The Librarians and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy – Director: Dean Devlin/Writer: Tom MacRae
This one starts with Eve, Jacob, and Ezekiel waking up in a weird cave soaking wet and with no memory of how they got there, or why Cassandra is missing. (Although Ezekiel is sure he remembers pizza, so that’s something at least.) Their phones are fried and they meet a cleaning woman (Nina) who seems just as confused as they are. Eve has an hourglass, but has no idea where she got it or what it means.
A strange noise echoes through the caves, hurting their ears but making Eve remember something … pizza! We get a flashback to a restaurant in Las
Vegas, with the team unwinding after a mission (with Ezekiel showing them some gold coins he “acquired” in the pyramid they just explored). The others are worried about Eve being lonely after Flynn took off, which she thinks is kinda sweet. She shows them a gift someone left for her earlier that day, a battered metal compact mirror (which she thinks is useless, so she’s glad none of them left it for her). The lights go out and everyone freezes except Eve and the Librarians. A 
freaky-looking dude in a cloak shows up and drops a cube and an hourglass (yes, the same one) on the table, telling Eve that something will happen tonight. They take the cube and hourglass to Jenkins, who says the guy is the Grim Reaper and Eve is apparently his next target. She has until the sand in the hourglass runs out to live (and turning it over doesn’t stop it from running). Jenkins also says the box is a Prophecy Cube, which can show someone’s fate.
Back in the present, the Reaper is stalking them through the cave network, letting Eve know he’ll be there when her time runs out. While searching for
an exit, they run into a guy named Tyson who’s on the swim team at Mayfield High (where Nina works), as well as the school’s principal, Fairbrother. Seeing Tyson (who has two pairs of swim goggles with him for some reason) triggers another flashback. In the Annex, Eve is speculating on who could be powerful enough to send the Reaper after her. Jenkins tells them the Prophecy Cube 
will show her a vision of her death but cautions her not to look, since the cube comes from the Oracle at Delphi and has the markings of Perseus on it. That suggests that Eve’s fate, like that of Perseus, could be brought about by trying to avoid it, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Eve ignores his advice and sees herself being killed by the Reaper in the Library.
The obvious solution is to leave the Library, but Jenkins says this is the one place that she’ll be safe from the Reaper because of all the magical protections on the place. The Clippings Book shows them a story about a
high school in Seattle where 17 students had impossibly good luck in sports, academics, and even winning the state lottery. They figure Eve will be protected from the Reaper there, so they head to Mayfield High. In the tunnels, the Reaper catches up to them but can’t kill Eve until her appointed time, leaving them free to look for a way out. Jacob remembers more about how they got there and why Cassandra is missing, which means it’s time for another flashback. They arrive at Mayfield High and meet Tyson, but Principal Fairbrother is suspicious of them (especially since the usual “we’re the Librarians” mojo 
doesn’t work). Cassandra convinces him they’re with the school board and he eventually admits that all the “lucky” students are on the swim team. They check the pool and find magical residue, but even more interesting is that Tyson won a trip to Greece and brought back some water from Mount Parnassus … water that’s supposed to be magical. They find out the swim team’s goggles are magic and show the future, which explains all the great test scores and the lottery wins. Jacob sees a vision of himself with a black eye going through a door with medusa carved into it, while Ezekiel sees himself (horror!) donating one of his gold coins to a museum.
They send Cassandra back to the Annex to test the goggles, but as soon as she leaves the Reaper shows up. While trying to run from him, Eve, Jacob,
Ezekiel, Tyson, and Principal Fairbrother are pulled into the pool by ghostly hands. That brings us back to the beginning, when they woke up in the tunnels soaking wet. Eve uses Tyson’s goggles to see how to find the exit, but as soon as they get through a barrier falls, cutting them off from each other. Jacob, Ezekiel, and Tyson go one way, while Eve, Fairbrother, and Nina (who’s still soaked even though all the others are dry) go another. Eve’s team finds two doors and a 
warning in Greek that one door leads to the exit, while the other leads to certain death. Jacob’s team finds a room with Greek letters on the floor and a cryptic message in Greek saying the room is the Zeus Challenge which will blast them with a thunderbolt if they step on the wrong square. The message also mentions gold leading the way, so they figure they can toss the gold coins Ezekiel stole onto the squares to see which is right.
