Rewatching TP, I am viewing Harold in a very different light to the way I saw him the first time. In the first run through, I saw him as at best, a very creepy guy who obsesses over girls much younger than him and obviously at worst, one of the prime suspects for Laura's murder. The main emphasis then was the brilliant tension in those scenes, and is it just me, or was Donna really stupidly reckless? But now, watching Harold knowing his eventual fate, I feel really sympathetic towards him. When he gives his speech when he scratches his face, you kind of assume it's mostly bullshit, that anyone acting that innocent is a murderer. But now I can see the pain of being corrupted by Donna, who did seem to genuinely like him at times but was caught up in trying to find Laura's killer, which you can hardly blame her for.  I think that Harold is definitely one of the best things that came from season 2 and Harol'd Theme from the new CD is great, I just wish it was longer.

All I know is that Donna never looked hotter than when she was looking at Harold's flowers....

This is a sentence and you are reading it now.

Poor Harold, he really got the screws put to him. He's one of the few characters on the show that seems to be genuinely pure of heart-- lacking the duplicity present in most other characters. His only "darkness" seems to be his collecting people's stories, and even then, we are given no indication that he forces or otherwise manipulates people into telling him things, or uses what he learns in any kind of malicious capacity. He's just a sad, lonely man with a terrible affliction, and Donna takes advantage of all of those things during the course of her time with him.

Really, Donna should've just let Harold read the damn thing to her. Or gone to Coop off the bat; I got no indication that Harold would try and screw with the cops. He'd be reluctant because of his friendship with Laura but I believe in the end he would've let them take the diary; I believe Cooper, with his compassion and general way with people, would have convinced Harold that he could catch the person who hurt his beloved Laura so and Harold would've seen the light and helped. Instead, he got put through the ringer by a manipulative and short sighted high school girl-- a final insult in a lifetime of insults that lead him to give himself the coup de grace.

I didnt notice that synthy thing either- but it is played, when James and Donna hug and make up whilst Maddy glares at them outside of Harolds place...

Hey how old do you figure Old Weird Harold is anyway?  I'm thinking 30ish.

rb

"It's not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind." - D. Cooper

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." - P. Atreides

"Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe" - L. tzu

I'm sure Harold was picturing Donna in the present day skinny dipping and doing all of that stuff, not a thirteen year old girl. I don't really get a pedophile vibe out of him. Remove the "we were 13" part of Donna's tale and it turns into a letter to Penthouse.

 What creeped me out is Laura recalling the story in her diary. I felt like I needed to either burn the book or scrape out my brain afterwards.