Haven “Crush” 

Generally speaking, Haven is a show that requires truckloads of suspension of disbelief, and “Crush” decided to just run with that notion, because there were a few major plot points floated that I knew would NEVER come to pass. The good news is that didn’t make the episode any less enjoyable because everybody tried really hard to sell me something even I was never going to buy it.

We begin not with the scene we expect as Duke buries Wade out in the middle of nowhere and finds himself at a loss for words. In town, Jennifer comes into work and Vince excitedly shares that he’s narrowed down a handful of families in Haven who could be her parents. Then Dave comes in and starts talking about “Cabot’s journal” and Vince shushes him. Duke arrives and Jennifer asks him how everything went and he quickly segues from small talk to asking her to move out of the Cape Rouge because he’s leaving Haven (SOD #1). She’s upset and annoyed as he rails that he’s tired of saving everyone but Duke’s not up for debate on the issue.

Back at Audrey’s, we do NOT get the spooning scene from the promo (DAMN YOU!). Instead, we pick up with Nathan making breakfast as Audrey cuddles up to him and they wonder why they waited so long. They talk about it being a side effect of Haven residency and kiss a little bit before Vince comes calling. Nathan sneaks out the back and down the stairs while Audrey turns Vince away upstairs. He heads back down and finds Nathan, who lies that he’s looking for Duke, and scolds him for not speeding things along with Lexie. He tells him time is of the essence because the Troubles are changing.

Duke is walking on a neighborhood street when suddenly everything starts collapsing in on itself. A girl comes out into the street with her ball and Duke is infuriated he has to save her but he does it anyway. His friend Driscoll shows up and surveys the scene with him and then the Teagues stroll up rambling incoherently and Duke realizes they have the bends. So they put together pretty quickly that they’re dealing with a deep sea trouble and the Teagues have a clock on them until they’re dead from the decompression (SOD #2).

Nathan and Audrey show up at the scene with the ME and she tells then it’s definitely a decompression thing. Over at the docks, Duke and Driscoll have loaded the Teagues into a decompression chamber to get their heads right. Audrey and Nathan ID the point of origin that their Troubled person instigated a car accident witnessed by the Teagues, so they need to chat with the brothers. They go to talk to them and run into Duke, who’s not inclined to help them and rails at them the same way he did Jennifer about being DONE. Audrey immediately wonders aloud to Nathan if Duke is onto them. They don’t have long to ponder it when everything goes haywire and they realize Driscoll is now Troubled, which is unheard of because he is from an original unTroubled Haven family.

He tells them to lock him in the tank and then everything resets and Audrey asks him if he was attacked. He says he woke up that morning in a ditch. Audrey asks him to take off his shirt and finds the telltale Roswell hand on his torso. Then Driscoll starts worrying about his brother and we shoot over to the town park where said brother, Aiden (Halifax native Craig Olejnik from The Listener) is sleeping on a park bench when a Haven PD officer wakes him and he argues with her and then the decompression thing kicks in and he kills her and a couple of people in the park.

Nathan, Audrey, and Driscoll arrive in time to see what’s happening but they can’t get close enough to tell him how to stop it. They pull back and Nathan calls Duke repeatedly. Duke is out in the field at his brother’s grave and he finally angrily answers the phone and Driscoll tells him to come. When Duke gets there, Driscoll asks him to kill him and he says no. He and Nathan get into it and Duke takes a swing at him, busting open Nathan’s lip. Nathan pulls back waiting for the hulk and it doesn’t happen and Nathan realizes Duke isn’t Troubled anymore. Nathan calls him on it, Duke reiterates the DONEness and leaves.

Nathan and Audrey talk as the Trouble spreads and they realize the hospital generator could blow up, causing mass casualties. He says they can solve this now if she kills him but she’s not having it. Driscoll says they need pressurized suits and as they wonder where to get them, a smile creeps across Audrey’s face and we see that Duke has returned with exactly what they need.

They suit up and hike down to the square. Nathan’s suit line gets caught on a bench and ruptures and Duke turns back to help him get out of the park while Audrey goes on ahead alone and talks to Aiden. She calms him down and tells him he needs to control this for his son.

Up at the road, Duke gets Nathan to safety and they take off their helmets and Nathan confirms in a statement more than a question that Duke killed Wade. Duke says he didn’t have a choice. Nathan tells him he’s a hero whether he wants to be or not, and Duke laughs that he’s not the first person to tell him that. Nathan asks him who, and Duke says it was someone much cuter than him.

