HAVEN |
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Audrey Parker - Emily Rose Duke Crocker - Eric Balfour Nathan Wournos - Lucas Bryant Dwight - Adam Copeland Dave Teagues - John Dunsworth Vince Teagues - Richard Donat Charlotte Cross - Laura Mennell 
OTHER SEASONS Season 1 Season 2 Season 3 Season 4 OTHER ODD PLACES Eureka Roswell Point Pleasant Eastwick
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SEE NO EVILAudrey is possessed by the evil Mara and is looking for a doorway between dimensions to bring William back. Duke can't find Jennifer and someone is sewing up the eyes, ears and mouths of people. Welcome back to Haven. After the rather apocalyptic events that ended the last season, the show starts off again in rather low key fashion. Sure, Mara is roaming around killing people without a second thought (making your lead quite this cold a bad guy is a gutsy, but dangerous move), but the Trouble of the Week turns out not to be of importance, unless it carries over into the next episode since it is a strand that is just simply left to hang. A new way of keeping Nathan and Audrey apart seems a little 'been there, done that', though having Audrey as the bad girl is certainly going to leave Nathan in some awkward situations. At least we aren't going to be kept waiting for weeks to find out what the story is going to be. The battle for Audrey's soul has started. Hopefully, it's going to get better. TopSPEAK NO EVILMara continues to leave a trail of bodies in Audrey's wake, causing Nathan to take serious action. Duke finds out what happened to Jennifer and Vince's role as the head of The Guard is challenged.Flashes of Mara's brutality (eye/pencil and car door/finger interfaces) are wincingly out of character with the rest of the show, desperately trying to give Mara the feel of a true villain that Emily Rose can't infuse her with. Surprisingly, a flash of the old Audrey beneath Mara's influence is even less convincing than Mara the bad girl. Duke's situation, and the eye/ear/mouth sewing scenario, is clarified and the casting aside of Jennifer as a regular character seems a bit harsh and abrupt. She had served her purpose in the last season, sure, but a proper goodbye could surely have been arranged. The politics over the Guard leadership is an interesting twist and a new mystery arises over what really happened in the lighthouse, but it's the Mara story that dominates. The plotting of that is a bit sloppy, to say the least, with Nathan one minute barely able to move because his bullet wound has left him so close to death and the next minute recovered enough to drive around and check out serious weaponry, weaponry that he never plans to use. His plan to get the jump on Mara seems momentarily clever, but why couldn't his sketch artist use her drawing skills to take Mara's gun away rather than add in a handy tree branch? TopSPOTLIGHTThe Guard are closing in on Nathan and Mara. Duke tries to keep them off the trail and deal with woman whose chest emits laser beams.As far as Troubles go, the one at the heart of this episode is the silliest yet, and that's saying something. If the afflicted character of the week had laser beams coming out of her eyes, or her fingers or something then maybe it would have been OK, but they just burst out of her chest and abdomen at apparently random angles. It looks even worse that it sounds, and it sounds pretty bad. Nathan's attempts to bring Audrey back to the surface by treating Mara as though she was really doesn't work, despite Lucas Bryant emoting his ass off. When Audrey does pop back in, it's so unconvincing that you just feel it's Mara playing games, even after it turns out that it wasn't. Eric Balfour gets a lot of screen time as Duke becomes more central to things, but his story really doesn't go anywhere. Adam Copeland, as Dwight, has stepped up from being a background regular to being one of the most interesting parts of the show. The central plank is the battle for Audrey's soul, but even so the whole episode feels like filler when it ought to feel compelling. TopMUCH ADO ABOUT MARAThe Guard has caught up with Nathan and Mara, but they are all threatened by a new Trouble that knocks birds from the sky, boils water barrels and makes men blind.A few more people join in the game of trying to get Audrey Parker back out of Mara, but mainly they run around chaotically and the episode feels as messy and chaotic as their response to the situation. Nobody knows what's going on and the audience is left playing catch up as much as the characters, which ought to be fresh and fun, but just manages to feel repetitive and stale. If any single character gets to do anything new in the whole episode, then we must have blinked and missed it. TopTHE OLD SWITCHEROO - Part OneNathan decides to take Mara on a case to try and bring Audrey back. The Trouble involves body swapping, which leaves some characters learning more than they were ever meant to.The Mara/Audrey storyline just keeps on rolling, despite being ever more repetitive each week. Treating Mara like Audrey didn't work for Nathan, so maybe Duke can do it, or Nathan and Duke, or Nathan and Duke and Dwight, or maybe take Mara on a case and that will do it, or maybe have Duke reminisce about the time they kissed