It’s homecoming week at the school, which apparently
means a party, with cheerleaders, short skirts – and a creepy man using a
camera in a box to get an upskirt video. He takes it home, locks and bolts the
door, starts up his computer – and then someone leaps on him – and there’s lots
of blood.
In court, Duke is in trouble for parking tickets, taking
his time to play word games with Judge Boon and have a little snark at Lynette,
the court reporter. Despite his behaviour, Judge Boon has to agree that the
tickets are wrong – but not his fake liquor license, so his bar will be closed
at 10:00 that night. Duke leaves the court to find a blonde woman in a white
dress and a large knife – after puncturing his tires she scratches the
paintwork on his truck. Duke runs to get Tommy who seems more amused than
anything, especially since she’s disappeared when he turns round again.
Audrey is telling Claire about her dreams – the Colorado kid,
the creepy barn and her old boss telling her to stop remembering. Which is a
problem since she seems to have obeyed and hasn’t had a memory since. Claire
advises a new tactic – treat it like a police case and make a facial composite
of the Colorado kid, bringing the memories to real world.
But now it’s crime scene time, to go see Jason Dooley’s
home, the nasty peeper who has had his eyes gouged out with a spoon. Nasty.
Audrey instantly leaps to the bolt gun killer (and her kidnapper) since he
takes body parts as well, but Nathan is more cautious. Haven PD knows about
Dooley’s nasty little hobbies uploading upskirt pictures onto the net – he’s
slipped through the court on technicalities and worked the system – but there’s
a lot of people who’d want to hurt him. And, surprise, surprise, he’s actually
alive and stable in hospital.
They go to interview the guy and confirm that he was
attacked almost by someone almost too fast to see, but it was definitely a
person (it says a lot about Haven that you have to ask that) and trhey didn’t
have a gun. What is a question is how the attacker got in since the door was
locked and bolted and the fire department had to batter it down – even his
motion detectors weren’t tripped. They also have more confirmation that the
attacker wasn’t the bolt-gun killer since that attacker removes organs with
surgical precision, Dooley’s attacker certainly didn’t. Audrey has her little,
understandable, freak out moment that the bolt gun killer is still out there,
that she’s followed every lead, even asked the FBI to send her reports of other
murders missing body parts and still not getting anywhere. I’m glad that her
kidnapping isn’t something that just gets brushed under the rug and it has had
a lasting effect on her – too often trauma is just brushed aside on TV
Nathan assures her that he’s trying to infiltrate the Guard and he’s already made contact with Jordan Mckay – the bolt-gun killer is definitely one of them. They also get an image from Dooley’s camera – a partial image of what looks like a woman – definitely not the bolt-gun killer.
Nathan goes to the Gun and Rose diner to meet Jordan and
we get a hint of just how much her power to hurt anyone who touches her bothers
her – how she hates to use it even when it helps her. She says people have told
her that touching her is the worst thing they’ve ever felt. Nathan tries to push
for more information on the Guards but she says he can’t just ink loyalty onto
his skin – they have a way for him to prove it. There’s a prisoner, Duncan
Fromsley, in prison for arson and murder after he burned his house down for the
insurance money without realising his son was inside. He’s in prison and has
stage 2 cancer and is refusing all treatment, his wife thinks she can convince
him to get help if he is closer – they just need Nathan to push for the
transfer, if he does this she will vouch for him to the Guards.
At his bar, Duke is kicking out his patrons since he has
to close due to his liquor license, he takes the car keys off one drunken
patron to stop him driving. He tells them to blame the judge when the woman in
white appears again. Every time he looks away she teleports closer, moving at
extreme speeds. He closes the door and turns round, and she appears behind him.
He runs and grabs a shot gun but she pushes it aside and throws him easily
across the room. He runs and hides, grabbing his drunken patron and forcing him
against the wall to be quiet – the man accuses Duke of assault while Duke calls
the police. The woman in white proceeds to smash all the alcohol bottles in the
bar.
Duke spends the night in the cells after being accused of
assault and has an appointment with Judge Boon in the courthouse later,
something Tommy finds extremely amusing. Duke explains the situation to Audrey and
Nathan – he has a blonde Troubled, violent stalker. Audrey, in a classic Audrey
leap of logic, connects Duke’s attacker to the possible woman who attacked
Dooley and decides that Duke needs to stay with them for safety if he has been targeted.
Which is when they get a call about a new victim.
