Happy New Year and welcome to my last post on Haven season four! I’m so sorry this is so late, but I wanted to have a complete set of recaps of the season, so I figured I’d go ahead and post. The delay was partially because of the holidays, but also because I found this finale – and much of the season – to be pretty frustrating. But more on that at the end.
After the previous episode’s cliffhanger, Audrey does manage to re-Trouble Duke successfully, and he in turn kills Ben Harker and ends the Trouble for baby Aaron and the rest of the family. Duke’s first words to the rest of the group – “Aaron can cry now” – made me cry a bit too. Dwight rules the death a suicide, and says he would have had Duke kill him too if his daughter were still alive. I think the Harker story encapsulates a lot of what the show does best – reluctant heroes doing what they can in a world where there aren’t any tidy good answers. Unfortunately, it also prompted one of the things I liked least: as she re-Troubles Duke, Audrey gets a flashback to her original self, named Mara, with William long ago. And Duke gets a flash of it too; his worry about Audrey changing back into Mara makes him even more eager to get rid of William. (Nathan, who, understandably, has never been the best at seeing Audrey’s potential flaws, is still convinced that everything will be fine once William is gone.)
Back to the lighthouse situation: To open the door, four people must stand on the figures in the symbol, but it must be four people born in another world – like Jennifer. (“You’re living with an illegal alien, Duke.” “Hey. I know a guy who does greencards.” I love them.) Audrey is number two and William himself can be a third; they consider William’s henchmen but find out that they’re made of the black goo, not really people at all, so that won’t work. Vince goes to look for other children Howard might have left in Haven, but when he finds out that Dave secretly took the adoption files, he realizes that Dave himself is one of those children. Dave admits that he’s been hiding it because when the door is open, he feels drawn to it, and he doesn’t want to go in there again.
Audrey and Nathan work on luring William, hoping to shoot him with a tranq gun, but he sees through it and his men capture Nathan. William tells Audrey that Mara was sent to the barn as punishment and he swore to save her, so that’s what he’s doing by trying to turn Audrey back into Mara. He makes her start commanding his men – to stop beating Nathan – and as she does so, she has another Mara flashback. William then encourages Audrey to give Nathan a second Trouble, and she pretends to be going along with it so she can get close enough to Nathan for him to knock her out – which, of course, also knocks William out long enough for them to drag him to the circle.
Nathan and Audrey (with William in tow) make it to the lighthouse first, and Nathan, possibly just trying to distract Audrey, gives probably my favorite speech of the entire show so far: “I don’t think I want to use this contractor when we build our dream house. You know, two dogs, picket fence, sea monster in the pool. And I won’t even have to worry about you turning into someone else after we’re married. Been through that already.” Sea monster in the pool, you guys.
Duke has started coughing up blood, and when he puts his hands down a circle of black goo – or just blackened grass, it’s unclear – spreads. When everyone gathers at the circle, William tells Duke that all of the Troubles the Crocker family ever ended are now activated in him. Um, oops. Duke is worried that Jennifer will feel the compulsion Dave spoke of to go through the door, and Dave himself tries to shoot his brother in an attempt to escape. (The bullet rebounds into Dwight, of course.) When Jennifer opens the door, Dave starts to walk in, but the group manages to hold him back, and Audrey pushes William in. Jennifer closes the door and passes out, Duke starts bleeding from his eyes – and Audrey becomes Mara, and announces her intention to get William back.
And, to be perfectly honest, my reaction was “Oh no.” I realize this season the show had to work around Emily Rose’s maternity leave, but the way they did so – and the way it looks like things will continue next season, if there is one – left me in that awkward place of recognizing that the direction of the show was narratively interesting while still feeling like it wasn’t really something I wanted to watch. What I’ve always liked most about Haven was the interaction between the central three characters, and Audrey spending so much time as (or pretending to be) her other selves takes away a lot of this enjoyment. In theory, I always respect a show trying to deepen its mythology, but in this case, I think I actually prefer old Trouble-of-the-week Haven and the space it left for gradual character development and interesting interpersonal relationships.
What did you all think of the finale and the season in general?
(Image courtesy of Syfy.)