S05.E11: Reflections

[MarkHB]

Duke's roiling Troubles and a new threat to Audrey leave the pair with no alternative but to turn to potentially dangerous allies for help.

 

So, the Guard has the æther, and Mara finally got some [not æther].

[DJG1122]

Did anyone else think that Mara's makeup was lighter and her voice was higher pitched while Audrey's makeup was heavier?

[shapeshifter]

Rats, where is everyone? I was confused about a couple of things and thought there would be explanations here.

For instance: Is Mara getting nicer and Audrey deteriorating related?

And what is up with Duke? Well, I mean, besides that. Heh.

About the TOTW: My personal worst nightmare is dismemberment, but the way it happened so quickly and fatally and bloodlessly made me LOL in a cathartic way.

Edited November 22, 2014 by shapeshifter

[Shadda2]

Well, not sure I'm crazy about where this is going.  Duke is becoming a sad shell of his former self.  Mara is becoming caring, really?  Audrey is basically disappearing.  Nathan is becoming just part of the background scenery.  Dwight is the new hero, main character. 

 

I did not find Duke/Mara hot because I loathe Mara.  And Duke just isn't Duke anymore and deserves more than just a consolation prize.  I want Jennifer back.

 

What is up with Charlotte?   Still not sure if she is on our side or not.  She does really seem to care and boy you could read all over her face that she knew who Audrey was the minute she walked in the door.  And was confused by how she was acting.  So the reveal at the end wasn't too much of a surprise. 

 

The trouble of the week was solved by Audrey, finally.  It has seemed so far this season that she has been unable to talk down Troubles, but it looks like she has at least gotten that mojo back. 

[Cardie]

It's possible that Mara is gradually reabsorbing Audrey but at the price of merging their two minds on a conscious level. I prefer a theory that Mara is just faking love for
Duke to further her own ends while Audrey's true consciousness is in an unstable simulacrum that is decaying. Whatever is going on, Duke's haircut seems to have had Samson-like consequences.

 

Now that nearly every TOTW vanishes after a therapeutic chat, it seems totally absurd that Nathan and Dwight haven't been put into remission. I suppose they could decide that you can only talk down people who project harm onto others but I'm not sure that is consistent with what we've seen before.

 

Charlotte has clearly known all about the history of the Troubles for some time. She could be the new Howard or someone with connections to the town from way back. I wouldn't be surprised if she is genuinely from CDC, having joined it to get access to Troubled biology.

[pcta]

Actually, I have detested Mara but. If her current character holds (less mustache twirling evil - more complex) I vastly prefer her to Audrey. (However, still prefer Jennifer). Duke's character is becoming better. After last season of doing for everyone, when he needs the help (trying to keep all the troubles in and doing the least harm) his friends really do abandon him. It makes his motivations understandable.

Never was drawn to Nathan and that hasn't changed this season.

Do want to know what's up with the CDC doc.

Love Vince

[BlueJay81]

The shift in Mara's personality does seem interesting. I'm curious about her shift from being very impulsive and random to being more patient and calculating.  She has had a chance to get the aether in the last 2 episodes but didn't. I still think she is playing Duke but I think there have been moments of truth "sacrificing in vain" 'I want to save you" . There is still more to the character I want to find out more about.

 

Interesting parallel with  both Audrey and Mara using psychological techniques/ pep talks to calm down a Trouble. I think Audrey is sick because she is a part of Mara and isn't really real. We know she is an implanted personality, I'm thinking she needs to reintegrate with Mara to survive. Don't know if Mara needs Audrey to survive though.

 

I still think Nathan and Duke had a plan about playing a long con on Mara. He has been very calm about Duke going AWOL and the whole aether thing. Not that this plan will work or is going according to plan at all at the moment.

 

Can someone please just get rid of the Guard, they are really more trouble than they are worth.

 

The true identity of Charlotte can be found somewhere in the internet universe for those who like spoilers.

Edited November 22, 2014 by BlueJay81

[BlackberryJam]

Not sure how I feel yet about the fucking, but the long con was obvious during the phone call.  Duke had been talking to Nathan straight up and the moment Mara came through the doorway, Duke made a completely obvious tone change.  Blargh.  At least Nathan is in on the con this time and it's not the same thing happening a third time with Duke.