The new victim is Megan Berlin who is in hospital with 22
bone fractures that looks like she’s been dropped from a high building – except
she was locked up on the ground floor. She was locked up pending assessment by
the child protective services because she was accused of shaking a 6 month old
baby. Audrey makes the much more obvious leap – the peeping tom gets his eyes
gouged out, the child abuser who shook a baby has injuries similar to what the
child would have, Duke doesn’t pay parking tickets and his truck is vandalised,
he doesn’t pay his liquor license and his booze is destroyed – everyone is
getting “ironic” punishments. Duke panics at this because he is, technically,
an unpunished murderer and needs protection. Nathan, being the arse he always
is to Duke, suggests a prison cell but Audrey, as someone immune to the
Troubles, suggests Duke stay with her. Duke has to joke with that – saying he
sleeps in the raw (we don’t get to see that, alas) and Audrey stalks off.
Nathan tells Duke she’s just using him as bait – did I mention Nathan’s an
arse?
At Audrey’s house they sleep in 3 hour shifts, she the
Haven PD coming round every hour and she has a gun. Duke has come prepared with
a whole set of kitchen knives – if he can get her to bleed then he can invoke
his own Trouble and he thinks he can take her. They try to sleep but Duke is
too much of a nuisance and they end up talking about Audrey’s identity issues
to which Duke declares that just because Lucy loved Colorado kid, doesn’t mean Audrey
will today – just because bolt gun killer thinks so doesn’t make it true; a
dangerous psychopath who collects body parts isn’t the best source of
information. But Audrey doesn’t know if love can be erased and if she does love
the Colorado Kid, that it won’t just come back. Duke comments that they’re both
fighting against their supposed fates and ultimately they can’t let his family
or Sarah/Lucy drag them down. It gets even sappier from there but just when Duke’s
declaring how much he’s happy he met her, she’s fallen asleep.
Which is when the woman in white shows up. Duke manages
to stab her – but she doesn’t bleed. Audrey shoots her with a shotgun and she
collapses into plaster rubble. But just as they relax she reappears, throws
Audrey out onto the balcony and smacks Duke around before disappearing.
Audrey and Nathan consult on the case and decide that it’s
a Troubled female vigilante using the Haven Herald crime edition as a guide –
since Duke was punished for an assault that he didn’t actually commit, it’s
clear she’s punishing people she assumes are guilty and has no ability to
actually unerringly discern guilt or innocence. Since Duke has been mentioned Nathan
isn’t very helpful and has to throw in some digs. Still Audrey thinks if they
don’t let out the secret of the murder, the vigilante won’t know about it and
Duke will be safe – from there they check their sketch artist pictures of the
woman and ask anyone in the court if they’ve seen her. Until they see her
themselves – in a mural of Lady Justice on the wall.
On to Vince and Dave who, of course, know everything but
tell nothing. Audrey theorises that the woman who posed for the picture is an
ancestor of a modern resident, especially since the Troubles run in families.
But Vince and Dave say there was no model, the painter just chose a picture of “idealised
female beauty”. But when Audrey tells them about the plaster she shattered
into, they worry and call it a golem. Many myths and legends are confused as
Troubles, as the Trouble manifests how the Troubled person sees is. Golems obey
their masters, are impossible to stop and indestructible. Audrey decides to
look for its master – but Nathan is stuck on infiltrating the Guards. Audrey
doesn’t want him to compromise himself or go against his ethics for her, since
it won’t change anything in her eyes but he argues he’s not doing it for her,
he’s doing it to stop a murderer.
In police station, in between Duke taunting Tommy, they
discover all of the people who are victims are people Judge Boon felt he had to
let off easily. Find all people judge
boon let off easy.
Which is who Nathan is talking to – to try and get his
dodgy criminal transfer for the Guards – which goes very smoothly, the judge is
very willing to take bribes in single malt and has friends who are willing to
let their strings to be pulled and he makes the call easily. Nathan leaves and
gets a call from Audrey telling him Boon is the Troubled vigilante and rushes
back in – to find Boon dead, impaled and posed as Lady Justice with scales and
a blindfold. Probably not the guy.
Nathan confirms to Audrey that Boon was corrupt which is
why he was treated so harshly – Lady Justice took it personally. Unfortunately
before Nathan got the transfer, he saw the judge releasing several teenaged
vandals who had just beheaded a statue – and they quickly set Tommy to watch
the teens lest they be beheaded.
Audrey checks the documents again and finds that the
paperwork for Duke’s assault had hardly reached Boon’s desk before Duke was
attacked. Duke thinks it must be someone in the police - and accuses Tommy, but
Audrey finds 1 person present in all trials.
