A Series of Unfortunate Events S01 E05 – Married to the sea.

Previously: Monty was dead but the kids stayed out of Olaf’s grip once again.
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The Wide Window: Part One

Marines: New guardian means new credits! This time we’re told that this guardian is wracked with fear and panic and they end up on a boat that might as well be the Titanic. (S: Meanwhile I overthink where a Titanic reference puts us in time.) So, you know, look away, look away!

We start at an old-timey looking news station for Lachrymose News, “where things keep happening until they stop happening.” I know this “it keeps happening” feeling because it encapsulates all of my feelings about the current administration.

The anchor turns talk to the plight of the Baudelaire orphans. He turns it over to his female co-host Vincent. Vincent thanks Veronica. (Is this just random ha ha because gendered names fun?) Vincent recaps that Olaf is a bad dude and trying to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune.

We move on to the weather and waiting for us is none other than our main man, Lemony Snicket. He tells us that if the story of the Baudelaire orphans were a weather report, it would be nothing but rain.

Samantha: Rain gets a bad rap. I quite like rain.

Dani: Rain is life.

Annie: Rain gives me an excuse to lay on my couch and read, I heart rain.

Mari: I really don’t think this is where Lemony wanted to take us.

We cut to the Baudelaires disembarking the Fickle Ferry onto Damocles Dock (#significance everywhere). Poe takes about a millionty minutes to try and pronounce Damocles. In the foreground, Lemony Snicket reintroduces himself and his sad duty of telling the tragic tale and totally-not-an0adventure story of the Baudelaires.

Annie: Lemony Snicket is currently in an ad for…. car rentals? Car insurance? Something. And the ad is so distracting to me, as Patrick Warburton is SO Lemony in it. I think he will now forever be Lemony Snicket to me. #sorrynotsorry

Mari: Forever Lemony exits stage left and we join the Baudelaires schooling Poe on Damocles, but he has decidedly no time for that. Poe announces that he’s going to leave them on this mostly deserted dock to wait for a taxi to take them to their new guardian. (D: Excellent judgement call.) Violet is kind of surprised that Josephine isn’t coming to meet them, but she said she wouldn’t be able to, and Poe didn’t think it would be polite to ask why. Poe says he knows that they’ve had lots of trouble with that one guy, what’s his name, Count Whatever. The Baudelaires are like, “Olaf, bitch, and you put us in his care.” Poe accepts no responsibility, but he does present them with peppermints to eat on the lonely taxi ride to their dowager aunt. Violet asks what that is, but Poe thinks she means “taxi,” the idiot. He takes his leave with a coughing fit.

Samantha: My patience for Poe wears thin, a phrase which here means “GET IT THE FUCK TOGETHER POE OR I’M GOING TO PUNCH MY COMPUTER.”

Dani: A+

Mari: As soon as Poe is gone, Klaus explains to Violet that “dowager” is a fancy word for widow. She chuckles and thanks him. Klaus asks if they should’ve mentioned that they are allergic to peppermints. Violet doesn’t think it was worth mentioning, given everything they have on their minds. She chucks the peppermints behind her without looking, and from the sound of it, they land in the garbage. Klaus says they are more worried about seeing if Aunt Josephine can explain the mysterious happenings in their lives and also how to get a taxi.

On cue, a taxi stops and asks if anyone is looking for a ride for a reasonable fee.

Samantha: Well that was… fortuitous. Meaning I’m a bit suspicious of all the things.

Mari: Every single thing.

As they drive to Josephine’s, Violet notices that the town is really empty. Taxi Driver explains that it’s the off season, but when the weather is nice, there are more people. He casually hopes that Aunt Josephine has enough food and supplies to ride out Hurricane Herman. Klaus is like, “um… we aren’t on an ocean,” but Taxi Driver says Lake Lachrymose is a big enough body of water that anything can happen. He then starts going on about how the storms in Herman Melville’s work were more metaphorical or allegorical while Thoreau had a naturalistic style. As he talks, we pan out and see they are driving along a ridge and Aunt Josephine’s house is very perilously placed. Taxi Driver keeps talking about how turbulent waters represent life’s troubles, like a threatening row boat getting closer and closer.

