This week’s episode of Haven continued much in the manner set up last week, and while it worked well enough as an episode, I’m getting impatient for some actual progress to be made. Lucky, by the end of the episode, it seemed like our characters were finally right on the cusp of this progress.
The Trouble of the week belongs to a recent widower named Mike; when his wife died, his Trouble was activated, so now when he loses any blood (like a few drops that fall down the drain when he cuts himself), the blood becomes a murderous entity that goes after the person he hates the most, killing people in its wake. Of course, in Haven these days, the person most people hate the most is Nathan. Duke ends up saving Nathan and everyone else: because of his own blood-related Trouble, he’s able to absorb the blood instead of being killed by it. (Duke and Nathan have a quick but adorable argument about whether Duke should try this. I love how no matter how much they may claim to hate each other, they’re extremely protective of each other when push comes to shove.)
When he does this, though, it outs his Trouble to Jennifer, and he winds up explaining to her that it feels good to absorb blood, not bad, and that this turned his father into a monster and he doesn’t want the same thing to happen to him. He also wants to prevent his brother Wade’s Trouble from triggering, so he encourages him to leave Haven, but of course Wade just thinks Duke is trying to get rid of him and is hurt.
I love the dynamic the show is developing between Duke and Jennifer. They’re really quite begrudgingly cute together. I can’t tell if the show is trying to suggest a romantic direction for the relationship, but right now they feel more like siblings to me. Jennifer has other things on her mind, regardless: now that she’s off her psychiatric meds, she’s hearing voices again, and she finally figures out that she’s hearing what Audrey hears. When she tells Duke and Nathan that Audrey is talking about being stuck in a place that’s not real, Duke theorizes that Audrey may still be in the barn, and he’s right. William finally tells “Lexie” that the bar she’s working on isn’t real, and it takes a while but she believes it. And just in time: once Audrey acknowledges that the bar and the people in it aren’t real, they all start disappearing, and William tells her that what she calls the barn is dying – and they have to get her out of it before it takes her with it.
Because we so clearly knew Audrey was alive, this week’s Teague subplot really didn’t work for me. Dwight sends the brothers to New Hampshire to find out whether an unidentified body is Audrey, and while this ordeal is very hard for the characters, especially Vince, there’s just not enough tension for the audience to sustain the dramatic import the show tries to give these scenes. Nevertheless, the experience prompts Vince to first admit that he’s mad at Nathan for selfishly trying to keep Audrey rather than letting her continue the cycle of ending the Troubles for 27 years, and then by the end of the episode to come to the realization that everyone being mad at Nathan isn’t terribly productive, and that they have to let go of grudges and all work together to rebuild Haven.
While the Trouble of the week was fine – I like Duke proactively choosing to become the hero for once – and I’m enjoying the continued integration of Jennifer into the group, I found the rest of this episode to be a bit frustrating. I know this is partially because of Emily Rose’s maternity leave, but having Audrey away from Haven makes it feel like the show is spinning its wheels, though at the same time, I’m not looking forward to the angsty battle over whether she should kill Nathan when she returns.
Note: I’ll be traveling next weekend and unable to watch the episode immediately, so my recap will be a few days late.
(Image courtesy of Syfy.)