The magical quandary
this episode is a town where everyone is old. Worse, The Librarians made
the Florida joke before I could!
So the whole town has
been artificially aged and it’s time to investigate why with lots of questions
and investigations with all five of the main gang going to the town (ok I know
many will disagree but I kind of love that Flynn manages to make the “We’re
Librarians” line work when Stone and everyone else never can). We also have a
nice small moment of Cassandra being almost intrigued by aging since she’s
finally considering the possibility for herself now she’s not facing terminal
illness any more.
The gang is attacked
by some creepy monsters and are saved by a very dramatic man: a very dramatic
man called Derrington Dare who calls himself the Librarian
I’m all ready to call
imposter but it turns out we have a genuine time travelling Librarian. I then
cringed and expected lots of posturing between Flynn and Dare - but it turns
out Flynn is a complete and utter fanboy of Dare’s, having read his Library
record and clearly stylising a lot of his persona and technique on Dare’s. His
fanboiing is both cringeworthy and cute - and Eve is wonderfully clear in tolerating
his silliness.The other Librarians are less amused that Dare considers them
“assistants” and it’s annoying that that’s pretty much how they’re considered
for this whole episode.
The aging is caused
by Dare’s nemesis, Ambrose Gethic. It seems Dare and Gethic have been fighting
each other for pretty much ever to the extent that it consumes both of their
lives. Gethic was the one who created a time travel portal which Dare followed
him through. As Dare recounts his story, Flynn also realises that Dare is close
to the date of his death - when he goes back he dies tomorrow. Cue angsty
“can’t alter the time line” trope.
There’s lots more
adorkable fanpoodling from Flynn and when they go to the Library, Dare keeps
calling Jenkins “Galahad” which is always cool. But Dare also has a problem: 4
librarians. He reveals some secret history which Jenkins has kept hidden
(Jenkins is kind of repentant but not very): the last time there were 2
librarians (many many centuries ago) they went to war and because of that the
Library was cut from the world, cutting off human curiosity and learning and
wonder: which caused the Dark Ages
Ok let’s poke this.
First of all, the “Dark Ages” are a terribad eurocentric term which should
never be used unless you’re only talking about Europe. While Dark Ages Europe
had relatively little “progress” (little but not none), the Middle East, China
and more were quite happily chugging along with lots of this curiosity and
learning and wonder stuff. The Library, as a world wide institution, needs to
recognise that
