Posted by Dustin on 04.09.2009 at 11:37 pm

So tonight was the premier of “Harper’s Island.” First I’ll give a recap, as much as I can remember (premiers are hard, you have to remember everyone!) and then some thoughts. This is late, so sorry any errors as well!

The show opened with a shot of the island and a bunch of dead people. We were told that 7 years ago Jack (John?) Wakefield killed a bunch of people on the island, it was the first set of murders on the island, it wouldn’t be the last.

Cut to today. We find all these people gathered on a boat in Seattle to take them out to Harper’s Island. Henry (the guy who played Henry on Ugly Betty!) is getting married to Trish. Trish is rich and proper, Island royalty so it seems. Henry was just the poor kid who visited the island every summer with his brother Jack to work fishing. Jack has issues, tattoos all over, a loner, and we learn he has tried to commit suicide.

Henry’s best friend is Abby, who lives in LA. She was reluctant to come, but does. She used to live on the island, that’s how she knows Henry. We soon find out her mother was one of the people killed years ago, she left after.

Uncle Marty is played by Harry Hamlin, he’s Henry’s Uncle. He shows up on the boat sporting a gun for some reason. We get the feeling he’s a bit creepy. Henry confides in him that Trish’s dad Thomas isn’t too pleased about this wedding.

The boat sets sail, though some cousin Eddie (or something like that) never seemed to arrive. Oh he arrived, and was tied underneath the boat right by the rudders! He also wasn’t dead, whoever put him there gave him a scuba tank to keep him alive. Once the boat started, Eddie stopped living!

Everyone gets to the island, somehow not realizing Eddie was killed along the way. Trish gets odd calls from someone named Hunter Jennings, which she ignores. Later on the island, her dad gets an odd email saying “I’ll get to her tonight.” It seems Hunter and Trish had thing, and he approaches her late at night and kisses her. Hunter is ex-Days star Victor Webster. She pushes him away, saying she’s married.

Henry, worried about his brother, sends Abby out to look for him and keep an eye on him. His brother ends up in some bar, where Abby runs into her old boyfriend. Jack gets in a fight, Abby breaks it up, only to have the sheriff show up. The sheriff is her father, there seems to be some bad blood between them. We learn her father killed the Wakefield guy “supposedly” responsible for the murders years ago, but nobody knows why he even killed all those people.

Abby returns to the big Wellington mansion, that’s where the wedding is happening, that’s where all the guests are staying. Henry comforts her, saying it will be okay, that the killer is long dead. Abby goes to her room only to find old newspaper clippings about her mom’s murder on the mirror.

Uncle Marty has a talk with Trish’s dad, basically warning him not to mess with Trish and Henry’s happily ever after.

There was a weird scene with Trish’s niece going into her parents bedroom late at night. She tells her mom that people were killed on this island. Her mom asks her who told her that? She says her new friend.

Henry and Trish make whoopee. She goes to the bathroom after, saying how they should stay in separate rooms from now on until their wedding. Her phone buzzes and Henry sees Hunter is calling her.

The end had Uncle Marty walking across a bridge and falling through, being trapped. Someone started hacking and we end up seeing the entire lower half of his body has been cut off!

My Thoughts . . .
It was a very interesting show. Definitely a bit gory, though more implied than anything. It was NOT as bad as the OR scenes on “Grey’s” for sure!

There are a lot of characters, some who weren’t well introduced, so I felt a bit lost.

The mystery is interesting, you get the sense that the guy who everyone thought was the killer wasn’t.

I have this feeling Henry and Abby will end up together, not this Trish girl.