Dani: Wish my taxi drivers spoke like this.

Mari: Uber, but less sucky and with literary discussion on the ride.

Count Olaf on a row boat. He’s soliloquizing about the value of being alone, but we pull forward and see that he’s actually being towed in his row boat by his minions in an inflatable raft. Olaf says he needs a grandiose and romantic scheme for this new location, for he is after all married to the sea. The Broody Minion points out that this is actually a large lake and Olaf amends: I am married to the sea, but my girlfriend is a large lake. One of the Old Twins cries “land, ho!” and the second Old Twin immediately responds, “I told you to stop calling me that.”

The kids have finally arrived at Aunt Josephine’s. The Taxi Driver thinks Josephine must be quite a lady to live out here all by herself. Violet kind of proudly says that they’ve been told that Josephine is fierce and formidable. Taxi Driver says that she must be and leaves them with a good luck and a wave.

Dani: Yay! A character who didn’t patronize, betray, fail, or try to kill them. Win!

Mari: Things that should go badly and don’t: small children left on a dock to grab a taxi. Things that should go well and don’t: adults caring for children.

The Baudelaires brace themselves. Klaus says there is so much they don’t know. Violet says it’s like standing on the edge of a precipice with no idea what lies below. The camera is like, “did you ring?” and takes us up and around the house, over the precipice. We see a row boat.

Lemony tells us that it was exactly how Violet described it, except he does know what was below: a 300 foot drop into the freezing waters of Lake Lachrymose. Lemony is on the row boat and his row boat outfit is cute. (D: If that’s what ‘married to the sea’ looks like then sign me up.) He says that of course standing on a precipice is better than slipping on a precipice or falling over a precipice. Things could get worse.

Violet tries the doorbell but it doesn’t ring. Klaus moves to knock, but before he can, the door opens. Alfre Woodard tells him not to knock because he could get splinters and an infection. Violet very graciously says that they are looking for Aunt Josephine. She starts to introduce her siblings, but this is Aunt Josephine and she knows who they are.

She invites the children in, telling them to mind the phone because like the doorbell (which she disconnected), it could cause electrocution. Klaus tells her he’s read a lot about electricity, and doorbells and phones are safe. Josephine counters that not for someone with a faulty pacemaker. Klaus looks around and asks if anyone here has a faulty pacemaker. The answer is no, but you can never be too certain.

The children can’t believe that this is Aunt Josephine, who they’ve so many times heard described as a fierce and formidable woman, and who is now being frightened by her own reflection. (A: I feel the kids’ disappointment in my bones. It hurts.) Even Sunny gives an, “oh boy” (D: Bless her heart.) and later calls her “crazy” but all Josephine hears is “delmo” and she asks what that even means. Klaus has to explain baby talk to her.

Josephine leads the children to a door and tells them that they must have many questions, but all the answers are in her library. She invites them to go in, but to push on the door as the knob could shatter into a million pieces and hit their eyes.

The children step into the library that has a floor to ceiling window (a wide window…) looking over Lake Lachrymose. Josephine says she knows everything there is to know about the lake, but she can now only stand to look at if from afar, thanks to some trauma in her past. Violet asks if it has to do with her parents, and Josephine says no. It has to do with her husband Ike. The Baudelaires were friends with Josephine and Ike and they used to gather on these shores and have picnics and plan secret codes. Klaus is interested in the secret code thing, but Josephine continues with her story.

During one picnic, Josephine wanted Ike to wait an hour before swimming but he only waited 45 minutes. He didn’t get a cramp, though. Josephine pulls down a map and explains that part of the lake is breeding ground for the Lachrymose Leeches. They are usually harmless but if they smell food on a human, they can swarm. (S: Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck no thanks.) The map suddenly rolls up and scares Aunt Josephine, so her story really just ends with a scream and a sob.

