Haven: The Old Switcheroo, Part 1

Haven started two-parter “The Old Switcheroo” this week — in a new timeslot. Syfy is now airing the show on Fridays at 7/6c, so adjust your mental schedule accordingly. (Yes, SEVEN. I don’t know.)

The Trouble of the week is body-switching, as the title implies, and we’ve got four pairs of switchees this hour, so let’s go through them one by one. It starts at Haven’s psychiatric hospital, where an orderly attacks a patient and they both die. When Gloria and Dwight show up to investigate, they swap bodies, and this swap is mostly played for laughs, though Dwight’s bullet Trouble is definitely a concern — especially when the team realizes that if one body-swapped person dies, the other does too. This is what happened at the pysch hospital — the orderly and a violent patient body-swapped, so the “orderly” attacked the “patient” and both died. It’s interesting to watch the group investigate this while Dwight and Gloria are swapped, and I love how unflappable Nathan is about the whole thing, working with them in this new state almost seamlessly.

Vince is in Manteo, North Carolina researching the “Croatoan” message from last week and an address found in Dave’s adoption file; the Old Croatoan Cafe doubles as the local historical society, because of course it does. Shortly after he gets there, he and Dave switch bodies, and he travels back there in Dave’s body — so now Dave knows what Vince is up to, but Vince knows only that Dave was discussing something regarding Cincinnati with Gloria. A woman named Allison who works at the diner also lives at the address in the file, but claims to know nothing of anyone in the family who was adopted. She also claims to know nothing of Haven, but a Haven phone number is on a sticky pad by her computer, and it turns out to be the number of that same psych facility, where there is a patient with Allison’s last name. They assume he’s the one causing the body-swapping Trouble, but he escapes before they can figure out how to stop it. And back in North Carolina, Vince-in-Dave’s-body feels a pull to a place near Allison’s house — where there’s an open thinny. (Interesting that the thinny affects Dave’s body, rather than his … soul, let’s say, which is in Vince’s body.)

Meanwhile, Duke and Nathan are still dealing with Mara; Duke thinks that since Mara now knows Audrey is in there, Nathan’s plan of treating her like Audrey won’t work. So Nathan suggests “subtly” treating her like Audrey by taking her out on cases – with a stun belt to keep her from escaping. She actually is helpful, but Mara sees through this pretty quickly, and Duke remains dubious about the whole plan: “Nathan, we’re supposed to treat her like Audrey. And you’ve got her chained to a bed. I’m sure that’s not how you and Audrey spent your evenings. And if it is, please forgive me. I’m impressed.” Heh. Nathan ends up leaving Duke to guard Mara, and Audrey seems to surface when Duke talks about their history and their kiss in Colorado. But the way she talks about the kiss makes Duke realize that it’s Mara pretending to be Audrey — except Duke and Nathan swap bodies in the middle of this, and Nathan doesn’t tell Audrey/Mara, and so finds out about the kiss. Oh, Nathan. It’s interesting to see Duke have to admit to the kiss while in Nathan’s body, and he insists that it didn’t mean anything: “I could tell when we were kissing that it wasn’t going anywhere, probably because of you.” Aww. I’m glad that got resolved reasonably quickly, because the Duke/Nathan friendship is practically the only thing about the show that’s working for me so far this season. And a note: when in Nathan’s body, Duke has his non-feeling Trouble, similar to Vince in Dave’s body being affected by the thinny.

Audrey finds out from Mara (and tells the boys) that body swaps are between people who have secrets from each other, though it’s unclear exactly how they’re triggered or how to swap back. I don’t think we ever find out the secret between the orderly and the patient. For Vince and Dave, it’s presumably Vince’s activities in North Carolina and whatever Dave is looking into regarding Cincinnati; for Nathan and Duke it’s presumably Duke’s kiss with Audrey. But it’s worth noting that the secrets being exposed does not trigger a swap back to proper bodies. It’s not clear what the secret between Dwight and Gloria is, unless that’s also whatever’s going on with Cincinnati, since Gloria and Dave seem to be the ones in on that.

Other favorite lines and stray thoughts:

• “Nope. Still don’t like pancakes.”
• Duke spelling out b-i-t-c-h is basically the most adorable thing ever.
• “Have you noticed anyone or anything acting strange?” “Besides you? No. But it’s Haven and the day is young.”
• “Bye, Dave! Good not talking to you!”
• “You’d think a psych ward would do bigger business in Haven.”
• I liked the way Dave-as-Vince kept walking into things.
• “You really should appreciate the fact that you can’t feel anything.”
• Duke on how long until he has to let out a Trouble: “It’s not like I can look it up on WebMD.”
• “Fine. Tell me about chamomile tea, Gloria.” “Oh, it’s lovely. But gin’s better.”
• “You feel terrible.” “You feel strange.”

Next week: Part two of “The Old Switcheroo!”

(Image courtesy of Syfy.)