Haven‘s “Mortality” picked up right where last week’s episode left off, with a contagion spreading among potentially Troubled people — and activating their Troubles, putting all of Haven in danger. As a result, Haven is in quarantine, but I’m slightly confused as to exactly where the boundaries are. Audrey starts the episode outside the quarantine and Nathan has to intervene to get her into Haven; Duke (with Mara) bribes his way through at one point, though I thought they were leaving the quarantine. But they wound up at the hospital, so they must have been coming in. So are the Gull and Duke’s boat outside the quarantine? Or did I totally miss something? Help!
Nathan and Audrey are trying to find the source of the contagion — if they solve that person’s Trouble, it should make the whole thing go away. They first think it’s a young man named Kirby whose very disturbing Trouble results in him having visions of the deaths of everyone he touches, but though he may have spread the disease while working as a delivery driver, he’s not the source. The actual source turns out to be Pete, and Nathan can’t calm him enough to stop spreading the disease.
Dwight takes a different tack, telling Charlotte about the Troubles in hopes that she can create a vaccine. She’s completely disbelieving at first, as you’d expect: “Magic isn’t real. Witches weren’t in Salem, and the Troubles aren’t here.” Dwight tries not to pressure her too much: “I was forced to believe in the supernatural. You still have a choice.” But she eventually gives in, quoting Galileo. She needs a sample of the Troubles to create a vaccine, so she and Dwight go to the hospital to get the Aether from the safe. I really like their dynamic, so I hope the show does more with this.
Mara convinced Duke to help her last episode, and this episode he lets her out and they too head to the hospital in search of Aether. Dwight gets to the safe just before them, but in the process Duke knocks out a guard and activates his Trouble — which starts sucking all the oxygen out of the hospital. A few interesting things here: Mara is affected, so either she’s not immune or the Trouble is only acting upon the oxygen itself, and then the lack of oxygen is a scientific condition that affects everyone regardless of Trouble immunity. Duke holds up well, which makes sense because of his freediving experience; he stays conscious and gets Mara out, and I yelled at him a lot for saving Mara and leaving Dwight, who was in the same room. Nathan also seems to stay conscious longer than most people, though he eventually succumbs. Is this just because the strength of his love for Audrey makes him more determined to stay conscious to save her, or does it have something to do with his Trouble? His body still needs oxygen, of course, but he wouldn’t be feeling the pain that the other oxygen-deprived people were, so maybe it was easier to keep functioning.
Outside the hospital, as every inside is at risk of dying from lack of oxygen, Pete tries to get Duke to kill him to end his Trouble, which I guess would also end all the Troubles triggered by his Trouble? That seems a bit iffy. Duke doesn’t want to kill, so Mara takes matters into her own hands: she mortally wounds Pete, so that he will die regardless of whether Duke does anything, but if Duke finishes him off it will end the Trouble. This is a brilliant plan and possibly the only time I’ve ever liked Mara. Duke complies and the Trouble ends, but he’s mad at Mara, of course; she claims she’s being less passive-aggressive about making him use his power than Audrey was: “Audrey manipulated you. I was up front.” She also claims that she wants to fix Duke, and that she can stop him from ever needing to kill anyone to or let out a Trouble. Does that mean she’s actually willing to end the Troubles? I still don’t trust her. At all.
Audrey is sick all episode — mostly coughing — so Nathan assumes this means she’s Troubled. But where would her Trouble have come from? She has other existential questions, too: the bears created by last week’s Trouble have made her wonder if she herself is real, though Nathan adorably tries to reassure her. But at the end of the episode, when everyone with the contagion has recovered, Audrey’s still sick – so there’s something else wrong with her after all.
Meanwhile, Vince spends the episode in Augusta blackmailing politicians into getting the CDC called out of Haven — only to discover that the CDC denies having anyone there in the first place. So what is Charlotte’s deal?
Other favorite lines and stray thoughts:
- “I had that.” “Yeah, but this way Rebecca has fewer black eyes.”
- “What, you’re gonna go all macho on me?” “Yeah.”
- Kirby tells Audrey that she and her “twin sister” will die together. Interesting.
- I liked that people with active Troubles couldn’t catch the contagion. It’s a nice sciencey detail.
- There’s a family whose touch turns things to cake? I know that would actually be terrible, but doesn’t it sound great?
- “Maybe the supernatural today is just science we don’t yet comprehend.”
- I really want a Grey Gull ball cap.
(Image courtesy of Syfy.)