Cassandra and Jenkins come to the high school to look for the others and find another prophecy cube in the pool. In the tunnels, Eve realizes her time
hasn’t run out yet, so whichever door she picks will be safe. Jacob has to convince Ezekiel to sacrifice the gold coins, but self-preservation wins out over greed and he uses them to find the correct path across the floor. When he has only one left, he realizes whatever path he chooses will be right, since he had the vision of donating the coin to a museum. At the Annex, Cassandra figures out that a self-fulfilling prophecy can be broken by outside interference, or by a 
bigger self-fulfilling prophecy enveloping the first one. Jenkins tells the story of how the Delphi Oracle was prophesied to die herself, murdered by one of her 33 priestesses, so she made 33 new prophecy cubes showing each priestess murdered on their wedding nights. She then married each of them and killed them all, saving herself. So if they can come up with a bigger prophecy than the death of a Guardian, they can still save Eve.
In the tunnels, both teams find a room full of weapons and both see a vision of the other attacking them, so when they meet in the room they’re ready to fight until Tyson points out the obvious: the only reason they’re fighting is
because they think they’re meant to, but they can just choose not to fight. Jacob notices the medusa door he saw in his vision, but is reluctant to open it because he doesn’t have a black eye yet. In the Annex, Cassandra checks the new cube and finds it contains a prophecy about the Oracle of Delphi’s own death, which will come when she next bathes in the waters of Parnassus. In the weapons room, Jacob finally opens the door (giving himself a black eye in the process) and they flee the oncoming Reaper but find themselves at a dead end. Eve realizes that Nina 
still hasn’t dried off yet and that she knows about the Prophecy Glass in the goggles. Nina reveals herself as the Oracle of Delphi, there to cheat her own prophecy of death by giving Eve to the Reaper instead. The Oracle also reveals that they’re inside her Prophecy Cube, which Jenkins and Cassandra brought back to the Annex … meaning Eve is technically in the Library and can therefore be killed by the Reaper.
The Oracle explains that she fled to Seattle to escape the prophecy, but bathing in the pool left a magical residue that gave Tyson his lucky trip to
Greece and imbued the goggles with foresight, but of course Tyson brought back the water from Parnassus to put into the pool, thus fulfilling the original prophecy about the Oracle. That’s why she set up Eve; as long as the Oracle doesn’t dry out completely she can’t die, which is why she keeps spritzing herself. Eve realizes she won’t die if the cube is removed from the Library, but Jenkins and Casandra can’t hear her yelling from inside it. She uses the compact to signal them 
and they throw the cube through the back door into the Australian desert, shattering it and stopping the prophecy of Eve’s death from coming true. But the Reaper can’t be denied, so he takes the Oracle after the desert air dries her off. Later, Eve wonders who sent her the compact and Jenkins says the Library did; it’s the Guardian’s job to protect the Librarians, but it’s the Library’s job to protect the Guardian.
This was a pretty good episode, with some tense situations and the inexorability of the prophecy hanging over Eve throughout. The idea of fate refusing to be denied makes for an interesting story and I like the reveal
that sometimes the Library itself will intervene to protect the Guardian. There wasn’t quite as much humour as in some episodes, but there were a couple of funny moments: Ezekiel freaking out over losing the coins (and donating the last one to a museum); Jacob fulfilling his vision by giving himself the black eye; and the fact that there’s apparently a real Egyptian pyramid inside the Luxor pyramid in Las Vegas.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Mystery solved … we were ambushed by an Olive Garden.” Eve’s response when Jacob and Ezekiel keep remembering pizza and garlic bread.
- “Bite me, Zeus!” Ezekiel after realizing his coin can get them through the thunderbolt trap.