Even though this release is branded The Final Season, it should be noted that it does not contain the first half of the season. Those episodes are in Haven: Season 5, Vol. 1, but since Season 5 is twice as long as the standard Haven season, this isn't a bad thing. It can just be misleading if you thought that Haven: The Final Season would contain both halves of the show's fifth season.
This means that The Final Season starts off just after Mara and Audrey (Emily Rose) are put back together with Audrey not simply in control, but as a complete person. Unfortunately, just because Mara is gone, it doesn't mean that all of the trouble she caused since she was released is gone. Duke's (Eric Balfour) Trouble Bomb has gone off and a new batch of troubles have spread across Haven. To make matters worse, a strange mist has surrounded the town, and anyone who walks into it just finds themselves stepping right back into Haven. Well, everyone except for Duke, that is. Tired of constantly doing harm to those around him and not being able to help, Duke leaves the town and starts trying to find a way to live on the outside.
Unfortunately, the bottled-up town starts to have a lot of problems quickly. With everyone's emotions running high, troubles are activating left and right. Of course, Audrey, Nathan (Lucas Bryan), Dwight (Adam "Edge" Copeland), Charlotte (Laura Mennell) and the rest of the Haven officials are working to keep everyone calm, but matters only go from bad to worse when a person's trouble causes anyone left in the dark to die instantly. The entire population starts to gather at the local school, but when the power plant starts to have problems, batteries for flashlights becomes a major resource.
Of course, all of this isn't the worst thing that is happening in Haven, that would be too easy. Vince (Richard Donat) and Dave's (John Dunsworth) investigations into Croatoan not only lead to new revelations about the town's origins, but also a possible identity behind a long-time killer in the town dubbed the No Marks Killer. Who or what this killer is becomes a pivotal aspect in how the series ends and it turns out, has had a lot of groundwork laid down for this conclusion for several seasons now.
While the big story is that of the No Marks Killer and how the show wraps up, this half-season has some interesting smaller stories as well. Not only does it bring pretty much every aspect of Haven's history to light, but it also brings back several classic troubles. In one episode, the Haunted House trouble is prominently portrayed when the police dispatcher merges with the station and uses the new security system as her eyes and ears. While I'm typically not a fan of the found-footage style, this setup gives enough of an excuse for me to get over most of my complaints of the genre. As a result, I ended up liking this episode a lot more than I would normally have thought.
Like some classic troubles, several older characters make brief reappearances. James Cogan (Steve Lund) shows up, as well as Agent Howard (Maurice Dean Wint) and William (Colin Ferguson), while some others have more than just one-episode spots. Seth (Kris Lemche), the paranormal investigator, shows up to help Duke, and like everyone else outside of Haven, doesn't seem to remember about the small town's existence.
This season also manages to introduce a few characters before everything comes to an end. Duke runs into the daughter of an old Havenite, Hailie Colton (Tamara Duarte), a scarred, troubled person inside Haven nicknamed The Sandman (Rossif Sutherland, Reign) causes some problems, and William Shatner even joins the cast for a few episodes.
The Haven DVD and Blu-ray releases have never been lacking in special features, and The Final Season is no different. As always, there is a short featurette for each episode under the Inside Haven section and there are a couple of Haven Origins webisodes. There is also a montage of many of the major events from the series called Mythology Refresher and several narrated accounts from the Crocker Diaries.
The special features also contains interviews with Balfour, Shatner, Copeland and series Director Shawn Piller, though I will tell you that some of this footage was used in the Inside Haven segments, so expect some repeat footage.
The special features are wrapped up with a round-table discussion involving Rose, Bryant, Balfour, Copeland, Writer Shernold Edwards, Executive Producers Shawn Piller and Matt McGuinness and guided by Ferguson. This Haven Revisited segment talks about everything from favorite episodes, versions of Audrey Parker, and even a discussion about the alternate Haven from "The Trouble with Troubles" episode in Season 4. Like many of the special features that have come out with this series in the past, this segment really shows how close the cast has grown over the years.
Haven: The Final Season provides a rather strong ending to a five (or six?) season long show, and it does so in a way to really pull the entire series together. While I'm sure there was an overall plan for the show when it was started, there are a few details throughout the series that suggests a bit of retconning had to be done along the way. Either way, where the series ends up really completes a full arch for not only Audrey Parker, but the town and many of its prominent residents as well. As series finales go, Haven delivers where a lot of shows flounder. Any fan of the series should be proud to own this final installment.
