The Librarians and the Hidden Sanctuary – Director: Noah Wyle/Writer: Kate Rorick
This one starts 27 years ago with some kids riding their bikes through the woods. One of them gets left behind and he stumbles across a fairy (that kinda looks like Tinkerbell) stuck to a metal license plate, so he frees her.
We jump to the present (more or less), with the Librarians fighting Incan cultists in a tomb in Ecuador. Things are looking bleak and Cassandra is
under pressure to solve a puzzle and save everyone, but the stress gets to be overwhelming. We see Cassandra back in the Library waking up from her nightmare and still stressing about how she froze up and almost got everyone killed. (Luckily Ezekiel found a way out of the tomb.) She tells Jenkins she was scared because now that her tumour is gone she faces the possibility of a long life and doesn’t want 
anything to shorten it. Jenkins urges her to figure out her purpose in life and whether or not it includes the Library. Cassandra decides to take some time off and heads to Havenport, Ohio, which advertises itself as the Safest Town in America. The others are sorry to see her go, but realize she has to figure things out for herself.
Havenport is an idyllic town, almost too perfect, with a record for no accidents that stretches back 10,000 days. Cassandra rents a room from a woman named Karla, whose son Freddy isn’t too thrilled that his mom
won’t let him go to the neighbouring town on his bike. Apparently, she thinks staying in Havenport is safer, but Cassandra soon sees that the town’s safety is almost preternatural. In defiance of that, Cassandra is nearly hit by a car but is caught in time by a local Councilman named Weeks. He stresses the town’s safety record and gets distracted when Karla show up (he definitely has a thing for her). Cassandra gravitates toward the local library and the librarian (Penelope) immediately wants to hire her. After a 
phone call from Jenkins (with terrible reception), Cassandra learns from Freddy that the town is usually one big dead zone for electronics. He tells her there’s something weird about the town in general, but Cassandra isn’t interested in investigating strange phenomena for once. She distracts Freddy by trying to get him into reading, but he takes her urgency as a hint that his theories about the town are correct and he goes home to read The Time Machine.
Cassandra is hired and starts putting her own personality on the library, impressing everyone including Weeks. He encourages Cassandra to attend the town meeting, but he starts acting weird after getting a paper cut. We
see him looking at a snow globe (just like the one the kid had in the teaser) and he gets worried when a crack develops in the globe’s surface. Karla worries about Freddy’s new inquisitiveness since he’s started reading more and tells Cassandra how scared she used to be and how safe she feels now that they live in Havenport. Freddy shows Cassandra his conspiracy room where he’s been tracking all the weirdness in town, especially the unnatural good luck the townspeople seem to have. It not only keeps them from 
having accidents, it prevents physical harm on any kind, which Freddy demonstrates rather graphically to Cassandra. She realizes there must be some kind of magical barrier around the town that keeps everyone inside safe, but can’t figure out what’s causing it. She’s reluctant to pry too much, not wanting to lose the sense of security she has here, but Freddy points out that it’s false anyway since everybody is so afraid of losing it.
A sudden spate of accidents freaks everyone out and they blame Cassandra since she’s the newcomer. She realizes it is kinda her fault because she
pierced the magical barrier by using the Back Door from the Library to enter the town. The townspeople come after her and her first instinct is to run, but Freddy convinces her to stay and figure things out. Looking at Freddy’s pictures, Cassandra realizes there is a fairy present whenever anything strange happens, so she and Freddy go to the library to research fairies. Cassandra figures they can attract the fairy by staging an accident and use some iron filings to slow it down enough to follow it. The fairy goes back to Weeks’s snow globe and he tells them how he rescued her decades ago and she granted him a wish … 
that nobody in town would ever get hurt again. He’s ready to kill Cassandra to keep things going, so she and Freddy grab the globe and take off, running right into the townspeople. Freddy accuses Weeks of being the one behind everything and smashes the globe, freeing the fairy … who’s really pissed off at being forced to save all these humans from their own stupidity for the last 27 years.
They take refuge in the town hall and the townsfolk turn on Weeks until Freddy points out they’re all equally to blame since they all ignored the
obvious impossibility of what was going on just to keep their sense of security intact. Everyone turns to Cassandra for help and she feels overwhelmed again, but this time she overcomes it by admitting to herself that her calling is as a Librarian. She comes up with a plan to trap the fairy in a wrought-iron gazebo and with the help of some of the other townsfolk, it works. The fairy is still ready to waste Weeks, but Cassandra points out 
she owes Freddy a wish for freeing her from he sow globe. He wishes the fairy could feel fear like humans do and that convinces her that the people have suffered enough and she takes off. Cassandra says goodbye and heads back to the Library, certain that her life is more meaningful because of the risks she takes trying to help people.
This is a really good episode, but I suppose I’m biased because Cassandra is my favourite character. She’s in the spotlight here and it’s cool to see her existential crisis pushing her away from the Library but her instinctive drive
for knowledge and for helping people eventually drawing her back. I am kinda surprised she didn’t go to visit Estrella for some stress relief. (Yes, I know I keep harping on that, but they make such a cute couple). Freddy is cool too and Cassandra hints that he could be a future Librarian himself. The solution to dealing with the fairy by having her feel fear (which humans deal with every day) was good. There wasn’t as much humour this episode but we got a few funny moments, like Cassandra’s low-key rivalry with Sylvia (the resident baking/quilting champ) and Jenkins finding out he needs glasses.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Which, come to think of it, are perfectly legitimate questions.” Cassandra’s reply when Karla mentions Freddy asking why there are no accidents in town or why there’s no Fire Department.