This is essentially the second half of the season premiere, which might explain why the actual premiere felt so incomplete.  There’s still no firm sense of where the season is going, in terms of the eventual endgame, but at least there is a sense that events are moving forward past the initial fallout of the lighthouse confrontation.

 

So Duke’s manifestation of the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” curse is directly related to his subconscious realization that Jennifer is dead.  The curse is triggered by denial, so if someone tries to communicate the truth to him, the curse kicks in.  It’s one way to handle Jennifer’s fate, but it is disappointing that a character with so much development last season had to be removed from the board.  I can’t imagine that the writers were pleased to have the story altered yet again by casting woes.

 

Hopefully Mara’s presence will serve to allow the writers to continue peeling back the mysteries of the Troubles and Haven in Jennifer’s absence.  Of course, from what I understand, there is a webseries called Haven: Origins that is supposed to be telling the backstory, but I haven’t had the chance to see it.  Shunting any measure of the central mystery to an off-screen side project doesn’t quite work for me, especially when the fifth season has 26 episodes.  This may be the last run for the series, but surely they have time to address the origins of the Troubles more directly in the narrative.

 

Of course, all that ancillary material may be prelude to revelations to come.  We already know that Mara has access to the memories of the alternate personalities that she has accumulated over the centuries of her exile from the other universe.  The end of this episode suggests that “Audrey” may still be in there, fighting for control.  Was that Mara just trying to play Nathan in a bid for survival, or was it really Audrey?  If it was Audrey, and she regains control, will she have all of Mara’s memories and finally be able to explain how this whole mess started?

 

Meanwhile, Dwight pulls a bit of a power play on Vince to take control of the Guard, while Vince is trying to understand what is going on with Dave.  Did something come through the doorway from the other universe, as Dave believes?  And just what is this “Void” that Dave was talking about?  All the information about the other universe suggests it is very different from “ours”, yet former inhabitants take on human form.  Are they human to begin with, or exist in some other form in their home universe?  Hopefully Dave’s condition is a sign that this plot thread will address those mysteries.