This week on Haven, well, basically everything is awful, but hey! There’s a new cop in town! (Reminder to Canadians: Showcase is a week behind Syfy right now, so stop reading now if you haven’t seen “The Farmer” yet!)
The Trouble of the Week: Harry Nix’s family’s Trouble is that their organs fail and they develop alarming throat tube things to suck organs out of family members’ bodies to replace their own. After Nix killed his family this way during the Troubles in 1983, he realized he had to be prepared, so he got a job at a fertility clinic and substituted his own sperm for (all?) the donor sperm, thereby creating dozens of children to harvest for their organs. Well, isn’t that horrifying. And to make things worse, if one of his intended victims gets away, the trauma triggers the Trouble in them, creating a cycle in which a whole lot of people will die. These circumstances lead to what I believe is the first time Audrey deliberately tries to use Duke as a weapon. Nathan is unthrilled with this development, but Audrey insists: “I know it saves lives today, Nathan, and countless others down the line.” When Duke realizes what she wants, he’s furious: “This wasn’t your decision to make.” He initially refuses but ends up changing his mind and killing Nix, and the other Troubled members of Nix’s family immediately recover. Duke does not end the episode particularly happy with Audrey, though.
Enter Tommy Bowen: Boston cop Tommy Bowen’s trainee is one of Nix’s victims, so he follows the clues to Haven, where he tries to work the case under the radar but soon comes into conflict with the Haven PD. “Have you ever had outside cops poking around Haven’s Troubles before?” asks Audrey, who is not always the most self-aware. “Occasionally. Sometimes we keep ’em.” Oh, NATHAN. You’re killing me. Nathan ends up telling Tommy about the Troubles, and though Tommy doesn’t believe him at first, he comes around pretty quickly. He’s had some conflict with his boss in Boston, but Nathan winds up being impressed by how well he handles Haven, and sort of offers him a job, in very general terms. Is he just being polite? Is this his way of handling Audrey’s imminent departure? Anyway, Tommy turns him down, but when someone tries to break into his hotel room, he’s convinced someone is trying to have him killed, so he quits his job and tells his boss he’s going to stay in Haven. And then he takes a body from the trunk of his car and buries it, so clearly SOMEONE has some stuff going on.
The Mystery of Audrey: Audrey has 46 days left, and Duke tries his hardest to convince her to enjoy her time and/or fight her fate, but Audrey’s convinced that the best thing for her to do at this point is just keep helping the Troubled. Duke does persuade her to tell Nathan: “I really couldn’t handle living in this town with Nathan if you disappeared and he didn’t know why.” Uh, good point. When Audrey disappears, Nathan does tend to try to shoot Duke. And Nathan, too, wants to figure out a way to fix things, to change “fate,” but Audrey refuses. Oh, Audrey. But clues keep appearing whether she wants to investigate or not: There’s a body in the morgue, and the murder weapon was a bolt gun – just like with Roslyn.
The Love Triangle: Early in the episode, Audrey accidentally discovers theater tickets that Nathan bought for them – one of those murder mystery dinners because he though they’d be good at solving it, oh, NATHAN – and this is the last straw that prompts her to finally tell him she’s supposed to disappear. He’s not particularly happy that Duke knew all this before he did, and she uses this to deliberately push Nathan away. Nathan is very upset about her refusal to talk: “I don’t understand. I don’t have any idea where your head’s at.” Audrey brings up the perfectly true fact that he got the Duke-killing tattoo without consulting her, but, of course, that was for her. “I was trying to protect you.” “Well, don’t.” Nathan, who is not exactly the most expressive man on earth, has tears in his eyes as he basically breaks up with her: “See you around the office, Parker.” I hate seeing him so sad, and basically think this whole plan of action is wildly misguided anyway, but at least Audrey spells it out to Claire (who is a delightful addition to the ensemble), so we know what she’s doing is fully conscious and well-intended. When Claire asks if she could have handled the situation better, Audrey says “No. It went perfectly.” Her reasoning? “Nathan would never have stopped trying to save me.” This is true, but I’m not entirely sure he will now either, Audrey. “Lucy loved the Colorado Kid and it cost him everything,” so Audrey is convinced that she can’t let herself love anyone. This is so sad.
I mean, no, really. Overall, this was a very good episode, but remember the days when there was just a Trouble of the week and some witty banter and Duke and Nathan glaring at each other? Good times. Now it’s all DOOM AND HEARTBREAK EVERYWHERE, and while it’s probably more interesting this way, I sort of feel like it’s not exactly what I signed up for. But I fully realize that this is my problem, not theirs, and I’ll adapt. Plus, hey, next episode: Haven’s first serial killer. That should be cheery.
(Photo courtesy of Syfy.)