A Series of Unfortunate Events - 'The Bad Beginning: Part 2'

"And I also act."

The Baudelaire orphans are in a bad place, as you may recall from my last review, but fear not reader. They could be in a much worse place, as 'The Bad Beginning: Part 2' sets out to prove.

We open with a flashback explaining how Count Olaf engineered his adoption of the orphans (a scene absent from the book, and which Lemony Snicket explains is a flashback included to get the television executives off his back.) Flashing forward again, we see the Count move rapidly into phase two of his plans, inviting the orphans to join his latest theatrical effort and disarming any doubts in Justice Strauss's mind by offering her the chance to fulfill her own acting ambitions. This, the orphans soon realise, is an elaborate set-up allowing the Count to legally marry Violet (his adopted daughter, so eww,) without anyone official kicking up a fuss.

Just so creepy.

Unfortunately, the Count's henchmen nobble Mr Poe's secretary in order to keep him in the dark, and kidnap Sunny to force Klaus and Violet to do his bidding. All seems doomed, but once the Count has announced his success and so revealed his true colours to the crowd, Violet springs her masterstroke: That she signed the marriage license with the wrong hand(1). The secretary and her associate Gustav reveal that the orphans were always supposed to go to their Uncle, but Olaf escapes with his minions, Gustav is killed while waiting for the orphans to arrive, and the apparent Baudelaire parents determine that they must escape their current captivity after seeing the headlines about the play. And in the narrative space, Lemony Snicket absconds through a window ahead of unseen pursuers.

A Series of Unfortunate Events continues to be a darkly brilliant gem, and I am genuinely delighted to have overcome my initial reticence. Neil Patrick Harris is a big part of its success, with his bravura turn as the Count front and centre now the introductory section is out of the way, but Patrick Warburton continues to dazzle as the melancholy narrator, and Malina Weissman and Louis Hynes are nothing short of sensational as the older Baudelaire children, delivering their long, complex and stilted lines with total deadpan sincerity and complete comprehension. In fact, I might go so far as to suggest that the real brilliance of the show lies in not allowing Harris to run away with every scene, because with that performance he easily could.

It also bears noting that the show just looks amazing. The production design is lavish, gorgeous and quite unique, with every costume, set and space serving the scene it is part of. The cinematography is exquisite; in short, every part of the show is deserving of a thesaurus-worth of superlatives, each one lovingly and wryly deconstructed by Lemony Snicket. Will it continue at this standard? We shall have to see.

(1) This is, of course, legal nonsense, but so is anyone persuading a lawyer or accountant that 'closest relative' would ever refer to geographical proximity.