HARPER’S ISLAND: Are You Ready for the Killer Finale?

The following contains NO SPOILERS for the finale; this is all pure conjecture on my part. Please DO NOT reveal any spoilers in the comments. They will be deleted. Thanks!

I admit it. I’ve been completely sucked into the Harper’s Island. I don’t know one other person in my day-to-day life that watches HI, and yet, as we get close to the final episode of CBS’s summertime miniseries I’m noticing a lot of people online are theorizing and chatting about the show. So…I figured there might be a GMMR reader or two that’s following the series and getting excited for the big two-hour finale just like me.

The show aired last night in Canada, where I live, but I’m saving it to watch tonight and avoiding any spoilers like crazy since I want to be surprised at the big payoff. I suggest to those of you who can’t watch until it airs on Saturday in the US that you proceed with caution on the ol’ internets because the cat will be out of the proverbial bag (I’m going to forgo reading even the headlines on any entertainment sites and avoid Twitter altogether until after I’ve seen it…gulp).

In preparation for the big finale I thought that I’d recap who we have left and the chances of each of the survivors being a part of the evildoings. [I have to preface the rest of the post by saying that I am going into the finale assuming two things: that we’ll learn that one of the survivors is Wakefield’s child and that this person has played a large part in the murders so far. This could of course turn out to be incorrect, but that’s what I’m working with for now.] At this point, we are down to a small group of eight unlucky members of the original group still stuck on the island, along with John Wakefield who made a surprising entrance to the show after many, many assertions that he’s been dead for the past seven years. Abby’s dad the Sheriff did not kill Wakefield as we had all thought, and we’re not sure where he’s been hanging out all this time (it’s hard for me to imagine that he’s been on the relatively small island undetected for seven years). At first I was completely disappointed to learn that he was alive, thinking that the big mystery was now over. However, there is much more to the story that has yet to be revealed…and we’re finally going to be rewarded with all of the answers (I like this mini-series concept for this reason – unlike Lost, which I’m a fan of, it won’t drive me crazy for five plus years!).

We know that John Wakefield had an affair with Abby’s mother, and that they had a child together. We have also been told (via the Sheriff, moments before he was dragged through a window and strung up by a rope) that Abby is not Wakefield’s child. This could be true, or it could be misleading. At this point, we don’t know who Wakefield’s child is. There is a chance that it could be virtually any of the remaining islanders, and an even bigger chance that this person has been involved in the more recent murders all along.

One of the producers of the show has gone on record saying that all of the people who have been killed are actually dead, so let’s go with that. Out of the survivors, there has been a significant push to cast Jimmy the hot townie (and Abby’s romantic interest) in an evil light, which I’m sure means that he’s most certainly innocent. (I’ve got to believe that the writers wouldn’t make it so obvious). So who is left?

There’s Henry, the sensitive and doting groom-to-be, who’s wedding to Trish is the reason for the gathering in the first place. His parents are dead (we don’t know how or why or when) and his brother J.D. was the prime suspect on the island until he was killed. Henry has lost family, had his wedding devolve into the worst nightmare imaginable and he has seemingly suffered a lot through the entire ordeal. However, there remains the mystery of his parent’s death, the fact that he wanted to have the wedding on the island in the first place after what had happened there, and several other details that certainly could point the finger in his direction. There’s Trish, Henry’s fiancé, who has also suffered tremendously. She’s lost her father, brother-in-law, stepmother, ex-boyfriend and several friends. Yet let’s not forget that each of the people in her family that died had done something to hurt her or her sister in a big way.

Speaking of Shea, Trish’s sister and the mother of the creepiest child of all time, she has seemed cold, detached and selfish throughout the entire show. She, though older than the rest of the survivors, could plausibly be Wakefield’s daughter. Her own daughter, Madison, may as well have “666” on the back of her head given how freaky she is. She couldn’t plausibly be Wakefield’s child, but possibly…his evil grandchild? However, I don’t really buy that a tiny pre-teen girl could have been behind the rather brutal and physically demanding murders we’ve seen. (I know that Wakefield could have done the heavy lifting, but that would just be a letdown to me…a huge suspension of disbelief would be required for me to swallow that scenario).

Sully and Danny are the two remaining groomsmen and speaking logically, its not really possible that African-American Danny is the child of two Caucasian parents so I’m ruling him out. I really like Danny, so I’ve sadly resigned myself to the fact that he may be unceremoniously picked off in the finale. Sully is the good-time guy, but has begun to have an epiphany about his life in the last couple of episodes. He started out crushing hard on Chloe who was engaged to Cal, and he was ready to steal her right from under Cal’s nose, but came to appreciate that the slightly odd couple really loved each other and even saved Cal’s life (momentarily). Although Wakefield did have the chance to kill Chloe and imprisoned her instead…maybe as a favour to Sully? He’s a possibility, but I’m not convinced.

As an aside, Cal and Chloe’s final scene was a tearjerker, huh?? When did I go from finding Chloe annoying as hell to shedding a tear when she launched herself off of a bridge to die with her fiancé rather than be killed by Wakefield? I’m not going to touch on my frustration over the fact that she TOTALLY could have escaped if she’d just taken a few more steps to the left and climbed back on to the bridge…okay I’ll touch on it, but I’m not going to dwell on it.

Now we’re back to Abby. Despite what the Sheriff said, it could still turn out that she is Wakefield’s daughter and that the two are taking revenge for…something. But she is so realistically troubled by her mother’s murder that I can’t see it being her.

All of that being said, there are some other factors to consider. We know that Cal can’t have survived what happened on the bridge, but could Chloe have? We don’t actually know that she’s dead, right? She could come back heroically (or devilishly) and surprise everyone. The writers could also introduce a completely new character as the second killer, which would seem cheap to me. The fun is in finding out that a character you’ve come to know was hiding such a big, evil secret and looking back to the little tells after the fact where the show may have dropped small hints about the guilty party. Or big hints, if the killer turns out to be Henry – I mean, WHY was he covered elbow to fingertip in blood when J.D. was killed?? Was he trying to put him back together? And lastly, what was the meaning of J.D.’s final words to Abby “It’s all about you”?

To wrap up this mini-essay, I started out watching the show for a fun diversion and got exactly that. Harper’s Island is not life-altering television, but it’s engaging and entertaining. I have no idea what’s going to happen, and I’m really excited to find out (and also a little worried that the whole thing might get wrapped in a way that doesn’t feel satisfactory – please writers, give us something good!). It’s been a fun ride and I’m pleased that I’m not feeling like I have everything figured out going into the last stretch.

I’m dying to hear your thoughts on the show and your predictions in the comments below. One request though please – NO SPOILERS!!!! If you’ve read spoilers online or watched the show early, please let us have our fun and don’t post anything that could take away from that. I’m ending this post with a poll of who you think the accomplice is (or if you think there is one at all) – I’m curious to see who’s at the top of everyone’s list.