 

Seriously though, Nathan, Duke tells you he's going to vent a Trouble that kills people and you're all "Sorry, dude.  Busy.  You deal with that on your own."  What a jackass.

 

Dwight is going to get burned by the nonCDC lady.  Poor Dwight.

 

With the fucking...I'm kind of wondering if Duke did it because he thought he could do it emotion free, but then in the middle, when he seemed to stop, he realized he was having an attack of feelings.

 

The chem between EB and ER is still off the charts during the sexy times and ER was shockingly better this episode as Mara.  The coughing as Audrey is fake as hell though.  And the Trouble was sucking the oxygen of the air around him, so opening the windows would have helped.  Such poor quality writing.

[Shanna Marie]

This week's big timeline oopsie: Duke refers to a Trouble case his grandfather dealt with and had regrets about his failure to act in time, and Mara remembers that case, recalling details. But Duke's grandfather died the day Sarah came to town, so that's at least one incarnation of Mara that shouldn't have any memories that coincide with that phase of the journal. Mara could recognize the Trouble, but she seemed to be remembering that specific instance of it.

 

If Duke is playing Mara in a long con, he's being very Method about it and throwing himself into his work.

 

I have no problem with Nathan having serious qualms about giving Duke and Mara some aether. For one thing, they know that Mara needs the aether to open a thinnie that she plans to use to get more aether so she can wreak holy havoc on the town. Very bad idea. For another, Mara has lied repeatedly about what she can and can't do with the aether and with Troubles. Why should they suddenly trust her now? Duke is in this fix in the first place because she tweaked his Trouble to make it work like this. The last time Mara got her hands on aether, she used it to amplify a Trouble so it would be even more deadly. It would be the height of plot stupidity for them all to suddenly change their minds and decide that letting Mara have any aether at all was the most reasonable plan. Also, Duke needs to dial back the "nobody loves me, my friends are never there for me" whining. In this episode, Nathan refused to let Dwight just assume Duke was the culprit and made him watch the rest of the security footage. Not too long ago, Nathan got between Dwight's taser and Duke and stood up for Duke. Then there was the time Nathan put himself on the line to be affected by Duke's monkey Trouble as a way of helping him work through it and deal with it. Yes, Duke has done a ton of stuff for Nathan, and the balance is probably lopsided, but it's not as one-sided as Duke seems to be feeling right now in his Mara-fueled pity party.

 

I'm afraid that Mara is setting Duke up to be William 2.0. She's creating that sense of "the two of us with the whole world against us because we're so special." In fact, she sounds a lot like the way William talked to Lexie and Audrey.

 

I was glad that we saw Charlotte's file on the Haven Savers at the end because she definitely reacted when she first saw Audrey. But is she a fangirl or is she an enemy?

[Mia Nina]

Mara and Audrey are definitely exchanging, absorbing or whatevering each others' personality traits. When Duke told Mara "I really wish you were somebody else" that kind of sealed the deal. Weird.

 

Poor, lonely Duke.

[Elsinore]

The transformation trouble (or whatever it was) would have made an awesome season one or two episode.

 

The falling apart scene would have worked better if a bit more graphic.

 

Died laughing at Gloria's apparent jealousy of Charlotte. No, not obvious at all.

 

I wonder who Mara killed for that dress and those groceries.

 

I'm surprised that Nathan even tried to ask Charlotte what was going on with Audrey.

 

I am also glad we didn't end this episode with a) a pregnancy reveal or b) Audrey collapsing in order to spend the next two weeks in a mystery tv coma.

 

Random Entity pictures yay. I wish they weren't promo shots (Sarah) or anything new. However, should the one with the bob cut be new? Or is that Lucy?

 

 

[Cardie]

Lucy had long hair on Colorado Kid day but could have warn it shorter at other times. The bob-cut color is Lucy's. However, the Spanish flu (1918) referenced in the clipping pre-dates any of our known HavenSavers.

