Filet of (Red) Herring

Harper's Island - Season 1, Episode 8

Previously on Harper's Island: DEATH!

Despite the fact that Maggie told the wedding party that they'd basically have the inn to themselves, now all sorts of people are crawling out of the woodwork to flee to the mainland. I guess I can't blame them, since the murderer refuses to restrict him or herself to the main cast. Shea wanders the inn, looking for Madison and calling out her name. Even though the inn's staff is fleeing the island along with all those newfound guests, a truly dedicated maid and floor buffer stay behind to do their duties. I'd love to be privy to their thought processes. "Well, a serial killer is on the loose, but these pillowcases aren't going to fold themselves!" Members of the wedding party pack their stuff onto the shuttle that will take them down to the marina. Henry tries to comfort Trish, saying he'll be along as soon as the arrangements with her dad's body are dealt with.

MEANWHILE, at the prison, the sheriff cuffs JD and leads him out of his cell, while Shane, who's been cooling his heels here for a while, smirks and makes obnoxious comments. JD is hauled into another room, where the sheriff sits him down, and asks him to explain all these murders. JD protests his innocence, though not especially vehemently. The sheriff asks about Burnface McGee, and JD tells him where the old coot can be found, but warns the sheriff that he's not too popular in that neighborhood.

MEANWHILE, Jimmy says good-bye to Abby. I have no idea why he's not going to the mainland along with everyone else. Shea arrives in a panic about not being able to find either Madison or Richard. Katherine begins to wonder whether Richard may have spirited Madison off somewhere, but is interrupted by Trish. No idea about that, either. Henry promises Shea that they'll find Madison before the boat goes anywhere. He approaches the rest of the wedding party, and asks for help in finding her. After some initial hesitation, they agree.

MEANWHILE, Shane and JD are fighting in their adjacent cells. A deputy comes in to yell at them. Suddenly, the lights go out, and a shotgun blast fires. The deputy falls dead to the floor, dropping his keys by JD's cell. A few moments later, another blast fires. Shane prays not to be gunned down in his cell, and gets his wish when the lights come back on. JD manages to reach the keys, and lets himself out. Shane makes a rare good point in that if JD leaves without freeing Shane, he's just going to look more guilty. JD doesn't seem to mind, and flings the keys down at the deputy's corpse. Shane threatens to kill JD the next time they meet. I'm not sure the rantings of the local hick would bother anyone who's just seen a real murderer in action.

MEANWHILE, Maggie leads Shea and Trish to the room she gave to Richard last night. You'd think they'd have looked here before now. It turns out not to matter, as it looks like Richard never used it. Trish tries to convince Shea that while Richard was a crappy husband, he's a good father, and would never kidnap Madison. The whole Richard-took-Madison theory is certainly not out of the realm of possibility (as far as the characters know), but I'm surprised that the other obvious conclusion - that whoever killed Sinister Dad has also come for Richard and Madison - hasn't occurred to any of them.

MEANWHILE, the sheriff heads into Burnface McGee's territory. The search parties look for Madison. The sheriff almost sets off one of the forest's many Goonies booby traps, but backs away from the trip-wire when he hears a noise. The noise turns out to be Lucy's purse dog, which causes the sheriff to relax, then set off the trap after all. Creepy little children and purse dogs ruin everything. A pointy implement swings and impales the sheriff in the leg. He does the worst thing you can do, and yanks the implement out. I don't know much about deadly booby traps, but even I remember the basic tenet of first aid that says you don't pull things out of a puncture wound. Chloe, Cal, Shea, and Trish are at the inn, and decide to check the basement, where they find Malcolm's seared handprint on the incinerator door, and his skull in the fire. Shea freaks out, but Cal is able to tell that there's no way it belongs to a child. Abby, Katherine, and Henry are at the water's edge, and discover Richard's body harpooned to a tree. Just then, Abby's phone rings. It's Madison, saying that she's been told to say that she'll be killed if anyone leaves the island. Rut roh.

Abby and Henry try to call the sheriff, but can't get a cell phone signal. They at least have the grace to mention that it's weird that Madison can call them, but they can't call anyone else. They rush back to the inn, where they discover all the phones are dead. Somehow, they manage to gather all the other search parties to form some sort of plan. Katherine brings up the valid question of why Abby was called instead of anyone having any real connection to Madison. This goes unanswered. Also, everyone thinks JD is in jail, so they wonder who induced Madison to make the call. Blond Tool says that the victims have been Richard, Sinister Dad, and Madison, so this is clearly a problem with Trish's family. Everyone jumps down his throat, and although he's being a tool as always, it is the most likely conclusion for him to jump to.

Henry shatters all of that by revealing the murder of Uncle Marty. Blond Tool wants to leave the island immediately, but Shea begs him to stay and find Madison. He snaps that her life isn't more important than any of the others', and Trish smacks him across the face. Again, he's a huge tool, and being dismissive of a child's life in front of her mother is awful, but yeah... It's a tricky situation. He's not only being asked to risk his life for a kid he met (and probably doesn't like, for good reason) a few days ago, but he's not even really being asked. It's expected of him. Now he and every other adult on the island will be easy prey, and even leaving out any locals still hanging around, that's still more than a dozen lives being tossed onto the poker table for one kid. This was actually really clever of the writers as both a moral issue and as a way of keeping the main characters on the island. Kudos to them.

