Into the Woods

Harper's Island - Season 1, Episode 6

Previously on Harper's Island: DEATH! IN FULL VIEW OF OTHER CHARACTERS!

Finally! Finally, the characters of Harper's Island can no longer wander around in blissful ignorance, planning scavenger hunts and going fishing. Everyone in the church freaks out over Sinister Dad being cleaved by the head spade, and with good reason. It's fairly gross. Hilariously, everyone is too busy with their own shock to worry about young Madison staring at her grandfather's bloody corpse until she starts emitting piercing screams. Richard takes his jacket off and puts it over Sinister Dad's face. The blood soon leaks through. The sheriff hears the commotion and busts into the church. Wait a minute. Two weeks ago -- that is to say, thirty seconds ago in the show's universe -- the sheriff was down by the water's edge, fishing out the reverend's body parts. I envy these characters' teleportation powers. He first rushes to Abby to make sure she's not hurt. Aw. Abby's in too much of a daze to explain what happened, but it's not too difficult to piece together. No pun intended. He asks the rest of the wedding party to step outside. Most are only too glad to get out of there, but Henry has to drag a hysterical Trish.

Katherine sits catatonic in a pew. The sheriff rouses her, and leads her outside, where everyone else continues to freak out. Who the hell is that old lady standing next to Abby? The sheriff asks a blood-spattered Maggie and Henry to get everyone back to the inn, and strongly recommends that everyone stick together; it's certainly not the time to be wandering off by themselves. Abby gets a call from an unknown caller, and when she answers, hears only "Ave Maria". It makes her more visibly upset than Sinister Dad's gruesome death. Madison spots JD hiding behind a nearby tree. He puts his finger to his lips, and she nods, content to keep his presence a secret.

Back at the inn, the groomsmen and Beth are having some stiff drinks, and discussing the situation with all the sensitivity and intelligence you'd expect. That is to say, not much. They agree that the wedding will have to be postponed (ya think?), and Blond Tool wants to leave the island immediately, because when a murder has been committed, the witnesses are free to take off whenever they'd like. MEANWHILE, the sheriff and deputy are processing the scene at the church. The annoying coroner shows up. They agree that the reverend was probably killed to give the murderer time to set up this convoluted booby trap, and that the modus operandi is very Wakefield-esque. The annoying coroner thinks the victim was randomly chosen, but the sheriff points out the notebook on the altar with a schematic of where everyone was standing. But that notebook hasn't been sitting around in the church; it's Maggie's. Very suspicious.

MEANWHILE, Shea brushes Madison's hair, which always makes Madison feel better. I'm thinking it may not do the trick this time. Henry tends to Trish, but is distracted by a knock at the door. It's Abby, stopping by to check on them, and Henry steps outside to confer with her. Trish glares at Richard and Katherine. Henry tells Abby he doesn't know what to do, and Abby tells him to just be there for Trish. Which he was doing before she interrupted. He lets her in on the fight he and JD had, and that JD said there was one more surprise for Henry. They fret over whether JD is capable of murder. I doubt that the guy whose big idea for getting attention is firecrackers would be able to set up the chandalier contraption.

MEANWHILE, Cal and Chloe are just returning from an ill-fated sailing excursion, during which they lost their wind and couldn't get back in time for the rehearsal. So, having now reached the mainland, they rush to the church to catch up with everyone. Hah! Just kidding, of course. No, the people who are monumentally late to the wedding rehearsal in which Chloe is supposed to be a member decide that there's plenty of time to stop by the local bar to call Trish. I guess so much time may have passed that they figure the rehearsal is over anyway, but then why not just go back to the inn? Oh, because then Cal wouldn't hear a story from Nikki about a local hick who found Cal's ring on the beach and proposed to his on-again-off-again girlfriend.

MEANWHILE, Abby returns to her room, where she discovers that JD has broken in. She's understandably frightened, but JD babbles that his surprise was a Roman candle in the Unity candle. He thinks the pseudo-theory that Wakefield is alive that Abby spouted when she was facing off with Shane could actually be true. He thinks he spotted Wakefield outside of the church, and discovered something else that he wants to show her. She's hesitant, but eventually agrees, because she's attracted to drama and danger like a mosquito to a bug zapper.

MEANWHILE, Richard tells Trish, Henry, Madison, Shea, and Katherine that the sheriff's on his way to talk to all of them. He gives a gung-ho "We're a family, let's stick together!" speech that makes Trish pop. She spills the affair he's having with Katherine to everyone else, just in time for the sheriff to overhear it. Whoopsie! The sheriff thinks starting the questioning with Richard would be expedient. Heh.