She apologizes to the children (mostly for ending a sentence with “and”) and the children apologize to her (mostly for making her talk about Ike). They prod her, though, about those answers she said she had for them. Josephine gathers herself and gets serious. She says that ever since she heard Sunny say “delmo” she knew she had to give them the key to making sense of this world. It looks like she’s going to open a safe, but really she just pulls a bookshelf out over the safe.

The key? Grammar. Since losing Ike, she’s devoted her life to the study of grammar. (D: Relatable.) She talks a lot about how great grammar is, and the kids are v confused. Klaus asks what grammar has to do with the development of secret codes. Josephine corrects his tense (to the past) and tells him the two have nothing to do with each other. The clock chimes, Josephine screams, and it’s lunch time. She suggests soup and both Klaus and Violet say that soup would be great. I think it’s supposed to be the kids being polite, but responsible adult me can’t help but wondering about the last time they ate. (S: This whole story is much harder on the emotions as an adult.)

At the table, Klaus takes a sip and discovers that it’s cold soup because Josephine doesn’t cook anything hot on account of flame danger.  Sunny serves up a look.

Dani: That baby is so freaking gifable.

Annie: Seriously. I still want to know the behind the scenes secrets on how they got this baby to be so awesome.

Mari: Josephine says she learned the cold soup recipe in Egypt where she was briefly employed as a snake charmer. Violet knows that her father lived in Egypt too, but Josephine doesn’t talk about that. Klaus brings up Uncle Monty, but Josephine doesn’t talk about that either. Violet snappishly asks if she doesn’t or won’t talk about these things. Josephine takes a moment before answering that this is a rare instance in which don’t and won’t mean the same thing. That was long ago and she doesn’t talk about it so the children won’t hear about it.

Dani: This pretty much sums up my post-election mindset.

Annie: A little too real, right now.

Mari: Ain’t it just?

Josephine prefers to think of happy things like grammar and how much Ike loved sunshine. She doesn’t know what happens when people die, but she’d like to think her husband is somewhere hot. (lol.) Klaus suggests maybe moving away from Lake Lachrymose. The children could go with her and then she might feel comfortable enough to talk about the thing she doesn’t and won’t talk about. Josephine says she could never sell this house. She’s afraid of real estate agents.

Out in the town, Lemony steps out of a cheesy store wearing the terrible outfit in the window. I guess they can’t all be row boat outfits. (D: They can in my mind.) As he walks, he tells us that there are rational and irrational fears. The children fear Count Olaf and that’s rational because he’s an evil man who wants to destroy them. If they feared lemon meringue pie, that would be irrational because it is delicious and has never hurt a soul. Fear of a hurricane is rational. Fear of real estate agents is irrational. Lemony looks at us, dead ass serious as always, and tells us that nothing sinister has ever come out of the real estate market.

Samantha:

Mari: That’s such a grown up joke it hurts. But also, I cackled.

Dani: I pictured him standing in front of Trump Tower, and then I laugh-cried.

Mari: The restaurant owner we saw in the streets while Lemony was making real estate jokes steps outside his store and flips the sign to Open. The restaurant is called The Anxious Clown and 100% would not visit The Anxious Clown. (A: Same. Hard pass.) Restaurant Owner (D: it’s the guy from Galaxy Quest and BrainDead!) whistles and sweeps outside of his restaurant, but he comes face to face (or really broom to foot) with Count Olaf. Restaurant Owner recognizes Olaf and is surprised to see him. He didn’t think he’d see Olaf again after “all that unpleasantness with Mr. Snicket.” Olaf is just as surprised to see Restaurant Owner, since it’s the off season. Restaurant Owner says that thanks to a helpful real estate agent, this restaurant is under new management.

Olaf grabs the broom and they start having a shoving match. Restaurant Owner says that the Baudelaires are safe and learning all about their secret organization. Their training should’ve started years ago, but it’s not too late.

