Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Haven: Fur by Heather M

So, full disclosure: I'm a vegan, and if I come across an episode of a show that I watch that’s going to veer into hurting or killing animals, I'm usually going to skip it and watch something else. Haven went there this week, but given what I wrote previously about its secret heart of gold, I didn't turn the episode off after it opened with a wolf attack and diverted to focus on a hunting party because I knew this show would not be all about that. And I was right (in a way/we'll get there).

The episode opens at the Haven Hunt Club, beneath a full moon as a man departs the club, gets in into his Cadillac and then notices the back window is smashed out. As he turns toward the backseat to protest, a wolf lunges at him and he screams. The next morning out on Main Street, a woman is straddling Audrey’s hood and scrawling “NO PARKING” on her windshield in what looks like lipstick. Audrey approaches, hollering, and the woman climbs off and explains that cars in that spot block the view and caused a pedestrian to be hit years earlier. Audrey asks why there's no sign, and the woman, Eleanor, just points at her handiwork on the windshield and says that the summer people need to learn. She then chastises Audrey for her choice of patisserie, Larissa's, telling her she should have gone to Rosemary’s. Audrey cuts her off when her phone rings and then asks where to find the Haven Hunt Club.

Audrey arrives at the club to survey what's left of the car's owner, TR Holt, and she and Nathan banter about werewolves and full moons. Nathan says he's not a club member because he doesn't kill animals for fun (you go!). The Chief arrives, blustering about forming a hunting party to track the wolf. Nathan asks the Chief to give them a day to find other leads and he grudgingly agrees. One of the men at the club clues the team in that Holt was arguing with another club member, Donnelly, and that a third man, Landon, got caught in the crossfire of a near miss out in the woods the week prior. Audrey goes to talk to Landon but has to best him at skeet shooting first (which she does easily) and he tells her he thinks the shooting in the woods was an accident but it did scare him.

At the precinct, the paper boys, Dave and Vince, ware waiting, and Audrey says she wants to ask them some questions off the record. They say there was probably a woman involved. They bring up Jess Minion, who owns the 90-acre spread adjacent to the Club and has been pronounced a witch because she won't allow them to hunt on her land. They also suggest that Donnelly’s wife may have been dallying with Holt.

Later that night, Donnelly is attacked in his home, also by a wolf. The next morning, his widow says they've been hexed by Jess and points out a symbol on her property. Nathan and Audrey go speak to Jess and there's a flirty interplay between Nathan and her which Audrey catches immediately. The French-Canadian Jess, who spent childhood summers in Haven and inherited the land from her grandmother, insists she’s not a witch. She says the symbol is Micmac for forgiveness and shows them the graves of the animals she's buried on her land who were left for dead by hunters. She sees the animals’ retaliation as justice. Before they leave, Jess tells Nathan his inability to physically feel pain isn't a shortcoming but is instead a kind of magic. He ponders that as they go.

The hunting party convenes at the club and Landon is called away by his mother, Piper, ostensibly because his son was concerned. Audrey, Nathan, the Sheriff and Dave don’t find much of anything and makes their way onto Jess’s land, to which Nathan objects, and he intervenes when his dad nearly shoots Jess’s dog, who he’s mistaken for a wolf. The misfired shot brings out another problem, though, as the foursome are attacked by a moose. Nathan and Audrey unload shotgun shells at him and when he collapses to the ground, they find he's full of rags and sand.

They go back to speak with Jess and she again insists that she's not behind it, and she comes clean that the tribal magical symbols she scrawled were gleaned from Wikipedia. She says she has no powers (except maybe over Nathan...). Back at the club, Audrey and Nathan find blood on the teeth of one of the stuffed wolves and piece together with Eleanor's "autopsy" that reveals a severed finger in the belly of the wolf, that that the attacking animals are from the club's trophy room and are returning to life to avenge their deaths by killing their killers (Sweet!). Before they can get too happy about that, Nathan says they need to find the bear who's no longer in the trophy room.

Over at Dave and Vince's, Dave is napping on the porch from his near-moosing when he hears growling that he assumes is Vince in need of a Benadryl. The bear takes off after both of them and Audrey and Nathan arrive in time to rescue them. When they sort through what's left of the bear, they find a tag that had been on all the other animals, indicating Landon was the taxidermist, so they head off to see him. He's in the back of his shop cleaning up the mess from an animal attack and as they start to interview him, Piper comes in wielding scissors and telling Landon to get to the car. Audrey and Nathan are confused about why she's on the offensive and when she lunges at Nathan with the scissors, he deflects the blow back to Landon, whose arm is gashed, revealing that he's not a real boy. He too is stuffed. He didn't know, and he bolts.

While Piper, Audrey, and Nate head to the club in pursuit of Landon, Piper sort of nebulously explains that she brought Landon back to life when she found him after the fire that killed his wife (we're to assume he was not burned, I guess) and that she'd always been told to be careful about her "gift." She says she can feel the animals coming back to life. At the club, Landon is storming the trophy room with an axe as the trio arrive, and as Nathan pulls Landon out, Piper slips into the room, locking the door and saying it’s the only way to stop the animals, who immediately begin waking up. A wolf lunges at her and she falls as Landon swings his axe at the door trying to get to her.

Later, we just see a partial view of her behind the couch. Later, Audrey and Nathan talk to Landon and Nathan repeats what Jess said to him that his condition is magical and doesn't make him any less of a man or a father. Landon leaves, bolstered, with his son. Audrey asks Nathan if he believes that and he says not really and Audrey gently tells him it made a difference to Landon.

Nathan goes to see Jess to apologize to her and invites her to breakfast. At the precinct, Audrey is going over her report when Eleanor comes back in and they discuss that Piper, too, was stuffed. Audrey can't bring herself to write that down because it perpetuates the "Troubles," and she’s afraid if Landon knew, he might one day stuff his son should something befall him. Eleanor says they can only do what they can do. Before she leaves, she tells Audrey she’ll help her find her mom and pronounces her one of them, before leaving her with a pastry from Rosemary's.

Overall thoughts:
  • A couple of firsts in this episode – no Duke (booo) and the owner of the condition that led to the episode's "Troubles" didn’t survive the episode.
  • I was grateful we had implied gore but no actual gore with the critters. Not a fan of stuffed things on walls - I liked Audrey's nervousness as she went through the lodge, a little wary of being devoured by the room.
  • Without getting onto a soapbox about it, I was completely down with the animals having their individual vengeance on the hunters who had killed them.
  • I like that Audrey is being accepted as a local and that somebody wants to help her learn more about her mom.
  • I wasn’t really feeling the vibe that was supposed to be happening between Nathan and Jess but I’m OK with them giving him a love interest.
  • I enjoy that Dave and Vince are the insiders and will gleefully go off the record when Audrey has questions.
  • Some of the frustrations expressed by Nathan and Audrey made this feel like it should have been a later episode. If he's been itching about his condition with the resurgence of the "Troubles" and she's been itching about her inability to fit in (i.e. choosing the wrong pastries), I’d missed that or it had been very subtle.
The episode repeats throughout the week and is available now on Hulu and Syfy.com.

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