After last week’s mind- (and time-)bending episode, we return this week to somewhat standard Trouble in Haven. The Glendower family’s affliction is that, whenever the Troubles come, the men of the family stop being able to breathe air alone for long stretches of time and instead need to be underwater. Audrey and Nathan get involved when the body of Leif Glendower is found by the water with a supposed suicide note. Once they identify him and find his ex-wife Mary (one of the Rev’s parishioners), she reports that her son Daniel is missing – presumably at the compound of Leif’s family, with whom Mary did not get along.
Audrey and Nathan confront Cole and Gwen, the Glendower family leaders, at the compound, but they won’t give up Daniel and won’t let the police on their property without a warrant. Meanwhile, Nathan has to talk the Rev and Mary from getting a posse together to raid the compound themselves. It turns out that the Rev is involved because almost thirty years ago, his wife went missing and Nathan’s father suspected that Cole Glendower was involved. She was then killed in a car accident, but the Rev didn’t believe it was an accident and had been looking for an excuse to go after the Glendowers ever since.
Audrey convinces Nathan to go back to the compound at night, even though they don’t have a warrant, and they find Daniel in an overflowing bathtub. When Nathan tries to forcibly remove Daniel from the water, Cole finally comes clean about the family affliction. The men will all be going to the water in two days, and Daniel must go with them or he’ll die. Leif had been too afraid to tell Mary. Cole also confesses that he had had an affair with the Rev’s wife, but insists that he hadn’t killed her. Audrey and Nathan realize that Gwen is actually the Rev’s “dead” wife – and the author of the fake suicide note found on Leif. She had faked her own death to keep the Rev from killing her when he found out about her affair.
Daniel and the rest of the boys are kidnapped, and Nathan tries to arrest the Rev, but Evie gives him an alibi. The Glendower men try to take matters into their own hands, but Nathan intercedes, and the Rev finally admits that he told Mary about the affliction and she took the kids. They find her holding them in a barn, because she’s convinced that the Rev will be able to cure them. The Rev offers to convince her to let them go in return for Nathan and Audrey attending services at his church, but Nathan refuses. So Gwen reveals to the Rev that she’s still alive, and convinces him to talk to Mary. The boys all get out safely, but the Rev leaves Nathan with this foreboding words: “The time for prayer is indeed over, but a good shepherd always finds a way to save his flock.”
Leif’s autopsy shows that he was murdered, and Nathan figures out that Cole murdered Leif because Leif was blackmailing him about Gwen’s real identity. Nathan realizes that Cole can’t go to jail – he’d die if he couldn’t be in the water – and Cole promises to come back and pay for his crime when the Troubles are over. In a moving scene set to Enya’s “Exile,” Audrey and Nathan stand on the beach with the women of the Glendower clan and watch the men and boys, including Daniel, go into the water.
The A story took up more of the episode than they usually do on this show, but there were a few other strands woven in. When Audrey and Nathan break into the Glendower compound, Audrey finds a picture of Lucy Ripley with Nathan’s dad. Gwen tells her that Lucy appeared one day, spent a few months helping Nathan’s dad with the Troubles, and then disappeared without warning. And the day of the Colorado kid murder was the only time anyone saw Lucy cry. Honestly, I know this Lucy stuff is supposed to be one of the driving mysteries of the show, but I’m less invested in it than I am in most of the other elements. I mean, I’m all for Audrey figuring out her past, but this is moving really slowly. And a few times it seemed like they were going to suggest that Lucy had been romantically involved with Nathan’s dad, and that would just be squicky. Audrey says “Looks like we’ve been following in their footsteps without even knowing it,” and, well, yes, but not too much, okay?
Speaking of Audrey and Nathan, after last week’s almost-revelatory episode, I was hoping for but not expecting some sort of progress in their relationship, but there wasn’t really much. This episode did highlight the ways they balance each other. Nathan first objects to the idea of breaking into the compound without a warrant, but realizes that Audrey will go anyway, so gives in. “Come on,” she says. “I bet you look good in black.” He looks good in anything, Audrey. Later, Audrey’s the one trying to keep Nathan under control when his anger at the mistreatment of children and at the Rev threatens to get the best of him, and she comforts him when he grieves for his father and all the questions he never asked before his father died.
Duke’s “excuse” for being around all episode this time is that Leif and the rest of the Glendower men have the mystery tattoo. He has Evie distract the Rev while he goes through the Rev’s office and finds a list of people killed by the Troubles – including his father. He finally asks Cole about the tattoo, and Cole says it marks those who will fight back when the Rev comes for them. He also says that he doesn’t know who killed Duke’s father, but that Duke is being watched to make sure he doesn’t follow in his father’s footsteps. I’m not sure what that means, exactly – did I miss something, or is it supposed to be mysterious? Anyway, the big reveal comes at the very end of the episode: The person Evie’s been working with/for is none other than the Rev! “Now that he knows his father was murdered, you’ve got him.” Hmmm.
Photo Courtesy of Syfy