Haven Season 4 premier review: Fallout

The season four premier of Haven started with a splash, literally, as Duke was unceremoniously ejected from the barn into a seal tank. If you remember in the season three finale, Duke had dived into the barn (again literally) to save Audrey because it was falling apart. In Fallout, it’s six months later and he’s been dragged out of the tank and manhandled by police who end up cuffing him to a bed in a mental hospital.

Time moves differently in the barn and it’s dumped Duke in Boston where the police aren’t as understanding about troubled people. Duke is told that he’s been reported dead and the police aren’t buying his story, especially as they’ve found a bunch of fake ID amongst his belongings.

Luckily for Duke, his wet walk of shame was filmed by the local news and his rants about finding Audrey Parker are picked up by the new girl, Jennifer Mason who saw it on TV. Jennifer is one of three new recurring characters and in this episode she gets the biggest introduction.

Jennifer sneaks into Duke’s hospital room claiming to be his sister Audrey.  She tells Duke that she started hearing voices from the barn six months ago. She’s happy to find that he’s a real person as she thought she was losing her mind and the doctors have labelled her as schizophrenic. Duke thinks she’s troubled and believes Audrey can fix her if they can find her. Road trip! Jennifer breaks Duke out and they head for Haven.

Meanwhile back in Haven, Nathan is on the outs. The guard want him dead (don’t they always) because he screwed things up by shooting Agent Howard. The troubles aren’t going anywhere and Audrey has gone.  Nathan has quit Haven PD and is making coin letting people punch the crap out of him. Plus he’s grown a crappy beard. Luckily he gets rid of it toot suite and set about looking for Audrey.

The Guard have other plans but Jennifer manages to convince them that if Audrey kills the man she loves, Nathan, the troubles will go away forever. They agree to let him work with Dwight, who is the new Police Chief, helping with the troubled people until they find Audrey.

They have a long look ahead of them because Audrey isn’t Audrey anymore, she’s now a bartender named Lexie and I don’t love her as much. As with all her previous personas she is totally different. Lexie is a kind of rock chick. I was weirded out throughout the episode wishing she’d snap out of it. The bar she’s in is kinda weird too. It reminded me of the episode of Stargate SG1 where Daniel Jackson is in a fake café being wound up by Anubis. What I’m saying is I believe the bar is the barn.

We are introduced to another new character in this episode as Lexie chats up a customer named William.  Gotta say she’s less uptight than Audrey was. William has an agenda; he’s trying to get Lexie to remember who she is. I think he’s Agent Howard reborn. He wants to help Lexie remember who she is but she thinks he’s creepy.

The trouble of the week was Marion Caldwell, the weather witch from the very first episode of Haven. Her love, Conrad “respect the perimeter” Brower is dead and now her trouble is back. Marion blames Nathan but he manages to sort her out before she rips up the town.

The third new character is Duke’s brother who has been running the Grey Gull the past six months. We didn’t get to see much about him in this episode. No worries, we got plenty of time.

I’m excited about the return of Haven and can’t wait to see the story unfold. Who is this William? Is he a reincarnation of Agent Howard? How long do we have to wait until Lexi remembers her pass lives?