The Librarians and the Crown of King Arthur – Director: Dean Devlin/Writer: John Rogers
Welcome to my first review of The Librarians, a show I watched when it first aired (except the final season) but haven’t seen since, so I’m looking forward to revisiting it. This one starts in Berlin with Colonel Eve Baird leading a counter-terrorist team searching for a small nuclear bomb that some terrorists are planning to set off. Eve’s team finds the terrorists and engages in a firefight, while Eve chases the two guys who have the bomb. She confronts them but not
until after they’ve activated the nuke. The tense situation is interrupted when Flynn Carsen makes an unexpected entrance through a tunnel. Turns out Flynn’s not there because of the nuke, he’s looking for something called the Opal of Samarra, which he says can re-animate every corpse within miles as a flesh-eating zombie. While Flynn deactivates the traps protecting the Opal, he helps Eve deactivate the nuke. She impresses him with her knowledge of Bible verses and he helps her take out the last terrorist before introducing himself as the Librarian and disappearing as soon as her back is turned.
The next day in New York, a guy (Jonas Sheir) calls the Library looking for 
Flynn and shows up outside, even though the Library’s very existence is supposed to be secret. Before Flynn can talk to the guy, he’s stabbed in the lobby of the New York Public Library, dropping his papers all over the place … one of which (about a medieval painting) Flynn retrieves. Elsewhere, Eve is told to take a month’s leave after her wild story about being helped by a librarian in Berlin, but judging by her rather Spartan apartment, Eve doesn’t have much of a life outside her job. So when a white envelope is shoved under her door inviting her to the Library (in self-writing script), she decides to check it out. At the
Public Library, Eve meets Charlene, who takes her in a secret elevator deep below the city to the real Library, which is full of magical artifacts that are stored there to keep them out of the hands of anyone who might misuse them. Eve meets Flynn again and Charlene says she’s been invited to be his Guardian, something Flynn’s not happy about since he’s gotten along fine without a Guardian for ten years. But it’s the Library itself that chooses the Guardian, so Flynn can’t really argue.
Eve meets Judson, the former Librarian who trained Flynn and who died five 
years ago but whose spirit now resides in a full-length mirror. Eve is reluctant to be the new Guardian, but Judson convinces her she’d be helping people like she does now, except in a more specialized way. Flynn is trying to figure out who killed Dr. Sheir and with Eve’s help soon realizes that Sheir was a potential Librarian candidate. They quickly find that a bunch of other potential Librarians have been killed, but three people on the list (who didn’t respond to their invitations) are still alive. One of the three (Cassandra Cillian) works at a hospital in New
York, so Flynn goes to find her, with Eve tagging along. Cassandra turns out to be a genius synesthete currently working as a cleaner, who shows off her abilities by correcting the misdiagnosis of a patient. (Synesthesia is a condition that produces sensory hallucinations linked to memory retrieval.) Flynn lets Cassandra know she might be in danger and he and Eve agree to split up to find the other two candidates.
Flynn goes to Geneva where one candidate (Ezekiel Jones) is using his 
genius to steal something from a museum. Flynn is familiar with Ezekiel and can’t believe the Library would consider him as a possible Librarian, but he saves Ezekiel from someone trying to stab him. Ezekiel goes ahead with his heist but sets off the alarms, so he accepts Flynn’s offer to get him out of the museum (and to help find out who wants him dead). In Oklahoma, Jacob Stone is an oil rig worker who’s secretly a genius, especially in the field of art history. A mysterious
woman (Lamia) gets hit on by every guy in the bar but says she’ll only talk to the guy who can tell her what her tattoo means. Jacob deciphers the writing as a Latin version of Yeats’s Second Coming, which tells Lamia he’s the one she’s after. She and a bunch of ninjas try to kill Jacob, but Eve shows up in time to help him get away.
Eve brings the candidates to the Library where they’re all astonished to 
learn that magic actually exists. (And we learn that Cassandra’s synesthesia has caused a brain tumour that will kill her within a few years.) Flynn explains how the world used to be full of magic connected by ley lines, but technology has forced most magic out of the world, leaving only a few artifacts that unscrupulous people want to use for their own ends. When Flynn hears about Lamia, he realizes she’s part of the Serpent Brotherhood, a secret society that wants to bring magic back to the world so they can control it and rule the entire planet. Jacob
recognizes the painting as depicting the Crown of King Arthur, which the Serpent Brotherhood could use to control any revitalized magic. Ezekiel knows the painting is in a Munich museum, but Flynn doesn’t want any help checking it out. Too bad for him that Eve insists on going to Munich and taking the others along. Judson tells Flynn he shouldn’t be afraid to get help instead of trying to do everything by himself.
In Munich, Eve spots Lamia and her thugs and takes them out one by one 
while the others examine the painting. They quickly realize it’s a fake, meant as a message which leads them outside to a sundial that points them to the Black Forest. Lamia and her men catch up quickly, since they’re using a helicopter and Flynn’s team is in a truck. Flynn and Eve realize they have a lot in common, since they both live for their jobs to the exclusion of everything else. They find a henge in a clearing and Flynn sends Eve and Ezekiel to stall Lamia’s crew while he and the others decipher the clues. Thanks to Cassandra, they figure out where the Crown is hidden, and Jacob helps bring Cassandra back when she almost
gets overwhelmed by her sensations. Flynn uses a makeshift torch to cut into the vault holding the Crown and retrieve it, while Eve and Ezekiel blow up Lamia’s helicopter. They return the Crown to the Library and Flynn is ready to send the others on their way. Cassandra points out that if anything happens to Flynn, one of them would probably be chosen Librarian (since all the other candidates are dead).
They’re interrupted by a perimeter breach, with Lamia and her ninjas busting into the Library to get the Crown. As the others scatter to warn Charlene and evade the ninjas, Flynn realizes Lamia must’ve had inside 
help to get through the defenses. Charlene asks Judson’s spirit to help defend the Library but he says he’ll need her help and she starts glowing. Flynn is disappointed when the mole turns out to be Cassandra. Lamia promised her they would use magic to cure her tumour, so she let them in and gave Lamia the Crown, which enables her to take control of Excalibur from Flynn. She stabs him and takes off, leaving Flynn bleeding from Excalibur’s wound that can’t be healed. Lamia takes off with Cassandra, telling her men to finish Flynn off.
This is a pretty good intro to the series, letting us meet the new characters (Eve, Ezekiel, Cassandra, and Jacob) and learn a bit about them while still
leaving some mystery about each one. For instance, how long before Cassandra’s tumour kills her? What’s with Ezekiel’s “other” FBI file? And why would Jacob rather work in an oil field than use his gifts doing something he obviously enjoys? It was cool to see Eve kicking some ass and the parallels between her and Flynn are interesting, possibly hinting at a romance between them. It was nice to see Charlene and Judson back from the movies, but it’s too bad some of Charlene’s scenes were cut during the fight at the end …we would’ve 
learned that she was a Guardian too and seen her pound some bad guys (which is why her sleeve is torn when she’s talking to Judson). There was some good humour in the episode too, including the prosciutto cutting torch (which apparently could actually work in real life … as could all of Cassandra’s esoteric math). I’m looking forward to the next episode to see how Flynn survives Excalibur’s unhealable wound.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Start with don’t … start with don’t!” Eve’s response to Flynn belatedly warning her not to touch the blue wire on the bomb.
- “That’s what I said.” Eve’s reply when Jacob expresses incredulity at a ninja attack in Oklahoma.
- “Little lady actually not an improvement over maid.” Cassandra’s reaction to Jacob defending her from Ezekiel’s dismissiveness with his own brand of condescension.