and that will do the trick and... well, on it goes. The body swap routine provides the comedy element, though never really stretches the concept any further than other shows have done. In fact, it barely stretches it as far as other shows have done. Some secrets are learned and shared and there is some amusing, though never really funny, quips about being in other people's bodies, but all in all it feels very much like a chance missed. Until Part 2, that is. TopTHE OLD SWITCHEROO - Part TwoBody-swapped Nathan and Duke try to keep Mara duped to their situation whilst they come up with a plan to get Audrey back.The actors are having a great deal of fun playing the other characters and that helps matters, but the concept is stretched thin over the two episodes. There are some nice moments and the some very nice dialogue touches, but at the end of the day, this feels very much like a single episode pulled thin to cover two weeks. There is, however, a twist at the end that could just be the game-changer that the show very badly needs. TopNOWHERE MANAudrey is returned to Nathan, but now there is the small matter of whatever happened to Nathan Wuornos. They could swear he was here a minute ago.Characters being placed out of phase so that they can observe what is happening, but are unable to interact with their friends and loved ones is almost as old as science fiction itself and this version doesn't add a whole lot to the theme. There were the rules of the ghost world, which quite frankly have been done to death (pardon the phrase) in other shows featuring real ghosts. Having the storyline stretched out to two episodes seems a bit like overdoing things to say the least. TopEXPOSUREA photographic Trouble is blasting people into nonexistence. Audrey's only chance for saving Nathan is to bring in some outside help.Losing Nathan for much of the episode doesn't do a lot to help it. Audrey has proven to be rather uninteresting since her split from Mara and it's hard to say whether that's because the writers have planned it that way or whether they just don't know what to do with her right now. Without her special ability, she is no longer the centre of the show. Sadly, Mara is being played as such a pantomime villain that she is rarely believable and the fact that everyone keeps falling for tricks is nothing more than frustrating. TopMORBIDITYThere are dancing bears everywhere in town and the person within the suit, all of them, has half his head missing. Mara tries to convince Duke that his friends aren't on his side at all.The dancing bears in this episode are a fabulously creepy, strange and memorable image that really needed a much better story to go with them. Long after any memory of what was actually going on in this episode is forgotten the image of that bear suit and what's inside will be haunting our memories. It is disappointing that all the relationships built up over the previous four seasons are being threatened by Mara's unbelievably obvious manipulations because nobody will take the time to stop and talk to each other. That's poor writing. TopMORTALITYNathan and Audrey search for a cure to the illness that is infecting Troubled people. Duke releases Mara in an attempt to get her to help out for once. Dwight reveals Haven's secrets to an outsider in a bid for a cure.Mara is a villainess to the very core and it is hard to believe that anyone could possibly even begin to trust anything that she says. This makes Duke's actions almost impossible to believe. As the untrusting soul that he is, he would never fall for her schemes and yet he seems to be doing it more and more. Sadly, everything else about the episode is deeply unmemorable and feels very much like filler in the middle of a season that has a clever central idea, but doesn't know how to use it to fill up the entire running time. TopREFLECTIONAudrey's condition goes into remission whilst investigating a case of gruesome deaths, but the hunt for missing Aether suggests that there is more than one plot afoot in Haven.Apart from the initial, rather disturbing dismemberment scene, the 'Trouble of the Week' case is par for the course for HAVEN, with only the bigoted waitress mother proving to give it anything new, or interesting to go with it. Duke's escalating problems and Mara's growing concerns, and affection, for him prove more interesting than the main plot, and add a little adult level to the show, but somehow you just know that it's going to end in tears, as is Dwight's tentative romance with the lady doctor who has a whole bagful of secrets. TopCHEMISTRYMara is kidnapped and both Duke and Nathan are on her trail, but for very different reasons. Meanwhile, a sickening Audrey looks for evidence to convince Dwight that his new girlfriend is not all that she appears to be.There's a bit revelation at the end of this episode that is a bit of a gasp moment and does explain a lot about the presence of the new character in Haven's midst, but it also reduces the mythology of the show to a family saga that diminishes it somewhat. Meanwhile, there's lots of running around that passes for a plot and the inevitable face off between Duke and Nathan that leads to nothing good. It's passable stuff, but nothing to get in any way excited about. Until that