The Librarians, Episode 8: And the Heart of Darkness

And welcome to…The Librarians and the Heart of Darkness!  Yes, in order to avoid colliding with basketball season, TNT is giving us two episodes this week, thus insuring that I will have so much to type that my fingers fall off. We open with a young woman (in her late teens or early twenties) running out of a house and into the woods.  She’s bloody and screaming and she careens into the Scoobies and says a killer in the house is attacking her friends.

In case you haven’t already guessed, this is a creepy episode.  Many tense emails were exchanged as we pondered the creepiness of the house and of Cassie’s wardrobe.

The Scoobies check in with Jenkins, who tells them to fix some broken ley lines,.  They split up to distribute magical anchor things and they leave Cassie with the girl, Katie, because they still have not learned that it’s a terrible idea to split up.  There’s a ton of weird character regression stuff in this episode (Eve keeps pulling rank, Cassie isn’t trusted, the team can’t work together) which I’ll talk about more at the end of the recap.

Jake points out that in terms of architecture the house is out of place (they are in Slovakia).  Eve dimisses this even though by now she should know that these things are significant (and although I had no idea until much later, this comment from Jake is very, very significant).  They head into the house and there is an earthquake and a knife flies through the air at Ezekiel’s head.  The team is able to set all the ley line anchors despite the house doing generic yet effective creepy house things, but they still have to search the house for Katie’s friends.  Eve wants Cassie to stay behind with Katie, but Katie runs into the house because God Forbid there should be any rescuing without her.  Cassie is furious at being turned into Katie’s babysitter.

 

The house does haunted stuff with an elongating hallway, creepy rooms, photos with the faces cut out, you know the deal.  It’s your basic classic haunted house stuff but you know, sometimes the classics are classics for good reasons.  Eve sees two boys and a girl but they disappear.  Downstairs, the team reunites and Katie claims that the clothes Eve picked up are her friends’ clothes and she has a fit and runs away.

Jenkins says that the good news is that they fixed the ley lines but the bad news is they are now in The House, specifically the Shatterbox.  Whenever people tell haunted house stories, they are always talking about this specific house.  The house appears someplace, feeds, and moves on to the next “dining location” (that’s why it looked out of place – it is).  The Scoobies have to find the “dark heart of the house” and destroy it, before midnight, and it could be anything.  Ezekiel, who is the token voice of reason of this episode says, “Why is it always midnight?  Who makes up these rules?”  I’d give a lot for an answer to that question.

Katie says that she was attacked by a man who was like a shadow or smoke, who had “a hammer or a hatchet or something”.  Jake has, in fact, found a crate hatchet covered with blood,  The hatchet keeps disappearing and reappearing, and while he’s staring ominously at the hatchet Ezekiel disappears.  The word “KATIE” appears on the walls of the house and everyone assumes this means that the house wants Katie, who is understandably but annoyingly completely unhinged by this exciting development.

Eve tells Cassie to take Katie back to The Annex, which is actually a pretty good idea as far as splitting up ideas go.  Whenever someone in a haunted house proposes just leaving the house, I approve even though I know it won’t work.  Of course Cassie is furious because Eve is pulling the old “I’m the Guardian, I’m in charge” crap, and she’s been marginalizing Cassie.  Also Eve is trying to figure out a pattern and Cassie is pattern girl so frankly, it would make more sense to send Jake with Katie.  Eve thinks she needs Jake because he can fight, but I watch a lot of movies and you can’t fight a haunted house by punching it in the face, although I’m sure one of these characters will try in the remaining 20 minutes of the episode.

Katie and Cassie have a chat about her tumor and whether or not she’s fragile and unreliable given her past betrayal.  I am so sick of this topic.  Katie, who has been an utter moron so far, suddenly becomes a fount of wisdom, pointing out that Eve clearly trusts Cassie more than anyone since she trusted her with guarding Katie.  They (stupidly) have this therapy session in the car parked right outside the house when they could have had it just as easily while driving away, so Shadow Hatchet Guy has a chance to show up and trash the car, sending the women running back into the house.  This is my reaction to the fact that not only has Eve stupidly broken up the group AGAIN but also Cassie is chatting in the parked car instead of driving:

 

 

For reasons which Ezekiel helpfully describes as “magic”, Jake gets trapped in the dollhouse where he finds a remarkably calm Zeke.  In the dollhouse, everything is hunky dory – you wish for something you get it.  No news on whether Ezekiel wished to be someplace else or for his friends to be safe.  He has wished for an Xbox, samosas, and beer, so that’s covered.

