Time for another binge of Season 4 of The Librarians, and boy howdy do we have some excitement this time
out.
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| Fortuna channels Cassandra's 'Honey Bear' character. |
We begin with The Librarians 'and
the Steal of Fortune'(1), in which Jake takes Ezekiel to visit an old buddy who
trains race horses. Unfortunately for the friend, his luck has turned bad, and
he is in the process of losing his last horse to the owner of the race track
and casino, Bernie Konopka. Investigating, the two learn that Jake's friend is
not the only one to suffer a run of bad luck, as freak accidents abound and
race after race brings no winners,
except for the owner of the winning horse; Bernie Konopka.
Suspecting a magical artefact, the Librarians turn out in force, but
find themselves falling prey to the bad luck curse. Cassandra is sucked into playing
roulette and Ezekiel the slots, losing time after time, until Cassie busts out
her mega maths and Ezekiel gimmicks the machine to let him win. Ezekiel steals
the suspected artefact, but it turns up a dud, while Cassie is abducted and
accused of cheating. She and Jake realise at more or less the same time that
Konopka's apparent arm-candy is in fact the goddess Fortuna, who has been
stealing back her blessings of luck in order to return to her full power and -
dare she say it - rule the world. The only way to beat her is to do as Cassie
did and beat the curse, but how can you win when all luck is against you?
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| "It's like looking in a mirror..." |
The Librarians 'and the
Bleeding Crown' opens with the entire population of a small town becoming old
overnight. The Librarians encounter Darrington Dare, a Librarian from the 1880s
who was a huge inspiration to Flynn, and appears to have been pulled forward in
time in pursuit of his nemesis, wizard and cloning pioneer Ambrose Gethick
(played by The Musketeers' Howard
Charles.) Dare is an effortlessly capable polymath, but has no time for friends
and comrades, matching it to a secondary theme in '...and the Steal of
Fortune', that Librarians can't have a normal life. Indeed, Dare tells Flynn
that, with the extraordinary threat of Apep now past, it is his duty to dismiss
the other Librarians lest a civil war break out, as once happened, resulting in
the ignorance and superstition of the Dark Ages.
Dare and Flynn track down Gethick, who turns out to have captured Eve
and the other Librarians in order to drain the Library's own power from them using
the Bleeding Crown of Elizabeth Bathory to destroy Dare, who is impervious to
all other magic. With the empowered Gethick too much for them, Flynn turns to
his friends, getting the immortal Jenkins to overcharge the crown and causing
Gethick to explode. Dare leaves and, contrary to prior history, connects with
friends to live a long and happy life, but leaves a note for Flynn telling him
he must still dismiss the other Librarians.
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| In an episode which might as well have been called The Guardians 'and the Graves of Time'. |
In The Librarians 'and the
Graves of Time', Eve tracks down Nicole Noone, who is in pursuit of a group of
Eastern European heavies who are breaking into her graves - she having been
forced to 'die' from time to time in order to conceal her immortality - to
steal artefacts. The rest of the team eventually join them, but then are split
up, leaving Flynn and Nicole in pursuit of 'Koschei's Needle', a weapon which
can kill anyone with a single wound, and even take the life of an immortal. The
rest of the team wind up in the hands of the heavies and their boss - played by
one-hit wonder Chris Heyerdahl - who tells them that he is the last descendent
of the Romanovs, who were destroyed by Rasputin using sorcery taught to him by
Noone.
The team go after Noone and Flynn, but it turns out that the supposed
Romanov is in fact Rasputin himself, and that it was to kill him - not, as
feared, Galahad - that Noone wanted the Needle. Noone is stabbed, but Eve and
Flynn dummy Rasputin into stabbing a pipe full of radioactive waste, which the
Needle - which turns out to be a kind of vampiric dagger - conducts into
Rasputin until he explodes, which appears to be becoming a theme. To save Noone
and make amends for misjudging her, Jenkins transfers his immortality to her,
rendering him mortal once more. As if this were not enough of an upset, Flynn
resigns from the Library, in order that there should be at least one fewer
potential combatants in a Library Civil War. Of course, this upsets the planned
binding ceremony between Flynn, Eve and the Library, and I wonder if Jenkins
won't end up bound to restore his immortality and leave the others free(ish).
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| While '...and the Graves of Time' provided some important plot stuff, it felt sooo good to get back to the ensemble after a Flynn-heavy couple of episodes. |
Anyway, all this melodrama leaves a somewhat shaken team at the top of The Librarians 'and the Disenchanted
Forest'. With each one convinced that the others should step down if anyone has
to, Eve takes them to a team building camp where weird things happen. The
idyllic rural retreat proves to be rife with disappearances, and while Eve
tried to ignore the potential cracks in her team, Jake becomes one of them.
Cassandra tries to live out the summer camp pranks she has seen in movies, much
to the annoyance of Ezekiel, but the come together - along with a team of DOSA
agents - to seek out and rescue Jake, at least partially restoring their team
mojo.
It turns out that the forest is at the heart of all forests. The tree
spirits have been protecting it, while the owner of the camp has been covering
up the disappearances as people quitting. Destroying the heart tree would doom
all forests, but with Jake's linguistic gifts the tree is able to communicate
this. It entrusts a 'zero seed' to Eve, and the DOSA agent in charge offers permanent
'Area 51 status'. Jake then shows a journalist he has become close to the
Library and explains that she can't talk about it, and that he can't be with
her, putting him at the top of the list if there is to be a singular Librarian
at the end of this.
So, it's all change this season, and honestly there's an end of an
era/series finale sort of vibe going on. No word on a fifth season yet, and
there are two episodes as yet unaired anywhere, but I would not be surprised if
this was it for out intrepid bibliophiles. If so, it's been a good run, and I'm
glad it seems to be going out on a high, with some strong episodes in this run,
and a strong thematic spine of renewal and change.
(1) Actually the second episode of the series, but shuffled around to
allow '...and the Christmas Thief' to be shown at Christmas.
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