Harper's Island/YMMV

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Malcolm.
  • Shane. He was such a jerk that many fans were looking forward to seeing the killer get him, but the way he died redeemed him for a lot of people.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Henry's death was purposefully made extremely sad.

Henry: Abby... but I love you...

• Big Lipped Alligator Death - Cousin Ben's death is shown in the first scene of the pilot and he's never mentioned again.
  • Chloe mentions him when she's making a list of the people who have been killed/people they have not seen for awhile.
  • And later, a goodie-bag with his name on it was left in the lobby for him to pick up when he arrives, and it showed Madison tearing up his name tag.
• Canon Sue: Abby. So much, Abby. Reinforced by the suggestion that she might be 25-year-old virgin.
• Complete Monster: Wakefield and Henry.
  • To a lot of fans, Henry came across quite sympathetically.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: "Letters from the Sky" by Civil Twilight, during Cal and Chloe's death scene.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Henry has been getting this a lot, creepily enough.
• Epileptic Trees: Amongst some truly bizarre theories, there was a widespread belief that Booth was alive and the killer until the producers openly refuted it.
  • Booth actually being shot by one of the killers is also a theory.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: A bizarre number of fans ship Henry/Abby.
• Fanon: Ask the fan base and you'll find that Abby was unconscious for three days, Henry meant for JD to survive locked up in the jail cell and Henry deliberately gave his middle initial as "W" on the wedding invitations to stand for "Wakefield" (his middle name is established as "James" in episode 13), despite this last one being a production error.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In one of the early episodes, Henry and the groomsmen are entertained by a stripper. Henry is embarrassed by the fact that it's his friend's little sister, which is awkward. Sully says "that's what makes it dirty". In the last episode, Henry is declaring his undying love for... his own little sister.
• Idiot Subplot: The bag of money that the groomsmen find and their efforts to keep it result in a nervous Booth being sent into the woods in the middle of the night to bury the money and carrying a gun he's clearly unfamiliar with. For good measure, Malcolm follows him and surprises him. Booth shoots himself in the leg out of fright and dies. No one in this sub-plot has any intelligence!
  • To top it all off Henry planted the money there for them to find it just to see what insanity would ensue amongst each other, as he was going to kill them all anyway.
• Memetic Mutation: Among fans: "Who the hell is Beth?!"
  • Uncle Marty is the coolest dude in existence.
• Narm: This season contains comedy deaths, after comedy deaths, after comedy deaths.
  • Shane is just written as so unrealistically mean, especially in the second episode, that it is hard not to laugh at his lines.

Shane: "Boohoo, John Wakefield killed my mommy! Get over it! Now Get out, I gotta pee!"

• • Madison's scenes where she is supposed to be ominous and creepy would have worked if the actress was a few years younger, but instead she just ended up looking... a little silly.
• One-Scene Wonder: Uncle Marty, despite getting killed off in the very first episode, is frequently a fan favorite.
• The Scrappy: Madison and her mother Shea. Incredibly, they both live because Executive Meddling stated that the writers couldn't kill a child or every member of her family.
• Shallow Love Interest: Jimmy for Abby.
  • Contestable. He's got indifferent parents in backstory and an unlikely but genuine friendship with Shane. He saved Abby from Wakefield seven years ago but never mentioned it because he doesn't want her to think she owes him, flew off the rails badly enough after Abby left that Sheriff Mills decided to personally keep a close eye on him, and eventually became good friends with the sheriff to the point of calling him "Charlie". As characters on this show go, that's quite a bit of development; at worst, he'd be a Satellite Character because most of his scenes involve Abby.
• Shocking Swerve: Kelly's eyes being dyed red in the third episode proves to be just a distraction for the viewers and doesn't actually have any impact on the story at all, even though it was supposed to implicate Kelly's tattoo artist boyfriend Shane.
  • Along with all the scenes of Madison and the fortune teller giving prophecies of supernatural doom.
• Tear Jerker: Sure, it's a murder mystery and there's enough death to go around, but you have to admit you hated the killer a little more when Cal and Chloe died.
• Unfortunate Implications: Your father's an insane serial killer? Bad news: you'll turn out the same way, whether you like it or not.
• Woobie: JD is a genuine one. A mentally-troubled and bullied loner whose parents died in the back story, who everyone thinks is dangerous and who is blamed for all the murders. He is finally murdered by his adoptive brother Henry and refuses to speak to protect Abby. Word of God says Henry murdered their parents too.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Henry, who actually comes across as more deluded than evil.
  • YMMV a lot on this.