Harper’s Island – Bang

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This is the episode where the show intentionally starts to show how terrible most of these people really are so that we won’t feel bad about cheering when they get wasted.  Because Henry’s best friends prove themselves to be a pack of sleazeballs, and Trish’s finds out that her family has more (and dirtier) dirty laundry than she was capable of suspecting.  Right now the only people we can even kind of still sympathize with are Abby, Henry, and Trish.  And maybe J.D. and Jimmy the Hot Fisherman.  But everyone else…I’m done.  I can’t wait to see what the Harper’s Harbor Butcher has in store for them.

So what did these people do to deserve such censure?  Well, let’s just sum up that Henry and groomsmen found Hunter Jennings’ faceless body floating around on the ocean when they went fishing, and took the money and sank the boat.  Huh?  Later in the day one of them pointed out Henry as “Sully” instead of pointing out himself when two dudes who looked like drug dealers came after him.  Turns out they were just the bouncers for the stripper.  The groomsmen draw straws to see who has to go hide the money, because it makes perfect sense to leave it up to chance and thus let the task fall on the guy who’s freaking out the most.  Just like it makes sense to let that guy leave the building with a flashlight, a bag of money, and a gun no one bothered to show him how to put the safety on.  Guess what happens (or just keep reading because I talk about it below, in the “WTF” segment).

What else…oh, yes.  The new stepmother brings Trish’s mother’s china in for a special tea party, but first the niece who is hovering uncertainly between creepy and awkwardly candid maybe breaks the tea pot.  Then all of the saucers turn up perfectly broken…but yet no one heard a thing.  Poor Trish…it’s just not her day, because she then saw her brother-in-law playing bondage games with her new stepmother, and told Henry, who like a big tool confronted him later during the stripper’s routine.  Trish gets stumbling drunk at her bachelorette party, and I can only guess she handled it better than her bridesmaids because there had to be a reason like none of them could walk to explain why none of them were available to walk her to her room.  Being alone and stumbling drunk, she ends up falling into the pool.  No biggie, except that the pool cover starts to come up and she starts to drown.  Luckily her brother-in-law is there to save her!  But of course he probably flipped the switch on the cover after he saw her fall in so that he could orchestrate the rescue and make her owe him so she wouldn’t say anything about his incestuous (by the laws of the church, anyway) affair.

This was also the episode where they decided credulity is overrated.  I guess they figure by week four they’ve hooked the audience they’re going to get and can therefore stop worrying about whether any of it makes sense.

First, it’s been like a full two days since that girl–who I’m pretty sure was one of the bridesmaids–got barbequed.  Why has no one even noticed that she’s gone?

Second, how has no one noticed that the reverend is missing?  It seems like the community on the island is pretty close-knit; surely he had a housekeeper or led the church choir practice or something that would have made it clear to someone that he disappeared.  Corollary to that, this island is not that big since people are all the time walking from one side of it to the other.  How has someone not found like the giant fire pit or blood all over the bridge where Uncle Marty got it?  And how was that bridge repaired so quickly?

Third, who the hell finds a boat with a dead body and a bunch of money and decides to sink the boat in front of 4 other people?  Don’t those guys watch movies?  You can’t undertake that kind of cover-up with more than one person.  Not to mention how did this hooked-at-the-belt (or maybe below it) pack of GROOMSMEN not see Very Bad Things together at some Henry’s wedding party bonding event?  That movie is like the ultimate explanation for why you don’t cover things up.  Also, where was J.D., you know, Henry’s brother?  He couldn’t even be bothered to make an appearance at the bachelor party?  Really?

Fourth, who turns in your supposed best friend to the big uglies with guns who show up asking for YOU?

Fifth, who watches one of their supposed best friends shoot himself in the thigh and bleed out remarkably fast–almost at the 8.6 seconds fastest-rate-possible with the surprisingly adequate vacuuming of gravity fast–and says nothing to the rest of the guy’s friends?  Who does that?

Sixth, where was the Saw XIV star this week?  He wasn’t around at all.  Like not at all.  The only promised death this week was the fool who shot himself with Uncle Marty’s gun.  Is the killer Shane, who was in jail for at the very least kidnapping and trying to hang J.D. and therefore couldn’t go out for round 7 of his master plan of death?  Are they really going to be that obvious, or is that just a red herring?

So in all it was basically a big set-up to show you why you shouldn’t feel sorry for what these people are about to go through.  I say bring it.