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Chapter Text

Ah, the Bad Beginning. Fitting name, since this is just the top of the shitfest mountain these poor three kids will be falling down.

We start with a letter to a woman named Beatrice. Who’s Beatrice? Clearly she was someone special to the author, Mr. Snicket.

She’s also dead. Sucks for Mr. Snicket.

Moving on.

And now, we meet our three soon to not be spunky youngsters, who you should get familiar with now. These are the Baudelaire children: fourteen year old Violet, twelve year old Klaus, and “indiscriminate amount of months old” baby Sunny. They live with their RICH parents in a massive mansion in the middle of a city. What city? A city. Don’t worry about it.

Let’s meet them. Violet is a genius inventor who has a habit of tying up her hair with a ribbon whenever she’s really deep in an inventing frenzy. It helps her think. She’s also right handed. Make a note of that.
Klaus is very intelligent and he enjoys reading books, so he has retained a significant amount of knowledge.
And then Sunny. Sunny is a baby who usually speaks in indiscriminate babbles and noises. Her siblings understand her but no one else. Oh also she has four teeth that are RAZOR sharp, so she’s a massive fan of biting things.

Today, the kids are at Briny Beach, a foggy, briny beach, testing out one of Violet’s inventions. Well, they would be, if Sunny hadn’t made a noise that indicated there was a strange figure exiting the fog.

This figure is Mr. Poe, one of the friends of the Baudelaire parents. He has a permanent cough, he works for the bank, and he’s…not very bright.

Mr. Poe says hi to the kids and then promptly drops the news to them that a massive fire has both burned their house down and killed their parents. Quite casually might I add. He also casually adds that he’ll be taking the kids in until he finds a suitable guardian, and also will be managing the Baudelaire fortune (which is MASSIVE) until Violet turns of age.

So after dropping THAT bombshell on these three orphans, Mr. Poe takes them back to his house, which is, for lack of a better phrase, absolutely miserable for the Baudelaires. Mr. Poe’s two boys are little brats who complain that the Baudelaires are sad and depressed (Gee I wonder if it has something to do with their DEAD PARENTS), and Mrs. Poe is weird. She’s just weird.

After a while, fortunately (or unfortunately as we’ll come to see) Mr. Poe announces that he found a guardian for the kids. And since background checks don’t exist or Mr. Poe doesn’t give enough of a crap to do one, he’ll be hauling them down there the next morning. See, according to Mr. Poe, the Baudelaire parents’ will dictates that in case of fire or death, the kids are to be raised by their closest living relative. Closest geographically, by the way. Mr. Poe seems to think that’s what their parents meant, even though that’s lowkey ridiculous but whatever what do I know.

This guardian is named Count Olaf. Mr. Poe also proudly mentions that he’s an actor, so that’s great, I guess. How he’s both a count and an actor are questions that will probably have to wait for judgment day.

The next morning, the three anxious Baudelaires are hauled into Mr. Poe’s car at the crack of dawn because he couldn’t be bothered to take a day off work to get them settled. Instead he’s taking the kids down to Count Olaf’s house before the banking day starts. Real nice there, man.

After a drive through the city, Mr. Poe’s car stops in front of the nicest house in a nice little neighborhood. There’s plenty of pretty plants and at the door is a smartly dressed woman who is delighted to see the kids. This is Justice Strauss. She’s a darling.

Justice Strauss introduces herself to the Baudelaires, and Klaus asks if she’s married to Count Olaf. But, since professionals have standards, Justice Strauss tells them that she isn’t but instead the Count is her next door neighbor.

And the poor kids (and Mr. Poe) look next door to see what can only be considered an absolute HELLHOLE of a house. It’s sagging. It’s rotten. There’s a weird eye carved in the front door. Every window is closed. There’s a massive tower for some reason. It hasn’t been painted since the fall of the Roman Empire. Basically, it’s disgusting.

Sunny, in her babbling wisdom, makes a noise that translates to the other two Baudelaires as “well, shoot.” And she’s right. But Mr. Poe wouldn’t know a red flag unless it someone tried to pay with it at the bank, so he hauls the kids right over to the yucky house, and knocks on the door, because if Count Olaf doesn’t paint his house he’s obviously not going to have a doorbell.

And then the Count shows himself.

Now, quick break here. Count Olaf in himself…well let’s just say the devil himself cowers at this man. Dude looks like a tall, evil, disheveled worm with a unibrow, and generally has pretty bad vibes.

He also has a creepy voice as the kids walk into his house, which of COURSE is even shittier on the inside. Mr. Poe notes that this house is disgusting, when Count Olaf promptly says “Yeah but with some of the Baudelaire money it would be even nicer.” And THEN, when Mr. Poe rambles on about how until Violet turns eighteen NO ONE is touching that money, Count Olaf shoots him a death glare.

Yeah okay the writing’s on the wall this guy is nuts.

But since Mr. Poe is a stupid idiot, he leaves the kids with this future murderer and current psychopath. Did I mention Olaf is wearing loafers with no socks, and with a clear view of the eye tattoo on his ankle? Because of course he has an eye tattoo on his ankle. He wasn’t weird enough.

I am afraid for these children.

Anyway, it becomes PRETTY clear that there is no way Count Olaf is providing a stable home for the Baudelaire kids. First, their “bedroom” (massive quotes there) has one lumpy bed, no crib for Sunny so Violet has to use the curtains, no closet, instead a massive box, and no toys or anything, just a pile of rocks.

A. PILE. OF. ROCKS.

I would say call for help, but if everyone is as incompetent as Mr. Poe, we may be in for an issue.

Also, as if it wasn’t bad enough, Count Olaf is also a dick. Plot twist of the century there. Each morning he makes the kids do a shit ton of dangerous, not child safe chores, like repainting the back deck or repairing the windows. Because that’s what a sane person does. Obviously.

One day, the kids wake up to see a note from the Count telling them to make dinner for his ten person theater troupe.

Okay.

Sure.

Fine.

Obviously the kids haven’t the faintest idea where to start with this endeavor, until, by some miracle, Justice Strauss knocks on the door to check on them. And INSTEAD of telling this judge, who works for the government, that Count Olaf is probably breaking enough laws to get fifteen life sentences, the kids politely ask for a cookbook.

Eh who am I kidding she probably can’t do anything about his bullshittery anyway. That seems to be a theme in this series.

So Justice Strauss takes them to her library, and the kids spend a nice few minutes out of Count Olaf’s shithole looking for a recipe, until Klaus finds the recipe for puttanesca sauce. Now, this dish is basically pasta with a sauce of olives, capers, anchovies, chopped parsley, and tomatoes, and honestly, right now, I would love some of that. And I don’t even like anchovies or olives.

It seems easy enough for the kids to make, so they head to the market with Justice Strauss because unlike Count Olaf she has a soul. They get all the ingredients and even pudding mix, because maybe if they make a nice dinner the fucking piece of shit known as Count Olaf will be nice to them.

So, of course, when Olaf and his troupe of bastards come back to the house, Count Olaf starts bitching to the kids about how they didn’t make roast beef. When the kids obviously tell him that they didn’t know he wanted roast beef, his response is to GRAB SUNNY AND ALMOST DROP HER FROM HIS FULL HEIGHT.

You know, when he’s played by such charismatic actors in the show and movies, it’s almost easy to forget that Count Olaf is actually just Satan incarnate. Fortunately, his stupid theater troupe’s laughter distracts him from dropping the baby, which would’ve probably killed Sunny.

Oh yeah, the troupe of bastards. Let’s meet them. The main ones are a creep with a bald head and a massive nose, two women with so much powder on their faces they look like ghosts, an overweight fellow whose gender is ambiguous, and a guy with hooks on his hands. Wonder how that happened.

Real quick note here: the troupe in the Netflix show and the troupe in the books are basically night and day from each other. The show’s troupe are a bunch of lovable fools (same with their version of Olaf ironically) while the book…well, you’ll see.

So, the poor kids have to serve the food to these assholes, but fortunately at this point, the dipshits are so drunk they’re less annoying. Hooray for alcohol.

Still doesn’t stop Count Olaf from slapping Klaus in the face later when the boy rightfully yells at him for only giving them one bed. The kids cry themselves to sleep that night.

God this book is rougher than I remember.

The next morning has the kids chopping firewood (too bad they can’t use that axe to remove Olaf’s head from his neck), and discussing their predicament. Klaus suggests talking to Justice Strauss, which would probably be the best course of action, but Violet decides they should go to Mr. Poe first.

And to no one’s surprise, Mr. Poe isn’t even close to helpful. In fact, this piece of crap has the AUDACITY to say that because of “in loco parentis”, Count Olaf can raise the kids however he wants to.

Dude. He’s hitting them, you fucking DINGLENUT. Also technically “in loco parentis” implies the guardian figure in question has created a meaningful relationship with the child, which clearly by Klaus’s bruises, is not the case here. All I’m saying is that any competent court would have a FIELD day with Count Olaf.

So, after Mr. Poe kicks the kids out of his bank office (fire this man now if he thinks hitting a kid is a solid parenting technique), they just end up going back to Justice Strauss who lets them borrow books from their library. Technically an “in loco parentis” case could be made for Justice Strauss, but what do I know I’m not an idiot banker.

The next morning is weird. Heck, when the kids get downstairs, Count Olaf is there (oh god run) but he made breakfast for them? With their favorite fruit?

He wants something.

Turns out Mr. Poe had CALLED COUNT OLAF AND TOLD HIM ABOUT THE BAUDELAIRES’ VISIT.

If you hear a loud ramming noise while reading that’s me slamming my head into my local Corinthian column.

Anyway, Count Olaf, still being suspiciously nice to the kids, offers that to be a better “dad” (MASSIVE quotes on that one) he’ll let the kids participate in his next play. It’s called the Marvelous Marriage, and it’s written by the playwright Al Funcoot.

Say readers have y’all heard of an anagram? Changing around the letters of a word to make a new word? Just checking.

Back to business. This “marvelous work of modern media” sees the plotline of a smart and handsome guy (played by Count Olaf in the clear opposite of typecasting) who marries a young, pretty, and rich woman. Justice Strauss has agreed to play the part of a judge marrying the happy couple. And who will play the pretty young woman with a massive fortune she can’t access yet?

Why Violet of course!

God, I feel ill.

Fortunately the kids know something is obviously wrong because of course it is, you’d have to be a dumbass or an evil arsehole to not realize that. So, they decide to go to Justice Strauss’s place again, but this time to read up on inheritance law.

At first, they don’t find anything, and Violet leaves with Sunny to go help Justice Strauss with gardening. Klaus keeps reading until the hook-handed man jumpscares him, threatens his life, (basically confirming that Olaf is up to some shit), and sends this TWELVE YEAR OLD BOY into a panic attack.

Fun fact: these books were in the kids section of my elementary school library.

Klaus is fortunately able to sneak a book under the guise of future murderer Hooky, and spends the whole night reading it. And he figures out what Olaf is up to, somehow.

Unfortunately, he’s also twelve and decides to confront Olaf, BY HIMSELF, the next morning. He sneaks past Violet on the lumpy mattress, and an oddly not moving Sunny, and sits down at the table.

Count Olaf arrives next, and drinks wine for breakfast, adding “dysfunctional alcoholic” to his list of crimes. Klaus then promptly calls him out on his scheme, and pray tell, what is this scheme?

See, since Justice Strauss is a real judge, this fake wedding in the Marvelous Marriage would be legally binding. Meaning Count Olaf means to marry this fourteen year old and take her money, according to nuptial law.

Okay, number 1: She’s fourteen. There’s no way that’s legally binding, even with a judge there.

Number 2: Weddings in plays aren’t real. Obviously. Even with a judge, she’d be an actress in that scenario and thus not doing her actual job.

Number 3: She’s FOURTEEN, YOU FUCKING CREEP.

Count Olaf seems pretty calm at this revelation. He’s up to something. Klaus runs upstairs to warn Violet, who is pretty shocked at this because…she’s like fourteen. Klaus says that he could do it in “this community” because they live in hell or something. Idk. It’s certainly a place where the world and the authorities are quiet.

Anyway, Klaus goes to wake up Sunny so they can go ask Mr. Poe for help (like that would do anything, in loco parentis my ASS) but she doesn’t move. That’s odd. She was right there last night. Where could Sunny be? Surely not tied up in a bird cage hanging from Olaf’s tower with tape around her mouth so she can’t scream, right?

Oh, that’s exactly where she is? Well fuck me I guess.

Yes, Count Olaf has kidnapped this baby and in order for him to not committ infanticide (just another blip on his crimes list honestly), he’s forcing a teenager to marry him. Did I mention he has the audacity to say “Oh she’s perfectly safe.” Dipshit she’s HANGING FROM A TOWER IN A BIRDCAGE. FUCK OFF.

Oh then he starts creeping on Violet.

Because of course he does. God, this Olaf and Netflix Olaf are literally two different characters who only share the same motivations of that sweet, sweet fortune.

Anyways, back to business. After…THAT, Violet ties her hair up, which means she’s making a plan to get her sister out of that situation. First, she tries to bring Sunny some blankets, but the ambiguously gendered member of Count Olaf’s troupe shoos her off. So instead she just works on her invention in the “bedroom” while Klaus probably has nightmares of Hooky.

What’s Violet’s plan? Using some cloth from old clothes, wire, one of those rocks Olaf left for the kids, and a curtain rod, this fourteen year old makes a homemade grappling hook. I certainly wasn’t this smart at fourteen, I can tell you that much.

Violet sneaks outside to try her invention, and it actually works! She makes it to the top of the tower where her sister is! It’s amazing!

Oh wait this is a Series of Unfortunate Events, isn’t it.

Yeah, she’s caught by Hooky. Also the inside of the tower is a nightmare of random shit and paintings of eyes. If Count Olaf is anything, he at least is consistent with style.

Hooky locks Violet in the room and goes to probably scare the shit out of Klaus again, and once their brother is locked in there with them, the Baudelaires are back to square one.

The kids spend the rest of the night trying to make a plan, some of the options including Molotov cocktails and polygamy. (Don’t ask).

Oh and saying “I don’t” at the marriage could work but Olaf himself shuts that one down. Turns out he’s here to get the kids for that fucking illegal performance. Violet is still trying to think of a way out of their predicament and she grabs the bannister with her right hand to steady herself.

And then it clicks.

Meanwhile, The Marvelous Marriage by Al Funcoot (remember the anagrams?) is on full display! The kids are miserable but Justice Strauss (and Mr. In Loco Parentis Poe who’s also there) sure aren’t.

And then it’s time for that fucking final act. You know, the crime. It goes off unfortunately without a hitch and Count Olaf proudly announces to the entire audience that he has in fact committed a crime! Everyone tries to disagree but Olaf has a response for everyone such as “Oh the paper is real and so are the words Justice Strauss said and blah blah blah” WHO GIVES A FUCK ARE YOU PEOPLE DELUSIONAL? SHE’S FOURTEEN

Klaus is miserable but he just wants baby Sunny, even as the bald man threatens his life again. Violet, on the other hand, is very calm. Because, you see, as she smartly points out, she signed the marriage contract with her left hand.

And, as it turns out, according to the nuptial law book, a contract signed with the non-dominant hand is not legally binding.

I mean, sure, whatever. Count Olaf loses his shit and tries to have Sunny murdered but fortunately Hooky didn’t think too far ahead and already let her out of the cage. Mr. Poe decides to do something and finally removes the children from Olaf’s care, Justice Strauss offers to take care of them, and everyone calls for Olaf’s arrest. It’s all happy!

Oh wait this is a Series of Unfortunate Events, isn’t it.

Yeah, Olaf escapes. One of his troupe members cuts the lights in the theater and everyone books it. ANd then Olaf casually tells the kids that he will in fact MURDER THEM and get their fortune before he escapes.

