In “And the Happily Ever Afters,” The Librarians ramped up to the final confrontation with Prospero (which I still don’t care about) and delivered us a look at everyone’s greatest wishes.
Spoilers.
We pick up right where last week left off: with something major happening and Jenkins just sort of walking it off. When Flynn shows up, bearing the last missing Library artifact, it strikes him as odd that Jenkins doesn’t remember Baird, Jake, Cassandra, or Ezekiel. It strikes him as even odder that, once he finds all four, they don’t remember the Library.
Instead, they’ve all got brand-new histories and lives on the island of Cicely, pop. 2,000. Eve retired from the military to be the sheriff of a small town, letting her settle down. Jake’s a professor at the world-famous University of Cecily. He teaches art, history, art history, literature, architecture, archeology, mythology, comparative religion, and Egyptology. And he also saves world heritage sites from tomb raiders. Yeah.
This is fairly ridiculous, but Cassandra is Commander Killian, “local physicist, astronaut, and TV star.” She also has ponies. The ponies are kind of a hint that we’re stuck in wish-fulfillment mode. And somehow, the ponies are less ridiculous than Ezekiel Jones, FBI AGENT. “I’m a rule-breaking maverick, But I get results.”
The rule-breaking maverick in action.
I’ve had problems with Flynn in the past, but his reactions to all of this stuff is amazing. “That makes no sense, it’s the opposite of sense, it’s nonsense!” and his flailing is pretty great, as is the joyful way everyone says “Moriarty!” like he’s Norm from Cheers.
Needless to say, Flynn figures out that Prospero trapped them all in a “happy ever after” spell that offers them more and more of whatever they want to keep them inside. And then it turns out Flynn was also trapped since his happy ever after is single-handedly saving the day. They break free only to see that Prospero has *yawn* supercharged the ley lines or something.
I don’t care about Prospero. I do care about Ariel, who we meet this episode and is delightful. She’s not fictional, she’s a real Fey that Prospero has trapped. She’s powerful and terrified and her presence single-handedly makes Prospero actually look like a threat.
More interesting than any of that is what most tempts them all. Eve apparently longs for a normal life and a normal relationship. So does Moriarty, who is content as the mayor of Cicely and Eve’s boyfriend. Of course, the second Flynn’s able to get the team back on his side, he’s leading a mob after them. This Moriarty is less “super-genius” than “semi-charming bruiser.”
It makes total sense that Jake is lured by the promise of being world-renowned in the fields that he’s spent most of his life pretending he knew nothing about. We saw earlier this season why he did that—his father—but this reality had it all worked out for him. Same deal with Cassandra, who’s condition left her cut off and alone, a genius with no way to use it.
I can’t actually analyze Ezekiel’s dream world. I have no explanation. He’s a thief and has been so confident in how happy and great he is. So for him to go to the other side is either proof that, deep down, he likes saving the day or that this was a joke too funny to pass up.
What works for all of them is that their happy endings still involve working together as a team. They own a bar and they team up and they help Cicely fight art crime. When the spell tries overcorrecting by offering them more and greater power, fame, etc., it loses them by breaking them up. Flynn’s dream is single-handedly saving the day—eventually he’s not going to belong here anymore.
And last season, I’d be happy about that. This episode, when Flynn tried to explain that their lives made more sense, only to be told that the more he argued, the more they’d believe, was hilarious... as was his delivery of “Your lives make total sense.”
The best the blue glow can come up with is “secret helicopter.”
I’m giving honorary mentions to “The totem’s huge. How did they take it? I think... I think they have a helicopter” from an enchanted Baird and Ariel’s self-introduction as “very unhappy to still be here” as lines of the week. The delivery of both makes them dead-on perfect representations of the humor this show always has. “Your lives make total sense” wins the day, though.
Contact the author at katharine@io9.com.