Haven: Exposure

Haven‘s “Exposure” picks up right where the last episode left off, with “ghost” Nathan in danger and invisible and Audrey and Duke trying to figure out how to help him. (Of course, Nathan is Nathan, so he’s investigating from his end as well.) Duke calls in the Darkside Seekers, and Seth shows up and actually gives a bunch of practical help while being pretty delightful. Can we keep him instead of Mara? He points out that the Troubles are still bound by the laws of physics, so Nathan should have an electromagnetic presence even though they can’t see him — and they find him quickly with Seth’s equipment, but there’s no way to talk to him at first, so Seth has to tweak the equipment.

Audrey realizes that the shadows left by the vanished people all match their poses in pictures taken by Amy — and when she goes to talk to Amy she sees that Amy’s printed pictures change and reflect wounds when the “ghost” is hurt. She can see that Nathan is hurt, so Audrey tries to cross over by having Amy take her picture. I absolutely do not understand why none of Audrey, Duke, or Seth figured out that the pictures need to be printed for this to work — I thought it was obvious immediately, especially since we know none of the original people vanished the moment the picture was taken. So I was frustrated by them making all the other characters stupid in order to make them need Mara. But anyway, Mara finally tells Duke that she originally created this as a portrait-painting Trouble, and figures out that the people disappear once the picture is printed.

Amy has no idea — and Amy is also the fiancee of Morgan, the “ghost” leader who is supposedly helping Nathan. It turns out that the Trouble was triggered when she learned that her fiance had cancer and wanted to keep him at a happy moment, and that’s why Morgan was the first “ghost.” He’s also the one killing other ghosts, because he knows that if Nathan figures out how to cure this Trouble, he’ll be back in his cancer-ridden body and about to die. By this point, Audrey has crossed over too, and Morgan has her and Nathan both in cuffs. Seth gets his device working so Morgan can talk to Amy — just in time for him to tell her to take a picture of herself and print it to end her Trouble. Seth realizes that this is nonsense; Morgan is trying to get Amy to send herself over so they can be together. But Amy doesn’t listen to Seth — and seems to cross over as soon as the picture is taken rather than printing it, argh. Anyway. Once she realizes what’s actually going on – that Morgan has been killing people in his attempt to be with her and not die of cancer — she has a realization that ends the Trouble: “You are not the man in that picture, not anymore. That man died a long time ago.”

Even as Morgan, back in Haven and corporeal, is being taken away in an ambulance, he’s still whining at Nathan: “Why are you the only one that gets to be happy?” Hahahaha. Right. Nathan’s life has been very easy. But Amy’s words do get to him: “He hurt people, he killed people, just so we could be together?” He asks Audrey: “What Amy said, is that what I’m doing? Hurting people to be with you?” Luckily, Audrey brushes this off, and I agree with her: “After everything that we have been through, and everything that we have sacrificed, we deserve to be together.” But it’s interesting that this is what made Nathan start thinking about this issue, after practically a whole season of everyone insisting that he was dooming Haven by prioritizing Audrey.

Mara wants something in return for her help, of course, and what she’s after this week is information about Duke’s mother. Audrey urges Duke to give Mara at least some of what she wants, but he never actually tells her what Mara’s asking. Interesting. The story is basically that Duke’s mom was terrible and he was pretty much on his own after his dad died when he was eight, so that’s why he started stealing. He ran into her in Boston a few years ago, where she offered sex for drugs because she didn’t even recognize her son. Oof. Poor Duke. It’s interesting getting this backstory, of course, but I wonder whether it’s going to become relevant somehow. Is Duke’s mother going to show up? And in other Mara/Duke news, she insists that since intent is the most important thing when releasing a Trouble, he split her and Audrey deliberately, because he wants Mara around, at least subconsciously. Interesting.

Meanwhile, Dave is still in the hospital in North Carolina with some sort of crazy infection in his leg. The doctors insist on doing a biopsy, but Dave thinks they’re just trying to keep him there, so he checks himself out — but Vince tries to steal the biopsy back so the doctors don’t learn anything about the Troubles. He sneaks in with a very bad cover as a journalist (which he is! He should be better at this!) and gets arrested, so Dave has to get him out by pretending to be a police chief — calling himself Garland Wuornos, hee – and … I don’t even know the point of this whole subplot this week, except for as an excuse to bring Dr. Charlotte Cross of the CDC to Haven. So we’ll see where that goes next time.

Other favorite lines and stray thoughts:

  • “So someone’s residual self-image includes a big knife?” “Says the guy with the gun on his hip?”
  • Audrey designating a place to leave Nathan notes was clever.
  • Seth and Audrey bonding over their missing partners is pretty adorable. “This is the kind of thing we used to do together.”
  • “Don’t shoot. I am unarmed. And uninsured.”
  • The “ghost”‘s clothes reflecting the picture makes much more sense than that residual self-image nonsense.
  • “I am the one who goes bump in the night.”
  • “He’s upstate. Feature story. Three-clawed lobster.” Oh, Maine.

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