The episode opens with a pan-in on the Candlewick Inn, sheriff and deputy entering very sternly. Malcolm, Sully, Beth and several others are discussing the idea that it might have been Richard or maybe JD who did the murder of Thomas. Sully says it could be “anybody” and Beth looks horrified and says “No, of course it couldn’t be ANYBODY”. Danny hears that they are searching rooms and Malcolm says he will “go finish packing up”. He of course wants to hide the money.

Shea and Madison are talking about Richard’s whereabouts. Maddy asks if Daddy might have killed Grampa, and Shea tells her that no, of course Daddy loved Grampa.

Malcolm is hurriedly stuffing the money in the bag, and throws it out the window when he hears a knock on the door, thinking it’s the Sheriff. But it is Beth, thanking him for sitting with her the night before. He clumsily gets rid of her, and closes the door saying “Crap.”

Henry is talking to Trish, who is lying on the sofa, very upset. Henry tells her a charter boat is coming and suggests that she leave on it, saying the Sheriff isn’t ready to release Thomas’ body, and that Henry will stay and make the “arrangements”. He also says people are asking about the wedding. Trish agrees indifferently to everything.

Abby is in the hall when she sees Jimmy and asks why he is there. He says he came to say goodbye because he figured she was leaving. They agree that “something is always standing in their way.”

Then there is a flashback to “seven years previously.” Abby is talking to friends who talk about “camping means sex, right”. She is dating Jimmy and agrees that they will “go camping”.

Sheriff is searching JD’s room when Henry finds him. Sheriff accuses Henry of not telling anyone that JD was responsible for the dead raccoon, and Henry shows him that JD is also not taking his medicine. He says they fight about it a lot because JD says his meds make him feel “foggy”. The Sheriff asks if JD is depressed or psychotic enough to kill, and Henry says he would also like to know. They find a phone, and when the sheriff tells Henry he’s in there, they ring Henry’s phone with the phone they found. The caller ID says “Uncle Marty” and the Sheriff says, “Well, looks like we found our killer.” Henry stares at him in dismay over JD’s bed as the credits roll.

Abby is watching the police cleaning up the terrace while she waits to talk to her father. Henry comes up and tells Abby that they found Uncle Marty’s phone in JD’s room and that Trish will blame him because his brother killed her dad. Abby says Trish won’t blame him and Henry says she already does. The Sheriff arrives with dogs to track JD.

Abby comes into Trish’s room with something for her to eat. Trish says for a moment she thought it was her dad and Abby apologizes. Trish says no need, and asks her what time it is. Abby says ten am, and Trish says her dad should be walking her down the aisle right now. Abby tells Trish they are after JD because of the phone they found, and Trish says she wants him dead. Abby remembers that it was the same when her mom was killed, and there is another flashback to Abby getting ready to go camping and having a teasing talk with her mom about Jimmy. Back in the present, Abby tells Trish to just go talk to her dad, and that she (Abby) still can talk to her mom, and her mom will hear her. Back to the flashback about “camping” and Jimmy and Abby as high-schoolers are getting ready to have their “camping trip”. They talk about going away to college, and talk about Henry and Trish dating and how they are “pretty perfect” for one another. Just as Jimmy says he “knows who else is ‘pretty perfect’” and they arrive at the docks, there is a huge explosion and the two of them turn in horror.

In the present day, the Sheriff is talking to Henry as they walk along with the dogs tracking JD. Henry tells the Sheriff that he “feels responsible” for JD, and that he “just fell apart” after their parents died. The Sheriff tells him not to blame himself, and that a lot of people have it much worse.

Malcolm is down in the shrubbery where someone is trimming and almost gets whacked by the trimmer. He retrieves his bag, runs upstairs, and hides the money in the other bag. Sully and Danny are outside his bedroom door, and Sully accuses him of stealing Muffin. To find Muffin, they open the bag, find the money, and Danny asks Malcolm “Where’s Booth?”. He turns sickly green and says “I can explain.”

The coroner is talking to Abby and Trish, who wants to see her dad’s body. He nor Abby thinks it is a good idea for Trish to remember Thomas like that, but Trish insists.

