Welcome to Haven

Welcome to Haven
General Information
Season	1
Episode	1
Air Date	July 9, 2010
Runtime	43 minutes
Written by	Sam Ernst & Jim Dunn
Directed by	Adam Kane
Chronology
Next	Butterfly
Related Pages
Pages	GALLERY TRANSCRIPT

"Welcome to Haven" is the pilot episode and first episode of Season 1 of Haven. It aired on July 9th, 2010.

Synopsis

FBI Agent Audrey Parker is sent to the small town of Haven, on the hunt for escaped convict Jonas Lester. She partners up with Nathan Wuornos, a local detective trying to solve an increasingly strange case where the weather seems to have a mind of its own.

Plot

Teaser

Howard remarks on Audrey's copy of Unstake My Heart.

June 10^th, 2010 - FBI Agent Audrey Parker is woken by a visit from her superior, Agent Howard, who discusses her most recently closed case. Howard then assigns Audrey to investigate the escape of federal prisoner Jonas Lester, who has fled to the small town of Haven in Maine.

In Haven, an armed Lester chases an unknown victim along a bluff, but is disarmed and thrown from the cliff by a gust of wind. A man watches Lester fall from the cliff.

Act 1

Agent Parker is driving into Haven, playing with the radio, when the asphalt collapses across the middle of the street. She swerves hard, and crashes her car through the barrier on the side of the road and onto the edge of a cliff. She decides to risk leaning forward to shut off the radio, which is playing "Love Will Keep Us Together" saying, "there's no way I'm going to die listening to this". A man, later revealed to be Nathan Wuornos, taps on the window and asks if she needs help. He gets her out of the car just before it plunges into the water. As they watch her car tumble off the cliff, he notices her sidearm and quickly draws his own weapon. Audrey pulls her gun too and they face off in a weaver stance.

Nathan offers to give Parker a ride, and she accepts, accidentally slamming his fingers in the door of his truck. Nathan explains the cracks in the road as a result of sandstone. Audrey asks Nathan if he's seen Jonas Lester and he tells her that he's just left him, and brings her to a local beach where Lester's body was found. Nathan introduces Audrey to Police Chief Garland Wuornos. Audrey finds a scrap of paper with illegible writing on it, and finds the position of his body on the beach suspicious and wants to investigate. Chief Wuornos considers this a waste of time, but when Nathan offers to assist her, he signs off on it.

Audrey phones Agent Howard to inform him of Lester's death and her suspicions that it was not accidental as the local Chief of Police seems to think. She tells him that she's going to be working with a local detective, and Nathan finally introduces himself as "Detective Wuornos". Once off the phone with Howard, Audrey, who's realized that he's the Chief's son, and asks why he calls his father "The Chief". Nathan is tight-lipped about the relationship saying that he calls his boss "The Chief" and explaining that his father's attitude has nothing to do with her, but rather that he's testing him. Audrey notes that one advantage of being an orphan is that she doesn't have to deal with parental conflict.

Nathan and Audrey head to the Tuwiuwok Bluff, which overlooks the beach where Lester's body was found. They find two sets of footprints and trees pulled up by their roots, which is strange because there was no wind the night before, certainly nothing powerful enough to rip a fully grown tree up by it's roots. Audrey also finds a revolver, and Nathan finds a fedora that he identifies as belonging to a local handyman, Conrad Brauer. On their way into town to interview Conrad, Nathan welcomes Audrey to Haven. He tells her about the history between Conrad and Lester. They were in the service together, Gulf War veterans. Conrad came out of the service a unemployed hero with PTSD and Lester came out of the service a "loser with computer skills" and later did time for stealing VA benefits from guys he served with, including Conrad.

Conrad is working outside of Hours, Marion Caldwell's antique shop. He claims that the night that Lester died he was clam-digging at Edgewater Beach, and says he lost his hat when he was up on Tuwiuwok that morning, to watch the boats leave. Audrey suggests that Nathan try and continue to question Conrad while she goes inside the antique store to speak to the owner but when she tries to an incredibly thick fog rapidly descends, blocking out all sight. In the thick fog, Conrad quickly disappears and Nathan is almost run over by a truck, but Audrey tackles him, pushing him out of the way to safety.