[Elsinore]

But presumably Lucy came out of the Barn with the long brown hair. I think those must have taken sometime after she left Haven, maybe during her stay with Real Lucy?

 

I thought that clipping said 1901. Which technically still isn't right because it doesn't follow the 27 year rule. There shouldn't have been an Entity in either 1901 or 1918.

Edited November 22, 2014 by Elsinore

[DJG1122]

Lucy had long hair on Colorado Kid day but could have warn it shorter at other times. The bob-cut color is Lucy's. However, the Spanish flu (1918) referenced in the clipping pre-dates any of our known HavenSavers.

Thinking this was a new one we haven't seen before

[DJG1122]

The true identity of Charlotte can be found somewhere in the internet universe for those who like spoilers.

Where, where, where????????

[Shadda2]

Yes, where, where, where?????????

[Wheels08]

Well I don't know if the script is up anymore but I know for a fact that some people on twitter know who Charlotte is. That is if the script is real and not a fake. 

[Cardie]

So where might we go on Twitter to see what they think? Or you could just post it behind a spoiler mask.

[Wheels08]

Charlotte is Mara's mother.

According to the script they saw.

[Cardie]

Charlotte is Mara's mother.

According to the script they saw.

!!! So, keeping a scrapbook to celebrate all her little girl's accomplishments?

[Wheels08]

LOL. It's possible.

[BlueJay81]

Came across it a few days ago by accident, since it was an unoffical spoiler, wasn't sure about the rules around that but thanks Wheels08.

 

 

Duke is in this fix in the first place because she tweaked his Trouble to make it work like this.

But that wasn't Mara though, it was Audrey. She was still Audrey then, all the characters so far have said when Audrey re troubled you.

 

Maybe Charlotte was involved with Howard et al in the Barning process. Maybe she thought it would 'save' her daughter.
Don't think she is aware of the split yet though.

Edited November 23, 2014 by BlueJay81

[Shanna Marie]

But that wasn't Mara though, it was Audrey.

But Duke saw "Mara" when Audrey did it -- she was definitely different in that moment -- and that was when she first felt being Mara, so it seems like it was the Mara part of her coming to the surface that added the fun extra touch. But even Mara just changing the light Trouble to microwaves when she was pretending to cure it seems like a good enough reason not to trust Mara to fix anything, and her stated reason for wanting aether so she can open a thinnie seems like a good enough reason not to put aether in her hands.

[AudienceofOne]

I think the biggest problem I have is that we're supposed to believe Duke is being driven to Mara because he feels isolated and abandoned by his friends and I just haven't seen that on screen at all. The trouble he let out in this episode and its resolution was just so glib. Real tell don't show stuff.

[Snarkette]

Another episode where it feels as if the Haven bus is being driven by kids with learners permits and no road experience. Has there been a major shift in the writing staff this season?

[Elsinore]

I think there's been a shift since the creators left to do that Gillian Anderson show that only went one season.

 

They're supposed to come back to write some stuff this season though. I think it's nice of them to remember their ailing child in a time like this.

 

They also lost the Zuckerman sisters to Suits which is probably why the shippery stuff is so clunky sometimes.

Edited November 24, 2014 by Elsinore

[Tabbyclaw]

I have nothing to say about the crux of this episode -- I liked it and it intrigued me, but I have not been well this week and my brain is kinda too shot for in-depth discussion right now -- but I have two small thoughts:

 

1. I think they handled the idea of someone who's bigoted against the Troubled but completely fine with her daughter being gay with just the right level of "obvious without beating it into the audience." But I feel like that subthread would have fit better in an earlier-season episode.

 

2. Major props to the makeup department for making Audrey look just plain sick, and to Emily Rose for a viscerally upsetting, painful-sounding cough.

[Shanna Marie]

I think the biggest problem I have is that we're supposed to believe Duke is being driven to Mara because he feels isolated and abandoned by his friends and I just haven't seen that on screen at all. The trouble he let out in this episode and its resolution was just so glib.

