The Librarians - '...and the Cost of Education'

"Like all colleges, 1 in 5 students vanish or transfer out without trace."

When a college mascot disappears, it doesn't seem like a job for the Librarians, but this is no ordinary college. Founded by a mad genius, riddled with occult architecture and the inspiration for HP Lovecraft's Miskatonic University, Wexler College is a nexus of weirdness so intense that most of its residents have stopped noticing, just assuming that all colleges have a 20% attrition rate among faculty and students alike and mottos about infernal fire.

During the investigation, Jake meets one of his academic heroes and finds he has feet of clay, while Ezekiel ignores Jenkins' advice and meets the gaze of a gargoyle, which then follows him around like a harmless and affectionate Weeping Angel. Cassandra, meanwhile, bonds with Lucy, a young physicist with an interest in magic, who is also tracking the disappearances and may have revolutionised particle physics; that or punched a hole into the Dungeon Dimensions.

MVL of the Week
It's another good week for Jake Stone, who after his sparring match with Professor Skeptic is interrupted by a tentacle monster gets to stand up and teach a class his own theories of architecture and solve part of the puzzle at the same time. Once more, Ezekiel gets most of the good comedy moments, bonding with Stumpy the Gargoyle and boasting for all he is worth to decoy the pride-eating gribbly.

Despite this, '...and the Cost of Education' is Cassandra's show, not just because she gets to be the solver this week, but for her delight in the university atmosphere she never got to be a part of because of her illness and her willingness to stand up to her mentor figures, giving both Eve and Jenkins a piece of her mind. When Eve suggests that rescuing Lucy can't be a priority in the balance, Cassandra retorts that she has learned as a Librarian that 'what's best isn't always what's right', and when Jenkins tries to caution her against getting too comfortable with magic after an invitation to join a technomagical cybercoven, she pointedly reminds him that she has already chosen the Library, even if she is questioning its purely containment-oriented methods in the magically reinvigorated world.