The mini-series "Harper's Island" is a 21st-century morality tale about the sins of the father.
John Wakefield, a psychopath, seduces a young woman. She becomes pregnant, recognizes she can't provide for the child and surrenders Henry to adoption. She begins a whole new life with a law officer on "Harper's Island" and gives birth to a daughter Abby. For this, she will die, along with many others on the Island as well as in Seattle.
Wakefield could accept none of it. He kills her and others on the Island in the first of his rampages. Then he finds the son, fills him with hate, and the second rampage will begin years later on the same Island. The son sees his life as "not fair." Perhaps part of his killer instinct is genetic. But there is an element of deep resentment. He plays that out by winning the heart of a rich girl. He offs her in her wedding dress. Earlier he offed her wealthy father who made it clear he saw the union as misaligned.
Who survives? The daughter of the woman who rejected Wakefield. She is, of course, the son's half sister. Also surviving is her Everyman boyfriend who did not cop a resentment. He had remained on the Island and made a life for himself, even though it was "not fair." Also surviving are the dead bride's sister and niece. They will go on to tell the tale of the sins of the father and how those took everyone they loved from them.
Through this experience the daughter has become unfrozen. When her father made her leave the Island after the first rampage, she put herself in emotional deep freeze. She remained a child-woman, at the emotional age when her mother was murdered. After the second rampage, she allowed herself to love the boy Jimmy who could manage that, no, life is "not fair."
There were highs and lows in the quality of this mini-series. The mystery was well-put together. It wasn't until the next-to-last episode that anyone suspected that Boy Scout Henry was Wakefield's accomplice. Some visuals were compelling such as the bride running through the woods in her designer wedding dress. The flaws included no in-depth characters. But that lack of personality could have been deliberate. Such a tactic was standard in medieval morality plays.
The developers of "Harper's Island" will likely be able to sell it to some syndication and to pitch another mini-series. I found it an authentic diversion this summer of The Great Depression of '09.
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