I've been thinking about this, and it seems like Mara is teaching a master class in emotional manipulation. I'd wondered why she wanted to know about Duke's mother, but it may have nothing to do with who Duke is or his role in the Troubles, but rather her looking for buttons to push, and she's hitting all of them. That background suggests that he's likely to feel alone and abandoned, that he can't trust the people he should be able to count on to look out for him, and that if anyone's going to take care of him, he'll have to do it himself. He's already likely in a pretty vulnerable place, given recent events -- losing six months of his life, having to kill his own brother, losing his Trouble, learning that Audrey was really Mara and responsible for the Troubles, getting his Trouble back with a cruel twist, having to kill even more people to end their Troubles, finding out that he now projects Troubles and has killed people unintentionally. He seemed to be really affected when he thought Nathan was killed in the photo Trouble, even mentioned being left all alone. So now his task on the team leaves him isolated, since the others all have official duties and that leaves him alone to guard Mara, which preys on those psychological wounds. She's seen how the Troubles work, so she can predict what will happen, and she's telling him with her own spin on the reasons, so that when the things she predicted happen, he's also assuming she's right about why they happened -- take the quarantine. She talked to him about them rounding up the Troubled and isolating them. She was right about what they were doing, sort of, but wrong on why. They were only gathering those affected by the contagion so they couldn't spread it to other Troubled people. But Duke just heard about them rounding up Troubled people and thought she was right entirely. Or the way she predicts what will happen becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one ever even suggested putting Duke in a cage and letting Charlotte study him, but that's what he was flipping out about, that he'd rather put her in a cage than him be in a cage, when Dwight "turned" on him with the taser (and even there, Nathan stood up for him and got in between Dwight and Duke). Mara had planted those seeds in his mind to make him see things that way, and his background leaves him primed to believe that he's the only one who'll look out for him, so he can't rely on anyone else.

 

And then in this episode, she demanded the aether, which she knew Nathan wasn't just going to give him, since they know what Mara wants to do with it and how dangerous having it would make her, but Nathan refusing made it look to Duke like he couldn't count on his friends. Then when it wasn't there, she nudged him to think that Nathan was keeping it away from him. Meanwhile, Nathan didn't have it, either, and had nothing to do with it being taken, but Duke didn't see that. Add to that her leaving and then returning, so she looked more trustworthy, and then sticking with him during the Trouble flare-up, and then the sex, and she's got him right where she wants him.

[Mia Nina]

I think Duke has always been somewhat on the side, especially when Nathan and Audrey pair up. There is no doubt that Mara is exploiting his fears and exaggerating the note, but while Duke has plenty of screentime and is usually meaningfully involved in the story, the sense of loneliness has always been there.

[Shanna Marie]

There is no doubt that Mara is exploiting his fears and exaggerating the note, but while Duke has plenty of screentime and is usually meaningfully involved in the story, the sense of loneliness has always been there.

That's the thing, he's always been a bit of a loner and was probably mostly okay with that. He hasn't seemed all that unhappy. He could have company when he wanted it. But in the very recent past he lost his brother, he lost Jennifer, he kind of lost Audrey (I'm not sure he's entirely convinced she's really there or there for good) and he thought he lost Nathan for a while, which probably made him feel lonelier, which made the isolation of babysitting Mara worse, and then when she started talking about him being abandoned, he became more conscious of it. So it's something that otherwise wouldn't have bothered him much that he's recently become more aware of in a negative way, and then she's pointing it out and giving it another, more negative meaning.

 

Really, he just needs to get away from Mara for a while and have a beer with Nathan and he might get his head back on straight. Not likely under the current circumstances, though.

[Sakura12]

ER and EB still have amazing chemistry. I know Mara's evil but that was so much hotter than any scene between Nathan and Audrey. Nathan is just so dull to me that I get pulled out of all of his scenes. 

 

That said I do feel bad that Duke was used by Mara, she knew exactly what buttons to press. Nathan only really cares about Audrey and unless Audrey tells him to care about others he doesn't. So no, I don't think Duke should go have drinks with Nathan. He needs to go have drinks with Gloria she seems to be willing to lie for him and she actually believes in him. I think they need to have more scenes together. Nathan can stay far away from Duke and continue to live in his Audrey only world. 

Edited December 7, 2014 by Sakura12