Returning for a second smash season, Haven is a Showcase Original series about a somewhat psychic female FBI agent and some strange shenanigans in small-town Maine. One of the most unique adaptations of the works of Stephen King, it's loosely based on the horror master’s 2005 unsolved-crime novella The Colorado Kid, and cooks up a secondary level of mysteries — an entire town’s worth — around the original story. Season one ended with the town’s ‘troubles’ being (mostly) explained, but uncovered a whole new problem: Not only is it likely that FBI Agent Audrey Parker is related to the Colorado Kid, but she also might not actually be Agent Parker after all. Confusing yet captivating? Of course it is. After all, it’s Haven. Welcome back, you’d better sit down for this.
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Business as usual -- now, there’s an understatement. Haven has always been a show, and town, where nothing is as it seems (hence this “behind the ‘seems’” edition of the blog); it’s a place where the unusual is the norm. Last night’s episode was, of course, called “Business as Usual” [WATCH THE EPISODE HERE], and it was so chock-full of revelations that the titular contradiction could only be ironic.
With one episodes left in the second season, we are heading into the “finale”stretch knowing almost enough about FBI agent Audrey Parker to understand who she really is and why she is in the town of Haven. (Naturally, it’s “almost” -- slow burn is what this show does best.) A brand new character -- though we have long suspected from the sidelines that this character might show up -- tells Audrey how to get to the information about “how all these Troubles started, and how you could finally stop them.” Meanwhile, another major character is told that the way to stop the Troubles involves direct action: “You must kill her.”
We also discovered something pivotal about Duke in last night’s episode -- something that Duke himself discovered along with us -- which promises to smash the already teetering balance between the town’s Troubled and non-Troubled factions. As another character says, “People are already divided, there’s no going back now -- all that’s left is for you to choose a side.” It’s a statement that now applies to every character in the show. (Even the Teagues team has splintered.) With one regular-season episode to go, the lines have been drawn and war is on the horizon.
Let’s not kid ourselves: We want this war. We never entered Haven without expecting to see blood spilled -- the show is, after all, partially based on a novella by the legendary horror writer Stephen King, and those parts of the storyline that are not adapted from The Colorado Kid are nonetheless wholecloth inspired by the master’s canon.
What might come as surprising to some of us is exactly how much blood Haven is prepared to spill: recent episodes “Lockdown” and “Who, What, Where, Wendigo?” have seen the death of two major characters and the (apparent) departure of a third [WATCH THE EPISODES HERE]. We’ve become comfortably accustomed to the Haven “formula” whereby a Troubled character-of-the-week kills or causes the death of any number of other townies -- what we weren’t ready for was the idea that major characters could fall. Season one’s finale saw the (fairly unexpected) death of Chief Wuornos, but this season’s late-in-the-game losses have this scribe wondering just how much the ante has been upped, and how many more casualties await.
Again, this is classic Stephen King: Create some strong characters that are (mostly) decent and (usually) flawed, give your audience just enough rope to let them care about the cast -- even the “badguys” -- and then start taking them out. And I’m not talking dinner.
But you can bet I’m going to be eating in front of the TV next week. I have my theories about what’s going to happen next, but if there’s one thing I know about Haven, it’s that the town’s slogan ought to have been, “Where Business is NEVER Usual.”
What are your own theories about the looming resolution of Haven season two? Hit us in the Comments!