IT’S SO INTRIGUING. SNICKET! SNICKET! SNICKET! (D: more, please!!)

Olaf says it doesn’t matter. The Baudelaire children will be destroyed and the fortune will belong to him. The broom breaks and Restaurant Owner falls to the ground. He tells Olaf that Josephine and the children with their incredible gifts will surely stop his evil plans, but of course, now he’s outed that Josephine has the children. Restaurant Owner tilts his head up and above him stand all of Olaf’s minions.

We segue magic to Josephine announcing that she has gifts. For Violet, a doll with plenty of outfits. Violet says the doll looks a little like Madame Curie. For Klaus, a deck of cards. Klaus says that he once read a book about the history of legalized gambling. For Sunny, a rattle that makes a little noise. Sunny says she prefers the music of Tito Puentes. (D: Bless.) The children say this is all awfully generous of her. Josephine knows her house isn’t the warmest, but she says if they follow the rules, it will be safe. Their safety is her primary responsibility as their guardian, which is why there are cans stacked in front of every window and door, as a makeshift burglar alarm. Violet asks what happens if they are awake and inside with an angry burglar. This is too much for Josephine so Klaus quickly changes the subject to the oncoming hurricane.

Turns out, Josephine didn’t know about the coming hurricane. She says they need food and supplies and should all go to town. Klaus thinks the kids should stay home and Josephine quickly agrees, as town can be dangerous. But then she should stay home too! Violet reminds her how terrifying it would be to run out of food during a hurricane though.

Dani: I loved this part. Violet is so sharp she instantly knows how to manipulate Josephine. That would be a scary trait in someone less noble, but I like it in our girl.

Mari: Josephine says goodbye to the children, telling them to be safe.

Alone, the kids quickly light all the fires. Namely, they cook food and have a candlelight dinner. (S: God damn these adults.) Violet tells Sunny that she’ll take the rattle and try to invent a burglar alarm so Josephine won’t have to rely on cans. Klaus offers Sunny his deck of cards to chew on. That leaves Klaus with the doll, but he says plenty of boys enjoy playing with dolls, though he’d much prefer a book. (D: You tell ’em, Klaus. Gender-specific toys are dumb.) These kids are too precious. (S: These adults don’t deserve them. :'() 

Klaus says at least Josephine is trying. She tried to get them gifts without knowing much about them. They shouldn’t complain.

Instead, the kids get to work. They go back to Josephine’s library and straight to the safe. Even though the safe could have a million possible combinations, they quickly suss out that she’s set the combination for Ike’s name.

Inside the safe are: crackers and Beethoven sheet music (Ike’s talent was whistling with crackers in his mouth), pictures of Josephine doing fierce and formidable things, and a copy of The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations. The kids think all the answers they need will be in that book, but unfortunately, Josephine has returned. They quickly stuff everything back into the safe.

Josephine is super excited because she found some very exciting things: affordable limes and something else. Before she gets to something else, she prefaces by saying that she knows she’s a disappointment to them and countless others. She used to be a fierce and formidable woman. Violet says she knows Josephine must miss Ike. Josephine says she knows they must miss their parents. Losing a loved one, she says, is like climbing stairs in the dark, and expecting one more stair than there is. That moment of your foot falling through the air and the sickly feeling of dark surprise. (D: Oof. So much this.) Violet and Klaus look like, well, like they just lost their parents and have hardly time to mourn and like they know that sickly feeling of dark surprise.

While at the market, Josephine says that she realized you can’t be afraid of everything forever and she wants to be fierce and formidable again. The children feel so happy about that for about 2 seconds before Josephine further reveals that she met a man and is going on a date with him. She just stopped home to get a warm cardigan to flatter her figure. She asks the kids to be nice to her date.

In walks a man with one wooden leg. He introduces himself as Captain Sham. Oh, Olaf. (D: LOL.)

