Sunday, December 14, 2014

The Librarians 1.03: "And the Horns of a Dilemma"

“Magic has three parts; power to change reality, focus to direct that change and effect that change in the real world.”
- Jenkins

So this week is the first solo mission for our librarians-in-training. Huzzah! Well it would be the first mission except Baird doesn’t think our trio is ready to take care of themselves. She’s got them running training drills and this time she took out all three in under two minutes. They get back to the Annex and Jenkins mentions some new clippings have appeared in the book. Baird snipes at him in his little secret lab where he modifies and studies artifacts (anyone else think that’s a bad idea) that he shouldn’t be letting them look at the book until they’re ready. He’s got a point though that it’s in their job description to wrangle magical stuff before the bad guys get it. And it seems the team is eager to get out and see some action. Eve is regretting agreeing to let them check out a string of eight missing people all over the country when they all race off in different directions. Oh and the case is linked to a guy we see at the start of the episode being stalked in what looks like an office building and dragged away by some unseen thing as two people in hooded robes chant.

It seems that all of the victims had a link to a big agro firm in Boston. They were all interns so the team needs to get to Boston. And Jenkins has just the way; a magical door that can get them anywhere (with some limitations). Interesting. Once in Boston, our team gets a meeting with the company CEO who denies any knowledge but feigns shock at the fact that eight of their interns have gone missing. She sends them off to HR to get information but Baird is suspicious. She’s figured out they wanted to assess the team’s knowledge. Jake is pretty sure whatever’s in HR is going to be fake and Baird thinks she might find original documents on the servers. Zeke points out where the room should be and is quite miffed when Eve says they need to go to HR and she’ll take care of the server room. The creepy assistant guy tells them to go to a particular room and swipes his ID to get the elevator to go. Unfortunately, as soon as they step off the elevator, it completely disappears and they pretty quickly find a room full of what look like skulls. This totally reminds me of Wolfram and Hart and I kind of love it. Meanwhile, Baird gains access to the server room only to find it isn’t housing electronics but ancient artifacts.

Cassie, Jake and Zeke pretty quickly figure out they are in a recreation of the Greek labyrinth complete with a giant Minotaur. I have to say this one was kind of lame looking. The giant bull-like creature from “God Complex’ on Doctor Who was much more convincing. After Baird calls Jenkins and he doesn’t really reassure her, she manages to find the gang and they barely escape back to the library. Clearly they’re going to have to head back to Boston to deal with the evil cult people running the agro company. Oh and it seems Jake doesn’t easily forgive betrayal since he and Cassie have words in the labyrinth before she figures out the pattern and starts leading them to safety.

Jenkins explains that magic has three parts; power, focus and effect and they also suss out that the labyrinth is real in part because the string of the story that’s been around for ages is still there. So they have to find a way back into the maze to retrieve the actual ball of string. It seems the CEO of the company is willing to move up the rest of the virgin sacrifices to give the company prosperity in the coming months (the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur focused on a king sending 14 virgin sacrifices down every seven years). Yeah this plot would totally come out of a Wolfram and Hart scam. And I swear it’s not just because Christian Kane is in this show. But…maybe a little bit because he’s in this show.

Anyway, they go back through the door to Boston but they quickly realize that they’re back in the maze. It’s not just a physical place but a sort of mental effect, too. The Minotaur takes on human form and starts chasing them down. But Cassie thinks she can get them to the middle of the maze to stop the evil mojo from continuing. Baird has to actually trust that the team can use their individual strengths to get through the situation. Thanks to Jake, they figure out that there are seven floors to the building and the maze and that allows Cassie to figure out how to navigate between floors. So while she and Zeke go to get the ball of thread, Baird and Jake are going to distract the Minotaur. Jake manages to snag a truck and they use it as a battering ram and a getaway vehicle. The more interesting part though is when Cassie starts freaking out and Zeke manages to talk her down and guide her through to the center of the maze. Too bad the CEO is waiting for them, gun in hand.

Luckily, while Zeke is trying to talk her down (and her Evil Speech of Evil is so Wolfram and Hart it isn’t even funny) Cassie manages to tackle her and as they struggle for the gun, it shoots the glass case with the ball of thread. Zeke makes a run for it but it was all a big fake out. He comes back for Cassie and they unravel the ball, destroying the labyrinth and escaping just in time. And that leaves the Minotaur to go hunt down the CEO and her cronies. So for a first mission without Flynn I think they did okay. Cassie tries to talk to Jake about their little argument but he is having a hard time explaining why he was so upset. He’s super smart but where he’s from that gets you beat up more than anything so he hides it. And he has a hard time trusting anyone. So he’ll work with Cassie but gaining that trust back is going to be hard. I look forward to the process. Overall I really enjoyed this episode. It had comedy, some nice character beats and a lot of random Angel nostalgia. I can’t wait to see what crazy adventure comes up next!

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