The Librarians and the Heart of Darkness – Director: John Harrison/Writer: Geoffrey Thorne
This one starts in the Mitra region of Slovakia, where a girl runs out of a farmhouse covered in blood and freaking out. She sees an SUV approaching and flags it down. Of course, it’d Eve and the Librarians, who the girl (Katie Bender) tells to beware the house because it’s evil.
Katie tells them she and her friends were hiking in the woods and stumbled across the house, but when they in someone (or something) attacked them. Katie wants to go back and help her friends, which Jacob thinks is a bad idea.
The Librarians are there searching for broken ley lines, which Cassandra calculates are right where the creepy house sits. Jenkins warns them that broken ley lines could combine with a haunting to make some pretty intense magic. They have some magic scrolls that are supposed to anchor the broken ley lines, so Ezekiel gets that job while Eve and Jacob take point. Cassandra is upset about being left behind to look after Katie. Jacob recognizes the house as 18th century American farm-style, which he thinks is a weird thing to find in Slovakia. 
The house is trashed inside, but they make their way through and Ezekiel sets the scrolls. With one left to go, they hear something moving upstairs and the whole house starts shaking. When a knife levitates and almost hits Ezekiel, Eve orders a retreat and they get out just before the house is surrounded by magical energy. They do get the last anchor scroll set and Eve says it’s time for them to go in and find Katie’s friends. Once again, she tells Cassandra to stay outside with Katie, but Katie heads for the house on her own to find her friends.
They follow her in and hear the footsteps upstairs again. Eve, Jacob, and Ezekiel head up to check it out, leaving Katie and Cassandra (who’s really
getting pissed off now) behind again. They each search a room: Jacob finds some intriguing antiques (including an old crate-hammer), Ezekiel finds a bunch of shoes, and Eve finds some bloody clothing. Each of them also comes across a creepy old photo of a family standing outside this house with the faces torn away. Ezekiel doesn’t notice a bunch of hands reaching out for him from the closet, but Eve does see a vision of Katie’s friends being menaced by a dark figure in a robe. 
When Katie sees her friends’ bloody clothing she freaks out and Eve sends Cassandra to take care of her. Eve calls Jenkins, who tells her that the haunted house from all the urban legends and horror stories is actually just one house … and it’s the one they’re currently in. As if to confirm his words, we see the cloaked figure manifest upstairs.
Jenkins tells Eve there are six haunted house paradigms and he figures they’re in the Shatterbox, a house that appears somewhere, takes some victims, then vanishes to reappear elsewhere. He says the Shatterbox has
been taking victims for over a hundred years and that once it kills someone, they can’t be recovered (which means Katie’s friends are gone forever). But they may be able to stop the house from killing anyone else if they can destroy the Dark Heart of the house … but they have to do it before midnight. As Jacob and Ezekiel look for the Dark Heart, Katie tells Eve that she and her friends were attacked by a cloaked man who seemed to appear and disappear like smoke. Jacob finds 
the crate-hammer in a different place and really gets worried when it disappears. Ezekiel finds a dollhouse-sized model of the real house and promptly vanishes. Jacob suggests they burn the house down, but Katie says they can’t just write off their friends. Eve tries to come up with a plan but is interrupted by an old gramophone appearing out of nowhere and playing a creepy song. When Eve tries to smash it, she’s thrown against the wall.
Fiery letters on the wall spell out Katie’s name, freaking her out. Eve tells Cassandra to get Katie back to the Annex , overruling Cassandra’s protests by pointing out she’s a thinker not a fighter. Outside, Cassandra’s feeling
useless and tells Katie about her tumour and how she betrayed her friends. Katie points out that Eve must trust Cassandra to take care of her, so Katie trusts her too. Before they can leave, the SUV is attacked and smashed by the cloaked figure, forcing Cassandra and Katie to run back into the house. Upstairs, Eve and Jacob find more things moved around and when they hear Cassandra and Katie come in, Eve goes to see what’s up. Before Jacob can follow, he vanishes just like Ezekiel did. Eve, Cassandra, and Katie block the door to keep the cloaked killer out 
and Eve goes looking for Jacob. She gets frustrated and asks the house what it wants, prompting a manifestation of Katie’s name written in blood. Jacob finds himself inside the dollhouse with Ezekiel, who seem to be taking things in stride. He’s figured out that the house can grant wishes and points out some photos on the wall, showing the house in various incarnations going back centuries. Jacob realizes their conclusions about the house were completely wrong.
Downstairs, the cloaked figure gets inside and Eve tries to fight it (and gets knocked around), while Cassandra and Katie run outside. Cassandra urges
Katie to get away while she goes back to help her friends, but Katie seems confused, thinking they’re in either Texas or Nevada and calling Cassandra by the wrong name. Cassandra soon realizes that Katie is the one who’s been killing people (for decades) and now wants to kill her. Cassandra heads back inside (followed closely by Katie) and finds Eve’s gun. She sees someone dragging Eve upstairs and 
follows, while Katie comes in and starts taunting her, saying how she and her family killed people but she was the only one who could hear the house whispering and realized it could grant her wishes. Cassandra can’t hear the house, but she can get feelings from it and figures out the house was once a place for happy families, until Katie and her murderous family ruined it. Now the house wants to get rid of Katie, but hasn’t been able to.
Cassandra hides and jumps Katie, stabbing her with her own knife. But when Cassandra tries to take off, the cloaked figure appears and Katie
comes after her again. Cassandra asks the house for help and the crate-hammer appears in her hand. She tells Katie she’s more familiar with death than anyone because of her tumour and kills Katie with the crate-hammer, making her crumble into dust. Cassandra passes out and when she wakes up she finds the house in much better shape and a Thank You card addressed to her. The others are fine (although Eve is banged up a bit) and Cassandra explains to them that this 
is actually the House of Refuge and its mission is to help people. It got stuck with Katie and her family, but it won’t make that mistake again. The spirit of the house manifests and fixes their SUV and Jenkins informs them Katie and her family were the Bloody Benders, a family of serial killers that disappeared after killing a bunch of people in the 1800s. As they drive away, the dollhouse appears in the back of the SUV.
This was a pretty good episode, tying in the the old cliché of the haunted house with real-life serial killers the Bloody Benders (who were the family in the creepy photos they all found). The camera keeps tilting while they’re in the house, showing the disorientation they’re all
feeling and the reveal of Katie as the killer was well done. It was also cool to see them starting out thinking they were in the Shatterbox, but finding out it’s really the House of Refuge corrupted by Katie’s evil presence. We also get a list of all the haunted house prototypes: the Shatterbox, the House of Refuge, the Ur-Adobe, the Soul Cage, the Final Rest (destroyed in 1350), and the Dionaea House. The list comes from a multimedia story by Eric Heisserer called Dionaea House.
Favourite Quotes:
- “This is me ignoring you … get used to it.” Eve letting Ezekiel know his bullshit isn’t appreciated.
- “Why is it always midnight/ Who makes these rules?” Ezekiel asking a legitimate question.
- “God, I want something to shoot!” Eve expressing frustration at the lack of targets.