#haven finale

[havenfanrewatch]

After the finale

There's only one thing to do after Haven's Now & Forever finale, and that is to watch this beautiful fanvid.

It just perfectly sums up Duke and Nathan's whole relationship. Wonderful.

[cookiedoughmeagain]

HAVEN rewatch - the two-part series finale; Now & Forever

I've been having a pretty stressful, irritating and emotional few weeks, so what better way to cheer myself up than by watching the final two episodes of Haven 😬

NOW

“We’re going to get Duke back” - I love Nathan’s eternal optimism

Croatoan thinks he can design the whole world in a way that makes sense to him, including what other people do and say. It’s a nicely-done sinister kind of bad guy. The Troubles allow him to create things, and so he thinks he can create the whole world, including the emotions of the people already in it.

Croatoan is so angry when Nathan turns down his copy. The first real chink in his plan to remake the world to his will.

“I should have killed you when you were a statue” - a nice little reference there to a plot point that was drafted for Blindspot but (thankfully) not included in the final script. 

I find Audrey’s use of “destiny” in this Trouble-wrangling speech to Duke quite odd. She says she’s fighting her destiny, but she isn’t - she’s fighting the Troubles and that is her destiny. That’s what she was literally created to do, as she says so herself in this same speech. 

Duke never gave into his destiny either; he never killed for fun or for the high like Simon and Wade and who knows how many other Crockers before them did. This thing with his black eyes is something new; something Mara created, something she did to him. It’s not just the standard Crocker Curse that he was born with.

And then - that moment where Croatoan realises he’s lost Duke, where he realises that not only has Nathan turned down the ‘gift’ of a fake Audrey, but also Duke has turned down the ‘gift’ of the Crocker Curse. This moment, this frown where Croatoan’s faith in his ability to shape the world to his own liking is cracked a little bit more. He thought Duke - this mere Crocker - was his creature and nothing else could have dissuaded him of this notion that he can do what he likes with his creatures as much as Crocker turning this gift down.

“You have to let me help. I need to make things right.” / “You will.” I like to think that Audrey’s reply there was in response to Duke wanting to help, and not the needing to put things right because, he hasn’t got anything to atone for.

“What can we do?” - Audrey, you are the only person in the room who can control aether. Why are you asking the others what to do about the aether flying across the room.

Lucas Bryant’s acting is so spot on in this death scene. And after. That, “At sea” 😭😭😭

Such a fun scene of Nathan and the Audrey Copy in the diner.

And then Croatoan getting even more sinister. This ‘no one else loves you like I do’ nonsense; such a good Bad Guy.

FOREVER

I love how the Audrey Copy proves to Nathan she knows him, “... our sex life in the beginning was a little exciting, and for you, maybe it was a little too exciting…” 😆

And then the real Audrey challenging Croatoan over his manipulation of Dwight with the Lizzie Copy. Croatoan’s baffled frown as that crack in his faith in his plan gets a little deeper.

Dwight’s Trouble making him effectively invincible, love it.

I’m no expert but a tall thin tower like this seems a very odd design for an armoury. Perhaps there used to be more of it and this is all that’s left? The rest destroyed in some previous round of Troubles?

The inside of the Barn is such a good set. Very spooky and surreal.

Another crack in Croatoan’s faith in his plan when Dwight explains why he’s turning down his ‘gift’ of Lizzie.

I was watching Dwight wake up on the beach and I had actually forgotten what happens next …. DUKE! Looking even more stylish dead than he did alive.

I love this scene with Nathan outside the shroud. His “I feel something”, him remembering the warmth of the sun, remembering Haven even when he can’t remember it, remembering the real Audrey even though he doesn’t know she’s not stood right there with him. But then, ultimately she does do what the real Audrey would do; she steps closer and sees the shroud and remembers - and she tells him, just like the real Audrey would have done. “I was to be her for you” - what a plot twist - “you sensed that somehow”. The man who can’t feel anything feels that this copy isn’t perfect. And she takes him through the shroud, knowing that not only will that mean her losing him but will mean her dying, but she does it anyway because, “Because I love you.” And! Then! One of my favourite moments in the whole show, when Nathan remembers everything and he turns to the copy to thank her, and her response in the moment before she fades from existence; “We love you,” the only explanation she has for why she’s done what she’s done - a simple explanation that to her is more than enough reason for why she would choose to die, and the expression on Nathan’s face in that moment … that realisation, that … you can almost hear the penny drop when it finally, finally clicks and he truly feels it in his deepest heart that Audrey loves him the same way he loves her. In one way he’s had so much confidence in them for so long, but in another way that confidence has been really fragile. This nagging doubt that maybe he loves her more than she does him (that same doubt that William had about Mara), or that she would always put the Troubles before him. But now, in this moment when this almost-perfect copy tells him, as though it’s so obvious it hardly needs saying at all, that of course she would give her life for his happiness - this, I think, is the moment that he really truly feels that full faith in her love for him for the first time. (I’m not sure how much sense I’m making here but I’ve written a whole load of meta on this theme for anyone who’s interested;  https://archiveofourown.org/works/43553142 )

Gotta wonder how Nathan’s “she wasn’t real” lands with Dwight, given the whole Lizzie situation.