Cassie and Katie go back outside and PLOT TWIST the big bad is Katie, and let me tell you she is scary as shit.  Give that girl an Emmy.  It’s amazing how much more terrifying this teeny tiny person is compared to a haunted house full of bloody axes.  I lost a lot over sleep over Katie, y’all.  Katie chases Cassie through the forest singing in a creepy way and Cassie goes back into the house which might as well be fitted with a revolving door at this point.  She can’t find anyone in the house, but someone or something is dragging Eve up the stairs in front of Cassie while Katie is lurching in the front door behind Cassie and I am whimpering from behind the couch.

Katie shows up and reveals that her family killed a lot of people (“sometimes for money, but mostly for FUN”) and at one point they were on the run and found this house.  Katie could hear the house talking to her.  She says that the house only talks to her.  Cassie wishes the house could talk to her and she starts making patterns and figuring everything out based on the pictures on the walls.  Originally the house was happy.  It was full of happy families.  Then Katie’s family came.  This made the house – not so happy.  The house isn’t evil – it’s trying to warn people who stumble on it to get out before Katie can kill them.  By the way, as I was typing this paragraph “Our House” by  Crosby, Stills, and Nash came up on my iTunes shuffle and now I have to go hide under the bed for an hour or so.

Cassie and Katie fight and Cassie stabs Katie but of course that doesn’t work.  Cassie wishes to save her friends and hey presto she’s suddenly inhabited by creepy smoke guy which means now she has a hatchet, and some mojo, and she’s really pissed, and points out that Katie thinks she’s death but so freaking what.  Because of her brain tumor, Cassie stares at death every day in the mirror. Neener neener.  She whacks Katie with the hatchet and Katie turns to dust.

Cassie passes out, wakes up, finds the team, and explains the whole deal.  The house is neither evil nor a granter of wishes.  It helps people get what they need.  It was built as a refuge.  No one ever expected a serial killer to find it.  It’s implied that the house can’t pick and choose – if serial killers go into the house and they need to hide from cops and hack up a bunch of people, the house has to let them, although it can try to warn people away.  Creepy Smoke Guy turns into an adorable butler type and he and Cassie are clearly life-long besties.

Just to round off the story of terror, Jenkins fills us in on backstory – Katie’s family was a family of serial killers and Katie made a wish.  Although we don’t know what the wish was, it appears to have been a bloody one.  Allow me to sarcastically and bitterly thank SBSarah so VERY MUCH for keeping me up all night by pointing out that Katie comes from an actual family of serial killers, the Bloody Benders.  Our heroes drive back to the Annex, with Cassie radiating smugness, and the dollhouse in the trunk of the car, and me whimpering in terror until next week.

One thing that bugged me about this episode is that all the characters seemed to have lost the character development they had been building.  We also noticed last week that two episodes in a row ended the same way, with Ezekiel being protected by magic because he is already a thief/rogue/loveable scamp.  It turns out that the episodes are being aired out of order so that the character development is askew.

For a long interview with producer John Rogers that is includes all kinds of yummy details about the show, go to Kung Fu Monkey.   Here’s his comments about the intended episode order:

The order as originally written/intended took us through a very specific tour of the characters (I know the episode titles are out there, so I don’t feel bad listing them):

1& 2.)  Crown/Stone: Re-establish the mythology, set up the characters and the return of magic.

3.)  Horns of a Dilemma: Being the team’s journey to learn to work together. Badly.  Oh, and the back door. Somewhat Baird-y, but we tagged all the relationships.

4.) Fables of Doom: Team still not working together great, Ezekiel-centric.

5.) Heart of Darkness (will air 8th): Still spiky, addresses everyone’s relationship with Cassandra.

6.) Santa: Team working better together, bonding over Christmas, Eve-centric.

7.) Apple of Discord: Bring Flynn back, which eats a lot of show, and round-robin through how the team has changed.

8.) City of Light: Big Stone episode. (Will air 9th)

9.) Rule of Three: Very much a team episode, although some juicy Jenkins goodness in here (air 7th)

10.) Loom of Fate: … spoilers.

 Finally, this episode consists largely of people doing dumb things despite Ezekiel pointing out repeatedly that in the movies this is the part where “the audience tells movie guy to get the hell out.”  I’d like to leave you with one of my favorite comedy videos, which I hope will serve The Librarians well should they ever stumble into another horror movie scenario:

Reviews!

Carrie:

I have so many quibbles with this episode, given that it relied on the characters doing stupid things and revisiting patterns of behavior and conflict that we are supposed to be done with.  Before I realized that the episodes had been shuffled, I thought maybe the regressions were caused by the house – it brings out your worst side and weakens your judgement.  But this never came to light so we just had to watch our characters wander into dark places alone and fail to work together and basically act like they were trapped in Episode 1.