revelation, possibly. TopCHOSENDuke makes a deal with Mara that will save Haven from the troubles that she has set on course to explode out from him, but Nathan desperately needs Mara so that he can save Audrey.It's the mid-season finale and whilst the Audrey/Mara storyline is finally resolved (a bit of a deus ex machina resolution there, but one that at least gives a positive outcome) nothing else is. The visions of the Croatoan in the woods is still an ongoing plotline, though one that has been of little interest and mainly sidelined throughout the season, and the cliffhanger places the whole of Haven at risk of complete catastrophe. For once, we're more than a little interested in finding out how the writers plan to get themselves out of this one. There's a lot going on, but much of it is mainly to hide the fact that the main plotline is a bit thin and needs the other stuff to fill up the time leading to the big finale. It's a finale worth waiting for, but not as compelling a last episode as it might have been. TopNEW WORLD ORDERHaven is surrounded by a fog barrier that nobody can breach and Troubles are breaking out all over the place. There seems little hope that the town can be saved. Desperate measures are called for and Dwight takes them. Audrey learns an unfortunate truth about Charlotte's research.The stakes have been raised. Multiple Troubles affecting the whole town, the police brought in on the secret, fires, explosions, people frozen in place, martial law declared. There is a real sense that the end of times have come to Haven. Since this is the last season, that's only appropriate. The story is entering its final phase and the signs are ominous. And that's even before we get to Dave's visions of Croatoan, perhaps a malign force lurking behind everything. TopPOWERWith The Guard now in charge, Dwight gathers the townsfolk together in the school. A new Trouble has arisen in which a darkness kills anyone who goes into it. There isn't enough power to keep the lights on and a desperate mission to secure the power supply is undertaken, from which not everyone will return. In the outside world, Duke finds Haven's lack of existence in any records or memories inconvenient.Things are getting darker in HAVEN and we're not just talking about the lack of power. The new Trouble is vicious and the community is becoming the same. A minor crime is to be punished by exile from the sanctuary and that means death. Civilisation is crumbling at the edges, people are turning on each other and those in charge are having to make increasingly unpalatable decisions. On top of everything, Croatoan is roaming the town killing anyone he finds. This episode feels a lot like filler, or the 'Trouble of the week' format at the beginning of the show. There's a killer darkness and a small group are sent to deal with it. It doesn't really have anything to do with the main storyline, except that it shows the not-so slow decline in the town's community spirit. In the meantime, Duke's situation leads to a Troubled person outside of Haven and there's no betting that she will be in some way vital to the resolution of the season's arc, just as Jennifer was in Season 4. TopTHE TRIAL OF NATHAN WOURNOSWhen Nathan returns from the power mission without one of the team, the missing woman's husband demands justice. Nathan is put on trial, using a system based on Ancient Greece and with the death penalty as the sentence. Audrey tries to find the person with the darkness power, whilst Dwight and Charlotte go in search of the missing woman, whose life is in jeopardy. Duke trains a new friend to use her Trouble.This episode is arrant nonsense. The supposedly dead person isn't dead right from the start and telling her husband that would have led to a rescue mission, which Dwight and Charlotte go on anyway, so why keep lying to the man about his wife? When picking a format in which to try a person for their life, it makes no sense to pick one that hasn't been used for thousands of years. The community leaders, who have to date acted as they saw fit choose this moment to not stand up for one of the most important of their number? Again, it makes no sense. Of these strands, only Audrey's investigation into who responsible for the darkness creates any real interest or threat. TopENTER SANDMANAudrey is trapped inside the fantasy of Sandman, the Troubled individual who has been keeping the town's criminals asleep. Charlotte is forced to go inside the fantasy to get her out, but the Sandman can kill them both in his fantasy and reality. Duke encounters a face from the past and tries to get him to remember Haven.Ah, the alternate reality that people are trapped in until they realise it's not real and find a away to fight back episode. It's a common trope in genre shows, so it's no surprise to find it cropping up here. It is, however, disappointing, as it doesn't add anything to the main story and just feels like more filler. The same can also be said of the Duke storyline. The phasing through walls girl has disappeared and the mystery chasing geek is back. When the guy forgets Duke only seconds after remembering everything about Haven, it is funny even though it was done much better with the whole 'Ben is Glory and Glory is Ben' routine