Why was this book in my elementary school library again?

Mr. Poe says he’ll call the police but like ain’t no way Count Olaf’s being caught by someone as incompetent as Mr. Poe, and Justice Strauss says that she’ll take the kids home and fix them a nice breakfast.

But unfortunately Mr. Poe then again mentions the Baudelaire parents’ will and that they have to go with a relative. Never mind he already fucked that up and put the kids with a literal psychopath, never mind that an actual in loco parentis case could be made for the Justice, and never mind an actual serial killer is after these children. What do I know?

So the kids are taken back to Mr. Poe’s home before being shipped off god knows where. And so the Bad Beginning ends.

And if you thought that was bad get ready because it gets EVEN WORSE.

Chapter Text

And we’re back with the most depressing series in the children’s section of libraries! Seriously, these books are sad.

Beatrice is still dead by the way.

Anyway, last we saw the Baudelaires, they were being shipped off god knows where after Mr. Poe made the fuck up ever and dropped the kids off with Count Olaf. The same guy who threatened to kill them in the last book, by the way. Remember that? Mr. Poe sure doesn’t.

Currently the kiddos are being driven by Mr. Poe along Lousy Lane (ain’t that a name) which goes past a horseradish factory. Don’t know why I mentioned that, not like that’s relevant or something, but it’s there. And it REEKS. The Baudelaires are heading to meet Dr. Montgomery, their new guardian. Actually his name is Doctor Montgomery Montgomery, because I guess his parents hated him. He’s supposedly their father’s cousin’s wife’s brother.

The kids are pretty pensive once they arrive at the Doctor’s house, which is big and fancy. It also has a massive lawn, which is covered in hedges cut to look like reptiles and snakes. Mr. Poe leads the orphans up to the front of the door, and knocks. Violet, Klaus and Sunny are just hoping and praying that Doctor Montgomery isn’t like Count Olaf, or even worse than Count Olaf.

And fortunately, for once something goes their way.

Doctor Montgomery, or Uncle Monty as he asks the kids to call him, is an absolute darling. He makes the kids a coconut cream cake, and when Sunny doesn’t like it (because baby with fangs, she likes hard things) he gives her a raw carrot. He loves having the kids around, even with Mr. Poe doing his best to be annoying about the kids being informal. Turns out Uncle Monty is a herpetologist, which means he studies snakes. He LOVES snakes and travels the world to find new specimens of snakes.

And as it turns out, he’s leaving for Peru in ten days (to study snakes obviously) and he offers to take the Baudelaires with him, which means getting a whole continent away from that fucker Count Olaf. The Baudelaires are pretty okay with this arrangement, which like gee I wonder if it has to do with the wanted criminal after them. Monty also mentions that his assistant Gustav left a strange letter of resignation a day ago, and the new guy Stephano won’t be in for a week, but that’s probably not relevant.

Anyway, after Mr. Poe leaves (thank fuck) Uncle Monty goes to show the kids both their new rooms, plural, say that he hopes Count Olaf will be torn apart by wild animals (or like a deadly fungus or something that would be nice) and finally, the kids get to see the Reptile Room, which is just fantastic, if you like reptiles. It’s a glass covered room just COVERED in reptiles: lizards, snakes, toads (those aren’t even reptiles) you name it, it’s probably in there. Heck, the only snake that’s missing is Count Olaf.

There’s also a library in the room, in case this wasn’t already awesome enough. Uncle Monty tells the kids that they’re free to come into the Reptile Room whenever they want, and also he offers to take them to the movies. But first, he has something to show them.

See, there’s a covered cage in the corner of the room housing a new reptilian pal. It’s a brand new jet black snake that Uncle Monty had discovered on his last trip. He talks about how he’s planning on showing it to the Herpetological Society, and the name he gave it? The Incredibly Deadly Viper.

Anyway then the snake promptly lunges out of the cage and bites Sunny on the face.

But while the other two Baudelaires are freaking out, Uncle Monty is laughing! Why? Is it because he’s even worse than Count Olaf? Is he secretly evil?

Oh come on, don’t start with that already, it’s only book 2! You sound like Snicket.

Turns out, the Incredibly Deadly Viper is a misnomer. The snake is actually a massive sweetheart with the disposition of a well trained dog and it is now currently playing with Sunny on the floor. See, Monty had been bullied repeatedly by the Herpetological Society for his name, which if you remember is Montgomery Montgomery. So his plan is that when he goes to present the Incredibly Deadly Viper, he’s going to fake an escape from it, cause a freakout, and then laugh his ass off.

Mood, honestly.

There are deadly snakes in the Reptile Room, obviously, like the Mamba du Mal, but those aren’t relevant right now. Monty also mentions that he has a cabinet full of venom samples. Huh.

And so, the next week passes wonderfully for the Baudelaires. Violet hangs up new ideas for inventions in her room, Klaus reads a ton of new books, Sunny gets to play with her new best friend the Viper (I’m not writing out that full name). The kids hang out in the Reptile Room, prepare for their trip to Peru, and see movies with their wonderful guardian.

One morning the kids awaken to a note from Monty saying that he had to go out to get some supplies for the trip like canned peaches and a canoe. Also, the new assistant Stephano is supposedly arriving today, so that’s interesting.

Speaking of Stephano, I wonder what he’s like. See, you have to like reptiles to be going on a reptile expedition to a whole new continent and country. So, he has to like reptiles, right? I suppose Stephano’s a guy who likes reptiles.

Or he could just be Count Olaf in a fake beard.

….It’s that second one? Seriously? Well fuck me I guess.

Yep, Count Olaf rolls his way back into the story with a fake beard and a new name. And he does not do it subtly at all. Frankly, he didn’t even bother to cover up his tattoo, but like no one’s looking for him so who cares.

Obviously the Baudelaires see through his disguise, but since this version of Count Olaf hits children (and also threatens to take off one of Sunny’s toes), there isn’t much they can do, besides dropping snake venom into his coffee or something. But this is a kids book, surprisingly, so no can do there.

Did I mention he has a knife? He has a knife by the way. The Baudelaires are screwed.

The Baudelaires storm off and try to figure out what to do now that there’s a serial murderer in the house. Klaus offers running away, but if Olaf found them here, he’d find them anywhere. And not like Mr. Poe would help.

The kids end up just waiting for Monty to come home, which doesn’t even work because Olaf (I’m not calling him Stephano fuck that noise) has a knife. A large knife. And he’s very keen on flaunting it every chance he gets. So much so that in fact the next few days he just sits outside Monty’s bedroom door flashing it in the moonlight like fucking Michael Myers.

That snake venom is looking real nice.

However, in a turn of events, Monty goes to talk to the kids without Olaf there, and when the Baudelaires reveal that Olaf is bad news, he agrees. But for ALL the wrong reasons. See, Monty thinks that Olaf/Stephano is after his reptile research. So, he’s taking the kids to Peru a day early.

(Quick note here: In the show, Monty actually realizes that Stephano is Olaf, so he tries to escape with the kids for that reason. It leads to the same conclusion, don’t you worry about that)

Anyway then Klaus’s reading lamp falls out the window and almost breaks Monty’s neck (golly I wonder how THAT happened), but he ignores it and goes onward to the Reptile Room, where Olaf is presumably looking for ways to kill everyone in the house.

But, it turns out Olaf actually isn’t in the Reptile Room, he was pushing Klaus’s lamp out the window (shocker) and unfortunately the kids are still dumb enough to reveal that Monty got rid of his ticket to Peru.

Olaf ominously says that “accidents happen” and then vanishes into the shadows. But I’m sure that means nothing.

*cough*

That night Monty again takes the kids (and the murderer) to the movies, this time to see a film called Zombies in the Snow, which I’m assuming was directed by James Cameron or something. The Baudelaires can barely pay attention to it since Olaf is right there and also rudely hogging the snacks, and when they head home, the kids stay up in the same room out of fear.

(Quick note 2: Zombies in the Snow is significantly more important in the show than the book, considering there’s a whole kidnapping Monty plot with Olaf’s troupe and the spyglass and all that. That’s not relevant here, just noting in case you’re following along with the TV show. Back to the plot.)

The next morning, the kids blearily awaken to the walking jumpscare known as Count Olaf standing in the doorway, borderline demanding that they get in the jeep and head to Peru. Klaus is like “Uncle Monty said you weren’t going” and Olaf just snickers and tells the kids to go check on Monty in the Reptile Room.

Monty’s dead, by the way.

Wait, he’s DEAD?

Yep, Count Olaf adds another body to his two person kill count (because let’s be real here he killed the Baudelaire parents as well), since the kids discover Monty’s cold dead body with two holes in his leg. Supposedly a snakebite, which Olaf is keen to say.

Obviously it’s not a snakebite because NO SHIT it’s not a snakebite, but for now the kids don’t have time to do an Ace Attorney investigation, they have to deal with Olaf trying to smuggle them out of the country.

Fortunately, before Olaf can get the kids even out of the driveway in the jeep, Mr. Poe does the first useful thing he’s ever done in this entire series and becomes an obstacle that Olaf accidentally hits with his car.

Olaf is pissed (both for the car and for the fact his plan just got rapidly foiled), but Mr. Poe says that they should go back to the house to discuss what to do with Monty’s body and the expedition. At this point, the kids try to reveal that Olaf is disguised as Stephano to Mr. Poe, but Olaf thought ahead for this and covered his tattoo with makeup. So we’re back to square one.

The kids walk back to the house with Mr. Poe, because his car is totaled, when suddenly a van shows up with a very convenient doctor named Lucafont. (*cough* anagrams *cough). His hands are enormous and oddly stiff. Hmmm.

The convenient doctor conveniently goes with “Stephano” to check on Monty’s body and the snakes (since Stephano swears he knows NOTHING about snakes), but not before Olaf accidentally reveals Monty was murdered. But before the kids can do anything Mr. Poe interrupts them to be an idiot and we’re once again back to square one.

Anyway, Lucafont finishes his “autopsy”, which basically boils down to the Mamba du Mal unlocked its cage, slithered out, bit Monty, slithered back into the cage, and locked the door again.

Yeah, sure Jan. Even Mr. Poe thinks that’s bullshit. While the three adults argue, Violet takes her siblings back to the Reptile Room for an actual Ace Attorney murder investigation. Klaus will read up on the Mamba du Mal, Violet’s going to check Olaf/Stephano’s room, and Sunny’s on guard watch.

While Klaus is reading and Sunny is guarding, Violet first eavesdrops on the adults, who are still arguing, and then she heads off to check Olaf’s room. It’s a dead end unfortunately (and also disgusting, like use some Windex old man) and she rushes back to the Reptile Room to see if Klaus found anything.

Thankfully, he did. Klaus learned that the Mamba du Mal not only bites its victims, it strangles them as well. And since Monty’s body was devoid of bruises, Klaus theorizes that Olaf took the bottle of snake venom out of the cabinet I mentioned earlier and injected him with it.

Unfortunately, the kids do not have time to test this theory since Mr. Poe has acquiesced to the murderer and weird doctor and is about to send the kids off with this literal stranger. Violet tells Klaus to create some sort of distraction and runs off to go break into some luggage.

While Violet is trying to break into Olaf’s padlocked suitcase, Klaus starts screaming, causing all the adults to run into the Reptile Room. It turns out that, oh no! The Incredibly Deadly Viper has wrapped itself around Sunny! Whatever will we do!

If you remember, lovely reader, the Viper is actually a sweetpea. But Mr. Poe certainly doesn’t know that. He FLIPS OUT and starts screaming.

And that’s when Olaf walks himself right into a trap. He brags that the Viper is perfectly harmless because he read up all about snakes and he knows so much about them. Lucafont coughs, trying to get Olaf to stop, but he doesn’t, and it’s revealed that Olaf/Stephano is a big fat idiot liar!

Meanwhile Violet builds a lockpick to pick Olaf’s suitcase out of an old lamp, and sneaks out to the car to do some lockpicking. Even with Olaf noticing her, she still succeeds, and all the evidence-I mean Olaf’s belongings fall out of his suitcase.

Violet finds the empty vial of Mamba du Mal venom plus the murder syringe and runs back into the house, ready to accuse a bitch. And finally, the whole plot comes to light.

It’s not that complicated. Olaf poisoned Monty with the venom, poked two holes to blame the snake and then would sneak the Baudelaires onto the ship with no one the wiser.

At this point, Mr. Poe orders “Stephano” to rub his ankle with a handkerchief, and after some resistance, the makeup falls away and the eye tattoo is revealed.

So yeah, Count Olaf is revealed. He also admits to murdering Monty’s previous assistant Gustave (make that a four person kill count), and gladly lets himself be taken away by Lucafont, the weird doctor.

Sunny also agrees he’s a weird doctor. So much so that she lunges and bites the doctor’s hands. They promptly break in half revealing…hooks. Surprising no one, Lucafont was Hooky the whole time.

Anyway then Hooky and Olaf make a break for it. Mr. Poe barely even bothers to chase them, and the criminals are gone within an instant. Tired from the day’s…events (and come on man who can blame them) the Baudelaires fall asleep on the stairs of the house, only awakening when a man named Bruce from the Herpetological Society shows up to repossess all of Monty’s reptiles.

The kids want to keep the Incredibly Deadly Viper, but the most they can do is wave goodbye to the lovely snake as it’s loaded up and driven away, a fate the Baudelaires get next as Mr. Poe takes them to their new home. And so ends this reptilian adventure.

The next book is worse, don’t you worry about that.

Chapter Text

How the fuck is this google doc already 21 pages that’s like a fourth of the Narnia one, what-

Welcome back, my lovely little unfortunate bastards! Today on our carousel of misery, we’re looking at the third book in a Series of Unfortunate Events, that being the Wide Window. Hopefully no one jumps out of it.

We start, firstly, with a dead Beatrice, and then with the Baudelaire orphans standing on Damocles Dock. The dock is the, well, dock of the Fickle Ferry, the only way across Lake Lachrymose, truly a name that inspires joy, as well as the lake’s Lavender Lighthouse and Curdled Cave. The Baudelaire’s new guardian, because if you remember the last one is dead and the previous one is the cause of that death, lives in a house high above the lake. Her name is Aunt Josephine.

Mr. Poe, in his lack of infinite wisdom, excitedly gives the kids peppermints, which they’re pretty badly allergic to, and then informs the kids that they will be taking a taxi to Aunt Josephine’s house. Of course he’s not going into that cab. Banking is much more important than the lives of three children.

So the Baudelaires get into a taxi cab, and they drive through the town, which is pretty abandoned. Lake Lachrymose is in the off season, so besides a clothing store and a restaurant called the Anxious Clown (clearly named after me), there’s not much to see. The cab driver also notes that Hurricane Herman is about to hit Lake Lachrymose, so that’s fun.

Eventually the Baudelaires get to Aunt Josephine’s house, which is just casually sitting on the edge of a cliff. It’s then that they meet their Aunt Josephine, who’s..alive, I guess. And pants-shittingly afraid of everything that exists. She also likes grammar. Like a lot. Like to the point where she has a library in her house that is exclusively dedicated to grammar.

Even though she’s afraid of everything, Josephine still gives the kids a lovely room, and gifts, which the kids end up switching around to fit their interests. She’s trying, at least.

Anyway, it’s time for dinner. Aunt Josephine’s made…cold soup. She’s afraid of the oven. Of course. Josephine also mentions her dead husband, Ike, who was a wonderful man. He had died in Lake Lachrymose. Probably because of drowning.

It’s then Josephine takes the kids to that library I mentioned earlier, which has a pretty wide window (ha get it) showing off the lake. It’s the only way she can look at the lake now, because Ike didn’t wait an hour after eating before going back in. So that means he drowned of cramps, right?

WRONG.

