Have you ever thought about what the worst version of you would be? I have, on occasion, thought about this but I don’t really like to. It’s never fun to confront your darkest self. Unfortunately, we all have one, though some of us hide that dark self better than others. I’m a relatively quiet person, but if you get me really mad I can be quite mean. I’ll find exactly the right thing to do the most damage. It’s never pretty when it happens.
In this particular episode, we get a glimpse into the LIT team’s worst selves and as expected, it isn’t pretty. But beyond the trouble that these darker sides bring, we also get a chance to see how much our team has grown over the course of the season. Flynn comes back for this episode and he is pleasantly surprised by how much progress everyone has made.
This is probably my favorite episode in the entire season, so I’m excited to be doing this review finally. Let’s dive in.
Eve and Flynn
The episode starts out with the team working together to solve the problem of massive earthquakes happening throughout the world. It’s a great glimpse into how well they have gotten at working together (for the most part. Ezekiel still seems to have some work to do). But everything comes crashing to a halt when the backdoor starts reacting. Thankfully it’s Flynn, but he winds up causing some problems of his own just by being himself.
Flynn blows in and starts handing out assignments acting as if everything is still exactly how he left it several weeks before. Eve is less than thrilled about this. She’s been leading the team for weeks and they have become a well oiled machine. Flynn coming in upsets the balance they’ve achieved. Especially because he still thinks things are where they were when he left. He couldn’t be more wrong.
Eve tries to talk to him about this, but Flynn being Flynn and crises being crises, they don’t really get the chance until later in the episode. The real problem is that Flynn doesn’t stop long enough to talk to her about the team, and as such, he spends most of the episode being completely surprised by what they can do.
During the trek through the tunnels in Rome, Eve and Flynn finally have the conversation that Eve had been trying to have. It’s in this conversation that we finally get to see just how far Eve has come since the beginning of the season. When they first met, she and Flynn both agreed that working alone was much better.
Back in the first episode, they saw it the same way. They saw friends and family as clutter, getting in the way of them doing their jobs, a distraction that hinders them in their true calling. When Eve had to work with the NATO team during that first episode, do you remember how quickly she split off from them to tackle the problem on her own? That is not a woman who works well with others. Yet, during these last weeks, something has changed for her. She’s no longer the same person she was when she met Flynn.
Now she is a woman who’s found a team she can work with, and work with well. She and the LITs get along really well. She finally has a use for friends and teams. She’s changed so much, that she now, she admonishes Flynn for not calling her for help.She doesn’t want him to do things on his own anymore. Instead, she wants to be his partner, in everything.
Despite this, Eve still has some issues with Flynn's authority and Flynn still has some issue understanding that he might need other people. This is revealed when they each get a hold of the Apple.
Jake and Cassie
In my review of Santa last week, I talked about how much the dynamic between Jake and Cassie has changed. Apple is no different. If anything, they seem to have gotten closer in this episode. All through the episode Cassie and Jake are so much easier with each other. They’re relaxed around and seem to gravitate toward each other. They work so well together that they even have a shorthand now when Cassie starts losing the thread during her hallucinations. Now, all Jake has to do to get her back on track is get her attention and say “The other memory.” and Cassie is able to get back on track and find the beginning of the puzzle.
We also see this during Cassandra’s bout with the Apple. Eve, Flynn, and Jake all try to reach her, to get her to stop what she’s doing, but only Jake knows the “off switch” as it were. Flynn thinks he does with Pi (which was way to obvious for it to have worked anyway. Come one Flynn.) but Jake shows just how much he’s gotten to know our favorite Synesthete by tricking her into a “recursive loop” with Euler’s number. When Flynn questions Jake about this, the Cowboy just says that he noticed her writing in a small notebook a lot and that he pays attention.
The Apple and the Team
On his blog, John Rogers mentioned that each character had a specific classic sin that they dealt with when revealing their “worst self”. For Eve and Flynn, these sins were envy and pride, respectively. As usual, when the characters end up being other than themselves, it tends to reveal a lot about who they really are. This is no different.
Jake’s sin lust. Wikipedia defines lust as “an intense desire for anything, be it money, food, fame, power, or love.” Jake’s lust is for beautiful things, namely art. As with Flynn and Eve, we see signs of this in his normal life, just more toned down than when he has the Apple. When you admire beautiful things, there is an inherent desire to have beautiful things. Jake loves art. He sees the beauty and grandeur of the various pieces in ways that no one else on the team does (not even Flynn). He loves them so much that, despite choosing to remain with his family in Oklahoma, he leads a double life and publishes papers under a pseudonym, just so he can have some contact with this world of beauty. So it’s not hard to imagine that, given the Apple’s influence, he could see himself as the only one truly capable of appreciating these lovely things and want them all for himself.
