Harper's Island Recap: Week 10

So, what, Wakefield’s the killer?

All of my careful painstaking note-making will have to be thrown away because Wakefield is the killer? Last week when Maggie was finally eliminated as a suspect I was left baffled, since no character could have committed all of the murders, but at the same time I didn’t really think they’d bring in Wakefield as the killer.

The producers of this show know that’s not a mystery, right?

From episode one all signs have pointed to the return of John Wakefield, crazed killer. The signs pointed so heavily that we, the audience, were forced to assume that Wakefield could not be the killer, and that the real murderer was someone from the wedding party or their extended circle of associates.

Why? Because if Wakefield’s the killer, it’s not a ‘13-week mystery event’, it’s a 13-week waste of our time.

You know what? I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s take a look at the episode where things took a… turn…

The episode picks up right where the last one left off, with everyone discovering that Katherine is dead, then heading for the dock so they can all escape on Jimmy’s boat. Well, almost everyone. Most of the group goes to collect the sheriff, Cal and Chloe, while Jimmy and Shane go to refuel Jimmy’s boat.

Meanwhile, down at the docks the sea plane lands and say hello to the man in the sheriff’s uniform standing on the dock. Then he promptly shoots them to death.

I’ve got no idea why the producers are being so coy at this point. The moment a ‘sheriff’ showed up at the dock it was painfully clear that the man with the gun had to be John Wakefield. Apart from the fact that that’s clearly not the sheriff’s hand, we in the audience watched someone else kill the Trapster while the sheriff was in the next room, critically injured. So while the characters might not know the sheriff is innocent, we do, which makes the avoidance of showing Wakefield’s face kind of silly.

There are two characters who have appeared in any major or minor role in the show who don't have an alibi at this moment, Nikki and the Doctor. That’s not a woman’s hand, and it’s not an old man’s hand. Meaning the killer can’t be anyone we’ve met, meaning the killer has to be John Wakefield. So why continue hiding his face?

With the mystery of Abby’s missing dad left unresolved, Henry and Trish go along with her to suss out his location. Shae takes the opportunity to shrill-ly defend her daughter once again, making me wish she’d get killed ASAP.

Over at the sheriff’s lair, they discover a suspicious piece of evidence – he’s got a map of the inn’s underground passages! Things look bad for Abby’s dad, as they will continue to over the next few scenes. I’m not going to cover any of it, of course, because the writing is insultingly bad here: no matter how many people accuse her father of being the killer at no point does Abby mention that she saw her father trapped in a burning building, having arrows shot at him. Or that she and Jimmy were in a truck with him while JD was being killed? Or that he was collapsed on a hospital bed while Beth was being dragged around the tunnels. Did he disappear before Katherine was killed? Sure, but if he had an alibi for one of the murders, that’s good enough.

Seriously, the closest she ever gets to suggesting that her dad isn’t the killer is asking Madison if the sheriff seemed okay when he kidnapped her, what with the leg injuries and all. Even this attempt suggests that Abby is something of a moron, since Madison was kidnapped early in the afternoon, long before her dad was injured. It doesn’t matter anyways, because Shae shows up and, with her shrill, irritating tone, once again defends her contemptible liar of a daughter.

But that’s all in the future. In the right-now Jimmy and Shane try to refuel the boat, but find that the pump doesn’t work. Shane tries to fix it, but it turns out to be booby-trapped! And what’s that on top of the generator? The oxygen tank from last night!

Well, at least now we know why there was such an odd closeup of it last time. Anyhow, just as the large group arrives at the dock the trap goes off and there’s a boatsplosion! Later they’ll talk about this having destroyed all the boats in the marina, but look at this explosion-

Even if that explosion and the fire managed to destroy every single boat at the marina, aren’t there other boats all over the island? What about the small private dock Hunter’s boat was on back in episode 3?

See? That’s clearly a different dock, and it’s full of boats! Why not just go there?

If the whole docksplosion wasn’t bad enough, Wakefield immediately starts shooting at them from the hillside. In a confusing turn of events that suggests either the producers know nothing about firearms or there’s multiple shooters, multiple bullets are fired at them in quick succession, but when we get a look at the rifle it’s bolt-action:

Which requires at least a second between shots, more if you actually want the subsequent shots to hit anything. Henry’s leg is grazed and everyone bolts for the bar, which until know I didn’t realize was literally right next to the dock. Now it’s time for a siege and making plans!

Everything kind of stops dead for a while as they try to figure out if the sheriff’s the killer and what his motive might be. That grows dull and they quickly come up with a plan – get to the sailboat that Cal rented – but who should go? Then Nikki shows up at the bar, explaining that she heard the explosions and saw the fire, which raises the question of where everyone else who lives on the island is.

