The Librarians, Episode 6: And the Fables of Doom

Oooh, this episode was directed by Jonathan Frakes, who I continue to believe is a terrible actor but a fabulous director.  In the opening, a jerk who is driving his truck across a bridge gets dumped in the water by giant.  Sadly, he lives. 

Our team goes to the town which is not-so-subtly named “Bremen” to investigate and they discover a giant fingerprint on the jerk’s truck.  Jenkins tells the team that the print probably belongs to a troll and sends them to get a sample.  Eve and Ezekiel do in fact find the troll (he’s stone, because of daylight), but Cassie and Jake have a conversation with the sheriff about the many weird things that have been happening in town, and when they meet the mayor, who seems unaware that he is nude, they realize that the troll is a symptom of a larger problem.  They also have another “I like you, I just don’t trust you” conversation.  I am already bored with this topic.

A really large wolf tries to eat a woman but Jake kills it (aww the wolf was all cute and fluffy).  The team returns to The Annex and tells Jenkins that someone has weaponized fairy tales.  Jenkins determines that they need to find the magical artifact that is causing the problem – but which artifact?  His master list on the chalkboard is a thing of beauty.  Luckily most possibilities can be quickly eliminated and they can cross off the final contenders by doing an autopsy on the wolf.  This means that they have to steal the wolf from a freezer in the Bremen Bar and sneak it back to the annex – which they do.  When they cut open the wolf, a real life, confused woman falls out.  Jenkins declares that the magical artifact causing the troubles must be the Libris Fabula, a book that can make any fairy tale come true “for a price”.

Meanwhile, an old man (Rene Auberjonois!) is reading to child in the hospital from an old book.  “Little Red Riding Hood emerged whole and safe,” he says.  Well, isn’t that sweet.

The team brings Little Red to the hospital, where she seems to have developed a considerable crush on Cassie.  Jenkins meets them there, makes a fascinating speech about vending machines and then explains that the book not only makes stories come to life, but that the stories can be changed and can grow in power until they take over everyone in the world.  The book draws its power from people who believe in the stories, so it follows that a bunch of people in the local hospital should be getting sick for no reason.  Cassie hits the files to try to find the sick people but no luck.

Eve and Jake go interview Mr. Maguire, local librarian.  Unbeknowst to our heroes, he’s the one who was reading to the sick kid. He just got a large donation of old books, but he won’t let the Scoobies get their hands on them.

At the hospital, Ezekiel follows a not-at-all-suspiciously rolling coin to a dying kid, the same one who was being read to before.  The kid’s name is Jessie, and Ezekiel teaches the kid how to pick locks, doles out some magnificently amoral advice, and figures out that the kid is being drained by the book.  He joins the rest of the team at a bar, where he is arrested by the sheriff.  The sheriff, who is Jessie’s dad, turns into the Big Bad Wolf, recruits the high school football team (The Wolves) and goes after Ezekiel, who hightails it back to the hospital.

The whole team is getting weird.  Eve is humming and losing shoes, Cassie is a chick magnet, and Jake has acquired an axe and a pet owl (oooh!)  Jenkins points out that they all have roles now.  Eve is the princess (this horrifies her no end).  Jake is the huntsman, and  Cassie is a rather effective Prince Charming.  Ezekiel is Jack, the nimble thief – the only one who always survives unscathed.  Everyone in town is affected.

Ezekiel finds Mr. Maguire reading to Jamie.  What a nice librarian!  But actually not so much.  Mr. Maguire knows exactly what he’s doing.  As the book absorbs the life force of the kids he reads to, he picks up some of it too, which makes him stronger. He tells a very sad story in which the wolves kill everybody.  The End.  It looks bad for the Scoobies.

BUT!  Ezekiel throws the magic coin, stuns Mr. Maguire, and wakes up Jamie.  Ezekiel tells Jamie to tell her own story and give it a happy ending.

Her story is awesome – the huntsman is a robot and the princess is a ninja princess (my 11-year old daughter thought that was THE BOMB) and they defeat the wolves.  No one dies, but the head wolf has to eat green jello forever (Jamie dislikes green jello).  Mr. Maguire is sucked into the book and all is well.  Jamie feels much better, and the Scoobies tell a very confused but happy sheriff that everything was caused by swamp gas.