WHY CAN’T NATHAN SEE DUKE????????????? Is it just because they didn't have time in the episode to deal with Nathan having a conversation with him

Dwight’s “He says ‘go get her Nathan, save her’” I don’t think I’d realised before, that echoes Nathan’s words to Duke at the end of season three. “Go get her Duke, save her,” - that’s what the wounded Nathan says to Duke when he tells him to follow Audrey into the collapsing Barn. That exact same phrase, that has to be deliberate.

Fabulous look of horrified incomprehension on Croatoan’s face when he sees Nathan has rejected his ‘gift’ to come back to Haven for the real Audrey. Those cracks are really piling up now.

And then Croatoan’s big mistake, when he kills Nathan. Something Audrey is never going to let him get away with. And she turns on him and uses her words the way she has done for six seasons to get through to people and dissect their emotions. Those chinks and cracks that Duke and Dwight and Nathan have created, she hammers against them with her words until he gives in, but no amount of hammering would have worked if those cracks hadn’t already been there. It’s just her and Croatoan there in that moment (Nathan dead on the floor), but it was a team effort that brought him down; all four of them together.

“What about you, are you even real? Because I don’t think this is something the real Duke Crocker would do.” - come on Dwight, you’re smarter than that. Think about what he’s saying to you.

Gotta love William Shatner calling Vince by talking into the controller crystal like it’s a Star Trek Communicator 🤣

“We'll always want more time. The trick will be being thankful for the time we had.” 😭 but, you know, that is quite a solid philosophy for life. 

This goodbye is so beautiful, not just what Nathan says to Audrey, what it means between the two of them, but also what it means for Haven; the images of Marion Caldwell and Chris Brody, the Glendowers and Seth - everyone getting their lives back. Beautiful, beautiful.

And then, once all the drama’s over, these final scenes in the police station; Stan’s summary to Nathan with a whole list of names in it just so they could reference all the writers, love it.

Plus one final ‘gas leak’ 🤣

And, then, LAVERNE!! We actually get to see her face 😀

Some nice news from Gloria; the end to the Troubles. And is this the first time Gloria calls Vickie ‘Vickie’ and not ‘intern’? 

Sound advice from Gloria too; do what Audrey would want you to do.

Oh god this final scene, I can’t. It’s so well done. Lucas needs some award of some kind for this acting. Flustered and amazed and optimistic and overwhelmed. “I’m a Nathan.” Adorable. “Um humm. Yep.” Perfect.

And Croataon gets the perfect punishment having to spend an eternity in an empty room with Vince. (Though I do feel sorry for Vince in this scenario; he might not have been perfect, but he didn’t deserve that.)

Every time I watch these episodes I think I’m not going to cry this time.

And every time I prove myself wrong.

😭

There's only one solution of course - start right back at the beginning again!

[havenfanrewatch]

s05e26 - Forever

With Nathan sent outside the shroud with Croatoan's copy of Audrey, the real Audrey considers her limited options for how to deal with Croatoan and the aether that's flooding into Haven.

She talks to Vince about the possibility of Dwight handing over the controller crystal to Croatoan to save Lizzie, as they try to work out what Croatoan wants with it and whether it is still any use to them in building a New Barn with the aether core destroyed...

I'm not going to try and summarise the whole episode here. Suffice to say it's about as emotional as TV gets. I'll be back once I've finished sobbing 😭

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Me, sitting down to watch the Haven finale: Right. I am not going to cry this time.

Me, 40 minutes later: 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Haven DVD extras season five - interview highlights

Eric Balfour, on Duke’s ending:

“I was conflicted about the way things ended. I loved the idea that Duke sacrificed himself and that the only way to redeem himself and to really find peace was to sacrifice himself for these people. And it was a really - I’ll give the writers credit; that part was really cool. 