See, in Lake Lachrymose, there’s another rule that involves waiting an hour post eating. Don’t and you’ll be eaten alive by the Lachrymose Leeches, which are normal leeches that eat people. Like you do.

The Baudelaires are pretty shocked by this, and ask their aunt why she hasn’t just moved away, to which Josephine adds that she’s also scared of real estate agents. Of course.

So the days pass on, with the kids trying to keep a good outlook, even though Aunt Josephine’s irrational fears are both concerning and annoying. Finally, one day the kids convince Josephine to stock up on food before Hurricane Herman. While their aunt is looking for more cold food to make, Violet goes off to get some cucumbers and accidentally bumps into someone, a tall sailor. She goes to apologize and then immediately stops. Why?

Why do you think? It’s Count Olaf in a new bad costume! For fucks sake, the Count isn’t even trying this time, just stuffing a fake peg leg over his tattoo ankle and not even bothering to shave the unibrow. What a lazy ass.

Violet obviously immediately goes to find Aunt Josephine and her siblings, but Count Olaf puts on the flattery (somehow) and introduces himself as…Captain Sham. CAPTAIN SHAM? Damn, he’s not even trying.

Aunt Josephine falls for it immediately, the other two Baudelaires obviously see through the disguise. Get used to all the adults having face blindness, it’s the worst trope in this series. Josephine’s case is much worse though, since she thinks Olaf is handsome. Dammit.

Olaf (not using the disguise names that’s stupid) gives Aunt Josephine his business card for his fake business, which she promptly points out a grammatical mistake on. Fortunately they’re all in a public location so Olaf can’t just stab her and run. He wants to, though. Oh he definitely wants to.

The kids go back to the house with a starstruck Aunt Josephine (Olaf decides not to follow them now) and that night at dinner, while everyone tries to convince this woman of the murderer wandering around the city, the phone rings. Violet answers it (remember Josephine is afraid of the phone), and of course it’s Count Olaf. Who else would it be?

Violet tells him he has the wrong number and promptly puts the phone down, because she slays. Aunt Josephine congratulates her on braving the scary phone, but unfortunately Olaf calls right back, and this time Josephine is brave enough to answer it herself. So Violet’s slaying was all for nothing. Fuck.

Aunt Josephine kicks the kids out of the room so Olaf can better manipulate her, and the Baudelaires speculate on what Olaf has planned. But they can’t just speculate forever (and besides what’s there to speculate about if he wants them dead), so the kids sit in bed and stare at the ceiling.

Much, much later that night, the sound of glass shattering echoes through the house, causing the Baudelaires to leap up out of bed. They run to the library and find a note tacked to the wall, reading (with a shit ton of grammatical errors) that Aunt Josephine has committed suicide and and left the kids in the care of Captain Sham, aka Count Olaf. When the kids open the door, they discover the wide window completely cracked open.

Well fuck.

The Baudelaires immediately call Mr. Poe (who actually answered somehow), and they sit on the floor of the house and try to decide what to do. Klaus notices the grammatical errors, but Violet is too miserable to help, and they start arguing until Sunny snaps at them. It’s a pretty shitty situation all around.

While the kids wait, they decide to forge a new note, in turn learning that Olaf probably threw Aunt Josephine out the window and forged the note. Unfortunately right then the world’s worst banker arrives, and when the kids try to tell him that Olaf once again committed a crime, he doesn’t believe them. God, does Mr. Poe ever get tired of being completely USELESS?

The Baudelaires also discover, thanks to Josephine’s shopping list, that the note wasn’t forged by Olaf, but was written by her. So like…he forced her to write it and then threw her out the window right? Right?

Right?

Mr. Poe decides that giving the kids to this man who he has never met before is perfectly legal, so he goes to do just that (girl WHAT). He takes the kids to the Anxious Clown, while Violet and Klaus scramble to figure out a plan. Klaus KNOWS something with that note is fishy as hell, but he needs time to figure it out.

Once at the restaurant Olaf is once again not even being subtle, while the waiter, named Larry is…there. I guess.

(Quick note: Larry is much more important in the TV show. But he’s just…here. He’s still a member of the super secret organization I’m not supposed to mention yet but that’s not mentioned until the unauthorized biography so whatever)

While everyone is eating shitty food, Violet has finally figured out a plan to get more time. See, she still had the peppermints Mr. Poe had given her originally. And with a little bit of finesse, she unwraps three peppermints, giving two to her siblings.

Her plan? To cause an allergic reaction so they can go home and check the note. These kids are hardcore.

Violet breaks out in hives, Klaus’s tongue swells up and poor Sunny gets hit with both symptoms at once. Mr. Poe freaks out, while Count Olaf is obviously dismissive because he’s an ass. Thankfully, for once, the kids are able to get out of the restaurant and they head back to Josephine’s house, even with Olaf doing his best to keep them there.

Oh also Hurricane Herman is getting stronger. So there’s that.

Once the kids get back to the house, Violet takes Sunny to try and stop the hives, while Klaus gets to work translating the note. The library is a wreck because of the incoming hurricane, but he still somehow figures out a work space. And with a swollen tongue too. These kids are metal.

Sunny and Violet come to check on Klaus after a while, where he reveals what he’s learned. Each of Josephine’s mistakes involved a different or extra letter, and by removing or replacing those letters, he’s left with two words.

Curdled Cave.

This would be an exciting revelation if the house didn’t start FALLING APART. As the kids rush to find an atlas of Lake Lachrymose and decide to take the Fickle Ferry to the cave, they’re barely able to discover where Curdled Cave is before shit really hits the fan. Violet grabs Sunny and Klaus and as Aunt Josephine’s house vanishes into the lake below, the kids escape.

Unfortunately for them (shocking), the Fickle Ferry doesn’t run in hurricanes. Honestly most things don’t run in hurricanes, I don’t know what they were expecting.

Fortunately they do know of a place to get a sailboat.

Unfortunately it’s from Olaf’s fake sailboat business. Once the kids sneak over there, they discover both sailboats (great!), the fact that the sailboats are locked up (not great?), and the only way to get the keys is to get them out of the hands of Olaf’s sleeping henchperson of ambiguous gender (definitely not great).

While Klaus and Violet try to figure out how to get the keys, Sunny casually sneaks into where the sleeping henchperson is, and grabs the keys. But before she can get out, the henchperson wakes up, which causes a few new problems.

Mainly, how the fuck are they going to get a sailboat and the hell away from this idiot?

The Baudelaires still have Josephine’s atlas, which falls out of their hands and conveniently right into the henchperson’s line of sight. They trip over it, and the kids rush to a boat and promptly take it out to sea. In a hurricane. With limited knowledge of how to work a sailboat.

Man I would’ve taken my chances with the henchperson.

Anyway, the Baudelaires somehow don’t die, and Hurricane Herman finally breaks, which is a word here that means “yes the children just sailed through a full hurricane”, after a long while. They see the Lavender Lighthouse, which, similar to the name, is certainly lavender, and then they reach Curdled Cave.

Two things about Curdled Cave. First, it’s for sale, so if you’re into creepy caves with haunting screaming noises inside, call now, and secondly there’s a creepy screaming noise coming from inside. But, turns out, this creepy screaming is actually Aunt Josephine!

The kids are quite happy to see her, as is she, and she asks them where their things are, to which Violet and Klaus are like “things?”. So, as it turns out, Josephine ran to the cave after Olaf threatened her, leaving the kids in the clutches of that nutjob, and she’s not even sorry. She refused to call the cops because she’s “afraid of the phone”, and she cares more about Sunny’s ungrammatical baby talk instead of their lives.

Shit, Josephine was a kind of an asshole in the books. She wasn’t this bad in the show, I think.

Anyway, the kids are unable to convince Josephine to leave with them until Klaus tells her that Curdled Cave is for sale. And if you remember, Josephine is pantshittingly afraid of real estate agents. So, she leaves with them.

They get a whiny Josephine into the boat, but before long she’s panicking again. The Baudelaires are dismissive when Josephine says they’re entering the territory of the Lachrymose Leeches, since they hadn’t eaten since the whole Anxious Clown incident, but the Josephine mentions she ate a banana less than an hour before they arrived.

Well fuck.

The leeches promptly attempt to sink the boat, making a crack large enough in the hull to cause water flow. Violet gets everyone to either row or work the tiller, in order to TRY and get to shore.

It…doesn’t work. The leeches are now very close to sinking the boat. Violet grabs her hair ribbon to do what she does best, and decides to create a fire signal with Josephine’s hair net and some wood in order to signal the shore.

And she does, because Violet Baudelaire doesn’t fuck around. Good news, the signal does alert another boat. Bad news, it was Olaf’s boat.

Well, FUCK.

Olaf ironically lets them onto the boat (oh god what is he gonna do), while Aunt Josephine just…HANDS THE KIDS OVER TO HIM? Damn, she really sucks. Olaf almost considers this, until Aunt Josephine once again corrects a grammatical mistake of his.

And Olaf’s heard enough of that shit, so he pushes her overboard to the leeches. I’m not even surprised man, he’s done worse. Way worse.

So Olaf sails the kids to shore, who are distraught, and when they get to shore, Mr. Poe is all too happy to hand them over to the disguised serial killer. Klaus and Violet argue with Mr. Poe so they don’t have to be pawned off to Olaf, while Sunny just sits there. She’s looking at Olaf’s peg leg.

And then she decides to tear that sucker apart.

Obviously, the fake peg leg falls apart to reveal the tattooed ankle, and while Olaf tries to bullshit his way out of it, Mr. Poe grows a brain and finally recognizes him. Unfortunately the henchperson of ambiguous gender walks back onto the scene and the two of them run for it. The henchperson locks them in Olaf’s sailing yard, and by the time Mr. Poe even does anything the two are long, LONG gone.

As for Aunt Josephine, by the time of the fifth book, they find her tattered life jacket, confirming her death.

The Baudelaires sit on the ground, defeated, and trying to figure out where they’ll end up next. And so ends the book. Now, if you’re watching the television show, you’ll see a different ending. The Baudelaires sneak onto a truck headed toward a certain lumber mill, and that’s where that episode ends.

Personally I prefer that ending. But that’s a story for the next chapter.

Chapter Text

Another day, another two lines of Lemony Snicket crying over his dead girlfriend.

Quick note before we start. In the TV show, the Baudelaires sneak off away from Mr. Poe to Lucky Smells Lumbermill. This is done most likely to portray Mr. Poe as a kind but incompetent man who would never leave three children in a place as dangerous and unsafe as a lumber mill.

So, anyway, in the book Mr. Poe is dropping these kids off at this completely unsafe and dangerous lumber mill. He’s decided that evidently the owners of a lumber mill are perfectly competent and correct people to take care of three kids. Not like he’s been wrong before. *cough*

Once the kids arrive at Paltryville, home of the Lucky Smells Lumber Mill, it becomes pretty clear that Mr. Poe’s done it again. The town is basically abandoned, save for the lumber mill, a few closed shops, a flagpole with a shoe tied to it, and Oh! A massive building shaped like Count Olaf’s eye tattoo. How classy.

Ignoring that, the kids find a note for them from the owner of the lumber mill. It says to go to the dormitories and to…report for work the next morning? That has to be a typo. What psychopath would force three children to work in a LUMBER MILL?

So the Baudelaires knock on the door of the dormitory, which opens to see a very confused man. This is Phil. Phil’s nice. He’s an optimist, a word which here means “Sometimes things don’t have a good side. Please stop seeing the glass as half full.”

Phil the optimist shows the kids around the miserable dormitory and warns them about the foreman. They recently got a new one. The original guy was nice, but then he quit in the middle of the night and was replaced by some arsehole named Foreman Flaucutono (anagrams anybody?). So there’s that.

The next morning is shit. The foreman is a massive asshole wearing a surgical mask, who wakes up everyone by banging pots like some psychopath. And then it’s off to work. But just for the adults right? The Baudelaires aren’t working at the lumber mill, RIGHT?

Oh, they are.

Fucking hell.

It’s log day, so the Baudelaires have to lift heavy debarkers (except Sunny who just uses her teeth) and remove bark off trees, as well as having to deal with the foreman screeching and the endless noise of the machines. Frankly, it’s horrific, and yet somehow not the worst thing in this series. Just wait until the hospital book.

Finally, lunchtime rolls around, and the kids are excited to get something to eat. So, of course, the only thing they get for lunch is chewing gum. CHEWING GUM.

And here’s the real kicker. The kids then learn that the workers aren’t paid with cash, but with coupons.

COUPONS.

Can you say “worker’s rights violations”? Because I SURE CAN.

Anyway after “lunch” (lol, lmao even) Flacutono orders the kids to go see the owner, the ringleader of this whole mess, in his office. And off they go.

Now, you’re probably assuming the obvious. The owner is Count Olaf, and he’s doing this to get the Baudelaires’ fortune.

You’re wrong. For once, he isn’t behind this. And as the Baudelaires get to the office, a tall man in a blue vest stops them. This is Charles, and he’s lovely, if not severely lacking a backbone.

He’s one of the owners of the Lucky Smells Lumber Mill, and he’s HORRIFIED that the Baudelaires had to work! Like, they’re children! But before Charles can do anything, the other owner walks in.

Or more accurately, a cloud of smoke in the shape of a person walks in. This is Sir, the other owner of the Lucky Smells Lumber Mill. He makes Count Olaf look like a SAINT.

(Quick note here: The books (mainly 12) and show seem to imply Sir and Charles are both romantic and business partners. I’m actually not sure if this is ever confirmed, but either way it’s still interesting.)

See, Sir knows all about Count Olaf and all the horrible things he did to the kids. So he made a deal with Mr. Poe. He does his job as guardian to protect the kids and in return the kids break child labor laws and work in the lumber mill. “But what about Charles?” I hear you ask. “He’s also an owner, right!”

Charles, unfortunately, has no spine, so Sir sends the kids away. Before they leave though, Charles offers to show them the mill’s library, which gets the kids a little excited.

That excitement is immediately shot down once they realize the library has THREE, count em, THREE books. One is “The History of Lucky Smells” written by Sir, one is the Paltryville Constitution, and the other is Advanced Ocular Science, written by a Georgina Orwell. Ain’t that a name. That book also has the Count Olaf eye on it btw.

So the days pass and the kids are miserable. The work that should not be done by children is awful and hard, and the kids are malnourished because of the gum and all that. Plus the foreman’s a dick. However, one thing is off. Count Olaf is simply nowhere to be seen.

One day, after chatting with Charles, the foreman orders the Baudelaires to go back to work. However, this time, Flacutono trips Klaus (because he’s an ass) and causes him to break his glasses.

Charles, being an angel lacking a spine, offers to take Klaus to the local eye doctor. Her name is Doctor Georgina Orwell and she lives…in the eye building. Fuck.

Obviously the kids are like “uh NO” but before they can argue Violet and Sunny have to get back to work and Charles takes Klaus away.

Much, much later, Klaus isn’t back yet. Phil is trying to comfort them but he’s failing. Horribly. It’s so late that everyone goes to sleep and Klaus still isn’t back yet.

Finally, FINALLY, Klaus gets back from the murder building. He looks…fine. New glasses that are a bit shiny, he’s a little dazed, and he’s calling Violet sir. Nothing a good night’s sleep can’t fix, right?

Wrong.

When the asshole foreman wakes them up, Klaus forgets his shoes and just runs to the lumbermill in bare feet. It’s a stamping day, according to Phil, and according to the asshole foreman, Klaus is going to be operating the machinery. Isn’t he LUCKY? The asshole foreman seems to think so, he even says it. And Klaus immediately runs over to the machine.

So, one thing leads to another, and the confused Klaus lowers the stamping machine onto Phil’s leg. Almost immediately the foreman loses his shit and screams about how this incident (the machine breaking not Phil’s leg fuck the cogs in the machine) will cost an INORDINATE amount of money.

