is still nasty – so he calls someone called Chris.

Audrey and Nathan tell Dwight the good news about Audrey and Mara splitting. Dwight vaguely references his dead sister (who is definitely dead) and Dr. Charlotte Cross from the CDC arrives to speak to Dwight to help them find Dave and his weird weird leg.

To the police station where Dwight, Audrey and Nathan all talk about the horror of a scientists investigating Haven. Duke calls in to add their common belief that they will all be locked up like lab rats. They also refer to a guy called Pete who is an epidemiologist and is part of the big cover up of Haven. Charlotte has already gone to see Pete and he’s freaking out because she’s questioning his 8 bajillion cover stories. Gloria is there to be awesome and keep everyone sensible – their cover stories are solid, they’ve been doing this a long time.

Of course keeping Dave away from Charlotte doesn’t work when the man shows up at the police station. But it’s all part of his plan. Charlotte interviews him and he claims it was a jellyfish sting and that he spoke to Chris Brody about it (he is the guy with the Trouble which makes everyone love him: they hope his mojo may work on Charlotte). Chris has already done some research in Charlotte’s specialties and, combined with his Trouble, he uses a weakness in her knowledge to hopefully get rid of her. He warns Dwight that Charlotte is very very good at her job and this is her only weakness – they need to get rid of her.

Which is a problem because though she does drop the investigation she decides she’s due a holiday and to hang around Haven and mild flirting with Dwight.

Meanwhile Audrey and Nathan are called into a Trouble which seems to be a guy dancing in a bear costume (and some very weird children who find this fascinating. In the world of the internet it’s going to take more than a bear waving his arms around to fascinate). When Audrey and Nathan ask him to leave (why?) he takes off his costume head – and there’s nothing inside. It’s an ambulatory suit. Then he puts his head on again, takes it off and now the suit is full of very very dead guy with a huge chunk missing out of his skull. Ick.

Then lengths people will go to for cheap labour.

More bears presumably with their own zombies inside appear all with their little mini crowd of fascinated Havenites – and I really don’t believe inhabitants of Haven of all towns could ever be that bored.

Nathan and Audrey try to get rid of them because Dwight and Charlotte are wandering down the promenade while Charlotte talks about how cool it is she can call in military forces.

Time for something I want even less than zombie teddy bears – Mara is washing herself behind a curtain and Duke goes down to ask whether she’s done when she clearly clearly isn’t. She steps out from behind the curtain fully naked and she flirts with him while he looks all conflicted before pointing out to her that she killed Jennifer. But she denies it – blaming it on the door and the thinnies and she’s convinced she and Duke are on a certain “path” together. Duke makes a snarky remark about the CDC but doesn’t clarify it.

Still she figures it out since it has happened before – but before modern technology it was pretty easy to delay a response until after Mara (in whatever guise) was back in the barn and the Troubles over. She points out that Duke and Mara are the ones any government agency will be most interested in and tries to drive a wedge between Duke and the others.

Haven, Season 5, Episode 8: Exposure

Mara is still being held prisoner by Duke and they keep haggling over her co-operation. They need her to talk to Nathan, especially now he’s told her about his fellow “ghost” being killed and the threatening note that was left. In exchange for her help, she wants to know more about duke’s mother which Duke has always been very very close mouthed about. That doesn’t change – Duke refuses.

Instead he and Audrey discuss different ways to talk to Nathan – and Duke calls a paranormal investigator, Seth, who we’ve seen before. He does have a device that detects EM fields – which does find Nathan. But it doesn’t really help them communicate. Seth tells Audrey how wonderful she is while Duke goes back to talk mummy issues with Mara (at Audrey’s urging). Turns out Duke’s mother was neglectful and took over looking after Duke when his father died just for welfare cheques – and Duke learned to steal to get by. He pretty much never saw his mother after that except once when she tried to buy drugs off him when she didn’t know who he was.

Audrey gets a breakthrough looking at the shadow Reggie left – the shadow was stood up, but she had Reggie on his knees with his hands behind his head when he vanished. The shadow is in the same pose it was in Amy’s photographs – the woman whose camera Audrey took at the farmer’s market. She’s also Morgan’s (the ghost who has been a ghost the longest) fiancée.

In ghostland, Nathan speaks to fellow ghost Morgan and they agree they can only touch whatever it was that came over with them (their “residual self-image”) – so someone’s self-image includes a big knife. After talking to other ghosts, it seems like the killer knife-wielding ghost is the recently zapped Reggie who is not a fan of Nathan. So they go hunting for Reggie and end up fighting him.

Audrey and Seth go to visit Amy where they find she has taken a photograph of Nathan and printed it. Time for the Troubles talk. They also discover the photographs change to match the ghosts – so her photo of Nathan gains a slash on his arm when Reggie cuts him in the fight. They also find the guy with knife wounds who was killed last week. Audrey realises Nathan is in trouble so grabs some objects and has Amy take her picture. Except it doesn’t work – not everyone she photographs disappears

Which is all kind of unnecessary because Morgan shoots Reggie in the back with Nathan’s gun anyway. They go to Audrey’s desk and find a note she’s left for Nathan identifying Amy, Morgan’s fiancée, as the Troubled person

Over to Duke and Mara and she pays up her side of the agreement – she gave a Trouble to an artist who would make people he painted disappear when he finished his portraits. Which leads them to the PAINFULLY obvious conclusion – the photograph has to be printed to finish.

The info is passed on and Nathan and Morgan go to Audrey, Seth and Amy – and, snag, Nathan sees the photo that sent Morgan to ghost land. It shows him holding a ridiculously huge knife to cut his birthday cake. Just as Audrey has her picture printed, taking Seth’s ghost communicator with her. Right into Morgan holding them both at gun point.