Having said that, this was a very effective episode (at least for me, and I’m a lightweight when it comes to horror) in terms of being scary.  I LOVED the twist in which the house is not the villain but Katie is.  I thought scary Katie was terrifying.  I liked the way the episode let Cassie face her greatest fear and turn it into a source of strength.  It was a powerful episode and it scared the pants off me (metaphorically).  I just it had aired earlier or with a hand wave about the house making everyone an idiot.

Sarah:

THIS IS WHY I DO NOT LIKE TELEVISION.

Ahem.

Until I read that the episodes were being aired out of order, I hated this episode with the heat of a thousand suns. Not only did Eve treat Cassie as if she was made of party favor plastic (which is more fragile than anything on earth, if you were not aware), but she didn’t act as if leaving Cassie on her own when there are magical forces at work might possibly be a bad idea. Remember when Cassie hopped about wearing leggings and a sports bra? Nearly Naked Evil Cassie?

Instead, we had frustrated inept Cassie in purple tights and jorts and WHAT IS WITH HER WARDROBE SWEET JESUS’ FANNY.

Knowing that the original order had this episode slotted earlier in the series makes a LOT more sense. But it bums me out. Character development matters. Progression of how people interact with one another matters, especially when there is the Potential for Shipping and Merciful Tankers Is There Shipping Potential. HAVE WE NOT LEARNED ANYTHING FROM TUMBLR GIFS?!

So we have an episode that in the order in which it was aired made everyone seem as if they were acting frustratingly out of character and which didn’t fit anything that had happened already in the series. Even Eve’s HAIR is inconsistent. She had a low bun and loose hair on the sides of her head in the previous episode, and in this one her hair was lacquered to her head again. FEH.

And this is where I take that shit personally: I care about character development. l like a motherfucking development that makes motherfucking sense in the motherfucking stories I like, even if they’re about librarians in goddam space finding motherfucking magical beanbag chairs that have to go to a library that no one can find except Jane Curtain. So I’m mad.

But I’m also overreacting, because I’m also mad because I AM UNDERSLEPT. AND I CURSE A LOT WHEN I LOSE SLEEP. BECAUSE THIS EPISODE SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF ME. I had a nightmare and woke up in the middle of the night and refused to open my eyes to see the clock because there might have been a creepy black rag-cloak-wearing tall dude standing in my room and I don’t know what I would have done then but it wouldn’t have been good so I kept my eyes closed and tried to pretend I was sleeping for an hour or maybe two or six I have no idea BUT I DID NOT LIKE IT.

Which means the writing was good, eh? And the sound effects and the score. And once I realized that Katie was Katie Bender, who I already knew was real from…some internet rabbit hole where I started reading about serial killers in history that also gave me nightmares, dammit, I was doubly freaked out. BECAUSE DUDE. CREEPY.

My note from watching the episode:

Me, first scene: There is no way that’s a Slovakian house. That’s, like, South Jersey Victorian and stuff. Nice trim.

Me, after Jake (in a pink hoodie – nice!) identified it as Not Slovakian: “I KNEW it didn’t belong there!”

One question: how or why did no one question that Katie, who sounds American, was hiking through the woods in Slovakia?

Jorts and purple tights on Cassie. Jorts and purple tights on Cassie. WHY WHY WHY.

Eve has a gun and Jake has a crowbar. Ok, then. They travel… oddly.

New drinking game! Someone is going to say,“We’re the Librarians.”

• If it’s Eve: 1 sip.
• Cassie: 2 sips
• Jake, while growling and/or frowning: 2 sips
• Ezekiel, who adds, “Mate,” to the end: 4 sips
• Noah Wylie: Nice big gulp
• Noah Wylie wet wearing a linen suit: get me a fresh drink please. My glass is empty.

And then it got creepy and more creepy and still more creepier and then the creepiest and I wrote in very small letters: I might not be able to watch this.

And of course I had to finish it and I had nightmares so now I need a nap. And I need for character development to make more sense.

RHG:

Welp, I watched this episode after midnight and after the others had been talking about how scary this episode was and there were spoilers bouncing back and forth in the emails and I went fuck this I’mma just watch it and I…. didn’t find it that scary? I mean, the haunted house shit was scary and all, but I kind of enjoyed Katie’s shift from Final Girl to Big Bad. She was creepy and all but also kind of fun to watch?

This is weird because I do not do horror.

Anyway, yeah, networks, STOP AIRING SHOWS OUT OF ORDER. IT IS STUPID. For fuck’s sake. There’s no REASON for this. None! SO STOP IT.

I liked taking a different tack than a mythology to set up the story. We’ve had Arthurian legend, we’ve had Greek myths, we’ve had fairy tales, and now we get an exploration of what happens when an actual historical event meets random magic shit. That’s cool!

I wouldn’t have gone into that house, though.