A Look Back At Harper’s Island

With the series over I thought it was only right to give Harper’s Island a review. The fun, thrilling and addicting murder mysterious came to a close Saturday night claiming more lives and more hours of my life.
At the very beginning of the show the thing that got me was the whole John Wakefield thing, is he dead or is he still at large? Does he have something to do with the recent murders? Those were the things that pulled me into the show and kept me hook.
I will be honest though the show did have trouble finding its feet in the first couple of episodes. It felt more like a soap opera then a murder mystery, but once the show found its footing and saw what it needed to do, it took off and became a thrilling murder mystery.
I’m really impressed that CBS had enough courage and put on a show like this. It was a risk for them, because it wasn’t a cop show or a doctor driven drama, it was 13 part slasher series and it was great. Yet, I hated how they moved it over to Saturday night; it should have stayed in its original time slot. I believe it would have grown a bigger audience if it was given a chance.
If you didn’t see Harper’s Island and you wish to see what it’s all about, the DVD of the series will be released on September 8. If you have netflix you can watch all 13 episodes instantly right now.
Everything written behind this point will be spoilers to the series, if you do not want to know the killer or anything about the show, please stop reading now. If you want to see what I scored the series, scroll down pass the spoiler section. You have been warned.
SPOILERS START
A few days before the killer was revealed I posted an article on my blog, where I explained my theory on who’s the killer – I pointed my finger on Henry. Yes, I chose the groom very early in the show to be the one that was killing off his wedding guests.
Now, I’ve been getting a lot of people asking me how and when I pinned point Henry being the killer. Well I started expecting him in the second episode. In that episode he was cleaning up a dead carcass in the bathroom. He didn’t seem fazed or grossed out by cleaning up bloody remains. A normal person would of at least have had more of a reaction to it and Henry didn’t and that got me to watch him closely. Also, when Trish went to go meet hunter (ex-boyfriend) she says something about something happening in college. They never go deeper into that and they kept doing stuff like that through out the series. We were only given a taste of Henry’s past but never a complete bite.
Now when I finally just said Henry is the killer is the episode where him and Mr. Wellington are shooting disks on the lawn. There was something very small in that scene that made me call Henry out. After Mr. Wellington was done shooting the disks it was Henry’s turn, the camera does a close up of Henry’s face and we see this pissed off, angry face that seems very out of character for him at this point in the series. In that scene I saw that Henry might be something completely different under his good boy appearance. My theory kept building episode after episode.
The in your face clues started when JD was killed. In the jail we see that the cop and the radio are shot with the same kind of gun that Henry was carrying and then Henry was right near his dying brother on the docks. And we all know that Henry went off on his own to stop Sully and the others from leaving the island, so, he had time to wreck havoc on the survivors.
The other clues were how Henry was able to take on Shane, a guy who was half his size; the way Henry was able to control the group; and how Henry also seemed to be the “perfect” one never really sat well with me.
SPOLIERS END
In the end the show that advertised itself as an Agatha Christie type murder mystery truly took more inspiration from Horror’s sub-genre of slasher films. That’s not a bad thing, it made it more entertaining and in the end I immensely enjoyed Harper’s Island.
If you are up for a good murder mystery, give Harper’s Island a shot. But stick with it, once you’re through the first few episodes the show goes from good to great.

I give Harper’s Island 8 out of 10.