In a semi recap episode, “The Trial of Audrey Parker” finds Agent Audrey Parker (Emily Rose) and Duke Crocker (Eric Balfour) trapped on Duke’s hijacked boat headed out to sea.
Audrey’s FBI boss Agent Howard has come back to Haven to figure out what Audrey has been up to and why her reports are so thin in content and they both end up trapped on Duke’s boat. Meanwhile, Duke and Julia are trapped in the ship’s hold as a pair of mind reading casino con-artists look for one of Duke’s off the books deliveries. We never find out the contents of the mysterious package, but in reality it doesn’t matter. The interesting bit is that Agent Howard’s arrival (and subsequently Parker’s departure from the FBI) is actually part of an orchestrated plan to get Audrey to remain in Haven and track down the whereabouts of her mother and the origin of the Troubles, the mysterious happenings around Haven.
From reading the initial synopsis, seemed like a typical annoying recap episode. Fortunately, it was very light on the recap and merely talked about some of the cases Audrey worked on while spending a lot of time trying to retake the ship. The B-story involves defining a bit more of the relationship between Audrey’s partner Nathan (Lucas Bryant) and his father Chief Wournos (Nicholas Campbell), and why Nathan hates him so much.
While initially not as strong as the similar show The X-Files, Haven is a well written and engaging show with a lot of acknowledgment to it’s X-Files heritage and plenty of charm amongst its characters. Like the ships in the town of which the show is based, Haven has been a slow but steady show with great interpretations of classic mystery stories. With two episodes remaining this season, hopefully Haven will end on a strong point. It is a very underrated show, and you should definitely check it out from the starting episode.
Other Thoughts
- Audrey talks about “that other agent that chased aliens” which, to me, is a obvious reference to Mulder.
- What is the relationship between Chief Wournos and Agent Howard?
- While having mediocre ratings on SyFy-US, it has had very strong ratings on Showcase in Canada. Hopefully it’s enough to get a renewal.