MEANWHILE, Cal tries to convince the hick that the ring is his. He's as successful as you'd expect. He walks back to Chloe, who can't get Trish on the phone, for obvious reasons. He relates the story of the lost ring, which gets Chloe first misted up with romance, then fired up to do battle with the hicks. Awesome. This reminds me of a roommate I had in college who we used to sic on utility companies when they tried to pull shit. She was an expert at completely demolishing them, and had the ironic name of Honey.

MEANWHILE, JD and Abby walk through the woods. So much for "stick together", I guess. Abby has the modicum of good sense to be troubled by the danger she's in, but not enough to not put herself into that danger. JD leads her to a tree, and pulls a knife. She's really scared now, but not so much that she, you know, puts up a fight or runs away or anything. Luckily for her, instead of stabbing her, JD directs her attention to the top of the tree, where a body is strung up. He moves to cut it down, which she doesn't want him to do for some unknown reason. He does it anyway, and the bottom half of Uncle Marty falls to the ground, followed a few seconds later by his top half. Yay, there is so much being resolved in this episode!

MEANWHILE, Trish apologizes to Shea for shattering her marriage in front of an audience. Shea had no idea Richard was cheating on her. That dispensed with, Trish must then admit that she told Sinister Dad about the affair earlier this morning, causing Shea fresh pain. She's especially pissed that Richard betrayed Sinister Dad, after all the generosity Sinister Dad bestowed upon him. In the other room, the sheriff is talking to Richard. Richard married Shea shortly after starting work for her family, and started sleeping with Katherine six weeks ago. He hated Sinister Dad, and slept with his wife in part to humiliate him, but swears he didn't murder him, claiming to have spent the day with Madison. The sheriff tries out a question about the Wakefield murders, but Richard doesn't know much about them.

MEANWHILE, Henry is wandering around the lawn by himself for no apparent reason. Seriously, that "stick together" direction was good advice, you nimrods. He runs into Abby, who must inform him of Uncle Marty's death. JD shows up, and Henry attacks. The two of them roll around the lawn, with Abby trying to break them up. She eventually pries them apart, and she and JD convince Henry that the killer is either Wakefield or a very good copycat.

MEANWHILE, Chloe approaches the dancing hicks, and pretends to have slept with the guy. Normally, I'd be annoyed by this pointless distraction of a plotline, but it's actually pretty amusing. Her ploy works. Girl Hick explodes with rage, and flings the ring across the bar, where Cal recovers it. He and Chloe dash out of the bar, Chloe giggling happily. Heh.

MEANWHILE, a few more loose ends are attended to, as Beth attempts to call Lucy. Malcolm joins her, and asks her if Lucy is in Seattle, hanging out with a guy. Beth says that that's what everyone's been saying, but can't confirm it. I think an inkling of truth might be seeping into the minds of the younger, stupider members of the wedding party. Malcolm perpetuates the lie that Booth is back with his family, and he and Beth huddle together in worry.

MEANWHILE, the sheriff plays War with Madison as he interviews her. Despite being in shock the last time we saw her, now she's all chatty and happy. Creepy brat. She tells the sheriff that she spent the day with Richard, swimming and playing ping pong. He seems satisfied, and steps outside. Madison asks Shea if she did well, telling her that she repeated everything Richard asked her to say. Shea turns to Trish, appalled.

MEANWHILE, Abby shows Henry and JD her father's Wall of Crazy. They determine that the sheriff has been tracking someone for a long time, whether it's Wakefield or a copycat. They find a stack of postcards accusing the sheriff of being a liar, though about what, they have no idea. They teleport back to the inn, where they tell the sheriff about Uncle Marty's body. They also confront him with a picture from his Wall of Crazy about Wakefield still being alive, which he denies. JD says that the only way to make sure is to dig up Wakefield's grave, which the sheriff can't endorse. He tosses JD into the hotel's walk-in cooler. JD snarks that the sheriff is just trying to look like a hero, and the sheriff retorts that it's an odd coincidence that JD wasn't present for Sinister Dad's death, that he discovered his uncle, and that he was the last person to see Kelly alive. Snap! He locks JD in the walk-in, and leaves, pausing only to tell Abby that he's getting her off the island tomorrow.