MEANWHILE, the badly wounded sheriff is approached by someone in the woods, but is too weak to do much about it. Back at the inn, Chloe is compiling a list of dead and missing guests. The others snap at her for this, but I don't see why. It won't do anyone any good to pretend that Lucy is partying it up in Seattle or that Malcolm vanished without taking any of his stuff. In fact, I don't see why the groomsmen don't bring up Booth's death right now. They may as well. Suddenly, the lights cut out. This spurs a new plan in which Maggie hands over all the inn's guns (I guess the skeet shooting ones) so that everyone can defend themselves. Cal argues that giving unskilled, terrified people weapons is a recipe for disaster, but to no avail. Jimmy enters, and is almost shot by said unskilled, terrified people. He says he came to take Abby to a boat, as the one carrying all the other people left about a half hour previously.

The people originally not too thrilled about the whole let's-stay-and-die-for-Madison's-sake (Blond Tool, Chloe, and Beth) offer Jimmy money to take them to the mainland. There's some bickering. Abby and Jimmy head to the sheriff's station to try and reach someone on the battery-powered radio.

MEANWHILE, Burnface McGee has taken the sheriff to his cabin. He says that he's been in town a few weeks, setting booby traps and hunting the killer. Well, he certainly excels at one of those things, and sucks at the other. The purse dog has evidently taken the place of his dead attack dog. That's quite a swap. There's some talk about Abby's involvement in the whole affair, and Burnface McGee pulls out a book for the sheriff to read.

MEANWHILE, Henry and Danny go down to the old generator to try and get it working. Danny is bemoaning his karmic punishment for taking the money from Hunter's boat, but Henry doesn't think the two are connected. Danny takes a moment to intelligently suggest that maybe the generator is rigged, just like the chandelier at the church was. Henry basically ignores him, and fiddles with it. For someone who's ostensibly the hero of our story, Henry's kind of an ass. Maybe he's the killer. I have no real evidence of this; he just responds to situations in weird ways. Though a spark gives them both a good scare, the generator doesn't explode. It doesn't turn on, either. Henry suggests jumping it with cables from a nearby truck (Shane's, if I'm not mistaken).

MEANWHILE, Abby and Jimmy arrive at the sheriff's station to discover that the radio has been smashed. Man, the murderer is busy this week. They also hear Shane calling out for help, and make their way back to the cells, where Jimmy slips on the deputy's blood. Ew. Shane describes what happened earlier, and tells Abby that he knows where her dad went, having overheard the conversation between the sheriff and JD. He promises to tell her what she wants to know if they spring him.

MEANWHILE, the jumping trick works, and the inn's power comes back on. Danny and Henry come back to the lounge, where they discover...nobody. A whistling kettle leads them to Shea, Trish, and Katherine in the kitchen. It seems that everyone else has jumped ship. Henry promises to round them all up, leaving Danny to stay with the women.

MEANWHILE, the sheriff finishes reading what turns out to be Wakefield's diary, which is apparently pretty horrible, though we're never told any specifics. The sheriff and Burnface McGee talk out their issues like they're members of the Babysitter's Club. Burnface McGee insists that JD isn't the killer, and has been helping him try to find the person responsible for the recent murders. He also says that Abby coming back to the island has set off the recent chain of events, but if that's true, I don't see how Cousin Ben's murder fits in. Not wanting the sheriff's death on his hands with Abby wandering around, Burnface McGee leaves the cabin to get medical help. The purse dog goes with him, and senses something. Burnface McGee doesn't react quickly enough, and is pinned to the cabin with an arrow shot out of the woods. He drops the lantern he's holding, starting a fire. I'll say this for the murderer: He or she certainly has an impressive repertoire. Another arrow tears through the window, and the sheriff hurls himself to the floor, dragging himself towards his gun. A final arrow finishes off Burnface McGee, and he drops the satchel containing Wakefield's journal by the fire.

The sheriff reaches his gun. Fat lot of good it does him now. Jimmy and Abby burst in the door. Man, Jimmy's come close to being shot a lot this week. The sheriff sends Abby out to get the satchel before it burns. She manages it. The sheriff asks Jimmy to take him to the marina. Speaking of which, the four fleeing wedding party members arrive there, and select a suitable boat to steal. Cal has second thoughts, and decides that he couldn't live with himself if Madison were hurt because he left. He tells Chloe he knows she feels the same way, and she agrees to go back with him. Beth waffles. Cal spots JD running, which gets Blond Tool and Beth off the boat. I'm not sure why. I guess to go shoot him, which is dumb, given the conversation back at the inn about how JD was in jail when Madison's phone call was made. Abby, Jimmy, and the sheriff arrive, and Abby refuses to abandon her father to go wait in safety on the mainland. Blond Tool approaches to tell them that JD is in the vicinity. Jimmy and Abby take guns to go find him. But... They know JD was in jail when the deputy was shot, and the sheriff knows that JD was helping Burnface McGee. Everyone left on the island knows something isn't adding up. Why still the bandwagon about hunting JD down?

Jimmy leaves Abby alone to check something out. Of course. Why stick together? Abby hears a person in distress, and carefully walks down one of the docks. She finds JD lying on the ground. He's been stabbed in the gut, and is slipping away. So naturally, instead of saying "[So-and-so] did this," he grunts out some enigmatic crap about how all the murders are tied to Abby, then dies. Abby turns around to discover...Henry. Crying and drenched in blood. Well, now. Isn't this an interesting turn of events?

Next week on Harper's Island: DEATH!

Overall Grade: B