And just likes that, Klaus snaps back to reality, but the gravity of the situation certainly goes nowhere. The middle Baudelaire has no clue what the hell is happening, he barely even remembers the past 24 hours, and he certainly has no clue how Phil’s leg ended up smushed.

Meanwhile, the foreman is screechina about the machine and his pots that he uses to harass the workers, and he’s so pissed he throws the pots across the room.

You can probably see where this is going. Foreman Flacutono orders Klaus to get his pots and then immediately trips him again, breaking his glasses. But this time, Violet and Sunny decide to bring Klaus to the optometrist. You know, to see what’s going on.

While trying to work up the courage to go inside the evil eye shaped office, Klaus promptly figures out what the hell happened. He believes he was hypnotized, probably inside the eye shaped building. But since they have nowhere else to go, they go inside.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Dr. Orwell is actually Count Olaf.

And you’re wrong. Dr. Orwell is actually a tall, polite and professional woman wielding a black cane with a ruby on top. But I don’t know why I mentioned that. She leads the kids inside, showing Violet and Sunny to the waiting room, where her receptionist Shirley has made cookies and Klaus to the patient's room.

The two Baudelaire sisters are still suspicious, however. Because Count Olaf could be anywhere. Heck, he could even be Shirley, Dr. Orwell’s receptionist! But honestly, that's ridiculous. Why would he be-

Oh, he’s the receptionist? Of course he is.

Yes, Count Olaf rolls into the story over halfway through the book in a bad wig, a dress, and some makeup. Also he painted his nails pink. At least he’s committing to the bit.

Of course the Baudelaires are both scared and pissed (because like this is the third time he’s pulled this), and within a page, literally one page, Violet figures out the basics of their whole plan. It’s not that complicated. Dr. Orwell and Count Olaf are working together to brainwash Klaus and steal the Baudelaire fortune. She’s not sure on the details though. But before she can say anything, little Miss 1984 the eye doctor comes back with Klaus.

Unfortunately Klaus has already been hypnotized by Orwell, so there’s nothing the kids can do except just go back to the lumber mill. Phil is fine, just resting, and he points out a memo for the kids left by Sir. Violet picks it up and reads it, and then the details of Olaf and Orwell’s plan finally reveal themselves.

Sir’s memo tells the kids that if Klaus causes another accident, he’ll pawn them off to Shirley (aka Count Olaf in an ugly dress). And, by using a hypnotized Klaus to cause lumber mill accidents, it’s basically in the bag for the villains.

Violet is pretty pissed by this very fucking dumb memo and she takes Sunny to immediately go see Sir. Sir…does not care. He screams at the kids and Charles is no help, because he hasn’t GROWN A SPINE. Oh, and he won’t let them call Mr. Poe. Not like that would help but still. Sir’s worse than Olaf.

So the two Baudelaire sisters are up the creek without a paddle, but they still have a plan. They sneak into the library (the one with three books) and grab the hypnosis one that Orwell left. And they get to reading. Well, Violet gets to reading. Sunny goes to sleep.

Violet soon figures out that Klaus’s hypnosis probably has a trigger word, that is a word that will be able to control the actions of the hypnotized person, as well as a release word, that is a word that will release the hypnotized person from their hypnotic state.

While processing this, Violet and Sunny hear a noise.

Someone’s turned on the lumber mill’s deadly saw.

The two sisters rush into the mill to see Charles tied to a log, the saw whirring and ready to chop him into bits, the foreman screaming at the controller, and the hypnotized Klaus at the controls. Bit of an escalation there.

But, it was pretty LUCKY the girls arrived at the scene on time. Very, very LUCKY. And as the foreman repeats that word to Klaus, it hits Violet. Lucky is Klaus’s trigger word.

So then begins a match of Foreman Flacutono and Violet yelling the word “lucky” at Klaus, until someone screams for Klaus to not listen to his sisters anymore. Dr. Orwell and Count Olaf have arrived at the scene. (god we’re just rushing now aren’t we), and they’re ready for blood to fly. And blood will fly. Just not yet.

All hope looks lost for a minute (when does it ever look good for these kids) and Violet is beginning to despair. Because seriously, these kids go through such an INORDINATE amount of despair.

Oh yeah.

Klaus’s release word, as Violet screams it, is “inordinate”.

And then shit hits the FAN. Klaus breaks free from hypnosis and tries to free Charles, but the foreman trips him for the THIRD time. Violet tries to free Charles, but Olaf grabs her. Sunny tries to free Charles, but then Orwell throws her cane in front of the baby, who then bites it.

Then the two start sword fighting. Yes, Orwell’s cane is a sword. And yes, the baby with sharp teeth is using those teeth to sword fight. Go with it.

Meanwhile a dazed Klaus is trying to save Charles. By using the gum and debarkers, he’s able to pull the log off the saw before it chops the spineless idiot in half. Unfortunately, Sunny then loses her sword fight with Dr. Orwell, and the 1984 doctor laughs, ready for blood to fly.

And blood does fly. Because just then, Sir walks into the lumber mill, and a shocked Dr. Orwell trips backwards.

Into the saw.

After…that (seriously how do you segway from that, for a kid’s book it’s brutal), Sir, Charles, and a newly confused Mr. Poe are all discussing what to do with the kids. Boarding school seems like the likely option, but first the Baudelaires want to unmask Shirley.

(Quick note: the show tones down Orwell’s death to just be a burning. There’s also no sword fight. lame)

Anyway, at first, Olaf tries to keep the disguise up, alongside Foreman Flacutono, but once Mr. Poe orders to see his ankle, the jig is up. Olaf is revealed to be himself, and the foreman is shown to be the bald man with the big nose. (In the show it was changed to be Hooky. Don’t know why).

Then Olaf throws a book through the window and the two villains escape. Mr. Poe and Sir go off to argue, Charles apologizes to the kids, and Phil tells the Baudelaires they’re lucky to be alive. And you know what, they are. Heck, Orwell could have decapitated Sunny, but instead she got chopped in half. Brutally.

Seriously, how did that make it into a kids book? This isn’t Warrior Cats. And that’s where this book ends.

Chapter Text

Take a shot of an age appropriate beverage every time Lemony Snicket talks about Beatrice. At what point do you get sick?

Welcome back to a Series of Unfortunate Events for morons! We’ve finally reached the part of the series where that weird little secret organization becomes important, as well as meeting some new recurring and main characters. Let’s get started.

We start with Lemony Snicket warning us about the most annoying character in this series, because if you thought Sir was bad, if you thought Count Olaf was bad…well they have nothing on the series’s first female villain. Everyone meet Carmelita Spats, a student at Prufrock Preparatory School, the school the Baudelaires will soon be attending.

Carmelita is, for lack of a better word (and me not wanting to call a child a cuss), a complete and UTTER brat. She calls the Baudelaires “cakesniffers” (I'm assuming that’s a euphemism for a word Lemony Snicket can’t say) and is generally just a rude, nasty girl. So of course Mr. Poe thinks she’s lovely. He’s there to drop the Baudelaires off at the school.
Prufrock, as Mr. Poe brags, is a lovely school with smart teachers, beautiful dorms, and most importantly, an advanced computer system guaranteed to keep Count Olaf far, FAR away.

Also all the school buildings are built in the shape of gravestones, with the motto of the school engraved in the largest building. That motto is “Memento Mori” or Latin for “Remember you will die”.

Oh, it’s gonna be one of THOSE schools. Got it.

Anyway, Mr. Poe drops the kids off at the main building to go talk to Vice Principal Nero. He doesn’t go with them, because banking is more important than the lives of three kids. So, the Baudelaires are off to talk to the Vice Principal.

Now, Vice Principal Nero is, just like his Roman namesake, a dick. And much like his Roman namesake, his musical prowess could burn a city down. But while Emperor Nero was skilled with the lyre, Vice Principal Nero has deluded himself into thinking he can play the violin.

He can’t.

The Baudelaires quietly knock on the door, causing Vice Principal Nero to come raging out, screaming about interrupting genius or whatever. Now, let’s talk about Vice Principal Nero. Much like I said a few sentences ago, he’s a dick. He’s a nasty man, he rudely mimics the Baudelaires instead of answering their questions, and he’d rather murder that violin-I MEAN play it then care about the students.

Vice Principal Nero shows the kids the “advanced computer system”, and then rudely explains the rules of Prufrock Prep. Those rules are as follows:

Kids are not allowed in the administrative building. If they’re caught in there, you lose silverware.
If you’re late for class, your hands are tied behind your back during meals.
If you're late for meals, your drinking glasses will be taken away.
Every night Nero holds a violin recital for six hours. If you miss it, you will have to buy him a bag of candy and watch him eat it.

So that’s…fucking insane. Who designed this school? John Kramer?

It gets worse. Vice Principal Nero, after mentioning the gym teacher fucking DIED from falling out a third story window, puts Violet in Room 1 with Mr. Remora for class, while Klaus gets Room 2 with Ms. Bass. As for Sunny, she’s going to be the vice principal’s secretary. And since children aren’t allowed in the administrative building, Sunny just…never gets silverware.

But before the Baudelaires can even process that, it gets WORSE. Violet asks where the kids will live, and Vice Principal Nero describes the lovely dorms that the children of Prufrock Prep stay in.

So of course the Baudelaires will not be staying in those dorms. Vice Principal Nero tells them that since they have no guardian to sign the dorm slip, they get to stay in a shack made of tin and sleep on bales of hay.

Because of course they do. Then he kicks them out of the office so he can torture that violin some more. The Baudelaires, with nothing else to do, head to their shack.

Did I mention the shack is infested with territorial crabs and dripping fungus? Because of COURSE IT IS. These kids cannot catch a break. The Baudelaires try to make the best out of their situation, which they’ve gotten pretty good at for obvious reasons, before leaving the shit shack and heading to the cafeteria for lunch.

Lunch also sucks at first. The Baudelaires, as one does when they get to a new school, have no idea where to sit, and Carmelita Spats isn’t helping. The little brat starts a chant of “cake sniffing orphans in the orphan shack!” until finally, two other kids tell her to stfu. These are the Quagmires, and they’re lovely.

The Quagmires, Duncan and Isadora, invite the Baudelaires to sit with them, and are gracious and kind to the new kids. Isadora writes couplets, and she’s very keen to share about the couplet she wrote insulting Carmelita. The new friends have a lot more in common as well, because as it turns out, the Quagmires also lost their entire family in a fire as well! Twinsies!

Well, tripletsies is a more accurate term. Turns out the Quagmires were actually triplets, but Quigley Quagmire also passed in the fire. Poor kids. The five kids bond even more over their loss, and the Quagmires take the Baudelaires down to the school library.

(Quick note: Olivia Caliban was given a bigger role as Prufrock’s librarian in the show. Not here. Sorry Olivia fans)

Unfortunately, not even good friends can stop a shitty school, and as it turns out Prufrock Prep is extra shitty. First, Violet’s new teacher Mr. Remora is a dumbass. He just sits at the front of the room yapping and eating a banana, and then quizzes the kids on what he just yapped about. Good news is that Violet is sitting next to Duncan. Bad news is that she’s also sitting next to Carmelita Spats.

Meanwhile Klaus is being “taught” by Ms. Bass. Ms. Bass likes measuring things. That’s all she has the kids do. Measure things. At least Isadora’s in class with him.

As for Sunny, the poor kid has to be Nero’s secretary, and that job is miserable. She has to staple things, make business calls, and also MAKE HER OWN STAPLES. I’d say call the cops but we all know where that gets us.

Also Prufrock Prep doesn’t have weekends. In case this place wasn’t already the 10th circle of hell.

So one day after the day’s work, the kids are all sitting in the shack talking about how shitty their day was. Also, the Quagmires also reveal that they’re going to inherit some sapphires when they come of age. Don’t know why they mentioned that though.

Just then, Nero spawns out of nowhere and forces the kids to meet the new gym teacher, a man in a turban with fancy gym shoes named Coach Genghis. Coach Genghis seems very interested in making orphans run a lot, and why do you think that is?

He’s Count Olaf.

Duh.

Now, I’m just an Ao3 writer, but that being said I can say that Olaf’s disguise in this book is probably a big no-no for a lot of reasons. But this is also a funny book recap so I’ll just leave it at that. We’re gonna call him Count Olaf and nothing else.

Anyway, the next question Nero asks Olaf is if the “orphans have the legs he’s looking for”. Someone ring up Dateline, because I think we just caught a couple predators.

…Yeah I have no segway from this (because what the actual fuckity fuck), so we’ll just move on to Nero’s six hour violin recital.

During the affront to music that is Nero’s violin ability, the Baudelaires tell the Quagmires that the new coach is Count Olaf, and for the first time in this entire series, the kids promptly believe them. The kids formulate a plan, which is…to talk to Nero. Okay then.

At least Duncan and Violet hold hands. Awwww.

The next morning the Baudelaires head to the administration building to talk to Nero, sacrificing their silverware privileges. It goes about as well as you expect. Nero is of no help, and Count Olaf interrupts their meeting to be generally scary.

So the kids are back to square one, and they spend breakfast conversing with the Quagmires. Unfortunately, the day gets worse when Carmelita Spats comes skipping over and tells the Baudelaires that the PE coach wants to see them after dinner. After Isadora politely tells her to fuck off, the kids discuss what Olaf’s plan is.

This speculation continues through classes, until dinner, when the Quagmires offer to sneak out of the auditorium during Nero’s violin murder to overhear what Count Olaf wants. It’s not the best plan ever but like…the Baudelaires haven’t thought of anything so why the hell not?

When night falls, the Baudelaires head to the field to see what Olaf is up to, and Olaf is more than happy to reveal it. His brilliant new plan? SORE.

Well, Special Orphan Running Exercises, aka “making the Baudelaires run laps around a circle for the entire night”.

Yep.

And you thought the hypnosis was weird.

Anyway, the next morning the Baudelaires are EXHAUSTED. The Quagmires try to cheer them up, telling them that they can sleep through Nero’s recital, except no because Carmelita approaches them with the exact same request as yesterday. Report after dinner to the PE coach.

Isadora tells her to fuck off again, and the Quagmires promise the Baudelaires they’ll spy on Olaf again.

Unfortunately, a week of this passes by and the only thing the Baudelaires discover is that running laps the whole night means you fail a lot of shit. Violet’s failing Remora’s yapping class, Klaus is failing Bass’s measuring class, Sunny can’t do the secretarial duties she should not have been doing in the first place. It’s getting bad.

And it’s about to get worse, because that day at lunch Carmelita approaches the Baudelaires again with two messages. One, run laps until you die. Two, Nero wants to see them in his office immediately.

Hey, maybe Nero finally discovered Olaf was the gym teacher. Or maybe pigs are flying.

Turns out, Nero is being as useless as usual. He orders the Baudelaires to get him a shit ton of candy for missing his recitals, as well as buy Carmelita earrings for being a jerk. Oh also, if they don’t pass three massive tests tomorrow, one for yapping, one for measuring, and Sunny stapling things, he’ll give them to the PE coach to be raised.

So, that’s Olaf’s plan. Tire the kids out until they flunk out of school and then he kidnaps them. Still not as insane as the hypnosis.

The Baudelaires and Quagmires now have even less time to come up with a plan. Good news, the Quagmires have written down notes on both their respective classes, and Violet figured out a machine to make staples for Sunny. Bad news, they still have to run the child abuse gauntlet.

Fortunately the Quagmires have that last part covered. The two triplets will disguise themselves as the Baudelaires, and they’ll get a bag of flour to cover for Sunny. It’s genius. Hopefully.

