Episode Discussion - 3x09 - And the Fatal Separation

[fangirlishness]

Airdate: 15 Jan 2017 in the U.S.



(If you're reading this post months later and feel like jumping in, please do.)

Comments

[erinptah]

I kept tuning out while trying to watch this episode. Especially during the fight scenes.

It was great to see Charlene again. She had so many good lines. "Do you guys always do a recap before you go into a job? No wonder your missions take so long."

Flynn: "I'm not talking about second-rate evil, like people texting in movies."

DOSA gets retconned all the way back into the first season, oh joy. And they're making the rookie mistake of "the Librarians always show up when bad things happen, therefore the Librarians must be causing bad things." Like blaming fires on firefighters.

All their magic artifacts, Cassandra's whole new power level-up, and they couldn't have figured out some way to save Charlene? I call foul.

[mecca]

I kept tuning out while trying to watch this episode. Especially during the fight scenes.

I kinda did the same thing. It felt like a lot of things were happening yet nothing was really happening at all. A lot of running around with very little plot development. I remember during season 1 and 2, the second to the last episodes were so exciting and really built up to the finale. I'm not feeling as much excitement this time around.

It doesn't help when they keep dropping these truth bombs, like Charlene being Jenkins' long lost love, that feel like they put all of 5 minutes into coming up with the idea without considering whether it made sense or not.

It was great to see Charlene again. She had so many good lines.

I'm going to miss her no nonsense snark. I wish we could have seen more of her this season. They basically just brought her back just to turn around and kill her off. :/

I do wonder what Charlene said to Eve and why Eve seemed to be happy when Charlene's candle went out. They haven't addressed yet why Eve is supposed to be so special.

DOSA gets retconned all the way back into the first season, oh joy. And they're making the rookie mistake of "the Librarians always show up when bad things happen, therefore the Librarians must be causing bad things." Like blaming fires on firefighters.

D.O.S.A as the big bad has been a huge let down this season. Apparently they have so much power that they can orchestrate Eve joining the Library? Maybe if they hadn't portrayed D.O.S.A as being a bunch of incompetent M.I.B wannabes, I might feel like they were an actual threat.

This is random, but I can't decide which I dislike the more, Cassandra waving her hands around to turn on her abilities or her yelling "on"/"off" like she's trying to turn on some hidden media device in her living room. I hope they just let her do the thing next season without associating some gesture/command to it.

[meridian_rose]

I don't mind the hand waving; she actually "moves" things around as she visualises them so it makes sense to me (and better than her just staring blankly into space or something). Part of her synaesthesia if you will, to add a kinaesthetic aspect to her processing.

[dhampyresa]

they couldn't have figured out some way to save Charlene? I call foul.

I wonder if Stone's new found ability to "bring light where there was none" (iirc) will be related to the candles.

[fangirlishness]

I kept tuning out while trying to watch this episode. Especially during the fight scenes.

I actually skipped ahead a few times during the fight scenes, and I don't think I've ever done that on this show before.

DOSA gets retconned all the way back into the first season, oh joy.

Honestly, I was seething at this episode so much that it took me a week to come around here and comment on it.

It was great to see Charlene again.

It was, and while I don't feel a strong connection to her, Flynn's sadness felt real to me.

they couldn't have figured out some way to save Charlene? I call foul.

It felt very forced. Her reason for needing to leave was so vague, too. A total preventative measure, too. As if anyone like Charlene, used to fight for the Library, would just lay down their life just to prevent a possible situation that may or may not happen in the future. And it's not like she avoided any evildoing from Apep through it.

Or are we meant to believe that this is how she defeated this season's big bad? Anticlimactic much?

[meridian_rose]

Looked like it was mostly going to be a Jake episode, turned out to be just as much an Eve episode. How the hell did he survive that waterfall descent though? One line about a magical artefact/protective effect of Shambala would have satisifed me!

Cassandra and Ezekiel's undercover was quite fun.

When Eve was revealed as a sleeper agent, I thought maybe they meant "brainwashed so they don't know the truth until a trigger word activates them". Maybe there is something weirder going on. Please, Eve, after how many episodes of you learning you trust Jenkins, go and ASK JENKINS about ways to see if magic has been used on you.

I didn't see the movies preceeding the series so while I liked Charlene I wasn't that invested in her as a character as I might have been and so her departure wasn't as sad for me.

Poor Jenkins though. But you can't make someone love you (who is Charlene's actual love?)

I liked the action music when the librarians were battling to return the staff as the sun began to set.
Overall Frakes did a great job again.
Please can Cassandra go undercover more/have more formal events to attend? I love her outfits at these times. Everyone looked fantastic at the goodbye ritual for Charlene :D

[alesia]

I am pretty sure Judson was Charlene's love. They allude to it in one of the movies. It also explains some of Jenkins' animosity towards Judson. They have philosophical differences about what to do with the artifacts at the Library. Jenkins wants to experiment with them and understand how they work and Judson wanted to just preserve them. But adding in the fact they both wanted Charlene and only one of them got her provides even more reason for them to not like each other.