Act 2

Nathan is being treated by Eleanor Carr, an EMT, who says that he needs to go to the hospital and get an MRI. Audrey calls to check in with Agent Howard. When she hangs up, she is approached by Vince and Dave Teagues, co-editors of the Haven Herald. They ask about Lester's death, but she avoids answering their questions and tries to deter them from coming by later. Vince also mentions that Audrey looks familiar. Nathan, having snuck out of the ambulance, returns, and he and Parker visit the antiques store to talk to Marion Caldwell, who confirms Conrad's alibi, insisting that he's not involved. They also meet Marion's friend Ted Ford, who mentions that he and Marion are considering moving to Santa Barbara, California to open a store. Marion's mother had recently passed away, and they think that the change might be good for her, although she's trepidatious about leaving Haven, her childhood home. Wournos receives a call, and cuts the interview short. The gun trace has come in and it belongs to a smuggler named Duke Crocker, a man that Nathan describes as "unreliable", "untrustworthy", a "waste" and a general "pain in his ass." Nathan and Audrey head to Crocker's boat, the Cape Rouge to interview him, but Crocker isn't on the boat. Nathan leaves to look for Crocker "under the usual rocks".

Later that night, Conrad returns to Marion's shop and learns that the police returned to look for him. Conrad asks Marion if she trusts him, and she tells him that she does, reminding him of when they were young and he taught her how to swim. Marion admits to being scared about the incident with Lester, and Conrad confesses that he is as well. Storm clouds begin to gather quickly, and the scene cuts to the dock near the Cape Rouge where Audrey is leaving a message for Agent Howard. A vicious hailstorm kicks up, and Audrey attempts to quickly take shelter. Lightning strikes a transformer, knocking her unconscious and throwing her into the water.

Act 3

Audrey wakes the next morning half-naked, in a strange bedroom. She grabs a shirt and her gun and ventures outside to find Duke Crocker, reading a Chinese newspaper.

Audrey gets dressed and Crocker offers her coffee, pretending to know how she takes it. Audrey questions him about Lester and the gun that she found up on Tuwiuwok Bluff. He informs her that his gun was stolen and that he had already reported it as such, something that Nathan hadn't told her. Audrey attempts to ask him about the strange weather but Crocker ducks the question, saying that the weather was normal for Maine. Audrey wants to get a bird's eye photo of the damage but when she reaches for her phone it's destroyed.

At the Haven Police Department, Audrey confronts Nathan about not telling her that Crocker had reported the revolver stolen, and tries to push for more information about the weird weather. Nathan defends his actions, saying that he's known Duke since he was five, and that he's all bad. He ducks the issue of the weird weather, saying that it's just weather and brings her attention instead to a lab report which has just come in: the paper she found on Lester's body was a torn corner from the tide calendar on Crocker's boat and it had the numerals "25789" written on it. Nathan leaves to find Crocker, and while speaking to the Chief, Audrey realizes that Conrad's alibi does not hold up.

Audrey returns to Marion's antique store to confront Conrad, and is thrown back against her car by a gust of wind. Then snow begins to fall. Marion tells Conrad to get away from her. Conrad tries to go after her but Audrey is back up on her feet and holding him at gunpoint. Conrad promptly confesses to killing Lester, and insists that it was an accident.

Act 4

At the HPD, Nathan is interrogating a hand-cuffed Duke when Audrey enters with Conrad in handcuffs. She tells Nathan to let Duke go as Conrad has confessed. Conrad repeats his confession for Nathan, and Duke tries to leave. Audrey stops him. Duke explains that Lester wanted him to run him up to Canada but he declined as smugglings felons was not on his "to-do list". He doesn't tell them any of the specifics about the numbers, simply saying that Lester was looking for a boat. Nathan and Audrey talk about Conrad's story, which Nathan doesn't believe. Audrey tells him that, she can't really believe it, but that it happened to her and even though it doesn't make sense, she has to trust what she knows. Audrey decides to do more research on the weather patterns, leaving Nathan to try and run down the number with the Harbor Master. Duke interrupts them again, asking if they're going to let him go. Annoyed, they respond "no" in unison.

At the antique store, Ted presents Marion with a key to 3000 square foot store on State Street in Santa Barbara, claiming that they only need to make a down-payment to finalize the deal. Marion agrees that it's probably time to leave Haven.