After Lemony Snicket yaps about his dead girlfriend for a paragraph, the plan is all ready to go. Except, it’s not a great plan and the Baudelaires are lowkey stressing. Even with a long string to drag the bag of flour around, it’s not looking good. But it’s the only chance they have sooooo…

Once the Quagmires head off to run laps, the Baudelaires get down to studying. Violet fashions a machine for the staples. Basically they just have one of the crabs snap all the metal rods Nero gave Sunny into staples. It’s pretty interesting.

By the end of the night, the Baudelaires are prepared for their exams, but definitely not for what’s coming. Nero rudely comes to start their exams with the two teachers, and it’s’ showtime from there.

The Baudelaires pass with flying colors, which absolutely pisses Nero off, but before they can do anything, Olaf strides out holding the Quagmire’s disguise.

Fuck.

Olaf/the coach reveals that he discovered the Quagmires were impersonating the Baudelaires, and he handed them off to the cafeteria workers, which like…okay? Before anything else can happen though, Mr. Poe shows up. Yay. He has the candy and earrings.

The Baudelaires try to reveal that the coach is Olaf, but Mr. Poe isn’t budging, until he politely asks the coach to remove his running shoes. Olaf stalls for ten seconds and then realizing he’s not getting out of this one, he runs.

A chase scene (yes a chase scene) ensues, with the Baudelaires racing after Olaf, which in turn reveals that those cafeteria workers were the white faced women. Oh and they have the Quagmires.

WAIT

The Baudelaires are able to pull Olaf’s turban off, revealing his monobrow, as well as get his stupid shoes off, revealing the tattoo. He’s also not wearing socks. Ew.

Klaus is able to reach the car the women are currently stuffing the Quagmires into, and while he’s trying to get them out, the triplets start yelling about this “VFD”. Like, they keep yelling about it. It has to be important.

Duncan tries to give them their notebooks, but Olaf snatches them before Klaus can, and the villains drive away, with the Quagmires. Mr. Poe tries to call the cops, but Nero is being absolutely useless, and the only thing the Baudelaires can do is watch the car zoom off.

But maybe, this VFD can help them save their friends. And with that, this chapter in the Baudelaires’s miserable tale ends here. Woohoo.

Chapter Text

This document is going to fry my computer one day.

Welcome back to a Series of Unfortunate Events for morons! Today, we’re looking at the Ersatz Elevator, the sixth book of the series and the proverbial halfway point. Technically there’s 13 books so about halfway through the book is the halfway point.

Anyway, we start the book with some Snicket rambling, about how they’re trapped and Count Olaf is nearby and the world is ending and all that jazz. So, pretty much Tuesday. As for the Baudelaires, they’re standing right in front of their new home, 667 Dark Avenue, because Snicket couldn’t commit to the 666 bit, I guess.

Dark Avenue is…dark. Like, actually dark. There’s massive trees covering everything, and when asked as to why, people just go “Oh dark is in.” Sure. The darkness probably isn’t helping the Baudelaires, who are still incredibly worried about the Quagmires, because in case you forgot Olaf kidnapped them.

Mr. Poe, meanwhile, is being incredibly unhelpful. He got promoted to be “vice president of orphan affairs” or whatever the fuck, so that means he gets to go on a helicopter and look for the Quagmires. Like he’s gonna find them. We’d have better luck figuring out what VFD stands for. He also mentions that the Baudelaires’ new guardians are named the Squalors and that they’re very rich.

Oh, I get it!

So Mr. Poe drops the Baudelaires off with 667’s weird doorman, who has a very long coat covering his hands. That’s probably not suspicious. Oh also the elevator is “out”. Not broken but unfashionable. And the new guardians live in the penthouse. Because fuck you.

As the Baudelaires start their long climb, sans Mr. Poe for obvious reasons, they talk to each other to pass the time. It’s a long climb though, and the kids are starting to get a little pissed off. Klaus and Violet carry Sunny and finally, FINALLY, the kids make it to the top. At the top, there’s the penthouse door and…two elevators?

No time to talk about that though, because it’s time to meet the guardians! First is Jerome Squalor, who is a gangly man in a pinstripe suit. Pinstripe is in. Jerome is nice, if a bit passive. He makes the kids aqueous martinis (drop your pearls, it’s water with an olive in it), and begins to talk about how good of friends he and the Baudelaire parents were.

And then he’s immediately interrupted. Because walking into the room is the woman, the myth, the legend, the sixth most important financial advisor in the city. Everyone give it up for Esme Gigi Geniveve Squalor! Esme’s my favorite character in the series.

Esme is very excited to have the Baudelaires at her home. Why? Orphans are in. Duh. She’s gonna brag to her friends about it. As well, once the Quagmires are found, she’ll adopt them too! Five orphans! She’ll make Vogue BEG for an interview!

Esme is funny.

Anyway, Jerome, being a pushover, offers the Baudelaires any room they want since the penthouse has SEVENTY ONE BEDROOMS. Talk about smart space. But before they can finish choosing which one of the seventy one bedrooms they want, Esme gets a phone call. And it makes her so happy! Why?

No, the Quagmires haven’t been rescued and no Count Olaf hasn't been found face first in a ditch.

Turns out, light is now in! Esme frantically opens every window in the house, while down below on the street, the trees covering the avenue get chopped down. Shit moves fast on 667.

And so the days move on. It’s pretty mixed for the Baudelaires. Jerome is lovely, the city is lovely, and they were together. But, the penthouse is way too big for anyone to live there, and the kids keep getting lost. And there’s the issue of the kidnapped triplets. Speaking of, Count Olaf’s been mysteriously absent so far. Huh.

Anyway, one day Esme starts yapping about the In Auction, where everyone auctions off the innest things in town. Plus all the rich people show up. It’s like the Met Gala, probably. Esme mentions that Gunther, the auctioneer, will be by later, so she wants Jerome and the children out of the building so they can talk in auction things. She also gives the Baudelaires pinstripe suits. Lovely.

The Baudelaires do not want these suits, which is fair. Pinstripes are ugly as hell. But they put them on anyway, walk back into the hallway, and oh hey Count Olaf is here.

Oh wait.

Yes, Count Olaf is here, and the disguise of this week is a vaguely eastern European auctioneer named Gunther, which probably goes under the no no column like the coach outfit did. He’s not doing a good job but it fools Jerome pretty well. Not sure about Esme. Also Olaf mentions he wants to auction off the kids.

Yeah, okay.

Esme and Olaf/Gunther walk off to discuss auction things, and Jerome takes the kids, who are now apprehensive as hell, to slide down the bannister and to go eat dinner at Cafe Salmonella. Take one guess what they serve at Cafe Salmonella.

Tuna. Duh.

No, they serve copious amounts of salmon. And here Jerome accuses the Baudelaires of being…sorry let me check my notes here…xenophobic because they were mean to a disguised Count Olaf.

Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

Anyway, the kids leave their salmony dinner and head back to 667, where ocean decorating is in and Count Olaf is not OUT of the building. They head upstairs anyway, which is fun. After the thousand mile climb, Esme tells them that Olaf had left hours ago.

Okay then. He’s hiding in the penthouse.

The next morning, the kids are trying to decide what to do about Olaf. Jerome stops by and offers to take them to the tailor to get their suits fixed up when Esme spawns in, tells Jerome to go buy parsley soda (it’s in), and then she leaves to go talk to the King of Arizona. Don’t ask.

So, the Baudelaires decide to search the penthouse for Olaf. And three hours later, they have found jack and shit. So, instead they decide to search the entire building for the count, by eavesdropping on different people in their apartments.

Once again, they find jack and shit. Also the doorman refuses to let them back up to the penthouse until the Squalors get back. However, Klaus has thought of something, so once the Squalors get back, with parsley soda, they all head back upstairs.

After dinner, featuring parsley soda, which is disgusting, Klaus suddenly lies that he and his sisters are tired (half lies really, have you seen that staircase), and he wants to go to bed.

They’re not going to bed. Klaus reveals to his sisters that the second elevator door at the penthouse is “ersatz”, meaning that it’s just pretending to be an elevator. He theorizes that it’s a secret passageway where Olaf is hiding. So, the kids head out to put that theory to the test.

Klaus is right, obviously. The second elevator is a massively dark chasm stretching down. The Baudelaires decide to climb down, and sneak back into the penthouse to look for anything that can be used as rope. No rope obviously. Tools are out.

After tying together a faux rope with the devil’s tongue knot (Violet’s favorite), the Baudelaires start their climb down the ersatz elevator. And after three hours, what do they find? Count Olaf? His troupe?

Nope, a room, a long hallway to the side, and the Quagmires in a cage. Hey, at least they’re not dead.

But they are traumatized. Very, VERY traumatized. Poor babies. After a lovely reunion between friends, the Quagmires reveal that Olaf’s plan is to sneak them out of town with an item at the In auction. What item? They don’t know, they couldn’t find out between Olaf telling them how he’s gonna kill them.

What a jerk.

The Baudelaires decide to head back up to the penthouse to look for some items to break the Quagmires out, even though they don’t want to leave the triplets alone. The item in question is welded fire tongs, heated up in an oven. Pretty good.

Unfortunately, once the Baudelaires get back to the cage (another climb), the Quagmires are gone. So, that plan’s out the window. The new plan is to figure out what item Olaf is gonna auction the triplets out of.

Another long climb later, and the Baudelaires rush back to the library, looking through the In Auction catalog. The items include a globe, a postage stamp, and a statue of a giant red herring. But what really catches the eyes of the Baudelaires is the item Lot 50.

It’s labeled VFD. Clearly that must be where the Quagmires are.

So, the Baudelaires rush to tell their guardians, except Jerome isn’t home so instead they talk to Esme. Esme, once learning of everything Olaf’s done, is very calm. Disturbingly calm. The second the Baudelaires finish their story she calmly rushes them out to go arrest Olaf once and for all.

Except, she doesn’t head toward the stairs. Or the bannister. She takes the kids to the…elevator? But I thought elevators were out?

Oh she just pushed them into the ersatz shaft. Nevermind.

WAIT SHE DID WHAT-

Yep, turns out Esme is evil! And she’s also dating Count Olaf. A cheater too. Not very in of her. Esme’s reasoning is that the Baudelaire’s mother, Beatrice, stole something from her, so she’s gonna steal the Baudelaire fortune back. What did Beatrice steal? Who knows? Knowing Esme, it was probably some random part of a tea set or something.

Oh yeah, the Baudelaires are falling down an elevator shaft. Don’t panic, there’s a net. Once they’ve landed in the net, Esme fucks off to go, idk make out with Olaf or something?

So the Baudelaires are trapped in a net. There’s not much to do besides sit there, figure out a plan, or have Sunny use her sharp teeth to climb the elevator shaft. But like, she’s a baby, no way there-Oh, she’s doing it? Okay.

After the most tense three hours of their lives, the two older Baudelaires hear Sunny’s triumphant yell as she’s made it to the top. Evidently Esme wasn’t smart enough to close the elevator doors. The baby Baudelaire goes off to grab their makeshift rope but once she returns with it, Violet tells her to throw it down. They’re going out the other way.

Sunny chomps a hole in the net, Violet ties their rope to one of the net pegs, and Klaus sends good vibes, and once everything is ready, the three kids climb down into the dirty room, walk past the empty cage, and head down the hallway.

The hallway is dark, shocking, and after wandering for what seems like years, the Baudelaires find themselves underneath an ashy trapdoor. With some exertion, the kids get the door open and climb up into the blinding sunlight. But, where exactly are they? Where did this trapdoor lead?

Why, right in the middle of the remains of their burnt mansion!

But never mind that, it’s time to get to the Auction hall! (Seriously I thought they focused on that plot point more. Maybe it was a show thing). Once they get to the hall, they rush inside, past a shit ton of people, and to the showroom, where Count Olaf, who has been very absent in this book, is doing his auction thing. Esme is there too.

Once the Baudelaires find the useless pile of skin known as Jerome, they politely ask him to buy Lot 50 (aka VFD) for them. Not like he could do anything else, such as call the cops on Olaf and his soon to be ex wife.

Oh, Mr. Poe is there as well. We almost have the perfect trio of useless idiot characters! All we need is Charles!

Anyway, Mr. Poe bets on that big red fish statue, which turns out to be a herring. A red herring. Huh. The doorman with the long sleeves ends up buying it though. And then it’s time for Lot VFD!

The VFD box even has air holes poked in the top, lol.

So the bidding begins, and the Baudelaires do have the upper hand until some dude in sunglasses starts overbidding them. But then, Sunny suddenly yells for a THOUSAND bucks. Damn. That receptionist salary must’ve been good.

Lot VFD is won, and the Baudelaires rush on stage, ripping the box open to reveal…VFD.

Very Fancy Doilies. Obviously what that acronym stands for.

Anyway, shit goes wild. Olaf tries to grab the Baudelaires, exposing his disguise , so then he and Esme just run for it. They get outside, the Baudelaires in hot pursuit, where the doorman and his red herring statue is. Because, as it turns out, the doorman’s long sleeves were covering hooks! Also the Quagmires were in the red herring statue.

Oh, I get it. The red herring wasn’t the red herring! That’s funny.

So, Olaf escapes again, and the Baudelaires are left at the auction hall with all the useless adults. Jerome tries to take them away, but the Baudelaires basically politely tell him to fuck off, and frankly he needed to hear that shit, so he leaves. Not like he’s gonna help them anyway. He’s a pushover.

But, even if Jerome left, the Baudelaires still had each other. And honestly, that was enough. These are some resilient kids.

And with that, this ersatz tale with an elevator comes to an end.

Chapter Text

And the books start coming and they don’t start coming.

We are back with another chapter in this…”book” that I am slowly updating. We’re over the halfway mark now. Praise Snicket. This is also the book where things start to get…funky for the Baudelaires. Yes, more funky than before. Let’s start.

We begin with the Baudelaires reading the Daily Punctilio, which has, as per usual, fully fucked up the events of previous books, like calling Olaf “Omar” and implying that Esme was kidnapped instead of fully in on the scheme. Get used to that. It is run by Poe’s wife after all.

Speaking of useless, Mr. Poe himself coughs his way into the room and tells the Baudelaires no one wants to take care of them because clearly it’s the fault of the three orphans that a mass murderer is chasing them down. Fortunately, Mr. Poe did find someone. Or more accurately, a few someones.

A village. He found a whole ass village to raise these children. Turns out it’s some weird new program where villages raise children or whatever, based on the aphorism of “It takes a village to raise a child.” You know what’s also a good aphorism? “Actions speak louder than words”. But Mr. Poe wouldn’t know about that.

In other news this new town the Baudelaires are heading to is called…VFD. Well, that’s convenient. I guess. Since that acronym is a big mystery and all. Hopefully it’s not a town of doilies that are very fancy.

Amyway, Mr. Poe sends the kids on a bus to their fate, and they arrive in the middle of the fucking desert a few pages later. The bus driver can’t take them closer anyway. Against the “Council of Elders”, he says.

So the Baudelaires walk all the way to the town, which seems normal, except it’s covered in some weird feathery substance…it’s crows. The town is covered in crows. Just a PISS ton of crows. Hitchcock would be proud.

The Baudelaires are terrified to walk through the mound of crows (man what’s the term for a group of crows again? I sure hope this book can help us remember), and they arrive at VFD’s town hall, which is also covered in crows.

Upon heading inside, the Baudelaires discover 25 old people (probably that council) wearing funky faux crow hats. This is the Council of Elders, and they are WEIRD. They have over twenty thousand rules, are generally just mean, oh and also they make the Baudelaires do the entire town’s chores. They have to follow the crow schedule (because this town is basically corvid worshipping), clean Fowl Fountain, ignore the weirdly suspicious police chief named Officer Luciana who looks like Esme, the works. They also will live with the town’s handyman, Hector. He’s nice, if a bit of a wuss. Like Jerome, but better.

The Council also makes a rule that forbids villains on the village premises, because obviously law following is the key to stopping Olaf. Not like a harpoon gun, or a poisonous plant or anything like that. Nope.

