The Librarians and the Graves of Time – Director: Jonathan Frakes/Writers: Marco Schnabel, Larry Stuckey
This one starts with some Russians digging up a grave in Mexico. They find the coffin empty except for a piece of metal shaped kinda like an asterisk. The boss says he’s one step closer to his goal and as they leave, we see the grave belongs to Nicole Noone, the renegade Guardian we met in the season premiere.
At the Library, Jenkins tries to get Flynn more invested in the tethering ceremony, but Flynn’s not too keen on it. Jenkins blames Nicole’s re-
appearance for that but before the argument can really get going, they realize Eve is missing. She’s at a mortuary over in England, where Nicole is sneaking around. Eve asks her to come back to the Library (which she refuses) and then offers to help her do whatever she’s doing. Turns out Nicole faked her death multiple times to 
hide her immortality and the Russians we saw in Mexico have been looting her graves, stealing pieces of an artifact that she buried in them. Eve and Nicole jump the thieves, but their bickering allows the Russians to escape with the artifact piece. Nicole tells Eve the pieces lead to the location of Koschei’s Needle, an artifact powerful enough to cause mass destruction all over the world.
At the Library, Ezekiel hacks Eve’s computer and finds out she’s been tracking Nicole. Flynn insists on going after them and Jenkins invites
himself along, leaving the other three in charge of the
Library. Nicole and Eve head to another burial site in Florence and Eve sees some of the mementos Nicole has accumulated over the centuries. Eve realizes how difficult it is to be immortal and Nicole warns her to be absolutely certain before she goes through with the 
tethering ceremony and gains her own immortality. Flynn and Jenkins check out the mortuary in England and bluff their way in by pretending Jenkins is Flynn’s grandfather and has an incurable disease. They find evidence of the fight and the piece that Nicole had hidden there. While surrounded by the dead, Jenkins admits that he’s often wondered what it might be like to have a final rest instead of living forever.
In Florence, Nicole uses another artifact (Apollo’s Tablet) to find out where Koschei’s Needle is, but she leaves Eve trapped inside her crypt before
heading off to find the Needle. Eve escapes quickly (terrifying a family there to visit a deceased loved one) and catches up to Nicole before her plane takes off. At the Library, Jacob figures out the artifact in question is Koschei’s Needle, which bothers Jenkins because it can be used to kill an immortal and he figures Nicole wants to use it on him. I can see where he’s coming from, but Nicole seems to have grown tired of living forever, so she could just as easily want the Needle to use on herself. Eve and Nicole end up in Ukraine looking for the 
Needle and after an arduous climb up a cliff they run right into Jenkins and Flynn. Everyone but Jenkins decides to help Nicole find the Needle, but Jenkins still thinks she wants to use it against him. The argument is cut short when the Ukrainian military shows up. They separate, with Flynn and Nicole being chased by soldiers, while Eve and Jenkins are captured by the guy who’s been stealing the pieces from Nicole’s graves.
The head thief tells Eve and Jenkins that he’s descended from the Romanovs and wants to keep Nicole from getting the Needle. He says she trained
Rasputin in the dark arts, which Jenkins believes immediately but Eve doesn’t … until he shows her photos of Nicole with Rasputin and the Romanovs. Flynn and Nicole go to Chernobyl to find the Needle and Nicole asks Flynn why he stays at the Library now that there are other Librarians to take his place. He says the Library is his life and Nicole points out that he’s just as much a prisoner of the Library as she is. They find the chest containing the Needle but need the key to open it. The 
key is made up of the various pieces stolen from Nicole’s graves, but Eve, Jenkins, and the Russians have it. Nicole tells them the head Russian is really Rasputin and she wants the Needle to kill him, but Jenkins still doesn’t believe her. Turns out she’s telling the truth and the Russian stabs Nicole with the Needle and absorbs some of her life essence before transforming back into Rasputin.
Jenkins takes Nicole back to the Library as Rasputin stalks Eve and Flynn through the power plant. They trick him into piercing a radioactive pipe
with the Needle and Rasputin can’t absorb all the nuclear power flooding out, so he explodes. In the Library, Jenkins gives up his immortality to save Nicole as a way of making up for his mistrust of her. She decides to leave and warns Flynn once more not to be a prisoner. He later takes that advice to heart by taking off without a word, leaving behind his tethering ring.
This is a pretty good episode that deals with the problem of Nicole, at least 
for now. (I get the feeling we’ll be seeing her again.) The theme of the episode seems to be about immortality and how it would be a curse as much as a blessing. Nicole does seem genuinely bothered by her own immortality, which is why I thought she might use the Needle to kill herself. And the bloom has worn off the rose of immortality for Jenkins as well (which makes his sacrifice ring true), although we’ll have to wait and see if he really prefers being mortal. I’m not sure if Nicole is back to being immortal now, or if Jenkins’s sacrifice just
kept her from dying. I’m also not sure if she’s meant to be truly reformed or not. Her warnings to Flynn might just be her way of trying to help (and reflect a certain amount of bitterness over how she’s been treated), but they could also be a way of sabotaging things so the Library is without a human tether again. Or maybe she’s just jealous of Flynn and Eve and doesn’t want them to tether to the Library as a couple. The seemingly unkillable Rasputin makes a god adversary here. There were some good humorous moments as usual, like Eve and Nicole’s argument over fighting styles, or Jenkins pretending to have a weird disease.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Excuse me, sir, but with all due respect to Mr. Dare … screw him!” Jenkins dismissing Darrington Dare’s warnings about too many Librarians.
- “Yeah, so is her browser history.” Ezekiel’s response when Cassandra says him hacking Eve’s computer is disturbing.