Cassandra’s sin is wrath. wrath is “inordinate and uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger.” Cassie has had a lot of crap happen to her in her life, stuff that would scare and anger just about anyone. A normal reaction to the type of pain she has endured is anger. She’s angry because she lost control of her life a long time ago. We saw hints of this in Heart during her confrontation with Katie. We’ll get more glimpses of it later on in Rule of Three. So it’s not hard that she’d be angry and want to take back control. When she goes on her rant, she talks about how she’s always thinking, always calculating, that it never stops. Cassandra never asked to have numbers constantly bombarding her and driving her senses haywire. At her worst, she gives into the tide of anger that comes with her gifts and decides she’s going to see just how far she can take it.
(Side note: how funny is it that everyone assumes Cassie at her worst wouldn’t be that bad. What is it about quiet, kind people that makes everyone think that they don’t get angry? Cassie is normally the happiest, bubbliest of the team, but that doesn’t mean she is perfect. Given the right circumstances, she can be just as dangerous as the most adept fighters. And I think Cassie knows that about herself. Most nice people are aware of just how ugly they could be if they let themselves. But Cassie doesn’t let herself be that way. The only reason she wound up there is because of the Apple.)
Eve’s sin is envy. According to wikipedia, envy “occurs when a person lacks another's superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it”. Basically, it’s when you want something someone else has. During the course of the season, we’ve actually seen signs of Eve’s envy, though they are a lot more toned down when she isn’t holding the Apple. She wants to have the same status at the Library that Flynn does. He is the leader, and she wants that. And she feels like the Library keeps telling her she doesn’t have that because it keeps resetting to Flynn’s preferences (re: her desk, which we’re reminded of at the beginning of this episode again). She sees that Flynn has the power of the Library and that the LITs automatically listen to him (something they did not do for her) and she wants that. So it’s not surprising that her worst self is someone who wants to claim all those things and more for herself.
Flynn’s sin is pride. According to good ol’ Wikipedia, pride is “an inflated sense of one's personal status or accomplishments.” Just like it’s easy to see Eve’s envy, it is not a stretch to believe that this is Flynn’s sin. Flynn Carson is one confidant man. He knows he’s smart and he knows he’s good at what he does. He has survived for 10 years on his own, so he must be good. I’ll be honest, before I watched the series, I’d never heard of the Librarian. So I’ve never seen Flynn before this. I’m guessing that all of those movies would probably give us even more evidence of just how awesome Flynn is. All that is to say, he knows he’s good and he has a right to be proud of what he can do. But his being good, taken to the extreme, leads us to a man who wants to take over the world.
Thankfully, we never have to see what would happen if either Eve or Flynn got what they wanted, since they don’t hang onto the Apple. The really interesting thing here is that the signs of these massive issues are there the whole time, it’s just this magical artifact that brings them so completely to the surface.
Ezekiel and Jenkins
Probably one of my favorite parts of this episode is the fact that we get to see Ezekiel and Jenkins working together. There’s something immensely fun about pairing the stuffiest character with the most relaxed character. It’s pure conflict gold. It also gives us a chance to see sides of these two characters that we haven’t seen yet.
Throughout the season so far, we’ve seen Ezekiel coasting through the problems and succeeding handily. He is lucky and he relies on that luck to get things done without getting himself killed. In this episode though, we finally see someone Ezekiel’s luck fail him. He is the worst possible person to handle the intercession and the conclave (I actually don’t have a hard time believing that when Du Lac found out it was Ezekiel serving as the Arbiter, he didn’t do a little internal happy dance. Seriously, the man couldn’t have planned it better himself.). Unfortunately, as charming and lucky as Ezekiel is, charm and luck only take you so far in some situations. That’s not to say he didn’t do a fairly good job with what he had, but if Jenkins hadn’t been there, Du Lac would have won.
But if Ezekiel hadn’t been there, Jenkins would have walked away. Jenkins issue is that he’s one of those immortal beings that has lived for centuries so he has seen so many horrible things that they just got to be too much for him. He tells Ezekiel that he made a choice a long time ago and he watched how horribly that turned out, so eventually he decided it was better to hide himself away and stop making choices. When Du Lac shows up, he believes running away is the only option. He doesn’t want to deal with making that choice again.
Jenkins refusal to make a choice (or really, to choose to help instead of just walking away) pisses Ezekiel off. This anger causes him to confront Jenkins and it’s during this confrontation that we find out Ezekiel isn’t quite the same person he was when he joined the Library.
Not long after I first rewatched the whole season, I wrote up a short meta about how the characters arcs worked in the intended order. In that meta (posted on Tumblr) I mentioned that Ezekiel is the least changed of all the characters, which I still think is mostly true. Though now, I think a better way to say it is his arc is the subtlest. It’s easy to miss since he’s so cocky and self-assured. But it’s there, if you look for it and this particular episode highlights just how much he’s changed.
Back at the beginning of the season, Ezekiel told Eve that when things got boring he ran. In Horns, he is chastised for running away and abandoning his team. For him, there has always been an underlying tension of whether he’ll stay or not, since he’s pretty clearly a guy looks out only for himself. As soon as things get hard or boring, he’s out of the picture.