Anyway Hector shows the kids the crows taking off to go nest at the Nevermore Tree (it’s near his house), and then he takes them to his house where he makes chicken enchiladas. He also tells them the history of the town. Turns out explorers discovered this group of crows and how they roosted, and they were so excited they founded VFD, the Village of Fowl Devotees. And as well, we learn what a group of crows is!

A murder.

Huh.

Anyway, once they get to Hector’s house, he reveals some secrets. All the stuff that the council has banned, like interesting books, spices, inventing materials, etc, he hides in his barn. As well, he’s building a huge self-sustaining hot air balloon home that will keep him in the air forever. He also invites the Baudelaires to join him, and the Quagmires as well. You know, once we find them.

Speaking of the Quagmires, the Baudelaires reminisce about their friends, Duncan the journalist and Isadora the poet. At Isadora’s mention, Hector perks up and asks if she writes couplets. Which is odd, because how would he know that?

Turns out a crow dropped a piece of paper with a couplet on it before it flew off that morning. A couplet very clearly written by a kidnapped child who has a fortune of sapphires.

So the Quagmires are somewhere in the town. The Baudelaires want to contact Mr. Poe but Hector tells them the Council banned phones. They think the Quagmires are in the Nevermore Tree, but Hector shows them that there’s a massive murder of crows on it. And there’s nothing less fun than climbing a tree with some pissed off birds.

Instead Hector offers to let the kids watch the tree throughout the night, just in case Olaf shows up. Because obviously he’d hide his kidnapees in a TREE.

Spoiler alert.

The Quagmires aren’t in the tree.

And, the Baudelaires arrive the next morning to see an empty tree and another piece of paper on the ground. The new couplet talks about how the Quagmires cannot talk through a “beak”, whatever that means. No time to think about it now because it’s time to do the WHOLE town’s chores!

The chores are hard and the townspeople are absolute assholes, like most characters in these books. The kids and Hector have to do things like cut hedges, make hot fudge sundaes, take out garbage, clean the Fountain, etc. After a while, one of the Council of Elders shows up, and after making fun of the sundaes (seriously make the fucking thing yourself), they mention to Hector that oh hey they caught Count Olaf.

WAIT THEY DID WHAT

Apparently a dude with a monobrow and an eye tattoo showed up on town borders and they arrested him immediately. Also they’re gonna burn him at the stake. It’s one of the rules. The Baudelaires are apprehensive to burning this “Olaf” at the stake. What good kids.

Anyway, everyone heads to town hall to discuss what to do with “Olaf” before they set that mf on FIRE. Supposedly, Officer Luciana caught him, which is suspicious. Since she’s probably Esme.

Yeah, I’ll rip the bandaid off now. It’s not Count Olaf. It’s some terrified man named Jacques. And he’s a volunteer. Whatever that means. Also he knows something about the Baudelaires’s parents.

But the mob gets the best of them, and the Baudelaires are taken back to Hector’s house and the poor sucker is taken to jail. And as they eat dinner, they think of a plan. Sunny plans to sleep under the Nevermore Tree to see if any more couplets show up, Klaus plans to study some rules, and Violet comes to a fucked up realization.

If Olaf is “killed’, the cops will stop looking for him. He’ll be free to torture these children forever. So, they really have to get Jacques the fuck out of jail.

Violet plans to work on the hot air balloon, and everyone sets off.

And so the night passes, everyone does their chores, and a lovely sunrise greets the Baudelaires the next morning. Except, something seems off. Snicket’s writing is even more miserable than normal. But whatever. There’s a new couplet, talking about the first thing you read. Whatever that means.

Sunny discovers that the crows carry the couplets to the tree. So that's neat. And the kids run to get Hector in order to put their plan into action. That plan? Basically cause a non violent mob and get the crowd to free Jacques. Fair enough.

Unfortunately that’s not happening. Because as the kids and Hector arrive in town, amid all the folks with torches, the jail is suspiciously open. Because Jacques is dead, murdered by someone in the town.

Well, FUCK. Guess the Baudelaires are never gonna learn what their parents told Jacques. But it gets worse, somehow. Because Detective Dupin is on the case.

You get one guess as to who Detective Dupin actually is.

Yep, Count Olaf is not dead, and he 100% murdered Jacques. Just add that to his kill count. Also he’s dressed like a disco nutjob. But that’s not important. Because things are about to get WORSE.

Count Olaf accuses the Baudelaires of murder.

Oh, that’s why this book is crow themed! Because a group of crows is a murder! That’s funny.

Anyway, yes, Count Olaf, in his ridiculous detective disguise, accuses the Baudelaires of killing Jacques. His sources? He made them the fuck up. His evidence? Has no DNA of the Baudelaires on it. The townspeople? They IMMEDIATELY believe him.

COME ON MAN. This is stupid!

Oh and the only alibi the Baudelaires have is from Hector, who is such a bloody WUSS that he doesn’t speak up. Fucking HELL.

So, the Baudelaires are put in jail, by Count Olaf, in a stupid disguise. I hate this.

But like fuck that, Violet immediately decides they’re gonna break out of jail, even if there is nothing around. But then…there is something around. Officer Esm-Luciana drops off some gross spongy bread and a pail of water.

Yay?

Also, it’s Klaus’s fifteenth birthday today, poor baby.

Hey, at least Violet thought of a plan. They’re gonna use the board in the cell, the water, and the spongy bread, and…dissolve the mortar. Okay. Sure.

While they dissolve the mortar, the Baudelaires talk about the couplets. They still haven’t figured them out, but fortunately Hector comes by with a…couplet. Also he’s taking off with the hot air balloon that afternoon, and if they escape he can come.

Lovely.

Klaus reads the last couplet, then reads it again, and then it hits him. He tells his sisters to read the first letter of each of the sentences in the couplets, and then it hits them too. Why?

The first letters spell out FOUNTAIN. The Quagmires are in the new Fowl Fountain.

That invigorates the Baudelaires, and after Violet gets the bench to use as a battering ram, and a few counts to three, the wall of the jail flies off and the kids are free.

The Baudelaires run as fast as they can to the fountain, looking around to see anything that was suspicious. They remember the “beak”, and they’re able to get Sunny to the top of the metal crow. She slams the eye of the crow before they all fall down (because children are not tall) and the massive statue depresses, revealing the two Quagmires inside.

Yay, everyone’s been reunited! Oh, also Olaf is leading a bloodthirsty mob with some burning intentions toward y’all but hey, happiness!

The Quagmires reveal that they still have their notebooks, with the information on the real VFD. So, all five of them head to Hector’s house to get on that hot air balloon and escape these unfortunate events once and for all. Lol. Lmao, even.

Along the way, the Quagmires explain how they got to the fountain to the Baudelaires, and they reveal that Jacques’s full name was…Jacques Snicket.

Oh.

OHHHHHH.

Anyway, there’s an angry mob incoming! The kids all run to Hector’s house but he’s already put the hot air balloon into the air. Also the mob is here. And Officer Luciana has a harpoon gun, which she immediately puts to use shooting at Hector’s balloons.

Hector throws down a ladder and the Quagmires climb up first, making it onto the balloon. Unfortunately (ha) for the Baudelaires, it’s too dangerous for them with Luciana shooting, so they have to climb back down. The Quagmires, now safe, throw their books down to the Baudelaires, so they can learn all about VFD.

And then a harpoon slashes those suckers right in half. Olaf (who has not done a lot in this book let’s be real), shows up on a motorcycle and tries to grab the Baudelaires while they’re grabbing at the slashed pages of the notebooks, but a cry stops all of that. Because, the final harpoon Luciana shot hit a crow, and that’s a MASSIVE no no.

The town turns on the two idiots, and Olaf, finally revealing his disguise, calls out to Esme (who was Officer Luciana, SHOCKING), and the two of them escape. As the town runs off with the injured crow, the Baudelaires are left standing there, alone, with another fucked up conclusion reached.

No one will help them now. No guardian, no Mr. Poe, nothing. They have to figure out VFD, and survive being wanted criminals, by themselves. They’ll take care of each other.

So, basically just the conclusion we all came to at the end of book 1. And so ends this chapter of a Series of Unfortuante Events for Morons.

Chapter Text

Oh god it’s the hospital book. Fuuuuuck

Welcome back to…no, no intro today. This book doesn’t deserve it. God I hate this one.

We start with the Baudelaires wandering the desolate wastelands of the hinderlands, because if you don’t remember, they got accused of murder in the last book, and that godforsaken newspaper is certainly not printing a rewrite.

The three kids end up in front of the Last Chance General Store, named because it’ll be the last thing you see before you end up like one of those tumbleweeds in an old cartoon. However, going into said store could be an issue, since if you remember from the last book/chapter (that I definitely posted recently), they’re currently wanted for the murder of a still living Olaf.

However, the Baudelaires decide to risk it in the end, since they do need to contact someone about their predicament. Unfortunately, they decide to contact Mr. Poe. So, it’s pretty much a massive waste of time.

Also they do it by telegram, in the same store selling fiber-optic cable, which is objectively hilarious.

The store owner, fortunately a day behind on the newspaper, lets the kids send the telegram, since he loves helping people with emergencies. He even helps the Volunteers Fighting Disease!

…Hey, wait a minute. Since, obviously, this strange set of initials have appeared once more, the Baudelaires think that this MUST be the right group. Third time’s the charm!

Oh, also the store owner finally gets the newspaper. So now it’s time for the Baudelaires to really get lost.

Quick note: I always imagined the Baudelaires as emaciated Victorian children so the whole ridiculous idea of them murdering a full grown man is honestly insane. But that’s the point, I guess.

Anyway, the Baudelaires run out of the store and see a giant gray van with VFD spraypainted on the side. So like any smart children, they get in the van.

Fortunately they’re not kidnapped. Like that would even be the worst thing in this series. We haven’t even gotten to the hospital book-oh i can’t make that joke anymore. Dammit.

Thankfully, the Volunteers Fighting Disease are lovely, if not a little idiotic, people who play guitars, don’t read the newspaper, and carry heart-shaped balloons. They’re heading to the nearby Heimlich Hospital to sing at the patients. And the Baudelaires decide to come with, because going to jail is no fun. Even if singing at sick people sounds even less fun.

Once the volunteers stop singing, the Baudelaires decide to probe this VFD on if they might know Jacques Snicket.

They don’t know Jacques Snicket. Shocking.

But they do mention that the Heimlich Hospital has a Library of Records, and there’s SURE to be something there. This is actually decent news to the Baudelaires. Can’t wait to see how it gets fucked up.

After a bit more annoying rambling, they arrive at the Heimlich Hospital. It’s a huge building with one finished wing, and one unfinished wing. Like Harvey Dent’s face. (In the show the whole thing is a dump but here the finished wing is nice. Huh)

The Baudelaires aren’t exactly sure what to do in the hospital, but then, like their prayers have been answered, the head of HR, Babs, calls over the intercom and asks for three volunteers to help with the…LIBRARY OF RECORDS! So, the kids immediately offer to help, and off they go.

Turns out the head of HR is kind of a jerk. Weird. But she doesn’t recognize the Baudelaires from the paper, so they’re able to make it to the Library without much issue. And the good luck streak continues, because the head of the Library is an almost blind old fellow named Hal. He’s a nice man.

And then they hit a snag. Hal tells them they can’t read any of the files, he’s lost some of his keys, and they also have to stay in the abandoned wing of the hospital because they have nowhere else to go. All hope is not lost though, because there exists a Snicket file in the Library. And you just KNOW it’s full of good shit.

One day passes, and the Baudelaires still haven’t learned anything. When the next day hits, they’re back to sorting, until the intercom goes off again.

And guess who’s made his way into the story once more? He’s way earlier than the last book, shockingly. How punctual.

Yep, Count Olaf is over the intercom, and he tells the entire hospital that there will be an inspection. Most likely to find the kids and probably kill them. So now the Baudelaires have two things on their list. Get that damn file, and not die a horrible death. Fortunately they’ve figured out the first one. Unfortunately, it requires robbing Hal of his keys.

Which, like, they end up pulling off, but it doesn’t feel good man. Who wants to willingly rob an old dude with bad eyesight? Except for Count Olaf, maybe.

Once Hal is gone, it’s searching time. The Baudelaires politely look through every cabinet (while someone else tries to break in), but once they find the Snicket file, it’s been completely emptied for some sort of “investigation”. However, there’s one piece of paper left. And you know what it says?

Right beneath a picture of Jacques Snicket and the Baudelaire parents, the page reads that there was a survivor of the fire.

Well, that’s AWESOME, right? There’s a living Baudelaire parent!

Oh, also Esme just broke into the room. But that’s not important right now.

Esme takes not being important right now seriously, because she promptly tries to murder all three kids with her knife heels. Because that’s something normal folks wear.

The Baudelaires immediately dip, and Esme responds by attempting to murder them in a different way, by overturning all the file cabinets like oversized dominoes. After a while, it becomes impossible to find the exit, and the Baudelaires find themselves trapped next to the chute where the files come in.

Violet tells Klaus that he and Sunny are gonna climb out the chute, but Klaus correctly deduces that there’s no way in hell Violet’s gonna fit. She ignores him, but before she can even consider climbing in, a cabinet falls on the mouth of the chute and blocks it.

Klaus and Sunny, being children, cannot move a massive file cabinet, and they’re forced to hear Violet flee from her life from the homicidal fashionista. However, they’re able to climb to safety and back to the abandoned wing of the hospital.

The next morning, Olaf comes back over the speakers and tells the hospital that they’ve caught one of the Baudelaire murderers! Fuck! And they’re still looking for the other two! Double fuck!

Klaus and Sunny decide to sneak back into the hospital to look for Violet, blending in with the singing volunteers on their travels. It doesn’t work, and by the end of the morning, the two are tired and angry.

But then, Olaf comes back on over the speaker, and guess what he announces. Just guess. I guarantee you won’t be able to.

Olaf announces that in one hour, the hospital will perform the world’s first craniectomy on a fourteen year old girl.

Now, let’s clear some stuff up. A craniectomy is an emergency brain surgery in which a part of the skull is removed to release tension and allow the brain to recompress. You’ll be moved to ICU afterwards, with lots of rest and lovely doctors checking on you.

This is not what’s happening here.

Olaf is either going to chop Violet’s head off, or even worse, lobotomize her. He’s going to commit medical malpractice on this teenager and get away with it.

Yeah, sit on that one for a second.

Klaus and Sunny immediately get a patient list from the head volunteer singer, and immediately start digging through it to find Violet, because they want their sister to keep her head. They duck into a supply closet, study the list, study the notebook pages they got from the Quagmires, and they come to a realization.

Olaf is keeping Violet under an anagram.

Next, the two SCOUR the patient list to find any patient with letters that match Violet Baudelaire. And by some miracle, they find one. Laura V. Bleediotie.

Rearrange those words and you get Violet Baudelaire.

The two Baudelaires throw on some disguises that make them look like doctors, and rush outside the closet. Unfortunately Esme has also made it out of the closet, and she, believing the two Baudelaires to be one of her associates, hands them a big rusty knife.

Oh.

Olaf’s henchperson of indeterminate gender lets the three into the hallway, where the bald man and Hooky are arguing. Believing Klaus and Sunny to be the whitefaced women, they all head towards the room where Violet is, and after Hooky calls Violet the “pretty one” (EW), they tell the two “white faced women” that they’ll be performing the operation.

Oh.

OH FUCK.

Yep.

These two children get to perform a lobotomy on their sister.

Children’s book.

CHILDREN’S BOOK.

Anyway, once they get to the operating theatre, the Baudelaires know they have to stall as quickly as possible. And fortunately, Klaus is able to convince the two idiotic henchmen to stall by explaining all the tools they’ll use for this operation.

