The second season of Haven closed with a bang (literally!), which was especially daring give that, at the time, SyFy hadn’t yet renewed the show. (Don’t worry: they have now.) All the threads we’ve been following all season come together and things get complicated, so let’s see if we can tease out exactly what goes down. The Trouble of the week involves ghosts coming back from the dead and avenging things by manipulating living people to act on their behalf. It turns out that the ghosts who are returning were all buried by a certain gravedigger, and most of the incidents don’t matter – until everyone’s fathers start getting involved. (Audrey is the one person who can’t see the ghosts, since she’s immune to the Troubles.)
At the beginning of the episode, Audrey’s trying to avoid Duke, though he claims he won’t actually follow his father’s instruction to kill her. Audrey then confronts Dave about the picture of him with Lucy, and Vince wants to tell her everything but Dave resists. It turns out that the woman now called Audrey comes to Haven with the Troubles, each time with a different name and a different person’s memories. The picture is actually of Dave with Lucy’s predecessor Sarah. They don’t know how any of it works or where Audrey/Lucy/Sarah goes when she’s not in Haven. Vince gives Audrey Sarah’s ring and is vague about his relationship with her – but Nathan calls Audrey away on a case before she can finish the conversation. After she leaves, Dave says Vince told her too much, but Vince replies: “She needs my help! And you’re not getting in my way this time.” Intriguing.
When Audrey meets up with Nathan, he seems a bit antagonistic at first, mad at her for being late for work, and I started to worry – until it became clear that he was just acting that way because he wasn’t sure how to proceed after the epic kiss last episode. He finally manages to choke out “We should have dinner. Together.” Audrey readily agrees, but renders Nathan completely speechless when she offers to make pancakes. He stammers and mumbles and literally hides his face with his hand before he manages to get out “Are we talking dinner or – or breakfast?” They stare at each other and nod and it’s basically the cutest thing ever.
Meanwhile, Duke’s father’s ghost is playing a visit – and Duke is not happy to see him. Simon tells Duke that he can “cure” people: if a Crocker kills a Troubled person, the Trouble dies with them and no one inherits it. Duke is disbelieving, and Simon tries to convince him that it’s his responsibility and destiny to be a Trouble slayer, but Duke is having none of it. Other people aren’t as against the whole murder concept, though: the Rev’s ghost is back, and he and the gravedigger have a hit list and are marking their victims with a red symbol.
Back in Cute Central, I mean, the police station, Audrey and Nathan are leaning against each other just a little as they use the computer together to try to find a connection between the dead people. And Nathan finally opens up to Audrey about his past with Duke: It’s a fight with Duke that started Nathan’s Trouble. A few years ago, Duke came back to town and claimed that he wanted to be friends with Nathan, and Nathan believed he’d changed. But it turned out Duke just wanted to use Nathan as a cover for his smuggling. They fought, and during the fight Nathan stopped feeling pain. Interesting. Nathan’s takeaway from this, of course, is that Audrey shouldn’t trust Duke, but he’s still not really objecting to hanging out with him all the time. Heh. They meet up with Duke at the cemetery where Duke is burying the weapon box – in the midst of returning ghosts, of course. Duke asks Audrey if it bothers her that she never really solves anything, but Audrey says she has no alternative. Duke: “But what if you did?” He’s clearly thinking about what his father said.
Nathan’s father’s ghost appears, and Audrey makes Nathan go talk to him while she goes off investigating with Duke. Nathan and Garland have some awkward small talk, as they would, and
Garland claims that he’s just there to see Nathan, not to settle a score like the other ghosts. He wholeheartedly approves of Audrey’s killing of the Rev, by the way. Nathan thinks his dad should have told Audrey about knowing Lucy, but his dad is concerned that Nathan is too worried about Audrey’s feelings.
Garland: “Are you in love?”
Nathan: “I don’t know what it is.”
Garland: “Well stop.”
Nathan: “What?”
Garland: “You two can’t be in love. She’s just too important to this town!”