Lynette, the court reporter. Duke has a dramatic and not
too realistic rant in which he confesses to murder in the face of Lynette’s
judgemental, righteous attitude who believes he doesn’t feel guilt and isn’t
sorry (touching a nerve because Duke is torn by guilt over the murder). Lady
Justice appears and holds him at sword point. She’s been pushed to the edge by
sitting in the court every day seeing monsters get away with it, she hates
living with it. Audrey intervenes,
saying he only killed people because it saved hundreds of lives, telling her he’s
a good man. Apparently, Audrey’s word is all it takes to completely shake
Lynette’s world view and decide she’s an awful person who has hurt so many good
people unjustly. Which makes her evil, her the monster who should be punished –
Lady justice drags her into the painting where she fades into paint.
Yeah I kind of glossed over the ending there because it
annoyed me – I hate it when villains are talked to death by the hero,
especially when the hero’s speech is so shallow. “You’re a bad man and deserve
to die!” “No, he’s good!” “He is? Oh WHAT HAVE I DONE! I SHALL KILL MYSELF!”
really kind of shallow there. Especially when we’re talking about a confessed
murderer whose murder is justified by Audrey just saying so.
Nathan tells Jordan about the prison transfer and
arranges to see her – but she says she’s not at work today. Nathan, just
outside the diner, can see she clearly is and that she’s lying. He follows her
and notices she’s not wearing gloves. She stops at a gas station where the
guards who are transporting the prisoner pause and, asking for directions, she
touches them, they fall to the ground passing out in pain. She stands for a
second, distraught over them before opening the prison van and helping the
prisoner into a getaway car. One of the guards wakes up and stats to shoot her –
but Nathan moves in and knocks him unconscious.
In the aftermath, Duke and Audrey have a bonding moment
about Duke being a good man and yes she meant it. Audrey tells Nathan about her
plan to get Claire to do composite of Colorado Kid – Nathan suggests Vince but Audrey
has finally realised that the Teague brothers are not trustworthy. She asks him
about the prisoner transfer and he lies and says it all went smoothly - then
destroys a fax coming in about the
escaped prisoner.
He goes to see Jordan to confront her about the lies –
Duncan didn’t even have cancer, but he did kill his son. Jordan claims Duncan
did it by accident by having a nightmare – because he’s Troubled. And, in
prison, they were cutting his sleep med which meant he had a very good chance
of causing a similar fire in prison. The Guard will do anything it can to
protect and help the Troubled – no matter what. Nathan brushes that aside and, instead,
talks about how much it hurt Jordan to use her power – he touches her and it’s
a powerful, emotional moment that leads to them kissing. The love triangle just
became square shaped
Audrey, with Claire works on the photo fit but she’s
still blocking – because if Audrey gets these answers her whole life could
change. Before they get any further, Audrey gets an email from the FBI about
murder victims with missing body parts – and finds another victim of the
bolt-gun killer. A woman, who had her chin removed. She jerks up and spreads
out the paperwork with a horrible thought – is he taking trophies or is he using
the parts to build a woman? (Audrey logic, don’t question)
Which is where we end – watching the bolt-gun killer sew
body parts.
So there’s a lot about love and relationships in this
episode. It’s interesting to see Audrey talk about her fear of her loving the
Colorado Kid with Claire since it adds far more weight to her reasons for
pushing Nathan away - “to protect him” seemed weak, even “I’m going to
disappear in a month” didn’t seem like a good reason to go slow particularly
especially if they could try and find a way out – but fear that she’s going to
instantly fall in love with another man, that’s a good motive. Add in her
conversation with Duke “You’re not Lucy or Sarah” and Claire telling her she’s
blocking and we’ve got a lot of troubled angst there which would be wonderful
to explore – Audrey fearing the memories that may change everything she knows
and even who she is. She isn’t Lucy or Sara – but she’s not really Audrey
either – and if she has Lucy and/or Sarah’s memories who does she become? It’s
interesting and I’d like to see it explored
Rather than Duke’s re-entry into the love triangle and
Nathan’s subsequent jealousy. Haven’t we put that storyline to bed? And now
Nathan with Jordan? Can we not have these multi-person, need-a-flow-chart
romances? They add drama without substance or story, stall character
development rather than pursue it and waste time that could be spent questioning
Vince and Dave. And it’s been three seasons just make Nathan and Audrey a
couple already, the foreplay is getting tiresome.
