HARPER’S ISLAND Finale: Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer

Well…by now HARPER’S ISLAND has aired the final two hours all over North America, and we’ve had more than a day to watch and process the conclusion. And wow, was there a lot to process. I’ve been reading online to gauge viewer reaction to the ending and suffice it to say, the reactions are mixed. I’ll just throw it out there and state for the record that I loved it. This is not to say that I was left without questions and disappointments, or that I didn’t notice some of the more egregious plot holes, but c’mon…the last two hours included a great reveal of the killer’s identity, some beyond twisted storytelling and a firm sense of closure. I was a happy camper.

This post is long – I’m sorry. But we’re talking two action-packed hours to discuss here!!

Before I delve in to the series ending any further, I wanted to take a moment to say how talented the cast of this show is. I was happily surprised at the amount of character development that occurred in what was essentially a fun summer slasher series, and especially at the fact that this development gave the actors who lasted to the end a chance to really shine. I would never have guessed during the pilot that I would end up with such an appreciation for the talent of Matt Barr (Sully), Elaine Cassidy (Abby), CJ Thomason (Jimmy), Adam Campbell (Cal) and Cameron Richardson (Chloe), but I really did. I’m hoping that we all get to see more of them in future projects. I was already familiar with both Christopher Gorham (from Popular and Ugly Betty) and Katie Cassidy (from Supernatural), but they both also impressed me on this show, particularly Gorham as Henry Dunn.

Speaking of Henry Dunn…the loving fiancé, cherished friend and all-around good guy turned out to have a few screws loose. As I mentioned in the comments of my pre-finale post, I was sort of rooting for Henry to be the killer, but my reasons for wanting this weren’t necessarily plot-related. I wanted to see Chris Gorham, who ALWAYS plays the nice guy, have a chance to play a complete sociopath. And boy, did he get his chance (and nailed it too!). The episode was split into two hours, the first called “Gasp”, where we learned the identity of Wakefield’s accomplice and child, and the second called “Sigh” where everything came to a head.

For most of “Gasp” we were kept in the dark about who was helping Wakefield. Only when Madison confirmed (late, per usual) that there had been a person bringing food to she and Wakefield in the tunnels did we even know for sure that there WAS an accomplice (although I think most people assumed this going in). Throughout the hour we were essentially being told to think it was Jimmy again and again, which ensured that it couldn’t have been him. There was a scene after they locked up Wakefield and the camera lingered a moment, showing Henry holding the keys to the cell. This for me (combined with the fact that Wakefield escaped from the cell pretty easily) is what cemented my belief that Henry would turn out to be evil, and so the rest of the episode was really interesting to see the choices his character made, knowing (as a viewer) that he was lying to everyone. The one choice in particular that confused me was his decision to sleep with Trish back at the Candlewick, where they had gone to get their things, both seemingly relaxed because they knew Wakefield was captured. I’m still not really sure of Henry’s motivation for this, knowing how things would go over the next few hours. Was it because he genuinely cared for her and wanted to give her a nice, last “moment” between them? Was he just killing time to allow Wakefield to escape? Or was it just an extension of his sociopathic tendencies; a way to mess with her head a bit more?

In an effort to keep this from being a full thesis, I’m not going to recap the whole show (that would be craziness), but I have to discuss a few scenes that I loved, and then I’ll delve into the whole motivation behind the Harper’s Island murders, and some of the critiques I’ve been reading of the finale. First, the scenes:

Henry and Trish

Wakefield, after escaping the cell (RIP Danny!), arrived at the hotel, banging on Trish and Henry’s door. Henry, still playing the role of protective fiancé, told Trish to lock the door and stay put while he took the gun and pretended to go look for Wakefield. When Trish was ultimately forced to flee the hotel (in her wedding dress incidentally – I know that it made her last scenes more poetic writers, but come on) and run from Wakefield, Henry intercepted her en route in the woods. It was really moving to see her utter relief at seeing Henry, her protector, knowing that she was running into a trap. And when he finally told her the truth, it was heartbreaking to see the anguish on her face. Gorham also did a great job here, and I haven’t seen a lot of discussion of this, but when Trish screamed out “you bastard!” you could see an immediate change in Henry. He went from totally controlled and calculating to unhinged, muttering over and over again, “that’s not fair” while he stabbed his fiancé. I thought it showed that he was disconnected from Trish at that moment, reacting instead to the word and how it triggered his delusional anger. It was a nice touch to show how that specific word affected him; it helped to support the notion of Henry’s motivation, which I’ll get to in a minute. Then, at the very end of the episode we got the two small words that would cause the audience’s collective gasp: “Hey Dad”.

