The Librarians and the Broken Staff – Director: Marc Roskin/Writers: Alexa Alemanni, Joe Boothe, Holly Moyer
This one continues from last episode, with everyone gathering in the Annex after dissipating the storm. Flynn is still bothered that Eve didn’t let him go charging after Prospero, but she reminds him it’s better to stick with a plan. Flynn isn’t thrilled about having to share Eve with the other Librarians, since he’s gotten to enjoy their alone time. Elsewhere, Prospero manifests in a library through a copy of the Tempest.
Flynn and Jenkins fill everyone in on Prospero and figure he’ll try to retrieve his staff (which he broke in the original play) now that he has his book.
They all scatter to look for various ways of stopping him, while Flynn deduces where they might find the broken pieces of the original staff and asks Eve to come with him. Prospero summons Moriarty (zapping him with power when he talks back too much) and we soon realize the library they manifested in is the Reading Room of the actual Library when Jenkins walks in on them. Flynn and Eve go to England to the 
ruins of John Dee’s castle. Dee was a magician and a friend of Shakespeare’s, so Flynn figures he might’ve hid Prospero’s staff there. With some help from Eve, Flynn realizes the staff is hidden under the old stage. In the Annex, a security alert goes off, locking out access to the Library and Ezekiel (who’s read the security manual) knows that means someone forced Jenkins to use the alert code … and that someone can only be Prospero.
In the Reading Room, Moriarty deduces Jenkins is a Knight of the Round Table, so he won’t be easily cowed. Prospero reveals that he’s not after his original—now broken—staff, but a new one, forged from the same wood.
That wood comes from the Tree of Knowledge, which lies at the Heart of the Library, and that’s what they need Jenkins for. In the Annex, Ezekiel tells Cassandra and Jacob that Jenkins actually set off the lowest possible security alert, probably to make Prospero think he’s playing along with him. Ezekiel says there’s a back door into the Library at … the local library. In England, Eve figures out how to open the box containing the staff, but the staff isn’t there, only a note from a 
previous Librarian saying they took it. At the local library, Ezekiel and the others find the book they’re looking for (Complete Works of Shakespeare) has just been checked out by a young girl. She agrees to let them have the book for $75. In the Reading Room, Jenkins lets it slip that the Library’s Heart is in a separate dimensional plane, so Prospero and Moriarty get Ariel to lead them to the gateway (after freezing Jenkins solid).
Flynn and Eve return to the Annex and Cassandra cancels the alert so they
can go after Prospero. He’s anticipated that and summoned a couple more characters from books to slow them down. Eve frees Jenkins and he admits he screwed up by telling Prospero where to find the Heart. Jenkins also admits that the Library has been a little off lately, with missing artifacts and shifting rooms and hallways, so he isn’t sure how to get into the Heart. Using the rooms that 
haven’t shifted, they figure out a way to find the elevator to the heart by triangulation. Jenkins tells Cassandra he kept the Library problems secret because he blamed himself for not being as good as Judson at keeping things up. In the Antiquities Room, things are all mixed up and Flynn tells Ezekiel that Greek and Roman artifacts mixing could blow up the whole Library.
Jacob and Eve set up in the Reading Room and are attacked by the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. In the Antiquities Room, Ezekiel wears a
lot of magical armour so he can get Zeus’s Thunderbolt. It works but they’re confronted by Frankenstein’s Monster (the articulate one from the book, not the movie version). He’s ready to kill them until they convince him he could be a sports star or an online sensation after a little plastic surgery. Eve and Jacob trick the Queen 
into striking at a mirror image of herself, which turns her into a pack of playing cards. The teams successfully triangulate to find the Heart, but Ezekiel and Jacob have to stay behind to steady the transits, so only Flynn and Eve get inside. They start looking for the Tree of Knowledge, but it’s difficult because the Heart is actually a forest. Flynn says he’ll know the right Tree when he sees it, but Prospero has Ariel to guide him.
Eve gives Flynn shit for not planning enough, which is bleeding over into their relationship. They find the Tree, but Prospero and Moriarty show up right away. Eve grabs the watch containing Ariel and takes off, pursued by
Moriarty. She threatens to toss the watch off a cliff, which makes Moriarty pause since his original story has him dying by falling off a cliff. Moriarty offers Eve a deal, saying he’ll take the watch to Prospero but at least they won’t have to fight. Eve agrees to the deal. Prospero tricks Flynn into revealing which of the many trees is the Tree of Knowledge, but before he can harvest a new staff from it, Flynn uses 
Zeus’s Thunderbolt to burn the Tree to a crisp. Prospero vanishes, but Flynn reveals to Eve that he tricked Prospero by burning some random tree, not the actual Tree of Knowledge (which is a rather small thing, kinda like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree). They head back to see Jenkins, who has secured the Library. Eve and Flynn argue over what to do next and he decides to go after the missing artifacts while Eve and the others stay behind to protect the Library.
This is a pretty good episode, where the Librarians thwart part of Prospero’s plan. It’s nice to see Eve solving puzzles instead of just being the muscle, and I like the interplay between the other three. It seems like Flynn
and Eve’s relationship has cooled a bit, but him going out after the artifacts might just be a way of getting him out of the way, since Noah Wylie was only available for a few episodes a season. I liked how they used logic to defeat the Frankenstein monster (it kinda had a Young Frankenstein vibe to it) and he kid extorting them for the library book was funny. Of course, there are other mysteries to solve now (like a room with no key that keeps shifting and the cryptic note from whatever Librarian took the original staff), so maybe we’ll see some of those solved during the upcoming season. I still think Moriarty will end up betraying Prospero; he’s too proud (or arrogant) to be a mere lackey for long.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Shakespeare had a friend who was a magician? Kinda buried the lede there.” Eve’s reaction on hearing John Dee was a pal of the Bard.
- “Uh, it’s the twenty-first century, I don’t know how to shoe a horse either.” Ezekiel’s response when Jacob gives him shit for not knowing how to use a card catalogue.
- “Okay, there’s a difference.” Eve realizing the Queen of Hearts is much more homicidal than the Red Queen from Through the Looking Glass.