MEANWHILE, Trish goes to confront Katherine. She tells Katherine that Richard lied about his whereabouts earlier in the morning, and Katherine denies having been with him. So where has Richard been, hmmmmm? Henry and Abby reconvene, and decide to go ahead with JD's whole dig-up-Wakefield's-grave plan.

MEANWHILE, Cal and Chloe finally get back to the inn, where the other members of the wedding party fill them in on the fun they've missed. After they've absorbed the news, Chloe points out that the head spade that killed Sinister Dad has been missing from the maritime museum since the scavenger hunt. Danny comes in, and informs everyone that the sheriff said that nobody's allowed to leave until they've been questioned, like, DUH. They finally realize that they may be thought of as suspects, and not just witnesses. I'm going out on a limb, and predicting that no member of the wedding party was ever valedictorian.

MEANWHILE, the sheriff questions Katherine. She says that Richard used to fantasize about Sinister Dad dying, so he could take over the company, but that they were never serious threats, just jokes. Trish interrupts to insist Katherine show the sheriff articles that Katherine found. Um, why is Trish even there? I can understand her being present (along with Shea) for Madison's interview, but what business does she have here now? Katherine doesn't seem to mind, and shows the sheriff a bunch of newspapers she found in Richard's briefcase. They're the very articles about the Wakefield murders that Abby spotted when she was putting together her stupid scrapbook. Another loose end tied up! Also, it seems that Richard knows more about Wakefield than he admitted. Plus, he was the only one present when Trish almost drowned. It's looking bleaker and bleaker for him. The sheriff asks Katherine and Trish to keep this information to themselves.

MEANWHILE, JD passes the time by constructing a tower of canned vegetables. Madison lets him out of the walk-in, saying she snagged the key from Maggie's desk. She tells him people think Richard killed Sinister Dad, but it doesn't seem to upset her much, being a creepy brat and all. JD takes off, and Madison gleefully kicks over the vegetable tower.

MEANWHILE, Abby and Henry, instead of going directly to Wakefield's grave while it was still light out, have sensibly decided to dig it up in the dead of night. By themselves. After telling nobody where they'd be. Twits. Just as they reach the coffin, the sheriff shows up, looking for the missing JD. Abby apologizes, but says she needs to know the truth. The sheriff says he'll allow them to open the coffin, and when they do, they discover a skeleton grinning up at them. That seems to settle the issue, although we could also have just discovered where Lucy wound up. Abby and the sheriff discuss the issue while Henry does all the work of filling in the grave. The sheriff has suspected there has been a Wakefield copycat for years, but never imagined that he or she would come to this island. JD is still not cleared of suspicion. Abby also apologizes for going through her father's things, and the two of them make up over the fights and problems they've had since the original murder spree. The sheriff plans to send most of the guests home tomorrow, but tells Henry that he'll have to bring JD in. JD is hiding in the trees nearby, and overhears everything.

MEANWHILE, Cal and Chloe discuss their relationship. She hopes to become engaged, and promises to be less critical of Cal's overthinking everything. He promises he'll propose, but not on the same day Trish's dad was slaughtered. She's placated for the time being, and snuggles up to him to go to sleep. He stares intently into the middle distance.

MEANWHILE, Richard wanders around outside. Alone. "Stick together" just doesn't have the same weight it once did. He's on the phone with what sounds like his lawyer. He says that he hasn't been charged with anything, but doesn't want to make another move without the lawyer present. He's also worried about what Shea will do, now that she knows he's been cheating on her, and is royally pissed. He looks through the window at Madison, who's playing solitaire. He insists he's not interested in money, but wants to fight for "share...." That was probably going to be "shared custody", though I suppose it could have been "Cher tickets". I don't think shared custody is going to be much of a viable option, though, because before Richard can get the sentence out, he's speared with a harpoon. Eep. Madison looks up, and appears to see what's going on. Richard manages to groan her name before the harpoon is pulled back, and Richard is pulled somewhat comically off-screen. Madison actually didn't see any of this, but is simply looking at her reflection in the window.

MEANWHILE, JD runs through the woods to a cabin. He knocks on the door, and is admitted by Burnface McGee, looking like an even crazier Gary Busey.

Now, that was a satisfying episode. Figures that just as we get the real excitement rolling, I read that the show has been cancelled. Hopefully, that just means there won't be a Season 2, and they'll burn off the rest of Season 1 so we can at least get some closure.

Next week on Harper's Island: DEATH!

Overall Grade: A