We have a wonderfully
ornate ceremony being practiced by the whole gang which teases so very close to
being an actual wedding between Flynn and Eve. Nope - it’s a practice for a
ceremony that will bind them to the library forever, making them immortal and
ensuring the Library stays on the side of good
People are fuzzy as to how evil it could get. But previously the Library was bound to the immortal Charlene and with her dead there is a Problem. And even though Apep is out of the picture, Jenkins is even more paranoid because at least then he had a prophecy to follow - he had a guide, he knew what to do. Now he’s flying blind and somewhat worried.
Ominously this is
when an alarm goes off - because a “cornerstone” has been found
Exposition! These are
the Corner Stones from the original Library - the Great Library of Alexandria.
Until Caesar arrived and decided to be all arsony. So the Library became
virtual except for the 4 stones which could make it physical again. This would
be terribad and basically destroy the Library (they explain this by the Library
being virtual, personally I go with the Library not even remotely following the
laws of physics any more)
So they need to find
the stones. Except they don’t know where they are and have no way to track
them… but someone may
Which is when a
guilty Jenkins reveals he may have a clue. Because he has someone locked in the
basement who may know - Nicole
Nicole,
Flynn’s first Guardian, the Guardian who joined Flynn in the first film and who we all assumed
was dead when a time machine went a little haywire. Instead she was blasted to
the past and, according to Jenkins, became bitter and furious with the Library
for not rescuing her from the past, stealing artefacts to use against the
Library (including one to give her immortality - which is becoming seriously
common these days) and generally planning naughty bad things. He also points
out that becoming immortal kind of messes you up and makes you dark and twisted
without a human connection (Charlene was his… which is also a worrying
statement on Jenkins’s future).
Nicole argues she was
continuing to do her job collecting artefacts to save the Library - and yes she
hates the Library (and Jenkins) but this is because she has been locked up for
several centuries - and really solitary confinement for several centuries would
do way way way way way way more damage than this
Flynn and Eve are
both kind of shaky over the idea of someone being locked up forever but Jenkins
justifies this under the need to preserve the Library. And the aforementioned
prophecies required it. Jenkins is all about the ends justify the means
(Cassandra and Ezekiel continue to follow this argument: Ezekiel definitely
leery about any organisation that decides on life imprisonment based on so
little while Cassandra is firmly on the side of “you hurt the library, you got
it coming”).
Getting Nicole to
co-operate is difficult, but she clearly still has an intense focus on Flynn,
still loving him. While Flynn is tortured by ALL THE GUILT because the reason
said time machine exploded was because he tried to disable it and feels all
responsible. Between these heavy emotions we also have Eve who has a Thing with
Flynn seeing her predecessor (not) who Also had a Thing with Flynn and still
kind of has a Thing for Flynn which would be awkward but Eve is immensely professional
to the end.
Points for this - Eve
being jealous just isn’t really used here. I mean she has looks and is clearly
uncomfortable (though this could be justified by the simple proof of the
somewhat disposability of Guardians) but she’s not letting it get in the way.
Nicole grudging doles
out cryptic clues so the Librarians can all do their brainy thing to find the
stones
But we have the bad
guy - a secretive Catholic organisation
Lead by John Noble
who is really doing the evil thing lately. This faction of the Catholic church
want to return to the Dark Ages because all of this learning is just bad and
step one involves destroying the Library and murdering anyone who gets in their
way. They’re surprisingly effective and the Librarians surprisingly not (even
with Nicole commenting on how utterly awesome Eve and Flynn are together just
in case we had any thoughts about her replacing Eve) which means they all -
including Nicole - end up being captured by three priests (and John Noble who
kind of hangs around being sinister).
Not the Librarian’s
finest moment.
Of course some genius
later they free themselves and the ritual to destroy the Library is both
started and disrupted by Nicole, removing one of the stones so they can never
be used again. She ends up lost in a vortex as well so Flynn risks his life to
save her while the Librarians do some Librarianing to keep it open. Nicole then
escapes because we need Ambiguous Character out there for future plot lines
because she is definitely going to be back (so is John Noble. One does not
recruit John Noble for bit parts. It is known).
There’s still a lot
of question about Nicole - it can be argued she’s telling the truth and was
protecting the Library and this was a long complex plan to save it from a major
threat. However she herself made it clear she was doing this for Flynn who she
has a crush on and not for the greater good or the Library, so no proof she
doesn’t want to destroy it. So grey and wooly remains with a lot of plot hooks
- and the possibility of messy emotion between Flynn and Nicole
Eve and Flynn do have
new insight to the Library though - and immortality - which adds a new slant to
the tethering ceremony. Flynn is unsure about binding himself to an Institution
which just did something pretty heinous - but Eve finds this as even more of a
motivation to go ahead: because an Institution is as good or bad as the people
involved.
I really like this
point about institutions. We have a society where we often demonise
institutions for being, well, institutions - like institutions somehow exist
outside of the people who control them. We use it both as an almost fatalistic
condemnation of the good an institution does or could do (denying the
possibility because INSTITUTION) while at the same time absolving the people
involved in whatever terrible thing we’re condemning (except, maybe, to
criticise them for being part of the institution in the first place).
I also like the
continuation of the grey of the Library. Already we have the ongoing debate
from Cassandra about the Library condemning all magic (more than a little
hypocritically) regardless of the good it could do. The Library has a lofty
goal but equally is very rigid in reaching that and adopts a very
ends-justifies-the-means approach that Jenkins almost embodies in this episode.
Which further leads to the whole question of whether Eve and Flynn want to
actually bind themselves to the Library forever (alone with Jenkins’s stark
warning about what immortality can do to you) since it isn’t such a paragon of
virtue - while equally making the argument that they NEED to do so to ensure it
remains/becomes so
