Haven 2x03
The A-plot of this episode was hilariously goofy. The dude can't leave town because THE ZAMBONI LOVES HIM. And then his girlfriend leaves without him and leaves the Crockpot of Yearning behind in her stead. Nathan's deadpan is one of my favorite things about the show, and it was definitely put to good use this week. I give the actors a lot of credit for being able to keep straight faces at all. It's like the writers of the episode came up with an interesting subplot and then ran out of time and happened to be at a hockey rink, or were making breakfast while hungover and wondered what would happen if their kitchen appliances suddenly developed inappropriate feelings for them. I love it.
Really, episodes like this are why I enjoy genre shows so much. Sometimes you get deep meditations on human memory and identity, sometimes you get amorous zambonis. Sometimes, if you're very lucky, you get both in one episode.
I really liked Audrey II and the whole Two-Audreys storyline - I hope she comes back sometime. I love that both Audreys bonded over their shared memories instead of ultimately being freaked-out/repulsed by the situation. I imagine that for two women who grew up as lonely girls wishing for family, suddenly having a "sister" who shared your childhood and understood your experiences could be quite a gift. It's great that they went that route instead of having the characters be enemies or rivals. And the disappearing House of Amnesia is certainly intriguing - does Lucy!Audrey have Audrey II's memories because she lost them? Or vice versa? Or what?
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Oh, and, right. So I watched all of Haven and am all up to date! Hi!
One thing I realized about the show: I think it may be the first series with a male-female partnership that I've seen in ages that doesn't fall into the pattern of "man is goofy/intuitive/brilliant, woman is practical/down-to-earth/prone to nagging". Which is hugely refreshing! It's not that I can't enjoy a show where the man is intuitive and the woman is practical - I adored The X-Files. It's just that too much of it starts to create a creepy pattern where a) the woman is always wrong, because she exists as a stand-in for the conventional world that the man must convince of his brilliant ideas, and b) the woman is both a potential romantic partner for the man and a sort of mother-figure who reminds him of/takes care of the practical aspects of his life. Which can get kind of ickily freudian and which infantilizes men in a way I'm not crazy about.
Here Audrey and Nathan both accept the reality they're presented with and work together to solve cases, and they nag each other about different things like functional partners and adults, and it's all very nice. I <3 them. And Duke. And Audrey II. My shipping options here are pretty open.
Yay, new show!
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