The kids recognize Olaf right away, of course, but we are still an episode and a half from any of the stupid adults realizing it’s him. (A: This is getting to be so infuriating. DO BETTER BY THESE CHILDREN, ADULTS!) Klaus and Violet take turns pointing out Olaf characteristics, but he’s wearing an eyepatch and has half a wooden leg, a foolproof disguise.

Josephine and Olaf Sham start giggling about how they met and that throws us into a flashback of a few hours ago. Josephine is walking around and Olaf’s Minion are on hand to talk very loudly behind her about how Captain Sham is in town and he’s so handsome. When Jo stops for limes, Olaf makes his move and flirts over rinds (true story). Olaf introduces himself as Captain Sham and his minions all exclaim in the background about this being THE Captain Sham who is most definitely not in a disguise. Josephine says she’s heard his name everywhere and Olaf’s all, “…that’s the idea.”

Next, Olaf Sham jumps into the story of how he lost his leg, but his minions act as a kind of Greek chorus, providing bits of the story, exclaiming when appropriate and reminding him that it’s his left leg that was supposedly cut off. The story is that he spilled some pasta puttanesca on his leg and then the leeches came. No one can understand him, but hark! Josephine can because that’s what happened to Ike.

Captain Sham hands over his business card, but it’s got a grammatical error that turns Josephine off (its vs it’s). Next Sham invites Josephine out onto the lake, which she can’t possibly ever do. With help from his peanut gallery, Olaf Sham course corrects and invites Josephine out for an egg sandwich instead. She accepts and we head back to the present. (S: Why does this show always make me hungry?)

Josephine wants to go over its vs it’s again, but Olaf Sham yells at her that the kids get it because they aren’t morons. Josephine runs off to get her cardigan and will not listen to the children’s protests.

When alone, Olaf says he’s for realsies just a sea captain because he’s got business cards. Klaus points out that anyone can get business cards made at a print shop. Olaf says Klaus is always full of facts but they never help him and they didn’t help Uncle Monty or his parents. Oof. Rough.

Annie: You SHUT YOUR MOUTH about Uncle Monty, Olaf!

Samantha: THEY HELP HIM KEEP GETTING AWAY FROM YOU, YOU JERKFACE. 

Mari: OBVIOUSLY THE SNARK LADIES FEEL VERY YELL-Y ABOUT THIS.

Aunt Josephine comes back downstairs and Klaus tries to sound the alarm one more time, but Olaf Sham distracts by pointing out that the children left the candles on. He “saves the day” by blowing them out and making a big fuss about the heat and the fact that the orphans tried to burn Josephine’s house down. (D: I gotta admit I yelled “blow out the candles” when they walked away from the table earlier. Rookie mistake.) Olaf Sham makes the orphans apologize to Josephine, and she tells them to clean up and go to bed, no more candles and no more door knobs and be careful in their dreams. Olaf Sham tells them not to wait up and laughs evilly.

The children decide they need to go after Aunt Josephine. They use her town map to determine there are a very many places to get an egg sandwich. Sunny suggests an Uber, but they ignore her because that’s a terrible company. Terrible! (Probably not why they ignore her.) (S: WHAT YEAR IS IT?! Give it up, Samantha.) Klaus has many questions about how they can track down Olaf and Josephine, but Violet grabs Sunny and says they just need to go.

No sooner do they step outside than Olaf’s Minions drive up. They tell the kids to go inside ASAP, but then they all realize that no one is watching Restaurant Owner. We cut to him, tied to a chair, hopping his way over to a telephone. Just as he reaches it, the whole chair tips over.

The kids go back inside and to the library. Violet starts plotting right away, to build a ladder, to go out over the precipice, to do something. Klaus interrupts her and points out that they have no plan after that. They don’t even know what Olaf is plotting. Klaus sits and deservedly broods about the fact that no one will listen to them, that nowhere is safe and they cannot escape Olaf. Violet quotes Uncle Monty (“life is a conundrum of esoterica”) but Klaus is like, “Uncle Monty is dead.” Violet persists. Aunt Josephine is not and even if she cannot protect them, they can protect her. Klaus says she doesn’t even sound scared. Their mother used to say to do the scary thing first and get scared later. Klaus is pepped by this talk and says he’ll get to work. Violet smiles and goes off to work on a ladder to get them out of there.