The fact that Nikki didn’t get shot walking up to the bar convinces Maggie that it’s safe for locals to leave (although it seems like Nikki being involved would be more likely – especially when she tells Abby her father’s probably the killer), and she does so. That’s some incredibly faulty reasoning on her part, as well. It’s totally reasonable to assume Wakefield would want more people trapped in the bar, but still want to kill anyone who leaves. The plan doesn’t go great for Maggie, who winds up killed and thrown from the roof with a noose around her neck-

Now they really do need a plan to escape – although I’m not sure why people decide not to run out the back door. They’re working on the presumption that there’s a single killer aiming at the front door. So he can’t possibly see the back, right? Anyhow, their plan involves waiting until dark and throwing molotov cocktails to create a smokescreen so that Cal and Douchey Frat can run out to Nikki’s car and drive it to the boat.

That’s right, they’re going to wait until dark. Since they got to the bar at like 9AM at the latest, that means they just kind of hang out for at least ten hours. After all this waiting is through they completely botch the whole molotov plan as well. They throw their smokescreen between the inn and Nikki’s car. Which would kind of work a little if they were trying to keep someone inside the bar from shooting them as they ran to the car. But if Wakefield is on the other side of the road, which is the only sensible place to be, he’ll still have a clean shot at them.

Which is exactly what happens, as Cal gets hit in the shoulder while he and Douchey Frat drive away. It’s a pretty bad injury, so instead of the docks they drive to the clinic, where Cal tells Douchey Frat that he’s going to have to get the bullet out! Douchey Frat worries that he won’t be able to, but Cal says it’s the only option! Will this crazy ordeal finally turn these bitter rivals into best pals? Find out next week, since we don’t see them again this time!

Now Wakefield gets a little bolder, driving up in the sheriff’s jeep! Everyone stands at the door, getting ready to shoot the driver, who’s hidden in shadow. They stop at the last moment when they see a body lying on the hood! Wakefield stops suddenly and the body falls off – it’s Jimmy! For some reason, despite the fact that they’re just a few meters away, nobody shoots at Wakefield once Jimmy’s clear. In fact, the let him drive off without any comment or impediment at all.

They rush out and find that Jimmy’s alive, and, suspiciously for someone who was withing ten feet of a boatsplosion, barely injured at all. Then they find something taped to Jimmy’s hand… Abby’s room key! She’d left it at the room, and now Wakefield wants her to come to the hotel! Abby agrees to go, and no one but Henry thinks that it might be a good idea to go to the hotel in force.

A little after Abby leaves Madison finally admits that she was lying, and that Wakefield had told her to convince everyone that the sheriff was the killer or he’d kill her mother was well.

Anyhow, Abby gets to the inn and finds sheriff standing in her room by the window, with his arms suspiciously at his side. She still thinks he’s involved, despite the fact that she saw him collapsed on the floor of a burning building while a dude was getting shot with arrows from the outside. In an effort to convince her the sheriff finally admits that they just buried some random body when they couldn’t find Wakefield’s corpse. They also address the fact that she might be Wakefield’s daughter, and the sheriff announces that it’s not true. Then he asks Abby to finish off Wakefield because he won’t be able to. Why not?

Yup. Pulled out the window by a noose attached to the back of a truck. Didn’t see that one coming.

Abby, being a moron, heads right out to check on her clearly-dead father, even despite the fact that she knows Wakefield can’t be more than a few feet away – after all, who else would have been driving the car?

Wakefield sneaks up on her and grabs her shotgun, finally allowing us to get a relatively good look at him.

That’s Callum Rennie, isn’t it? Or is it another Vancouver actor who just happens to look a whole lot like him?

Anyhow, that’s it for this episode, which fades to black just as the confrontation begins. You know what? I hope Abby really isn’t Wakefield’s daughter – a criminal mastermind like him really doesn’t deserve to have such a stupe for a kid.

Final Thoughts –

So it’s Wakefield? Seriously? What the hell, man. What the hell.

Alibis-

We don’t need this section any more. What with everyone having an alibi and John Wakefield being the killer.

Thanks for wasting our time, Harper’s Island.

You know what? If there’s no twist where it turns out that a bunch of the victims were killed by someone else (working with Wakefield or not), I’m going to be very displeased.

On the upside, though, if Wakefield really is working with someone else, then my longstanding belief that Jimmy is the killer might still turn out to be true. Although that's something of a longshot at this point.