Once they do that, they’re almost out of ideas, which is…lovely, so I guess that means it’s choppy-choppy time. Fortunately, Klaus hits with another banger distraction, which involves the paperwork! Yay!

Unfortunately then Esme shows up and demasks the Baudelaires. Not yay.

And then Hal shows up and says the Baudelaires are burning down the hospital?

And apparently the hospital is now on fire?

Okay. Sure.

Klaus, taking advantage of the situation, rams Violet’s gurney through Olaf’s assistants and books it. Hal grabs the gurney, but Sunny bites him and the kids are OFF.

Unfortunately (been saying that a lot recently) they’re not off for long, as the fire blocks one way and the angry mob blocks another. Klaus, Sunny and a groggy Violet retreat into a closet with a window.

Sunny cuts a makeshift ribbon out of the hospital gown, and once Violet’s hair is up, her brain starts to ungrog. She creates a makeshift intercom with a soup can, and distracts the crowd with it, while Klaus makes a bungee cord out of rubber bands. Because the kids are gonna jump out the window with it. Obviously. And they better do it fast, because Olaf’s henchperson of indeterminate gender was not fooled by the intercom trick and is trying to break the door down.

And they do. And fortunately the window was on the second floor so the Baudelaires did not end up dead. Can’t say the same for the henchperson though. (Unlike the show, where they do survive. I think it was changed because they actually had a personality there).

Once on the ground, the Baudelaires are in a new predicament, as they have nowhere to go, until Olaf’s car pulls up. Olaf orders his henchpeople (sans one of indeterminate gender), to get in, and the Baudelaires get an idea.

A bad one.

Because the trunk of Olaf’s car is open.

Once the henchpeople scatter, the kids sneak into the trunk. And once the trunk slams shut, they’re stuck.

But they’re not dead.

Yet.

And so ends this chapter. This book sucks. I hate it. At least the next one has cats.

Chapter Text

That damn hospital was so hostile that I started an entire new fic.

Welcome back to A Series of Unfortunate Events for Morons! I told you I didn’t cancel it, I just took a long-ass break. I did the same thing while rewatching the television show. Stopped right after this specific book and watched all of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (which absolutely SLAPS btw).

Oh yeah, the book. Welcome to the Canivorous Carnival!

Snicket starts us off on this sharp journey yapping about the belly of the beast, that one expression meaning “you’re fucked. Bottom text.” He’ll use that specific expression three times, because, idk he’s spicing up his writing or some shit. I don’t know this man personally, but judging by the amount of stuff he tells the reader, I might as well.

Anyway, belly of the beast mention 1! The Baudelaires, if you remember, are currently stuck in Count Olaf’s car trunk as the evil asshole speeds away from the burning Heimlich Hospital. It’s cramped and not great, but at least they can see out of the…BULLET HOLES IN THE TRUNK?

Damn Olaf what the hell do you get up to-actually I don’t want the answer to that question.

The Baudelaires also do not want the answer to that question, especially as Olaf keeps getting pissed off at his associates (minus one, the genderless fellow died a horrid death in the previous book). After snapping at them, Olaf makes notes of their final plan. A: Get the rest of the Snicket file, the thing talking about a survivor of a fire and burn it. And B. Kill the Baudelaires, get their fortune and retire to the middle of the Caribbean.

He’s having trouble with both of those things, but fortunately, there’s someone who can help. Her name is Madame Lulu, and she has a magic crystal ball that knows all.

Yeah, sure hon. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Olaf takes the worst left turn known to man, and drives up to where Lulu lives. Once he and the rest of his group of pricks fuck off to talk to Madame Lulu, the Baudelaires break out of the trunk and take note of their surroundings.

This is Caligari Carnival, and it is a DUMP. There’s a broken roller coaster, some carnival tents, oh and a show for people who are funky because the term used in the book I’m like 90% sure is a pejorative so we’re using “funky folk” just in case. Great. Lovely. This place fucking sucks.

The Baudelaires agree but unfortunately for them, they don’t have anywhere else to go. The Hinterlands are enormous, full of dangers and frankly, they’re also wanted for a crime they did not commit. So, there’s that. Violet instead decides to make a phone call…to Mr. Poe. Stupid choice but what do I know.

They don’t have enough money for the phone, so instead the Baudelaires just resolve to cry to the operator, because that was a thing phones used to have.

It doesn’t work.

So instead, the Baudelaires just resolve to spy on Olaf and his troupe. And that DOES work. Olaf is drunk as HELL, Madame Lulu seems…weirdly suspicious (Esme seems to think so), and she’s expertly avoiding all of Olaf’s questions. But he’s drunk so he doesn’t care.

Lulu also seems to be flirting with Olaf which Esme just LOVES (not), and the Baudelaires sneak off after a while because who the fuck wants to listen to Olaf talk? Not me.

So, now the kids need a plan before Olaf and the drunk troupe come back and be even more annoying. And they think of one pretty quickly. They’re gonna disguise themselves as funky people and join the show of funky people.

So they do that. Klaus and Violet hop into a larger garment and turn into a two headed person, while Sunny hides into the beard Olaf used to be Stephano (remember that because i sure do) and becomes a furry.

Okay, it’s a wolf/human hybrid but it’s BASICALLY a furry.

Anyway, then the kids head over to Lulu’s caravan, and walk in, looking for a job. They introduce themselves as Beverly and Elliot, the two headed chap, and Chabo the wolf baby, a name that Sunny came up with when she was insulting Esme. I love Sunny.

Violet and Klaus are then subjected to being forced to eat corn on the cob, which is apparently not fun with two heads. And that becomes their act. Awesome. Sunny just bites Esme. She’s so based.

Lulu hires the kids on the spot, and surprisingly Olaf and his group of dipshits are none the wiser to them. Also, the kids aren’t getting paid. Because Caligari Carnival says “fuck you”. Lulu then tells the kids to go to the funky folks caravan.

So they go to the caravan to meet the other funky folks, and there are three of them: Hugo, Kevin, and Colette. Hugo is a hunchback, Colette is a contortionist and Kevin is…wait for it…ambidexterous. How horrific, if you catch my sarcasm. Kev’s a lil dramatic.

The kids try to go to sleep, and then when the morning comes it’s time for HELL. Hooky rolls by, complaining that Olaf is in a pissy mood about the fact that there was a survivor of the Baudelaire fire, and also that the gift shop is empty. Then he leaves.

Wait, there’s a what?

Before the Baudelaires can dwell on it, it’s showtime! And to make sure that they perform, Lulu gave Hooky a tagliatelle grande, or in layman’s terms, a bigass noodle, to use as a whip. So they’re not paid and they’re hit with a whip. Because of course they are.

So the show starts and goes on and it fucking sucks to no one’s shock. All seven people who showed up are rude and assholes, and Olaf’s troupe are rude and assholes and the kids are miserable alongside the funky folks. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Olaf and Lulu are back from their errands because they were on errands, I guess.

It was murder wasn’t it?

Anyway, Snicket launches into a random side story for a moment about some lady and her asshole boyfriend and the story ends with the boyfriend being eaten by lions, which is funny but the only apparent relevance it has here is that it involves lions. And it turns out, our story is about to have lions as well, because I was wrong. Olaf wasn’t committing murder. He was just grabbing the murder weapons!

Lions. He found an entire pride of lions wandering the hinterlands. Man the Baudelaires were right, the hinterlands are dangerous as fuck.

Olaf announces to the crowd of people still there for some reason, that starting tomorrow, the lions will be part of a hit new show at Caligari Carnival. What is this show you may ask? Well, each day a funky fellow will be fed to the starving lions! And the crowd fucking LOVES it.

This book was in the kids section, might I add.

Anyway, turns out the entire pride of very hungry lions was a gift from Olaf to Madame Lulu and now Esme has gone from mildly miffed to fucking PISSED. Because obviously Olaf is such a catch. Blegh.
The funky folk return to their caravan while Olaf and his subordinates dig a big ass pit for the entire pride of lions. Hugo, Colette and Kevin head back inside the caravan while the Baudelaires resolve to sneak into Lulu’s tent. If there really was a survivor of the fire, they’d have to know, right? Right?

So they sneak over. Fortunately it’s empty, since Lulu just phased out of existence and Olaf and Esme are having a lover’s quarrel elsewhere. It’s easy to tell which one is Lulu’s tent. It’s got that damn eye on it.

A bit of sleuthing, messing around with the lights, and Violet tying her hair up, we’ve figured it out!

It’s a sham. Big shocker. Lulu’s literally using smoke and mirrors, plus some easy sunset lighting, and an entire LIBRARY under the table to trick Olaf. It’s actually lowkey impressive. She’s got an archivist's dream under that fancy tablecloth. And about 90% of its information is on the Baudelaires.

Fucking stalker, that’s what she is.

And speaking of the fucking stalker, the Baudelaires just knocked something over and now she’s here. Lovely.

(Quick note: In the TV show, Lulu is actually the librarian Olivia Caliban and she has this whole side plot with Jacques and the Quagmires and VFD and it’s super fun and slay. Here…she just exists I guess. Sorry.)

The jig is up now, as the Baudelaires confront Lulu with everything they know, including the secret library, the smoke and mirrors, etc. And Lulu breaks down. Her name is actually Olivia and her job is to just tell people what they want to hear. That’s it.

Also, Olivia is not aware of a Baudelaire parent being alive (she lied about that too) but she does know where they would be. The Mortmain Mountains, at one of the last surviving headquarters of VFD.

SHE SAID THE THING.

Yes, Olivia is a volunteer, well a former volunteer. She’s been an ass for so long, because of all the lying and shit. Also apparently the lions were originally trained to smell smoke? Cool, I guess.

Anyway, the Baudelaires resolve to rework one of the broken roller coaster engines with a fan belt and head to the Mortmain Mountains.

With Olivia. She basically blackmails her way into coming. Yay. Once again, I like what the show did more.

Back at the funky people caravan, there’s still the minor issue of being eaten alive by lions. Everyone’s pretty bummed about that (minus the Baudelaires, who are dipping at like 3 am with the fan belt).

Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door. It’s Esme. Oh goody. But it turns out she’s not being a raging douche-canoe for the first time this entire series. See…she has a proposition. Turns out, she’s offering our funky friends jobs!

In Olaf’s troupe.

So they’re still not getting paid, I guess? Also, damn you need five new people to replace the henchperson of indeterminate gender?

There’s only one small caveat to this “incredible” job offer. One little favor.

You just need to chuck Lulu into the lion pit tomorrow instead! Simple as that.

Apparently only the Baudelaires are disturbed by this, since Hugo, Colette and Kevin are ELATED, even with the minor issue of committing a heinous crime. Esme leaves giddily and the Baudelaires spend the night basically staring at the ceiling wondering how the FUCK their lives turned into this.

But there’s no time for that! Now it’s FANBELT time! Violet gets to work, after the Baudelaires check on the sleeping lions. It shockingly works, and all Violet needs is that damn fanbelt, since Olivia is currrently using it to fuck around with Olaf.

Unfortunately, there is still no time for that, because Olaf’s starting the show like six hours early. Lulu is able to get the kids away from him for about thirty seconds and give Violet the fan belt, but unfortunately the crowd is here, and it is BIG. Also, it’s lion dinner time.

Olaf puts some papers into a box in order to choose a random name, and then takes an ungodly amount of time to choose a fucking paper. Even the lions are pissed off. The Baudelaires quickly try to make a plan but it’s too late, because Olaf FINALLY unfolded the paper. And guess who’s going to the lions?

Violet and Klaus. Duh. Who’s even surprised at this point?

The good news is that the kids are now masters of stalling. They offer to let someone push them into the pit, instead of just leaping in. And their next idea is to have Olaf push them into the pit.

…Can they just push Olaf into the pit? End the series like 4 books early? Please?

Unfortunately, Esme deflects to have Lulu push the kids into the pit instead. And we’re back to square one. But the Baudelaires have one last plan in mind.

Mob mentality baby! The question of being pushed in causes a literal fight to break out between the crowd, Olaf’s associates, the reporter who is there as well, Olaf and Esme, Lulu, and even the other funky people.

But then, a new sound breaks above the mass of noise.

The sound of some happy lions getting food.

Turns out, Lulu did fall into the pit, but she wasn’t alone. She took the bald man with the big nose with her. Also the fan belt is down there as well. In the belly of the beast. (and that’s number 2!)

It’s obviously more depressing in the show, but it sucks here as well.

Anyway, that afternoon the Baudelaires sneak back into Lulu’s tent to see a map of the Mortmain Mountains, with a very suspicious coffee stain right in the middle of a place called the Valley of the Four Drafts.

Oh. I see.

Before the Baudelaires can do anything though, Olaf and Esme spawn in and offer the disguised kids a place in his troupe. And they don’t have another option, since Olaf has decided to commit his second favorite crime.

Arson.

And then he randomly grabs Sunny (also still disguised), and heads back to his bullet hole riddled car, the Baudelaires trailing after him. While the carnival burns, Olaf hands them a walkie talkie and tells the kids that they’ll be riding in the attached caravan, while “Chabo” rides in the front. In the car. With the murderers.

Oh my god. They’re not that dumb right? No one’s that dumb.

Turns out they are that dumb. Because Olaf calls them over the walkie talkie to tell Violet and Klaus that he knows who they are, is cutting the rope to the caravan, and that he hopes they have a nice fall.
Kevin, Colette and Hugo cut the knot attaching the caravan to the car, and as the Baudelaires fall, they head right into the belly of the beast. And with that final mention, the story ends. On a cliffhanger.

Chapter Text

Welcome back to the most depressing series on the internet, summarized in a hyperactive way because I can barely focus. Today it’s the Slippery Slope, and just like its name, the rest of the series seems to just careen off a cliff after this one.

Speaking of careening off a cliff, friendly reminder that Klaus and Violet are careening off a cliff. Still better then where Sunny is though, which is currently being driven away from her siblings who are careening off a cliff in Olaf’s murdermobile. Something, something road less traveled, Mortmain Mountains, whatever. In the murdermobile are Sunny, Olaf, Esme, the three new funky people, the powdered woman, and Hooky. The rest are dead.

Speaking of being dead, Klaus and Violet need to stop the caravan. Fortunately Violet has locked the fuck in, and makes a drag chute out of the hammocks, while Klaus mixes up all the sticky shit in the pantry to fuck up the wheels. And it works! The drag chute stops the engines, and the sticky shit gums up the wheels. Next, Violet grabs the table and turns it into a brake. And finally, the caravan screeches to a stop.

The kids grab as much as they can hold and step out of the caravan. The Mortmain Mountains are nice, if a bit foggy, while the Stricken Stream is…gross. Violet starts planning to make an engine and steering to get the caravan up the mountain, when the caravan instead decides to go down the mountain. It crushes the table and falls right off the cliff.

Snicket then notes he never found the damn caravan. Impressive.

Violet and Klaus take the items they had grabbed, including a ukulele, and a few coats, and the two start walking. And keep walking. And thinking! And walking. And thinking! They follow the Stricken Stream for a bit, which is still gross. Looks like it’s full of gray gunk.

The two kids talk about the survivor, their parents, Sunny, the Quagmires, and then the giant cloud of tiny buzzing objects coming toward them.

Wait, the what?

So, it turns out that the Mortmain Mountains are full of plenty of different animals, such as bears, eagles, and Snow Gnats. Now, what are Snow Gnats? Well, they’re little bugs who group themselves into shapes, and enjoy stinging people for fun. Plus their stings are venomous in heavy amounts.

Time to run!

The Baudelaires BOOK IT under the big coat, trying to hide from the onslaught of little asshole bugs. Fortunately there’s a cave, with smoke coming out of it! Fire drives away the gnats so they run over there!

