I’m not a fan of this episode. It had a rather heavy
handed, trite message and not a great deal of character development. Oh we have
some useful moments – a reminder that DOSA still exists (remember them?). And
the concept that new Artefacts are being created and they have to build a whole
new wing of the Library to house them. After all the ancient Artefacts are
ancient because magic hasn’t been in the world for a gazillion years. Now magic
is back – so new Artefacts can join the fun. This makes a lot of sense and also
adds a whole new dimension of stories to open up.
We also have a really wonderful moment where Eve tries to
keep Jenkins out of trouble because with the big bad darkness coming (which we
seem to have lost for a few episodes) if the Librarians are taken out she can
think of no better person to save the world than him – which I definitely agree
to. But he also says there’s no way he would ever not come from her
Because he’s awesome, she’s awesome and they're so very awesome together
Ezekiel’s abs are also awesome which is pretty much the
last awesome thing about this episode
They are amazingly awesome though
Anyway, we have a guy who has got his hands on one of
these shiny new Artefacts and he promptly uses it to magically create a
carnival. Anyone who objects to sudden carnivalness is brainwashed to become
clown minions, fanpoodles or jugglers all declaring it to be the best thing in
the world as well as causing themselves severe injury through over juggling.
You already know you’re dealing with a disturbing
personality who wants to live in an eternal carnival and doesn’t think he’s in
a lower circle of hell. And there’s some powerful magic at work that can have
you live off carnie food for more than a month and not just die from horrendous
health complications.
So, beyond a disturbing love of clowns and candy floss,
why does this magically powerful man decide to spend his life in a carnival?
Because when he was an awkward teenaged boy he had a
crush on a teenaged girl who liked carnivals so clearly creating an awesome
carnival will make her love him forever.
Unsurprisingly, tricking someone into a place full of
creepy clowns and hoping slapstick and sideshows and random violence will win
the heart of this grown woman who doesn’t even remember him (after
hospitalising a few women who had the misfortune to share the same name) doesn’t
actually go so well.
Of course the Librarians defeat and remove the magical
artefact, depowering big bad guy but not before we get the meaning of the
episode…
Charlotte (stalked woman) totally did remember him and
even liked him and would have gone out with him but then he turned into a
carnival obsessed potential serial killing which was a real relationship
killer. So the lesson is… don’t obsessively stalk a woman because she may like
you anyway? I guess. There is a sad sense that this is forward thinking because
so many romantic tropes present obsessive stalking as a key to eternal love…. I
guess
But really I think a far better ending would have been
that it was a bad idea to stalk and kidnap and terrorise women EVEN IF they
would never have loved you. I mean “it was stupid to do this because she would
have loved you anyway” is a dubious moral since we’re still centering his wish:
his stalker-serial-killer-thing has to be ironically wrong because she totally
would have been into him anyway. How about she was his friend, they apparently
had fun together – but this is bad because she doesn’t want a romantic
relationship with him? Or how about, even if she would never ever willingly
share the same state with him, it’s still not ok to sentence people to eternal
carnivals? Look I’m not saying that the show didn’t depict the mind controlling
nonsense as bad, but we don’t need to reinforce that badness by saying he would
have been rewarded with a relationship if he had done the right thing. The
right choice doesn’t have to be reinforced with a woman as a gold star or
prize.
All in all, fairly dull. But Ezekiel has awesome abs.