Fade to the flashback with the explosion, where the sheriff is there when the boat exploded, and tells Jimmy and Abby and everyone else to clear the area, maybe a propane tank exploded and there might maybe be another explosion. Henry is also there on the dock, and the man lying unconscious in the wreckage is the scarred-face man who has the dog and whom JD is now visiting. As she leaves, Abby sees Henry there and calls out to him.

Back with Malcolm, Sully and Danny where Malcolm confesses that he left Booth in the woods because he wanted the money. Danny socks him, and he bursts into tears and tells them all how sorry he is. Danny picks him up off the floor, and Danny says that they (including Malcolm) are going to go to the Sheriff and tell him everything.

Henry is still talking to the Sheriff while following the dogs, telling him that JD tried to kill himself once. He says he and a girl had a suicide pact, and that the girl with whom he had the suicide pact did die but JD lived and his parents checked him into a psychiatric facility.

Abby and Trish are outside the coroner’s office, where Abby tells Trish that she is going to go to the house and asks the Coroner to take Trish to the Candlewick. There is an instant flashback, and Abby becomes “Abby in the past” in her house as a child, calling for her mom. Suddenly the phone rings, and her dad is on the phone telling her to stay inside and lock all the doors. As she does that she hears her mother screaming, and suddenly the story flips back into the present, with present-day Abby looking frantically around the house, and the scarred man, Cole Harkin, is right in her face.

Abby says, “You used to work for my dad.” Harkin says he was the match Wakefield used to start the fire at the marina, and tells Abby her father is a liar who can’t be trusted and that the murders seven years ago were her father’s fault. Abby of course refuses to believe him, and Cole tells her to “ask your father”. Another flashback to teen-age Abby hearing a man screaming “Please don’t kill me” and seeing a murder of one man by another, where no one’s face is visible, but Jimmy also sees it.

Back in the present, the dogs are on the scent, and JD is captured by Henry, and the sheriff. But Abby is there, and challenges her father, saying “Is mom dead because of you?” The sheriff tells her that her mother used to date Wakefield, and that he came to the island for her mother. There is a flashback where the sheriff was telling teen-age Abby that maybe her mother got what she deserved. We cut back to present day and the sheriff says he asked his deputies to teach Wakefield a lesson to keep him away from Abby’s mother, and that Cole Harkin was one of the ones who came after Wakefield and that is how he got hurt. She says “you did it for mom” and he says he wanted to keep her mother’s name clean and thought it would be easier to let Abby hate him.

Shea and Trish are talking while Trish packs. Shea tells her sister that Richard has been missing all day and Trish is leaving and says she is never going to marry Henry. Shea says she doesn’t need to make any decisions right then, and Trish says she already has. Cut to Madison playing with a chain, until a letter is slipped under the door. She picks it up and opens it.

Cut to Malcolm burning the money they found in the boat. Suddenly he turns, and begins screaming, as we hear squishy, thudding noises and see his bloody hands clutching the open grate where he has been burning the money.

Abby and Trish are on the porch, and Abby says she has been thinking about a lot of things but mostly about the day Wakefield came. She says she was the one who did the most damage because she shut out everyone who loves her. She tells Trish she said a lot of things about herself and Henry today, and shows Trish a photo of herself and Henry as kids, telling her she has always thought she and Henry belonged together, and telling her not to make the same mistakes she did. Flashback to the Sheriff putting Abby on a boat after her mother’s death, telling her it is “best”, at which Abby says “best for whom, you?”

Abby is in the present day talking to Jimmy who is on the docks cutting fish. She tells him that seven years ago Wakefield killed her mom and almost killed her too. She says she was hiding by the roadside and Jimmy’s truck distracted him and she got away, and tells him she owes him her life and never told him. He tells her he saw her by the roadside and knew she was there. She asks him what would have happened if she hadn’t gone away without saying goodbye and he says they probably would have done a hella lot of “camping”. She goes to kiss him and he says he’s covered in fish but she doesn’t stop and they embrace.

Madison is creeping through the house calling “Daddy?” She enters a room calling “Daddy” and the door slams closed behind her and the closing credits are rolling.

“Thrack, Splat, Sizzle” is the seventh episode of the television series Harper’s Island, which will be aired on CBS on May 30, 2009.

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