from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. That, though, is not enough to justify the episode. TopWILD CARDWhilst trying to harvest the ether that will end the Troubles once and for all, Nathan, Audrey, Dwight and Charlotte are targeted by a Trouble based on Tarot cards. The truth about Croatoan is revealed and Duke tries to have his own ether demons drawn out.The 'Trouble of the week' works quite well, and makes for an interesting twist on the theme all by itself. That it ties into the ongoing plotlines of the ether and Croatoan puts the storytelling back on track. Duke is still a third wheel, his walkabouts not achieving very much in any terms at all, the revelations about the nature of Croatoan and what that means for Audrey and Charlotte specifically move things up a gear. Recent storylines have been pretty dark and this one is no exception, dealing as it does with torture and pain and a death that is going to hit some of the characters very, very hard. TopPERDITUSWhilst Dwight and Audrey set out to get revenge for their loss, Nathan finds a way to to make it right. It sounds too good to be true, but the chance exists to find the information needed to build a new barn and end the Troubles. Duke speaks to a dead man and gets a vision of the future of Haven.Though it seems a cruel way to deal with the biggest loss the team has suffered to date, bringing back the dead is never a good idea and so it proves to be. The zombie apocalypse, though, is just a backdrop to a story twist that allows the group to get what they need to move the story forward. It also allows Audrey and Dwight to make their goodbyes and though cheesy, those farewells do have more power than we might have expected for a character who has been with the show for such a short time. Kudos to the actors upping their games to make this happen. Duke's walkabout goes the extra mile to provide a hellish vision of Haven's future that raises the stakes of the story even higher and finally gives Duke the push to do what he has needed to do since he left, which is to go back. TopJUST PASSING THROUGHTo build the new barn and stop the Troubles, Nathan must find a way to enter the Void. Clues to how this might be achieved lie in the past and so he and Vince returns to the day the Colorado Kid. Whilst Nathan tries to keep the tragic past on track, Vince tries to alter things. In the present, Duke is taken prisoner by men in black suits.Another trip to the past and, considering this is the day that two people lose a child, there is precious little power in retelling the story from the new angle. The idea of altering the past is explored only briefly before things play out exactly as they always did. The emotional effect on the significant characters is so muted that there is almost no discernable emotional effect on the audience. After so many episodes of Duke's walkabout being pointless filler giving him something to do that doesn't intersect with events back in Haven, finally there is a point to it all. It seems like an artificially manufactured point, but at least it is bringing him back towards the main storyline. TopCLOSE TO HOMEDuke returns to Haven, bringing with him the one person capable of creating a 'thinning', allowing Nathan to pass into the Void. Whilst watching over Nathan's only way back, Duke is targeted by a woman out for revenge for what he has done to her.The hunt for the barn's controller is on. Nathan passes into the Void, which looks a lot like Haven's least interesting forest areas. You would be hard pressed to tell the difference if Colin Ferguson's William didn't pop up to remind everyone that 'humans don't do well in the Void'. He is somewhat less annoying than in previous times. The whole quest to find the controller, though is pretty uneventful and hardly worth the effort. Events with Duke back in Haven are even less interesting. There is very much a feeling that everything of importance could have been wrapped up in half the time and the rest is padding to fill out the season's double running length. TopA MATTER OF TIMENathan is trapped in the Void and time is running out. The only person who can open the 'thinning' to get him out likes her Trouble so much she doesn't want to give it and makes a fatal error. Dwight, Vince and Dave decide to take on Croatoan directly in the battleground of Dave's mind.For once, it is events away from the big three of Nathan, Audrey and Duke that are the significant ones. Dwight, Dave and Vince take on Croatoan in a mind battle that seems like just another trip into someone's psyche, but it is destined to have an outcome of much larger proportions. Nathan's trip to the Void ends predictably, through unexpected actions on the part of William. It's as though the writers just gave up and decided he should to. And Duke's storyline outside Haven's cloud barrier is thrown away as the girl he met, who was pivotal to the opening of the 'thinning', is casually jettisoned as soon as she has served her purpose. TopBLIND SPOTCroatoan is out in the world and coming from Audrey. Haven's finest are fortifying the police station against him when people start dying. Only an officer who has fused with the building itself provides any defence against the killer.So close to the end of things, HAVEN throws