Haven‘s fourth episode, “Over My Head,” continues the season’s trend of solid, intriguing episodes that are also really freaking heartbreaking. Why are you doing this to us, show? (Reminder to Canada! You’re behind this season, so make sure you’ve seen this episode before you read on.)
The Trouble of the week begins when a swimming teacher is killed in the town pool – by a shark. It turns out that her fellow swimming teacher, Daphne, is missing. Daphne was in an accident and her car went over a cliff and into the ocean, and as she’s trapped there waiting to drown, her fears and experiences begin projecting onto everyone she thinks about, everyone who might save her: her colleague, her neighbor, the other driver in the accident. And when Duke tries to call her and she sees his name on her phone, he starts drowning in the middle of the street. Duke and Nathan have a rare adorable moment of working together and figure out where Daphne is, and Duke immediately heads down the cliff toward her car. Nathan is convinced that Duke will kill Daphne to make the Trouble stop – or just wants an excuse to shoot Duke – but Audrey manages to stop him, and Duke proves himself, at least for now. He uses Daphne’s Troubled blood to evoke the super strength he needs to rescue her.
Meanwhile, Haven’s serial killer is still at work. He’s taking one body part from each victim – how creepy is that? – and has at least a nose and scalp/hair so far. He takes this episode’s victim at an ATM, so we see that he has the infamous tattoo. At the end of the episode, he puts the scalp on a head model and starts brushing blood out of the hair. This is horrible. And this guy, so far as we know, is after Audrey. Eeek.
The love triangle has devolved into complete hostility, at least from Nathan, and really, I can’t blame him. When Duke starts following Nathan and Audrey around on cases, Nathan takes to threatening to arrest or shoot him, and it would be hilarious if it weren’t so heartbreaking. “This is a police investigation. You’re not a cop.” Honestly, this is a reasonable point. Nathan pretends he’s just concerned about Duke killing more people, but this is obviously at least partially about Audrey. Duke tries to act normally, but ends up just putting it out there: “Nathan, I don’t think this is about you not trusting me. I think you’re pissed because Audrey does.” Yup. Meanwhile, Nathan and Audrey are horribly awkward together, and though they won’t or can’t talk about themselves, Nathan sure can project: “I’m guessing [Duke]’s still pissed about Harry Nix. That you didn’t trust him enough to tell him what was going on.” I don’t think he’s the only one unhappy about Audrey’s lack of trust there. Duke certainly notices and appreciates Nathan’s mood: “I am so enjoying how unhappy he is.” Again, this is funny but also so, so sad, because Nathan and Duke have known each other their whole lives, and neither of them have a whole lot of other friends or family around.
Nathan: “I should put him in a cell.”
Audrey: “Just let him help. We owe him.”
Nathan: “You owe him.”
Clearly the days of “we” are over for Nathan and Audrey, at least for now. And Duke agrees that Audrey owes him, in a sense: “Nathan can think whatever he wants, I don’t care… but you’re the one who asked me to kill that man.” Duke insists that he wanted to be on the case to show Audrey that his family’s legacy doesn’t control him – and neither does she. But Claire (gosh, it’s useful having a psychiatrist around) sees right through him when he insists that he doesn’t care what Audrey thinks of him. “Just keep telling yourself that.”
Nathan, mad as he might be at Audrey at the moment, obviously won’t put up with the serial killer being after her, so he forces the reluctant Teagues to tell him more about the people with the tattoos. (They’re not thrilled with being shut out of current activities. “We came by the ATM this morning, but Detective Bowen wouldn’t tell us what happened!” “Well, finally someone who knows what ‘police investigation’ actually means.” Heh. I love angry Nathan.) The tattoo people are very mysterious, but they call themselves The Guard and refuse to let the Troubled be victimized. The Teagues point him to a waitress named Jordan who works at the Gun and Rose diner. She’s very reluctant to tell him anything at first, but she slowly warms up to Nathan, especially when he tells her about his biological father and his own Trouble.
Jordan wears gloves, because her Trouble is that her touch causes pain to whoever she touches. Except . . . hm, do we know someone who can’t feel pain? YUP. Nathan grabs her hand, and it’s the first time she’s been able to touch anyone for years. “You don’t feel it.” “No. I don’t feel anything ever.” For Audrey/Nathan shippers, this is, if you’ll forgive me, excruciating. Audrey is the only one Nathan can feel – but Nathan is the only one Jordan can touch. And boy, do Nathan and Jordan have some chemistry. Now, as much as I like Nathan and Audrey together, at this point I really can’t blame Nathan if he turns elsewhere, since Audrey has done everything she can to drive him away. But first, Nathan wants to get into The Guard, or at least find out more about it. “I’m one of you, and I want to help. I’ll prove you can trust me.” “How?” “You tell me.” Yeah. That won’t possibly turn out badly.
The Teagues and Tommy Bowen wind up forming a mutual blackmail society. When they threaten Tommy with “interesting things” they’ve discovered about a shooting he was involved in in Boston, and a sealed Internal Affairs file, he comes right back at them and reveals that the brothers own half of Haven and have a network of shell companies and offshore accounts. And the money involved “appeared out of thin air” – maybe last time the Troubles were in town? Fascinating.
And we’re still unwrapping the secret of Audrey. She and Claire try hypnosis to recover some of Lucy’s memories, and Claire continues trying to talk sense into Audrey about Nathan, Duke, and her future, as well. But Audrey insists that she can’t let Nathan know why she pushed him away, and that Duke will get over killing someone because the man he killed was a monster. She tells Claire that she did what she had to do because she’s running out of time, but Claire isn’t buying it: “You’re only one person, Audrey. You can’t save everyone.” “But I have to try.” Oh, Audrey. The hypnosis finally works, though, and she has a few Lucy flashbacks to seeing the Colorado Kid and that infamous day on the beach. At the end of the episode, she has a flashback dream in which she finally sees the Colorado Kid’s face and then a barn door opening, and when she thinks she’s woken up, Agent Howard (remember him?) is in her bedroom. “You have to stop.” “Stop What?” “Remembering.” And then she really wakes up. Whoa.
(Photo courtesy of Syfy.)