Back at the Annex, Ezekiel is incredibly smug about how awesome he is and Cassie turns out to have a little leftover magic saved up.  As Ezekiel says, “And they all lived happily ever after.” 

Next week we have two back-to-back episodes:  “The Rule of Three” and “The Heart of Darkness”.  Your friendly recapper does not approve.  Spread the love, TNT, spread the love.  I can only type so fast, you know.

REVIEWS!

Carrie:

 Didn’t we just have an episode in which Ezekiel is not affected by magic because he is who he is?  I mean don’t get me wrong, I eat that stuff up with a spoon, but two episodes with the same theme/twist twice in two weeks seems a bit much.  In general, I thought this episode was a ton of fun, especially Cassie declaring, “Come with me if you want to live!” and Eve clapping her hand over her own mouth when she giggles.  But I’m still bummed out about the wolf. 

RHG:

Short hits while I was watching because I ate a bad sloppy joe:

 “It might be a troll.”  Welp. 

Did none of these people read The Hobbit or any Scandinavian myths?  Trolls are always stone in daylight.

Someone get me a gif of Jake trying to not stare at that guy’s dick.  Now.

Quotes from my roommate who got roped into watching this with me:

“Are all bathrooms teleporters or….?”

“Is that [John Larroquette] that one guy, or just a pudgier version of that guy?” (She did a science and thinks he’s not That Guy but she isn’t sure who That Guy is.)

“It’s never the Genie’s Lamp, so… it’s lupus?”

I have seen some terrible CGI wolves in my time, but that’s the worst.

Oh for god’s sake, is this the Tommy Westphalin universe?

Hooooooooow did they get access to all those medical records?  Someone’s getting slapped with a HIPPA violation.

This town has a pretty significant police force for it’s size.

I feel like we have a bit of a glut in the “omg all fairy tales are real!” genre?  Into the Woods came out a week and a half ago.  We have Once Upon a Time AND Grimm and Indexing by Seanan Maguire (which is fantastic BY THE WAY) and, okay, it’s not good, it’s not nice, it’s not right, it’s just this again.

 Though Cassie becoming Prince Charming was kind of awesome.  And if Ezekiel not being affected by magic shit is a theme, then okay but if it’s just two hits and then done that’s dull.

Elyse:

I require that Jake be the Huntsman forever because yes.

Sarah:

Honestly, this episode didn’t do much for me.

The things I liked:

I enjoyed the idea that while the fairy tales were coming to life, the genders were flipped around a bit. The original fairy tales were so often warnings about letting your heathen whore vagina roam freely that I enjoyed immensely that Cassie was Prince Charming, though it was a little odd that only women fell into fascination with her. Or were there dudes and I missed it? 

Jake the Huntsman with his semi-casual reaction to the owl on his arm was glorious. Let’s look at that again, shall we?

 And all asshole drivers who don’t respect traffic rules, construction workers, and the appropriate use of a horn should absolutely be picked off the road by trolls. I am positively twitching to know what the troll would do to drivers who talk on the phone or text while driving.

But the story had so much going on, I often felt a little lost (no pun intended) watching them all run around and do things urgently, acquiring hair (Eve) or cravats (Cassie) or owls (Jake) portentiously.

 I would like my own owl, though.

Jenkins phone tally: another appearance of the candlestick phone. I do look forward to seeing what he’s going to speak into in each episode.

The thing that I really didn’t get was why Ezekiel throwing the coin froze the bad librarian (I do love that this is a sentence I just wrote that makes perfect sense in context). What was the coin? Was it magic, too? Was Ezekiel magic? If I bounce a gold dollar coin off a librarian’s temple, he’s not going to freeze. He’ll probably press charges for assault, though. So that part flew over my head (pun totally intended).

But even though there was a lot of “Huh?” “What?” “Wait, why?” and “DUDE. OWL.” I’m still watching. Between this show, Agent Carter, Jane the Virgin, and the new season of Test Kitchen, I feel like this television season is a special present just for me, and I’m enjoying it. I miss fun, clever and adventurous shows, especially ones with a minimum of gore. The only gore in this one was the wolf (which gave me the sads) and the goo that was all over Red Riding Hood after she came out of the wolf’s pancreas or wherever she was. Even with the confusion of this episode, I’m still in.