Dani: Could these kids please break my heart a little more this episode?

Mari: Don’t tempt this show.

In the back of the same taxi from earlier, Olaf Sham sings loudly and enthusiastically about why he loves the sea. He’s very much up in Josephine’s grill and as the song goes on, she looks less and less enthused about this serenade. At the end of Olaf Sham’s song, the Taxi Driver tells him that it’s actually a large lake. Josephine sadly says that she hopes the children will be safe.

We SEGUE MAGIC to the Baudelaire Parents saying they hope the children will be safe. Father’s solving a simple letter/number code, but there’s either an error or a trick where 14 actually stands for T instead of N. The code is, “you can’t lock up the barn after the horses are gone.”

Mother says that they should have a clear flight, providing the weather holds, the plane flies, and none of their enemies have air canons. Father says that sounds like their honeymoon. Mother smiles a bit and says that things have changed because now they have 3 children who need them. Father says they are brave like their mother and she returns that they are bold like their father. Father shares the code with Mother and they get a move on, hoping they aren’t too late. They uncover a vehicle (maybe?) and it’s riddled with bullet holes.

We cut back to Josephine’s house. It’s thundering. Lemony Snicket tells us that the saying “you can’t lock up the barn after the horses are gone” was a favorite of a woman who meant a great deal to him “even after she was trampled.” It means simply that sometimes you think of the best plan after the fact.

Lemony wishes that he could go back and warn the Baudelaires of what would happen on this sad, sad night. We see Violet working on her ladder, Klaus reading, and Sunny eating crackers. Lemony wishes he could prevent the window from shattering. We hear a window shattering. Klaus says it sounds like a window shattered.

The kids run to the library and find that the window is shattered in a person-shaped way. They find a suicide letter from Aunt Josephine, saying that by the time the kids read this, her life will be at it’s end. She found life without Ike to be inbearable. And so we know immediately, as if we wouldn’t know otherwise, that Josephine didn’t write this letter because inbearable is not a word, as my spell check keeps trying to remind me. (S: I really love the use of bad grammar as clues. It’s clever, which ensures the children will get it and Olaf will not.) (A: The grammar nerd in me loved this so much.)

Lemony now stands in front of the little that is left of Josephine’s house. He tells us that it is impossible to go back and tell the Baudelaires that their fears were entirely rational. It’s impossible to go back and tell them anything, just as it’s impossible to put Josephine’s house back on the cliff.

He can tell us something, though: as the Baudelaires stood there at the wide window, thinking their guardian was dead, they were wrong. He lifts up his secret society eyepiece and looks at something in the audience’s direction. He then clarifies that Aunt Josephine wasn’t dead yet.

Dani: Hmm, nice ending. With Lemony as our omniscient narrator, we know that this is a sad, sad night and that Aunt Josephine isn’t dead yet. But does “yet” mean days from now, or years? And is the night sad because the children mistakenly believe her dead, or because of whatever eventually happens to her house? I love how these stories constantly challenge us to consider the many definitions and meanings of the words we use. It’s really brilliant (which in this case is a word that means clever).

Annie: I really appreciate that this is a Netflix series and binge-watching is a thing, because these cliff hangers would drive me crazy if I needed to wait between episodes. Everything about this series has been so well-crafted. It gives me such a mix of feels. More of this, less trash by Stephenie Meyer. (Sorry, I’ve still got Breaking Dawn, chapter 18 on my brain, guys.)

 

 

Next time on A Series of Unfortunate Events: The children are back in Olaf’s grasp following Josephine’s maybe death in S01 E06 – The Wide Window: Part Two.