The Librarians Leave No Stone Unturned

 

 

Season 2, Ep 3: “And What Lies Beneath the Stones”

Kaniacs rejoiced at this week’s episode that featured the many talents (and many aliases) of Jacob Stone, played superbly by Christian Kane.  The assignment takes the team to an oil drilling project in Oklahoma, Jacob’s old “stomping grounds,” where Jacob must face his estranged father, played by Jeff Fahey.  As the team investigates the mysterious happenings surrounding the drilling site, Jacob battles some significant demons, both figuratively and literally, with the help of his fellow Librarians.

Eve settles in, adopting a role as “mom,” shooing the young fledglings from the nest while she stays at the Library with Jenkins to work on its defenses.  WHAT?!  Eve seems to be taking a back seat to her original duties, which used to be protecting the Librarians.  She may as well grab her crochet, relax in the rocker and turn on a radio program and wait for the kids to come home from their fun.  Really, when did she become so sedentary?  Okay, we’ll chalk that up to that “Handwavium” stuff , which is sometimes necessary to put the right pieces into place for the plot to work.

All kidding aside, we seem to be witnessing a transformation of both the Library and the roles of Librarians & Guardians.  I’m still hoping that this season will invoke a few of the myriad possible Fictionals as bouncers for “team Library,” but it looks like we may need to wait until next week for that.

This episode did not deal with the nemesis from the opening double-header, which proffered Shakespeare’s Prospero as the mastermind and Conan-Doyle’s Moriarty as his unlikely minion of this season’s story arc.  Instead, we find our Librarians being pushed from the nest by Eve (go play nice) to investigate an ancient Choctaw sacred ground in Oklahoma that is being developed for oil by none other than Jacob Stone’s father, who is under the gun to save his failing oil drilling business.

Jacob has his challenge cut out for him, since his hard-head father, Isaac, does not value Jacob’s knowledge, but rather, expects his son’s hard work and unquestioned loyalty in exchange for…nothing.  In fact, he expected Jacob to stay with him to keep the business running, because without Jacob, the finances were falling apart: a truth that Isaac would never admit, especially to his son.  But Jacob did leave, and things went south. In turn, there is a whole lot of guilt, blame and abuse going between father and son to protect the self-pride and fear of failure that resides within both of them.

Unfortunately, the Shape Shifter who lives on this sacred ground thrives on lies, and there are plenty to go around to revive him into his new existence.  As the Shifter takes on various forms of the characters in this episode, he creates havoc at the dig and within the community, fueling the flames that feed his hunger for discord and lies.  We begin to understand how quickly lies can build to protect the egos at stake, and how great the consequences might be for that price.

This Shifter is crafty, taking the appearance of the oil rig foreman, Jacob’s father, and each of the Librarians in turn, creating havoc he needs to survive and grow.  As the team each begin to share meaningful truths about themselves in the presence of this new threat, the Shifter begins to lose his power, and they soon derive a plan to recapture him in his original underground prison.  Cassandra and Ezekiel play a version of “Truth or Dare” (without the “dare”) that keeps the magical trap open for Jacob to lure the Shifter into.  Cassandra’s tirade of truths, including pasta phobia and baby-hating, was just the right amount of the fun to temper the other more serious themes in this episode.

Cassandra telling her secrets in this episode is hysterical. #thelibrarians #becausemagic

— Rachel ☕Marie Winchester☕ (@readingRachel25) November 10, 2015

Jacob recognizes the impostor, disguised as his father, just as he has a poignant moment in which he shares his deepest feelings that might actually reconcile their relationship.  Knowing that the understanding and forgiveness that he receives would never come from his own father, Jacob grabs the impostor and tumbles into the dig pit together.  Here, the Shifter changes into various team members like a confused boggart, until Jacob must finally fight the Shifter posing as his own worst enemy: himself.

Fans were delighted to see this palate of skills from Christian Kane, who not only showed his emotional acting range, but executed a rather complicated fight scene seamlessly with his doppelganger, ultimately defeating the evil villain and himself (as his own inner critic).   I wonder how much Epsom Salt he had to soak in that night?!

"The truth hurts" that was an epic fight scene!! 2x @ChristianKane01 @LibrariansTNT #TheLibrarians #BecauseMagic

— CKK (@CKKaniacs) November 9, 2015

Jake Stone got punched a lot. I bet he's starting to feel like Lindsey McDonald. #thelibrarians @LibrariansTNT @Dean_Devlin

— Christian Kane (@ChristianKane01) November 9, 2015

@Dean_Devlin This Episode Rocked!! @ChristianKane01 Kicked butt so well..Hell he kicked his own Butt!! #TheLibrarians That's Talent!!

— KathyPdackles #Gish (@katteachart) November 9, 2015

There were some crowd-pleasing genre references in this episode, not least of which was Cassandra’s calculations of the size of the ship “Serenity” from Firefly.

Was that a #firefly reference? @LindyBooth #TheLibrarians #BecauseMagic

— David Lee (@RSAinLA) November 9, 2015

Shippers were out in full force, too.  With all of the tinkling piano moments and inner-self revealing moments, there were plenty of people who wanted to send out some bear hugs to Jacob Stone, and a few who thought Cassandra was in a perfect spot to proxy for them.

https://twitter.com/Fatpanda1986/status/663522917708271616

I suppose it was too much to hope for an admission of feelings from Jake and Cassandra. #TheLibrarians #Jassandra

— Kim B. (@sneetchstar) November 9, 2015

I feel like there will be something between Jake and Cassandra can that day come soon. #TheLibrarians

— Stephanie Mazzarelli (@Stephanie_Mazz) November 9, 2015

But that ship hasn’t sailed just yet, folks.  The more important growth of the story was that Jacob Stone finally said goodbye to his pen name(s), withdrew the power that he placed on his father’s opinions, and embraced success on his own terms.

Say goodbye to Dr. Oliver Thompson. #TheLibrarians

— The Librarians (@LibrariansTNT) November 9, 2015

His parting (and truthful) message to his pop was a great reminder to viewers of all ages to be true to yourself.  Jenkins summed it up well:

"Family ain't easy and neither is anything else." Thank you Jenkins. #BecauseMagic #TheLibrarians

— Melissa Runkle (@melissarunkle) November 9, 2015

"We cannot help where we come from but we can choose how it manifests itself." – Jenkins #TheLibrarians

— The Librarians (@LibrariansTNT) November 9, 2015

Many kudos to the talented people who made this outstanding episode come to life.  This will be a hard one to follow.

Watching #TheLibrarians. 1. @johnharlankim & @LindyBooth are fantastic. 2. @ChristianKane01 is owning this. Fantastic ep, y'all are great!

— StoneHenge (@Stonehenge585) November 9, 2015