[meridian_rose]

Ah, thank you, that makes sense :)

[fangirlishness]

How the hell did he survive that waterfall descent though?

I kept expecting them to make it a magic door, but that wouldn't have worked, so... yeah, he's superhumanly strong, invulnerable, and now has a magic tattoo. We'll turn this show into a superhero show yet. I hear those are popular.

When Eve was revealed as a sleeper agent, I thought maybe they meant "brainwashed so they don't know the truth until a trigger word activates them".

Yeah, me, too.

I didn't see the movies preceeding the series so while I liked Charlene I wasn't that invested in her as a character as I might have been and so her departure wasn't as sad for me.

I keep wondering if this is the death they teased all season. I won't believe it until I see that nobody else dies tomorrow. I don't feel a strong connection to her, either. And let me tell you, there was almost nothing to get attached to in the movies, either, except one sweet scene where she tries to cheer up Flynn while being drunk. Otherwise, she was all "keep your receipts" and that was it. I never warmed up to her in the movies, either.

That said, I feel strongly connected to Flynn, so his crying moved me, and made me like that scene.

[meridian_rose]

If side-character rarely seen in three seasons is the death they teased I too call foul. But she isn't dead yet? The candle went out because the ritual severed from her connection the library, or that's what I took from it. Though the scene with Eve rather than Flynn or Jenkins watching the candle go out did give off a strange vibe.

[fangirlishness]

It took me almost a week to calm down enough to talk about this episode.

Let me just say: I was not impressed. Jake and the monkey king were the first thing I didn't like. Honestly? Asian stereotypes and turning the man into an actual monkey? And Jake is so good after two months that an age-old guardian of a sanctuary cannot teach him anything else? A staple of continuity this season is not. :(

The fake sunset bothered me a lot. It was obviously midday in most of the scenes.

Ezekiel and Cassandra in their undercover outfits looked awesome, and Cassandra's dialogue was pretty funny.

I didn't like any of Jake's fight scenes, but I liked that they at least remembered that Flynn prefers talking to fighting, and he did it this time, too. So his fight scenes were definitely my favorites in this episode.

I'm on the fence about Phil the dwarf(?) - I mean it's okay that he got to save the day at the end, but he was apparently not human? At least Charlene didn't treat him that way. It fell into the same category as the monkey king for me. Vaguely disturbing in the way it was written.

It's been mentioned in another comment that Jake is now apparently impervious to death by waterfall, in addition to being superhumanly strong and having a magic tattoo. Yeah, that's all normal.

I have to take back what I said about Jenkins's love in the last post. Of course Guinevere is not Galahad's love, but Lancelot's (his father's). Ooops. Eek. Well, in that case it can be Charlene. *g*

I am not sure what to think about Eve and DOSA. I can't say I like her and Flynn's first meeting being retconned. Not to mention that Flynn wasn't there for the WMD, anyway.

Oh yeah, and Charlene's death seemed like it could have been easily avoided. The last act was still the part of the episode I liked best. Mostly because I loved to see Flynn cry, so the scene managed to draw me in. That saved it from being completely kitschy.

I don't know if Charlene is now the death we've been teased with all season, but I can't say I'd complain if it was. I'm not saying anything else about this before the finale, though. They mentioned Flynn's suspiciously short candle again, after all.

It ain't over until it's over.

[meridian_rose]

The monkey king is an actual mythological figure (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Wukong) . I grew up watching the badly dubbed Monkey Magic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_(TV_series)) based on the legends and Buddhist & Taoist fables, so I was familiar with the idea of mythical half-man/half-animal heroes with the power to transform. It was a little overdone but they didn't invent the character.
On the other hand I didn't buy the two months training time either. I expected the king say say that time moved differently in Shambala and 2 months back home was a year there or something. Again, I'll accept magical excuses for plot shenanigans!
And the dwarf, yes, an invented almost feral creature. That was off.

Yes, the magic tattoo. I feel like Cassandra got superpowers through science, Jake's got magic ink, Eve's got a prophecy about her greatness, and Ezekiel...he's the best thief in the world and that's it. He's been badly served this season, with his episode about the cult giving him nothing but the hint of a love interest.

Flynn did bring a touch of sadness to the scene even if I wasn't really feeling it. I thought the ritual was severing her connection to the library thus ending her immortality, but not necessarily her life. The candles burn because they're linked to people connected to the library - you'd think snuffing that candle out/seeing it go out would have been part of the ritual. She stepped into the mirror but I thought it went somewhere else. She said it wasn't goodbye forever? So IDK.

I guess the final episode will give us more things to think on, especially with regards to Eve and Flynn.