At the police station, Audrey is going over satellite photos of the weather when she smells something very strong. The Teagues enter and tell her that they gave Nathan the box of essential oils, because "when you only have four senses, you make the most of them." The Teagues have brought her a present, a Xerox of an old Haven Herald from May 28^th 1983, with a front story titled "Who Killed the Colorado Kid?" and a photograph that includes a woman who greatly resembles her. They ask her if she has any family around Haven, and after telling them that she doesn't have any family, period, the Teagues bring up the weird fog that she'd asked them about earlier. She asks them if Conrad Brauer ever made the papers in the context of weird weather patterns. Dave searches the Herald archives but finds nothing on Brauer other than a returning war hero piece. But the search does turn up an article on weird weather. In 1956, the Herald did an interview with the Hastings family, the only survivors of a freakish series of storms destroyed their hometown, Calerin, Georgia. The Teagues mention that the Hastings grand-daughter is a Caldwell.

Nathan has tracked the number to a boat called The Helen Ann Thomas which Lester obtained, and has found financial paperwork on-board pertaining to Marion Caldwell's $2-million inheritance. He calls Audrey and relays all of this to her and she realizes that Conrad wasn't the one causing the freaky weather, Marion was and Conrad was protecting her. Nathan also tells her that Lester had a partner who had given him information on Marion's finances: Ted Ford. Audrey calls Caldwell and confronts her, telling her that she knows that she was up on Tuwiuwok Bluff. She informs her of Lester's plan and Ted's complicity, and Marion checks her bank accounts online to discover a $2-million wire transfer. Marion hangs up on Audrey and storms out of the store as a lightning storm gathers outside.

Act 5

A large funnel cloud is forming in the sky and Audrey calls Nathan for backup, telling him what's happened, and warning him that they have to find Marion before she hurts Ted. Marion arrives at Ted's house to confront him, and finds him packing his car and preparing to leave. He tries to tell her that he's only going on a business trip, but Marion doesn't believe him.

The storm around them intensifies as Marion asks Ted if everything was lie, if he never really loved her. Ted pulls a gun on Marion, but she just gets angrier and a telekinetic gust of wind rips it out of his hand. Audrey arrives on the scene followed almost immediately by Nathan. As Audrey attempts to calm Marion, Ted takes advantage of this distraction and goes for his fallen gun, shooting Nathan in the shoulder. Nathan can't feel this and promptly tackles Ted. Audrey continues to try and get through to Marion, forcing her to look at what she's doing and recognize that the weather is under her control. Marion takes the key that Ted gave her to the store in Santa Barabara out of her pocket and breaks down crying as the weather clears.

Audrey drives Conrad out to a beach where Marion is waiting and on the way they talk. Conrad tells her that Tuwiuwok means "Haven for God's Orphans", but people liked Haven better, hence the name of the town. Audrey tells Conrad that she knows why he was on Tuwiuwok that night; that he was watching out for Marion. Conrad admits that he didn't trust Ted, but Audrey pushes him, asking if maybe the real reason he was watching out for Marion was because he loved her. She tells him that she could put Marion in jail, but it wouldn't do anything and she wants him to stand up instead. She tells him that Marion needs someone who can keep her safe and calm and tells him that he has a chance to make her happy and should grab it. Conrad walks out on the beach to Marion and they both apologize to each other and Conrad drops his protective barrier and takes Marion's hand.

At the HPD, Nathan is resting, recovering from his gunshot wound when Audrey brings him flowers. He identifies the flowers, lilacs and lilies, by smell alone. The two discuss the details of Lester's arrangement with Ted: the con had already been in play when Lester had been picked up for a parole violation and he broke out to make sure that Ted wouldn't walk out with his share. Nathan remains skeptical of Audrey's theory that Marion affects the weather, and Audrey tells him "when you've ruled everything else out, you have to accept what's left." Nathan reveals that the Chief was a beat cop on the Colorado Kid murder, and Audrey again pushes him on calling his father the Chief. Nathan's tells her that no, he doesn't mean his father, he means the Chief and changes the subject, commenting on the similarities between Audrey and the woman in the photo. Audrey tells him that growing up, the other children she knew in foster care all dreamed that their parents would come for them and turn out to be big rock stars or someone famous and cool. But she dreamed that her mother would one day pull up in a big bus and rescue every kid in every orphanage in the world and bring them home. Nathan suggests she may have to let go of that particular dream, and Audrey tells him that she wishes she could.