Garland says that if Audrey’s in love with Nathan, she’ll take risks for him, and that would be dangerous for the town as a whole. The important thing is that Nathan must keep Audrey alive. “You came back to tell me that?” Nathan asks. “That I can’t be in love with Audrey?” When Garland says he did, Nathan promptly forgets that he’s claiming he doesn’t know whether he’s in love: “Well then. You wasted your time.” Careful, Nathan, your feelings are showing. And boy can you be articulate when you need to be.
Things can’t go smoothly, though, so just then the Rev is threatening to kill Audrey if Duke doesn’t go with him. Duke goes, of course, but since Audrey can’t see the ghosts she doesn’t know what has happened. When she meets back up with Nathan, he hedges about telling her what his dad said, and she gets flirtatious, swearing to get it out of him later. They have more immediate issues, though, as they follow the gravedigger’s wife into the woods and see that the Rev’s men are chloroforming the Troubled and putting them in a barn, which Nathan thinks they’ll burn. Soon Duke appears with the Rev – and Audrey and Nathan promptly get captured. Nathan thinks Duke is working with the Rev, but Duke denies it, and refuses to help kill people.
The gravedigger is part of the group even though he himself is Troubled, as evidenced by his ability to bring people back from the dead. He wants Duke to kill him to “save” his unborn child, but Audrey tells him not to. Simon tells Duke not to listen to Audrey and the Rev calls her a liar, but Duke says “No. She’s my friend.” Simon’s not buying it, because Sarah killed Duke’s grandfather and Lucy killed Simon, so Simon is convinced that Audrey will kill Duke. When Duke points out that he’ll actually be killed by a tattooed man, Simon says that Audrey “doesn’t have to do it with her own hands.” The gravedigger takes advantage of all the confusion and impales himself on Duke’s knife, thus forcing Duke to kill him. (Duke’s eyes go funny as they did in his confrontation last episode, so we’ll have to figure out what that means, exactly.) Simon keeps saying that Duke has to kill Audrey or she’ll kill him, and talking up the way his son will wipe out the Troubled, but Garland steps in “I have a son too. A damn good one. Just take care of our girl, okay?” Hm. I can’t decide if that was adorable or kind of creepy. (At least they didn’t reveal that one of Audrey’s previous incarnations had dated Garland, which is what I’d been fearing.) Now that the gravedigger is dead, the ghosts all go, and Audrey arrests all the living people who had been working with the Rev. Back in the newspaper office, Dave is mad at Vince when he realizes he had the gravedigger dig up and rebury Garland on purpose to bring him back. Vince: “It’s different this time. She’s different this time.” They’re being cryptic. I’m sure you’re shocked.
When we cut to Audrey all dressed up, making pancakes and lighting candles, it almost seems like we’re going to get a happy end to the season – but then she answers the door, expecting Nathan, and instead gets tased. Nathan shows up a few minutes later – in a jacket and tie! – and is alarmed when he finds Audrey’s door open and the signs of a struggle in her kitchen. He finds Duke’s necklace (which Duke had been holding when he first saw his ghostly father, if that’s important) and drives out to Duke’s boat to confront him. (The drive seems to take a while, given that I didn’t think Duke’s bar was actually that far from where he docks the boat.)
Duke is drinking alone, and when Nathan confronts him, he claims he didn’t do anything. “Why would I hurt Audrey?” he asks, perhaps forgetting that he spent this entire episode listening to his father telling him to hurt Audrey. Nathan is unmoved: “You’ve got five seconds.” As Nathan pulls his gun, Duke (and the audience) see for the first time that Nathan has the spiral tattoo of the man who will kill him – and then we pan out so that we hear a gunshot but just see the boat, and don’t see who shot whom. So. Whoa. I don’t actually believe for a second that they’d have Duke or Nathan kill the other, but that was still quite an ending.
We’ll probably have to wait until next summer for season three, but check back in December for our recap of a very special Haven Christmas episode!
Photo courtesy of Syfy.