Henry and Sully

This is when I started to really, really love the episode, because we were now in on Henry’s secret and we got to enjoy watching him lie to his friends and mess with their heads, all with a smirk on his face when they weren’t looking. Obviously I don’t agree with his actions, but I love in movies and tv shows when the good guy goes bad and you get to witness a whole different side of their personality. It’s fun. When Henry found Sully in the boathouse and told him that not leaving with Shea and Madison was “quite possibly the stupidest thing you’ve ever done”, I’m not gonna lie. I was smiling. I was also smiling throughout their trek through the woods, when Henry was behind Sully sympathizing with “Wakefield’s son” and freaking Sully out. Yet while I was distracted by my enjoyment of “evil Henry”, Sully’s death snuck up on me and delivered a sucker punch of emotion. Matt Barr’s character evolved a lot over the series, but his final scene was incredible (much like Cal and Chloe).

If you haven’t re-watched that scene several times already like I have, you should. His expressions are amazing – you can read the entire story on his face. Two moments in particular stand out to me: when Henry pulls out his knife and Sully’s face just crumbles with the knowledge that his friend is turning on him, and when Sully pulls the trigger and Henry shows him that he’s pulled the shells from the chamber. He leans his face into the gun and looks so defeated. I was really moved that Sully wouldn’t let himself believe the worst about his friend even in the face of the truth. Not until the very last moment did he seem to allow himself to understand who Henry really was.

Henry and Abby

After Henry killed Wakefield and brought Abby to a house (who’s house? No idea) on the island, things suddenly started to get a little “Flowers in the Attic”. Henry has always loved Abby and hated having to leave her and the island every summer. Henry has also always had dark, strange impulses that he didn’t act on and couldn’t explain. He later met Wakefield and found out he was his son, identifying the source of his strange tendencies. Wakefield then introduced him to the concept of taking out his anger through extreme violence, and trained him to kill. Henry then courted Trish, proposed to her and planned a small destination wedding on Harper’s Island, all in an effort to lure Abby back to the one place she thought she’d never return (truthfully, I don’t know the exact timing – he could have already been with Trish when he talked with Wakefield).

Now that he had her back, he had to eliminate all of the people in their lives who would try to stand in the way of the two of them being together (i.e. everyone), so that they could live forever on the island, together, just the two of them. Yes, it’s unnecessarily elaborate (why not just court Abby? She didn’t know they were related – she could have fallen for him all on her own), but let’s go with it. So now he has accomplished his plan and the pieces have fallen into place, only now he is faced with an unreceptive, pissed-off and terrified prisoner who happens to be his half-sister (best line: when Henry mumbled “I can do the math” – his delivery was once again, perfect). He tries to convince her that she’ll be happy and he reminds her of a time when, as kids, she told him that she wished it could be just the two of them on the island and that he’d never have to leave. Unfortunately, this serves only to freak Abby out even more. Fortunately, he had the (also completely unnecessary) idea to keep Jimmy alive in order to have him sign a confession to being Wakefield’s accomplice since Shae and Madison had escaped and knew there were two people working together. He figured the confession combined with finding Jimmy’s body would cause the police to leave he and Abby alone so that they could be in peace. (was the confession really necessary, considering that Shae and Abby already thought Jimmy was the killer anyhow? I know, I know, don’t overanalyze).