Stinger

That evening, Audrey visits the site of the Colorado Kid murder, and calls Agent Howard to inform him that she'll be taking a few weeks of vacation time to stay in Haven. Howard, unbeknownst to Audrey, is watching her from across the water. When he hangs up with her, he immediately places another call to an unidentified individual, telling the person that Audrey is "staying," suggesting that "maybe she could help you with your troubles." He then hangs up and drives out of town as the asphalt collapses down the length of the street behind him.

Credits

Starring

• Emily Rose as Audrey Parker
• Lucas Bryant as Nathan Wournos
• Nicholas Campbell as Garland Wournos
• Eric Balfour as Duke Crocker
• Richard Donat as Vince Teagues
• John Dunsworth as Dave Teagues

Guest Starring

• Nicole de Boer as Marion Caldwell (credited as Nicole De Boer)
• Patrick Garrow as Conrad Brauer
• Maurice Dean Wint as Agent Howard
• Mary-Colin Chisholm as Eleanor Carr

Cast

• Kevin Jubeville as Ted Ford
• Zach Tovey as Jonas Lester

Uncredited

• Tom H. Ford as Police Officer

Featured music

• Love Will Keep Us Together - Captain & Tennille

Quotes

• Howard: FBI is non-fiction work. I need you to keep it that way.
  Audrey: Is this about Miami?
  Howard: Oh, yeah. I'm talking about Miami. We've been through this.
  Audrey: You know, being open to possibilities is how we close cases... Like that one.
  Howard:It sends you down blind alleys, too.
  Audrey:Yeah, well where I grew up, a blind alley was even better than reality.

• Audrey: Whoa! FBI! Who are you?
  Nathan: Haven PD. Who are you?
  Audrey: F-B-I. Are you deaf?
  Nathan: How do I know that?
  Audrey: Okay, well, for starters, I'm wearing the gun on my belt. It's a government-issue 9mm. And they gave me, you know, one of these. (reaches for her badge)
  Nathan: Hey, keep your hands where I can see them.
  Audrey: Okay, what am I going to do? Pull out another gun?
  

• Audrey: Oh! I'm sorry are... are you alright?
  Nathan: It's alright. I didn't feel it.
  Audrey: Oh. Tough guy, huh?

• Duke: Good morning.
  Audrey: You took my clothes.
  Duke: Well, now I laundered your clothes. I saved your life. That's an odd combination, when you think about it. I mean, if you think about it.
  Audrey: You must be Duke.

Reception

Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly called the episode "whimsical, like the show it preceded, [[1]]," citing that it lacked "the gritty or bleak-humor Stephen King style to be found in most of his work." Tucker also wrote, however: "I'm going to give it time. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad – I want to watch how Haven complicates itself".

Sam McPherson of TV OverMind rated the episode a C, calling Parker's character "an ultimately forgettable FBI agent who apparently wishes she was Fox Mulder," and criticizing the decision to make the character "incredibly eager to accept the unbelievable." McPherson also wrote that the show seems like "a mix of The X-Files, Eureka, and Heroes" without "the same magic that any of those shows had in their early seasons".

Mike Hale of The New York Times also compared the series to "its Syfy stablemates" Eureka and Warehouse 13 (as well as to The Mentalist, NCIS, Fringe and Memphis Beat), citing in particular the character of Parker's "wise black boss who...knows more about her situation...than she does." Hale also wrote that the episode employed "a cozy, lived-in mystery with some quirky characters in a pleasant setting," while suffering from "spotty writing and perfunctory camerawork".

Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times also compared the series to Eureka and Warehouse 13 (by way of The X-Files), as well as to the short-lived ABC series Happy Town, citing that the episode succeeded in its aims "to scare you a little, and to amuse you a little more." Lloyd also wrote that viewers "looking for another creepy municipal drama filmed in Canada may find this a port in the storm," pointing out that Haven is "all right; it's not bad".

Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe (which, incidentally, got a mention in the novel calls the series "a bad thing, a third-rate summer series" and "the TV equivalent of a $3 Halloween mask." Gilbert also wrote that "by the time Audrey falls off a pier and wakes up undressed in the bed of town badboy Duke Crocker...you probably won’t care" because "the characters are so shallow, it’s hard to invest interest in them." He did, however, point out that the most enjoyable part of the episode "was the setting, which evokes Maine even while the show was filmed in Nova Scotia".

Matt Roush of TV Guide called Haven "a dreary example of a channel so in love with its own success that it dips from the well of sameness once too often. It's Eureka without inspiration, minus the 'wow' factor." Roush also accused the series of being "a by-the-numbers dud" that is "derivative at best and dispiriting at worst".

Production

Production notes

• The original script was sold to ABC before it eventually "migrated to E1 and Syfy".
• Haven shoots on the south shore of Nova Scotia. When the pilot was shot in April of 2010, they had very uneven weather. Lucas Bryant describes the day when he and Emily Rose shot the scene where their characters meet for the first time:
• Nicole de Boer who plays Marion Caldwell and Maurice Dean Wint who plays Agent Howard both starred in the 1997 horror movie Cube

...it started off as a beautiful day and then it was black clouds followed by pouring rain. Then we had hail and two rainbows by the end of the day, and all that was in the same scene. I had very little faith that it would actually cut together, but it does and it's beautiful. So we just quickly got used to that being that status quo. What you can expect during the day was everything to change every five minutes.

— Lucas Bryant

Production errors and goofs

Writers' notes

• In Sam Ernst and Jim Dunn's original pitch, Stephanie McCann, the protagonist of The Colorado Kid was the main character. ABC disliked the idea of the main character being a journalist because they're had bad luck with similar characters in the past. They suggested that be some sort of police officer, so Dunn and Ernst hurriedly rewrote the pilot and repitched it to ABC later that day. They named their new title character "Audrey Parker" after Ernst's daughter who's middle name is "Parker".
• Though the Stephanie character survived the second draft of the pilot, by the time they were shooting the pilot episode, her character was completely gone. The second version of the pilot also included several elements from what would end up being other episodes. Bobby Mueller, the butterflies and his night terror Trouble from "Butterfly" were in this version of the pilot. Audrey's kissing Nathan on the cheek was also in the pilot, as was a criminal with a large porn stash, and Duke's revelation that he was the little boy holding Lucy Ripley's hand in the Colorado Kid crime scene photograph.

References and allusions

Stephen King references

Story notes

Continuity

International releases

Country/Region	Channel	Premiere date	Timeslot
Australia	13th Street Universal	October 13, 2010	Wednesday 8:30pm
Canada	Showcase	July 12, 2010
Denmark	Canal 9	April 13, 2011
Finland	Yle TV2	October 25, 2012	Thursday, 10:05pm
France	Syfy	October 26, 2010	Tuesday, 8:45pm
Germany	Syfy	October 8, 2010
Greece	Universal Channel	2011
Hungary	Universal Channel	January 5, 2011
India	Zee Café	March 20, 2012	Weekdays, 10:00pm
Italy	Syfy Steel	October 18, 2010	Weekdays, 9:00pm
Japan	Universal Channel	Fall 2010
Netherlands	Syfy	Spring 2011
Norway	NRK3	September 8, 2011	Thursday, 10:55pm
New Zealand	TV2	February 9, 2012	Wednesday, 10:30pm
Poland	Scifi	Fall 2010
Portugal	Syfy	Fall 2010
Serbia	Radio Television of Serbia	January 17, 2013	Weekdays, 11:35pm
South Africa	DStv Universal Channel	October 17, 2010	Sunday, 20:00pm
Spain	Syfy Universal (Spain)	October 21, 2010	Thursday, 9:30pm
Sri Lanka	Zee Cafe	March 20, 2012	Weekdays, 10:00pm
United Kingdom	Syfy	Autumn 2010
Turkey	Universal Channel	12 May, 2011
Venezuela	Syfy LA		Monday, 7:30pm

External links

• "Welcome to Haven" is currently available for viewing on hulu.

References

• Hammett, Adsartha (June 1, 2013) "And So It Begins Haven S1E01 Welcome to Haven". Unspooling Fiction
• "Welcome to Haven" at TV.com
• "Haven at Wikipedia

See Also