“It was a difficult time shooting these last few episodes because starting in 5.23, Duke’s character becomes possessed by this demon Croatoan character. And I really wasn’t, to be honest, on board with it - it wasn’t something I wanted to do. Mostly because it was the end of the series, so I was sad that these last few episodes I was really not going to be playing Duke. I was going to be playing this sort of monster version of the character, and we fought a lot about the direction of that. Because I really didn’t want this version of the character to feel anything like Duke. And they kept describing this version of the character to me as though he became Vampire Duke, so he’s still Duke but now he’s this menacing cocky evil Duke. And to me it sounded like Dr Evil from the Austin Powers movies, and I didn’t really want to do that. And then at one point they described him as Alexander Skarsgard’s character from True Blood and I was like; Well I also don’t want to try to do what he does on True Blood, I want to try to make it something different. But most importantly, I just didn’t want it to feel like this character was Duke. 

“Because, it’s hard to explain but you do fall in love (or at least I hope you do, and I did) with the character that you play. You grow to care about him and care about his integrity. So it was a difficult time and it’s been hard balancing the fact that this is just my job and at a certain point I do have to acquiesce to what they want to happen. And on the other hand you’re fighting for this character that you care about. So, it was interesting. 

“I thought the moment when Duke dies, and the moment between him and Nathan I thought was really beautiful and really beautifully written. But it was difficult for me because I was sad that in the last four episodes of the series, there was really only one moment where I got to be Duke again. So I fought really hard to try to convince them; Is there any other way for the series to end? Not about Duke dying - I thought that was really necessary and cool. I just didn’t want to play Monster Duke.”

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Sorry if you’ve expressed your thoughts on this before, but what are your feelings about how Haven ended? What would you have changed? 💜💜💜

Hi there! I suppose I don't tend to talk about the finale that much, partly because I know how much a lot of people hated it and I completely understand that. For me, it is absolutely the most emotional television I have ever watched, by a long shot. It makes me sob my eyes out - but the way that it does that, I think, is pretty beautiful. It is meant to be emotional, it is intended to be tragic, it is (I assume) specifically designed to be heartbreaking and it does all of that very well.

So there is really only one thing that I would absolutely want to change, which is the final conversation between Dwight and Duke, and *shameless self promotion alert* my suggestion for how that should have gone is up in fic form here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26928082

And then I know the writers said that if they'd had more episodes to play with, they would have had Paige start to remember Audrey, and I would have liked to see that as well, because that does put quite a different spin on things from it just being Paige.

I would have liked to see more episodes in general tbh - not just in the sense of wanting more content but because the whole of season five feels pretty rushed. I think they were trying to cram a lot of stuff into 26 episodes (and into one year of filming) and if they could have spread those plot points out over a season 6 and 7 instead I think some of them might have worked better.

I am looking forward to watching the DVD commentaries for the final episodes because I'm very curious to (hopefully) get a bit more of the writers/actors perspectives on it. Like, I would love to know whether the ending that we got is the same ending the creators intended from the start, or how close it is to what they originally imagined :)

[cookiedoughmeagain]

I just stumbled across a couple of interviews with Haven writers/creators from 2015, before season 5b aired, talking about 5b and the series finale:

https://www.thewrap.com/syfy-cancels-haven-after-5-seasons-ep-promises-satisfying-ending-exclusive/

https://www.thewrap.com/haven-eps-tease-final-13-episodes-audrey-mara-toes/

Which are very interesting to me because I somehow had it in my head that the writers knew they weren’t getting any more seasons when they started making 5a - but apparently not:

“We are looking at our final episodes coming up. We approached as if it was going to be our final season, so we were ready for it story-wise. ... So we really looked at these 13 episodes as if… If we were indeed going to end, what would be the best ending we could possibly do for Haven? ... We left it open but if it is the series finale, we think the fans will be satisfied. We didn’t want to leave it on a giant cliffhanger, just in case we didn’t come back. We didn’t want to leave fans going, “Wait a minute!” because I’ve seen shows do that, and as a viewer, it’s just so frustrating. So as a writer it was kind of nice to say, ok, if this is the end, how can we leave this world in the most satisfying way possible?”

And very interesting in terms of how the actual ending compared to the ending the creators had planned:

Sam Ernst and Jim Dunn, who created the show, have talked about knowing what the ending of “Haven” looks like. Is that the ending we will be seeing? “That’s an interesting question. I think parts of it are. Haven evolved so organically over the years, things happened that creators couldn’t really anticipate, so I think some of the stuff is new. We definitely did some stuff that they saw from the very beginning in terms of thematic closure and relationship closure and stuff like that, but as our mythology expanded over the years, I think we ended up taking it to maybe a deeper level than we would have thought we were going to in the pilot.”

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Easter + Have Finale thoughts

I had some really profound thoughts over Easter about parallels between that story and the Haven finale. But I didn't have a chance to write them down and I forgot them :/ But I think there is something about Audrey choosing to give her life to save the world that resonates with the Easter story, and I'm actually kind of surprised the similarities have never occurred to me before.