Jimmy won’t sign the confession until he can say goodbye to Abby, so Henry drags her to where Jimmy is being held to force her to say goodbye. Another good example of how far gone his mental state was: he had no concept of the irony of making Abby say goodbye to the love of her life so that he could be with Abby, the love of his. He only really reacted with any kind of emotion when Abby kissed Jimmy, and then professed her love for him. This gave Abby a moment to injure him and run, Henry chasing her, and Jimmy picking the lock on his handcuffs with a pin smuggled in Abby’s mouth that she passed to him during the kiss.

The last scene was also just heartbreaking to watch. Henry’s illness was put in the forefront and we really got a sense of his ability to deny reality. A lot of viewers were upset that the motivation for the whole killing spree was that he was adopted and never told, and that he loved Abby and wanted to be with her. Yes, for a sane person this would not be enough to warrant a rampage. However, we are told that Henry has always had impulses. We saw how he reacted when Trish called him a bastard. We could see the plain delusion on his face when he explained to Abby how wonderful their lives would be, alone on the island, and the look of complete incomprehension when Abby screamed that she didn’t want him, just before Jimmy threw him over the cliff. Henry was not well (although for someone so sick, he was incredibly astute at pretending to be in control for the first twelve episodes). When Abby gets her chance to kill him, she doesn’t pause. This scene was gut wrenching, all due to Gorham’s amazing understated performance. His anguished and simple “Abby? But….I love you” was just such a sad and tragic end to all of his madness. For someone who had hurt so many, it was pretty amazing to see that he still felt that his love would be able to conquer all.

Criticisms of the Finale

So in the preceding paragraph I addressed a big concern I’ve seen from a lot of viewers who didn’t like the ending, which is that the motivation was too simple to cause that much chaos. I think one thing that the show could perhaps have done better was to demonstrate Henry’s illness a little more. I think that, while I really appreciated how understated it was, some viewers may have needed a bit more to get on board with the fact that he was sick enough to do these things when most people wouldn’t. But I have to stress – Henry didn’t need a lot of push to be violent or to snap. And in his fragile state, he then had fellow sociopath Wakefield filling his head for six years. I didn’t find his actions to be too big of a leap.

Why was the plan so elaborate?

Well, again I think that this was due to the fact that Henry is ill, so he doesn’t think rationally like most people. In his mind, not only did he need to get Abby to the island, but he needed to eliminate everyone else who may pose an obstacle to their relationship, and for some reason this included people that would probably not care one way or the other if they were together. I know, the theory isn’t perfect, but it’s enough to satisfy me.

Why did Shea and Madison survive?

Well, I’m at a loss here – these two characters were pretty much universally hated. Other than the standard reason that no network would kill off a child unless they wanted to receive letter after letter from people shocked and appalled at their decision to be so callous. Personally, I would have been much happier if Danny and Sully had taken that little boat to the mainland and Shea and Madison had been trapped in the burning church. On the other hand, we wouldn’t have gotten the great performance from Matt Barr in his last scene, so I can live with it.

Why did Jimmy survive? It’s so cliché.

Well, I would have been happy with one of two options: the one we got, or one where Henry wins, and Abby is trapped on the island with him seemingly forever. I had visions of Henry trying to create a wedding for them and playing “Ave Maria” which would have been a nice call back to the mysterious phone calls Abby had been getting. Since Henry was offed, it was nice to see that there was at least one tiny speck of happiness left in Abby’s life for her to focus on.

What happened to the dog?

This is a question that I myself would like to see answered – I think it was an oversight, but really. Why would you keep reminding the audience of the dog’s presence on the island only to not mention it at all ever again?

Overall, I loved the show and found it hopelessly addictive. I’m really hoping that the networks see that a lot of people felt the same way and that they continue to do this sort of series during summer months. For those of us who don’t watch much reality tv, these kinds of shows are fabulous.

So that’s it guys…the show is over and we know all of the secrets. Are you in the “loved it!” camp like me, or are you planning on boycotting future projects from these writers and producers as some posters on other sites have said? Lets discuss it in the comments section!

Christopher Gorham has been answering questions about HI on his Twitter page – check it out: @Chris_Gorham