Meanwhile, Jennifer’s gone through her list of families and succeeded only in gathering a box of belongings (with a telltale previously-seen book), and she’s the only one who’s seen a super creepy crab with human eyes. She goes back to the Cape Rouge after Duke calls her to apologize and before she can return rail on him he swoops in and kisses her and she kisses him back. He scoops her up and carries her off to the bedroom.

Duke’s conversation with Nathan also sparks a conversation back at Audrey’s apartment between Audrey and Nathan where they very genuinely discuss that she should kill him now because it would solve everybody’s problems before they escalate any further. He puts his gun in her hand, the same way he did on the bluff, and tells her it’s the most loving thing she can do and they both cry and tell each other they love each other and she levels the gun at his heart.

Back on the Cape Rouge, Jennifer and Duke talk and kiss and she tells him about Vince’s news about her family. The Teagues comes in right on cue and she’s mortified that they’re busted because she’s only wearing Duke’s shirt and Duke’s just pissed. The Teagues could care less about all that–they have news! Vince has read Sebastian Cabot’s journal, which confirms a really old school plague-ish time in Haven when a door opened and they’re excited that’s not what’s happening now because one of the portents is a crab with human eyes and then Jennifer torpedoes that brief moment of relief with her news.

They load up to go tell Audrey and Nathan and then linger on the stairs below her apartment to flip through the journal some more (as you do) and talk about how the portents indicate a reversal–that what they thought would be their salvation is now their doom. Duke realizes that means Audrey can’t kill Nathan and says as much out loud and then Vince twigs to the name slip. Before Duke can explain, a shot rings out upstairs and they all look shocked. (SOD #3)

Let the garment rending begin!

I will admit that I’m the crusty bitch who laughed out loud when the entire gang stopped at the bottom of the stairs because I knew exactly what was coming. But I also know full well Nathan and Lucas Bryant aren’t going anywhere so it’s just an elaborately constructed chain yank by (the no good, very bad) TPTB to wind folks up. I’ve talked before about my friend from The X-Files years who genuinely worried every time they seemd to kill Mulder to the point that it became a running “Oh my God, they killed Mulder!” kind of joke.

I no more believe that Audrey pulled the trigger on Nathan than I believed that Duke would leave Haven or that he wouldn’t end up with Jennifer.

But the proposal of all of those things was handled really lovely.

So what does all this mean? First, we have a new bigger, bad, and the Tweedles are just phase one. Next week’s episode is called “William,” so it’s a safe bet he’s phase two. We also have the mystery of where Jennifer came from resolved but not the what and the who, so the question becomes, is she Troubled, too, or is she another traveler?

I loved that we got exactly what I wanted out of a Nathan and Duke heart to heart and that Nathan had that discussion with him before Audrey did. I liked that Duke was just finally fed up with his recent run of doing the right thing for no reward. That he put it out there for Jennifer that he wasn’t and isn’t always so magnanimous in an effort to push her away was an interesting play (which I knew wouldn’t work). I like that Duke really had a come to Jesus about all of this, and Eric Balfour touched on it when we chatted with him in September–that Duke would have a wide-ranging arc this season, and it’s coming to pass. Duke might’ve always wanted to do the right thing before, but he didn’t always execute on the desire. Now he is, but he’s not at peace with being that guy, either. I like that he has Jennifer to help him sort that out.

I love that Audrey and Nathan are together and the morning after wasn’t a breakfast of regret and sorrow. That came later. They went on about their case without it being weird–except when he took her hand after scoping they weren’t watched and she pulled away because of what he was suggesting she do. The scene at the end was terrifically heartfelt as they had the conversation they’d avoided about what it meant on a larger cosmic scale if the Troubles ended. Nathan talks about Duke killing Wade and Driscoll being willing to die for his brother and those were just one-to-one fixes whereas this would be one to many. It was a slow, sweet scene (designed to time out with the gang downstairs) and it was just lovely work from Lucas Bryant and Emily Rose. Even if I didn’t believe it.

The only other thing that’s crossed my mind, and again, y’all know I do not traffic in spoilers, so this is 100% conjecture–I hope we don’t find out that ALL of this season so far has been a rug pull and that we’re still in the barn, or that we’re going to reset to a prior point in time and undo the entire season. Good will only gets you so far, and the Haven fandom are intensely loyal, so I really hope that’s not where we’re going. I want to trust that what we’ve been shown, and the secrets we’ve been let in on, are real. But I’m getting a vibe I can’t quite put my finger on.

Only five episodes left this season! And I just realized today this season began and will end on a Friday the 13th. Make of that what you will.