out a gimmick episode. In this case, the gimmick is that the whole episode is supposedly show on CCTV monitors and laptop screens and mobile phones. A black and white episode shown from the point of view of an unseen character. Fortunately, the storyline of the possessed building justifies all that enough for it not to become annoying. The same can't be said of the plot developments. The identity of the killer in their midst doesn't make any sense emotionally or in terms of the character, but the plot requires it to happen and so it does. Everything is justified, though, by the reveal at the end. Oh, the reveal at the end. TopTHE WIDENING GYREAudrey is in the hands of Croatoan, who wishes to speak of the past and of his plans. He's also willing to break a few of her bones if necessary. Nathan interrogates Duke to try and discover where Audrey is and Vince discusses a potential plan with the controller of the barn.There is nothing that can be said to undermine the genius of the casting of Croatoan. For so long, the character has been a malign presence behind events, a scary name capable of scary and nasty things and now at last he is revealed. Whoever was responsible for this casting coup deserved their money. His appearance at the tail end of the last episode was enough to grant HAVEN genre street cred that it doesn't really deserve. The sparring between father and daughter is fascinating as power ebbs and flows between them, or appears to. He can act the loving father one moment and then casually snap her arm the next. She can stab him in the neck with a broken wooden post, but the real power play is in the small fact that he needs her help and she is determined to resist. His leverage is Nathan and the people of Haven. His approach is... unexpected, but evil nonetheless. The interrogation scenes between Nathan and Duke are overly familiar and nothing we haven't seen before as one character urges the other to fight the controlling influence in the name of good and friendship. They are just interludes the audience has to get through before going back to Audrey and Croatoan. More interesting is the conversation between Vince and the controller of the barn. That, at least, has a purpose and the potential to move the show along. At a time when most shows would be ramping up the action and the tension, it is brave for HAVEN to pull out an episode that is basically three different conversations and almost nothing else. Surprisingly, it works. TopNOWDwight is coming to terms with his newly-resurrected daughter. Croatoan uses Duke to deliver the price of his keeping her. Croatoan delivers his offer of a better life for Nathan in person. Audrey and Nathan have a plan to fix the element needed to create the new barn, but Duke is despatched to deal with that as well. In order to save their friend, Audrey and Nathan are faced with a difficult sacrifice.The end is approaching and Croatoan remains apaperntly invincible. Cracks, though, are beginning to show. The biggest of these is the fight for Duke's soul and all of the Troubles he has collected for Croatoan. The ending seems inevitable and follows the completely expected pattern, but then turns in an unexpected direction. It's a fate that was probably coming all along and couldn't actually turn out any other way, but it's still both surprising and shocking. Croatoan's plan is moving forward and there seems no way now for the remaining heroes to stop it. TopFOREVERNathan becomes aware the Audrey he is with is not the Audrey he is meant to be with and sets a course back to Haven. Audrey, Dwight and Vince try one last desperate attempt to get Croatoan into the barn, but if it fails Croatoan will have won.It's the show finale and it goes out with a bit of a bang and a bit of a whimper. The attempt to trick Croatoan into the barn is very nicely done, but it's about the only part of the plotlines that is. Croatoan's plan to trick Nathan into a distant happy life with fake Audrey is so cack-handedly managed that it falls apart within five minutes. The pair appear just down the road from Haven (apparently) with no memory of how they got there or of their past. Being who they are, copy or not, they were obviously going to investigate rather than just shrug and drive off into the sunset. Duke's return is unexplained and inexplicable, not least because it's aimed at Dwight rather than Audrey who he loved or Nathan who was his best friend. And then there's the resolution. The phrase WTF? could have been invented for this. Croatoan is all-powerful and can't be beaten, so there needs to be a really strong, smart idea for the townsfolk to win. What we get is neither. True, Nathan's sacrifice is everything, albeit abrupt and abruptly reversed, but to cause a total reversal of heart in a villain who has shown he is capable of many, very bad things? That's just ridiculous. As for the coda that takes a downbeat ending and turns it into a happy one, well we can forgive the writers for that because it is line with the show's mythology, but did it have to be saccharine sweet? HAVEN is a show that struggled to find itself and rarely reached its potential. The finale reflects that, having a patchy, frustrating and occasionally impressive structure that never quite comes together. Top |