Yet here, he is the one advocating for Jenkins to stay and fight. He’s had plenty of opportunity to cut and run. Things are clearly not going well for him as the Arbiter, yet he insists on trying. And it’s not just about showing everyone that he can do it at least not after Du Lac shows up. Once Du Lac is in the picture, it quickly becomes about saving the Library. Ezekiel is no longer the guy who can’t be counted on. Instead, he’s become a true part of the team and the Library.
Other Random Goodness:
~”According to the scroll of Yosemite Sam . . .”
~I love that Cassandra grabs a book, Eve grabs her gun, and Jake grabs a sword. It actually speaks to who they are as characters in a big way. Cassie relies on knowledge to win, Jake likes to get up close and personal to deal with threats, and Eve likes to deal with things from a slight distance. Amazing what you can get from a single 30 second bit.
~”Did you come to take them away? I keep their bags packed.”
~”Not dissimilar to the East Coast West Coast hip hop rivalry of the late 20th century.”
~”So he’s a dragon in a man costume?” “He’s a lawyer.”
~”May I get you anything to drink?” “The tears of our enemies rent from their bodies as their bones are crushed.” “I have jasmine tea.” “Oh jasmine, yes please.”
~”Well let’s see. Is there a polite way of saying ‘Absolutely not?’ Well who cares. Absolutely not.”
~”Last time we were together we broke into Buckingham Palace and now we’re breaking into the Vatican?”
~Cassie and Jake looking over the the city is such a great shot. I just love that view of them together.
~”Was that the Pope? Was that the Pope?” “Possibly!”
~”Now c’mon. This is just a bunch of consonants in a row. That’s not a word.”
~”See, the things that come out of my mouth don’t even bother me anymore.”
~”Is he eating my extra cheese and double pepperoni? He is evil.”
~”Did you say six?” *Jake nods* *Cassie promptly collapses.*
~”What is going on with this day?”
~”Are you ill?”
~”You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
~”Or maybe I’m wrong.”
What did you think? Do you think the sins matched up well with the characters? If not, why? Tell me about it down in the comments.
Next week, I’ll be reviewing City of Lights, a big Jake episode. That’ll be fun.
Not long after I first rewatched the whole season, I wrote up a short meta about how the characters arcs worked in the intended order. In that meta (posted on Tumblr) I mentioned that Ezekiel is the least changed of all the characters, which I still think is mostly true. Though now, I think a better way to say it is his arc is the subtlest. It’s easy to miss since he’s so cocky and self-assured. But it’s there, if you look for it and this particular episode highlights just how much he’s changed.
Back at the beginning of the season, Ezekiel told Eve that when things got boring he ran. In Horns, he is chastised for running away and abandoning his team. For him, there has always been an underlying tension of whether he’ll stay or not, since he’s pretty clearly a guy looks out only for himself. As soon as things get hard or boring, he’s out of the picture.
Yet here, he is the one advocating for Jenkins to stay and fight. He’s had plenty of opportunity to cut and run. Things are clearly not going well for him as the Arbiter, yet he insists on trying. And it’s not just about showing everyone that he can do it at least not after Du Lac shows up. Once Du Lac is in the picture, it quickly becomes about saving the Library. Ezekiel is no longer the guy who can’t be counted on. Instead, he’s become a true part of the team and the Library.
Other Random Goodness:
~”According to the scroll of Yosemite Sam . . .”
~I love that Cassandra grabs a book, Eve grabs her gun, and Jake grabs a sword. It actually speaks to who they are as characters in a big way. Cassie relies on knowledge to win, Jake likes to get up close and personal to deal with threats, and Eve likes to deal with things from a slight distance. Amazing what you can get from a single 30 second bit.
~”Did you come to take them away? I keep their bags packed.”
~”Not dissimilar to the East Coast West Coast hip hop rivalry of the late 20th century.”
~”So he’s a dragon in a man costume?” “He’s a lawyer.”
~”May I get you anything to drink?” “The tears of our enemies rent from their bodies as their bones are crushed.” “I have jasmine tea.” “Oh jasmine, yes please.”
~”Well let’s see. Is there a polite way of saying ‘Absolutely not?’ Well who cares. Absolutely not.”
~”Last time we were together we broke into Buckingham Palace and now we’re breaking into the Vatican?”
~Cassie and Jake looking over the the city is such a great shot. I just love that view of them together.
~”Was that the Pope? Was that the Pope?” “Possibly!”
~”Now c’mon. This is just a bunch of consonants in a row. That’s not a word.”
~”See, the things that come out of my mouth don’t even bother me anymore.”
~”Is he eating my extra cheese and double pepperoni? He is evil.”
~”Did you say six?” *Jake nods* *Cassie promptly collapses.*
~”What is going on with this day?”
~”Are you ill?”
~”You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
~”Or maybe I’m wrong.”
What did you think? Do you think the sins matched up well with the characters? If not, why? Tell me about it down in the comments.
Next week, I’ll be reviewing City of Lights, a big Jake episode. That’ll be fun.
In the mean time, come back Wednesday for my next writing prompt and on Friday for 30 Things.
Until then.
Until then.
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