The fire was caused by the Snow Scouts, a group of…scouts. And unfortunately, there’s a very important character in the Snow Scouts. And she undeservedly rolls back into the story by calling the Baudelaires her favorite cake-themed insult.

But forget her, let’s talk about Sunny! She’s been crying for the past three hours, because if you remember, she’s been KIDNAPPED. Esme’s like “Why won’t she stop? I’ve been pinching her!”

Gee, Esme, I wonder why. Truly a headscratcher.

Sunny, now fully irritated at this entire bs predicament, stops crying, so she can get some mental rest and listen to the group of idiots behind her. The stupidity is strong with this one, as the three funky people are just pestering Olaf with questions, which Hooky ends up answering. Basically: they’re heading to the Valley of the Four Drafts (get it. GET IT?), they’re gonna find the VFD headquarters and all the volunteers’ nice and convenient evidence files, and torch em!

Seems simple.

Anyway, a bit more of Olaf’s GTA level driving (will I finish this fic before GTA6?), he parks at the height of Mount Fraught, and…has SUNNY SET UP THE TENTS?

Why am I even shocked? At least it won’t be cold for long, with False Spring coming. It’s a weather phenomenon of the Mortmain Mountains where the weather warms up before getting cold again. Or just how the weather works in my neck of the woods.

After Olaf drops the baby to her own devices, she finds the source of the Stricken Stream, which is suspiciously not full of gray gunk. Hmm.

Also, somehow the baby puts up the tents by herself. Now, if you were watching the show, you’d notice that Hooky and Sunny really have this flourishing friendship here, and it shows in this book. That’s nonexistent in the book because fuck you. At least Sunny knows how to lock in. This is the baby who won a sword fight after all.

Meanwhile, back in the cave, Violet and Klaus now have to deal with Carmelita Spats. Because this book wasn’t shitty enough. Apparently, the hellspawn is with her Snow Scout troupe, led by a man named Bruce. He took away Uncle Monty’s reptiles.

Then they recite the Snow Scout pledge, which is, and I quote “Snow Scouts are accommodating, basic, calm, darling, emblematic, frisky, grinning, human, innocent, jumping, kept, limited, meek, nap-loving, official, pretty, quarantined, recent, scheduled, tidy, understandable, victorious, wholesome, xylophone, young, and zippered — every morning, every afternoon, every night, and all day long!” End quote.

I’m not kidding. Or exaggerating.

The Baudelaires also think this is stupid because how tf can a person be “xylophone” but they still go further into the cave. The Scouts are wearing fencing masks, which is good, so we don’t have to look at Carmelita’s face. As well, it means that the Baudelaires can stay under their coat, because wanted criminals and such.

One scout in a sweater offers the Baudelaires a few masks, and they take them immediately. Then, after the pledge once more, Bruce explains why the scouts are here. See, they’re hiking to the top of Mount Fraught to celebrate False Spring, that whole warming weather phenomenon I mentioned earlier. Then they dance around the springpole and someone gets crowned False Spring queen. Seems pretty May Day coded.

Well, Carmelita gets crowned. Bruce is her uncle. Nepotism moment!

Klaus asks about the hibernating animals and Bruce talks about how all the bears, who were soldiers, are gone. Then the sweatered scout goes “No, they were lions. And detectives. Volunteer Feline Detectives.”

Hey, wait a minute.

Violet’s like “Ayo-” but the sweater scout cuts her off and shakes his head. Carmelita starts complaining about how she wants to tell a story, but then the sweater scout talks again and says that the travelers should tell their story, or a Very Fascinating Drama.

HEY, WAIT A MINUTE.

The cat’s out of the bag now, as the sweater scout and the Baudelaires begin speaking to each other in VFD themed code. At least, until Carmelita cuts them off and starts rambling about herself. And then, Snicket skips the next five hours until everyone’s asleep, when suddenly the sweater scout tells the Baudelaires that he knows a way to the headquarters?

Well, shit then. Let’s get going! The sweater scout shows the Baudelaires a chimney in the ceiling, or more accurately, a Vertical Flame Diversion, because this is a bit and we’re committing to it. Sweater scout mentions a pole, but the pole is gone. But the toe-holds aren’t.

Violet asks Sweater how he knows all this and he says that he read it in a book from Dr. Montgomery’s library. And now the Baudelaires have like 70 more questions but we need to get climbing. Even if this kid seems mildly weird or untrustworthy.

Anyway, now we get to a part in the book where Snicket literally tells us to skip his writing, because instead of actually detailing the trip up the diversion, he’s writing a letter to his sister. In his book.

Sure.

Back to Sunny! Now she has to make breakfast for the entire troupe, because again fuck you. Unfortunately, all the groceries in the trunk of Olaf’s car had frozen over.

While Sunny is digging around in the frozen food, Esme accidentally lets it drop that they’re going to burn down the VFD headquarters. Quick, act shocked. Sunny decides to store that information for later and begins cooking, or more accurately, begins creating a nice cold dish of food. Very Gordon Ramsay coded.

Unfortunately, Olaf is a fucking PRICK and hates the food, especially after one of the white faced women asks for sugar. Wonder where his sugar bowl went.

Anyway, after almost killing Sunny (again), Olaf orders Hooky to go fish up some salmon, but the white faced woman smartly notes that without fire, there won’t be hot salmon. And I don’t think Olaf’s group of assholes likes sushi.

Fortunately, someone actually started a fire just then. Who, exactly? Well, our two newest characters! Let me introduce you, dear readers, to the man with a beard but no hair, and the woman with hair but no beard. We’ll call them Hairy and Beardy just to simplify it.

Now, what are Beardy and Hairy?

They’re evil incarnate

Not joking. Their mere prescence flips the book’s already morbid tone to fully fucked up. Sunny is disturbed, the troupe is pissing themselves, and Esme and Olaf are lowkey about to run off the side of the mountain. These two fuckers are NOT to be messed with. They are, in fact, the closest thing to the actual literal devil from the Bible that this series has.

Olaf is still shitting bricks, and awkwardly asks Beardy and Hairy about that fire. I think we all know where this is going, so we’ll just skip to the end.

They burned down the headquarters.

Quick. Act. Shocked.

Sunny is horrified by this revelation, which unfortunately means that now Beardy and Hairy have noticed her. Hairy mentions a schism (and also implies she killed a kid once).

At least the headquarters was deserted. No one died. Fortunately. They also burned down the swimming pool…somehow.

Beardy and Hairy mention that they’d have to burn down Caligari Carnival next, but Olaf brags that he already did that. Mainly just to gain clout. In response to his adequately done arson, Beardy and Hairy give Olaf the ENTIRE SNICKET FILE?

EXCUSE ME?

Also Beardy gives Esme a cigarette. Because lung cancer is in. At least that gives Sunny a fire to cook some salmon on.

MEANWHILE, back with Violet, Klaus and our new sweatered friend, they reach the top of the Diversion to find a small hall with a grate and a closed door. Sweater scout pulls out a box of the green cigarettes and notes they’re called Verdant Flammable Devices. When they’re lit, the smoke is green. Neat.

Sweater scout pulls out a small notebook of his, where he writes down everything. A commonplace book, he says. Or…a journal, mayhaps? Hmmm.

The closed door has a massive lock on it, called a Vernacularly Fastened Door, which is just a fancy way of saying a lock with a bunch of brain teasers. The Riddler would be proud.

The answers to the teasers are as follows: Issac Newton, Panthera Leo, and the entire theme of Anna Kaernina which I’m not writing here. Already wrote that damned pledge.

At least the door opens…to a torched kitchen. The fridge survived though, yay! Everything else is just ruined though. The world is quiet here, indeed. Nice frozen waterfall though. Very aesthetic.

Also it turns out the gray gunk in the Stricken Stream was from the destroyed headquarters. No time for that though, because Klaus and Violet are looking for a survivor. The Snicket File said there had to be one! Where is the survivor?

Well, it turns out the survivor is right behind them, wearing a tacky sweater. There wasn’t a survivor of the Baudelaire fire. There was a survivor of the Quagmire fire. Everyone, say hi to Quigley Quagmire!

…I rememver this being way cooler as a kid. It kind of just…happens here? They mentioned Quigley like…twice before this. He’s a good character though, for the minimal amount of screentime he gets.

ANYWAY, unlike the rest of us, Klaus and Violet are GOOPED. GAGGED. SHOOKETH. And while they are gooped, gagged, and shooketh, Quigley uses this moment to explain his backstory. See, when his family’s house was the victim of a few trigger happy arsonists, instead of being in his room with his siblings, Quigley was reading in the library. Then, his mother found him, and opened up a secret hatch in the floor and told him to wait in there while she got his siblings.

Spoiler alert, she died, the siblings went to Prufrock, and Quigley was presumed dead.

After that minor inconvience, Quigley walked down the secret hallway under the hatch, and when it ended, he found himself under Uncle Monty’s house! Like the secret hatch between 667 and the Baudelaire house.

Then, I guess he did research for a bit until Jacques Snicket showed up (remember him? ME EITHER.) and we finally get to learn what VFD truly stands for. Are you ready?

Volunteer Fire Department.

Waited ten books for that.

Anyway, then Quigley starts yapping about the schism, or what Beardy and Hairy talked about. Basically VFD suddenly broke apart one day and everyone started beefing with each other. Why? I’m not actually sure. Maybe it’s the sugar bowl or something.

Quigley then mentions that Jacques vanished from the house, and then that he saw the news article that his siblings were kidnapped. Oh, and someone torched the house. Oof.

Then, Quigley headed to Paltryville, hung around in Orwell’s office for a bit, and then headed to the Mortmain Mountains. Violet and Klaus tell Quigley that Jacques is dead and that his siblings are safe with Hector…for now.

No time to talk about his siblings right now, because it’s time to talk about Sunny again. Or more accurately, on the top of Mt. Fraught, where Sunny is using the green device thingy to cook salmon. And also it’s signaling with the green smoke.

While the kids on the ground decide to signal back, Sunny is cooking up a storm. And also cooking up a signal. Because she’s iconic.

Unfortunately for her, Beardy and Hairy are still there, and Beardy threatens Sunny after putting out the fire. Fortunately for her, Olaf and the evil gremlins head off to talk about the “last safe place” wherever tf that is. Then Sunny sees another plume of smoke on the ground and that makes her happy.

Back to the kids on the ground, Violet decides to invent something to get them up the frozen waterfall. Klaus heads off to study the burnt library, and Quigley stays with Violet because he’s crushing on her.

Once Violet invents climbing shoes out of forks and a fucking ukulele, Klaus discovers that the fridge is actually important because of something called Verbal Fridge Dialogue or whatever.

Unfortunately there’s nothing in the fridge except mustard, olives, jam, lemon juice and one pickle. Oh and very fresh dill. No time for that though, because it’s waterfall climbing time. Klaus stays at the destroyed HQ to do research on the fridge.

So, they climb the waterfall. It’s not interesting in the slightest, mainly because Snicket skips half of the dialogue. But who cares about that, because Sunny found Violet and Quigley! Yay!

The reunion is adorable, and Violet introduces Quigley to Sunny. But then Olaf shows back up, and Violet and Quigley have to hide under Olaf’s car, which is even worse. Olaf, Esme, Beardy and Hairy argue for a bit, Hairy mentions a sugar bowl (hmmm), and also a giant net and a recruitment plan? That can’t be good.

Once the coast is clear, Sunny tells the two other kids that she will be in fact staying on the mountaintop to gain information on the last safe place. She also speaks her first sentence, which is “I’m not a baby.” Lowkey iconic.

Then Violet accidentally gives Olaf’s car a flat (based), and after goodbyes, they’re back down the mountain.

Once they’re back down the waterfall, Violet tells Klaus that Sunny signaled them, about Beardy and Hairy, some sort of recruitment plan, and the last safe place. Then Klaus talks about Verbal Fridge Dialogue. Yay.

Turns out the dill means there’s a message in the fridge, and that the darkest jam, in this case boysenberry, will have a message. The jam has the initials JS in it. Because of course it does. Must be Jacques’s ghost.

To make a VERY long bit of Verbal Fridge Dialogue short, the volunteers will be meeting next Thursday, and also someone wrote down something about a sugar bowl. Weird.

Next, the kids decide to kidnap Esme Squalor as a trade for Sunny.

Wait, they do WHAT?

Yeah, they decide to dig a whole ass pit. Fight fire with fire and allat. Never mind that the whole world will go up in smoke.

While they’re doing…that (seriously talk about escalation), Sunny is pissed. She hasn’t learned ANYTHING, about the last safe place or this recruitment plan. But she did hide a very large eggplant behind Olaf’s car.

Anyway, the troupe is up and it turns out Olaf’s actually…washed his face. Must be his birthday. Also Esme’s dressed like a fire. Tacky.

Hey, at least Olaf just dropped the name of the last safe place. It’s the Hotel Denouement. Nice going, dingus. Sunny files that away for later, as Esme gets ready to go down the waterfall to get more of the “green cigarettes” (remember? The pit?).

Esme takes one of Beardy and Hairy’s toboggans, and heads down. At the bottom, the kids are realizing that maybe this whole pit thing was a really bad idea. Never mind that the VFD catchphrase “The world is quiet here” is basically beating that idea into their brains.

So, the kids do the smart thing, put on the masks from the Snow Scouts, and jump out to warn Esme about the trap. Then, after Esme threatens them and says some bs, Violet (disguised) decides to just reclimb the mountain and talk to Olaf.

I hope they’ll think of something better on the climb because wtf. So, the trio drags Esme (and the sled) back up the waterfall for an epic final faceoff. I hope so, at least.

Once they get to the top, Violet demands Sunny back. But it’s not like Olaf is just gonna give up a prisoner, unless they had some important part of a tea set or whatever.

So Violet bluffs that they have the sugar bowl, and Olaf goes into a FRENZY. Seriously, what the hell is in that thing? Drugs? It has to be drugs.

Esme and Olaf argue over whether or not the sugar bowl or the Baudelaire fortune is more worth it, until Beardy cuts them both off, because that recruitment scheme is starting. Whatever that is. It involves whistles.

And apparently a FUCK ton of eagles. Trained eagles. Trained eagles who are going to use the net to kidnap a bunch of unsuspecting Snow Scouts, who are then going to be forcefull recruited and Oh! Their parents are going to be BURNT ALIVE.

Even Olaf looks queasy at that. Want to see it happen? No? Too bad.

The Snow Scouts march back into the story, and Carmelita immediately begins to complain. Violet and Klaus try to reveal the whole kidnapping scheme to the Scouts, but they don’t believe them, even when the Baudelaires (and Quigley who is also there) reveal their masks.

The reveal does cause Olaf to order the two white faced women to throw the casserole dish with Sunny inside off the mountain, but they refuse, because apparently THIS is their breaking point. And they just…leave?

So then Olaf goes to throw the dish off the mountain himself. Because of course he does.

Good news is that Sunny wasn’t inside. It was the eggplant. She reuinites with her siblings and Olaf literally throws a tantrum. Violet AGAIN tries to warn Carmelita about the whole…kidnapping thing, but she’s Carmelita Spats. Just GUESS what happens.

Carmelita crowns herself False Spring Queen, breaks apart the ice of the waterfall with the spring pole, and then the Snow Scouts get kidnapped. Also Beardy and Hairy literally ascend into the air by four eagles and fly off. Also also, all of Olaf’s henchmen get caught too. Whoops.

Also, also, ALSO, Carmelita joins Olaf and Esme. Quick. Act Shocked.

Now that there’s three villains threatening them, it’s a good time to gtfo, so the Baudelaires (and Quigley) hop onto the toboggan, and take off. And you BET they take off, because the cracking waterfall and the velocity of their fall literally cause Quigley to go flying. He’s whisked away down the other half of the Stricken Stream, and the Baudelaires themselves are washed out to sea. And that’s where the book ends.