Harper’s Island – It’s all about the timeline

Like last week, Deb and I will continue our point/counterpoint format about Harper’s Island, discussing who the possible killer (or killers) are, and why the other person’s theory is completely wrong or so right. However, instead of us taking turns on who starts each week, we decided we’d keep it the way it is, with me going first. It doesn’t matter anyway, because we all know I’m right.

Point

As the title of this post points out, determining who the killer is is all about the perceived timeline. For example, we saw Trish and Henry together, then we cut to the priest in the woods getting his head lopped off. If it was immediately following that scene, then we can eliminate those two as suspects. However, if you looked at the Harper’s Island map…

…you’ll note that the church is pretty close to the inn. So it’s not out of the ordinary that Henry (let’s eliminate Trish from the equation) could make a stopover to do the poor old fella in. For sanity’s sake, though, I’m going to assume that the times we’re seeing are rather close together, meaning we can eliminate a whole slew of people as suspects. Think of the people at the beach party (the text from “Uncle Marty”) and the priest killing (we saw at least the turquoise team all together, immediately following), the group out to save Cal, and the Sheriff at the hanging scene.

By my estimation, if we’re assuming it’s one killer involved, it’s someone listed on CBS’s site and it’s not John Wakefield back from the dead, the following people are suspects: Hunter, J.D., Jimmy, Katherine, Madison (though unlikely), Maggie, Nikki, Shea, Shane and Tom Wellington.

One last clue for you: take a look at the matchbox the killer used. Seems to read “The Candlewick Inn”:

I’ll really be pissed if it’s some unknown person or John Wakefield back from the dead.

Counterpoint

Holy death toll, Batman! I really didn’t expect to see three people offed tonight, but we’re down one priest (methinks the killer may be trying to sabotage the wedding), one socialite (who will care for the rat … I mean dog?) and one local (whose death is going to get J.D. into some serious trouble).

Keith may be right about some things, but we also have to remember this is only the second episode, and I can’t imagine that the writers are going to eliminate so many suspects based on a pesky timeline. They’ll work around that little detail.

I don’t think the Candlewick Inn matchbox necessarily rules out any locals from being the killer; they could get the matchbox quite easily, so I’m not falling for that red herring. I do think, though, that we need to start looking at the victims and why they are murdered. I’m thinking there may not be a whole lot of random carnage going on here.

Cousin Ben and Uncle Marty are a mystery to me for now, though I’ve got to admit Marty was a bit suspicious, what with his firearms and load of cash. There’s a reason, oh yes, there’s a secret, conspiratorial reason for his senseless and gruesome death. The priest I’ve mentioned, and let’s be honest: Lucy is the expendable blonde girl from every horror movie ever made, so there’s probably not a whole lot more there.

I’m thinking Kelly’s death is any number of things. First, she died in the very same way as Abby’s mother, so the killer seems to be trying to send Abby a message with the hanging. But what? Could the killer know Abby befriended Kelly and they were soon-to-be roomies? Or, could Kelly be killed by a different murderer? So far, she’s the only victim who’s been discovered, and something tells me there’s a reason for that.

That leads me to another thing I noticed about possible suspects. At the beginning of the episode, Henry was trying to get J.D. to be on his best behavior, and J.D. said something about Henry’s “twisted need to be liked by everyone.” So I researched serial killer profiles on the extremely reliable web and found that, in fact, that is a serial killer “thing”: they appear charming and well-liked by everyone, Ted Bundy style. So with that fact taken into account, I stand by my statement last week that it’s not J.D., even though he’s got no alibi and now incriminating bodily fluids with one of the victims. That’s not going to work out well for him.

But back to the charming thing … Henry is still looking like a suspect to me, timeline be damned. Even if that red herring wasn’t referring to Henry, there are still a number of suspects it does apply to, like Jimmy and the dad, my next two faves for the perp.

And now, I shall end my long-winded musings with one final thought: since most horror flicks end with a love connection which follows a misguided trust in the killer problem, I’m thinking we’re going to have either Henry or Jimmy be the killer, and the other be Abby’s love interest, who saves her from the bad seed, the killer who fooled her all along. Man, my money’s still on Henry, the recipient of the mysterious text message from the not-so-fortunate Uncle Marty.

What do you think? Are you forming any theories?

Clacked by Keith McDuffee
on Apr 17, 2009 @ 09:03 EST5EDT