#and in news I was not expecting to see today – or ever#thank you Librarians discord for letting me know#WOW! I mean I am WOW speechless to be honest#I rewatch the Librarians constantly so the concept of any kind of new material is just OMG#aaaand time to start speculating as to when in time our time travelling librarian has come from#I haven’t been so pumped for a show announcement since Leverage Redemption or Strange New Worlds (whichever came last)#interestingly it was those two shows that made me forgive them for cancelling the Librarians at all as I was so sad about that#I know the OG cast is busy and I wish them all the success but I hope at least one of them can cameo#if not or hopefully as well some references dropped sometimes too for the continuity I don’t need much to be super happy#ahhhhh so excited
Oh man working out flight times and time differences is a total headache.
I’m looking at episode 1 😂
When they picked up Cassandra it was dark outside. Google says flight time from New York to Oklahoma City is about 5 hours. That is a different time zone but they only gain an hour. Stone was at the bar. We don’t know exactly I think what time of year it was supposed to be but given it’s Christmas just a couple of episodes later, an approximate time of a couple of months because Eve kept them training for what 6 weeks something like that? So it could be October/November time in which case sunset in October is about 7pm and November more like 5:45. It was properly dark and Eve would still have to travel to and from the airport. So November is more likely and then it would be midnight+ at the bar with Stone which just about tracks.
Flynn flew to Geneva to get Ezekiel and it was daytime. It’s over a 9 hour flight and Geneva is 6 hours ahead, making the time of day effectively 15+ hours after he left. So that’s got to be midday/early afternoon. Then it’s a 9 hour trip back but gains the 6 hours. As an aside it’s apparently a 21 hour drive from Oklahoma City to New York.
Either way I’m thinking Flynn was definitely gone for about 36 hours after meeting Cassandra. So the meeting with all of them at the library wasn’t the next morning but probably the morning after that.
Eve was tighter on time than Flynn to get to her meeting with Stone. So she can’t have spent long with Cassandra, and Flynn left Eve with Cassandra so didn’t sort her out himself unfortunately.
Anyway the point of this is I think Cassandra was left on her own for those 36 hours. It’s possible that Eve went to see her at some point during the day after she’d retrieved Stone and returned to New York, but as I doubt Eve would know what to say to her I’m thinking it was a short check-in if anything.
Which means the best opportunity for Lamia to reach Cassandra would be during that day/night after Lamia went to Oklahoma to kill Stone, and before Cassandra went to the library with the others. At this point Cassandra has been told she’s in danger and had the magic “I’m the librarian” used on her so she doesn’t know what’s going on.
I can’t believe I waxed lyrical about The Librarians earlier and I didn’t once mention the soundtrack!
That is a totally unforgivable omission and oversight!
Seriously, seriously guys the music composed for this show is spot-on. Characters have their own themes but what I love best is that the music gets me excited for what’s happening on screen even when it’s like the nth time I’ve seen it. The way they play the score to emphasis the exciting bits is just awesome and it puts a smile on my face every single time.
Marie said her DVD is arriving today and mentally my mind brought up the image of the opening shot of Episode 1 AND AND! I heard the music score in my head. Seriously it is that good! Most scores are forgettable, this one is not.
I’m still waiting for my first Librarians DVD to arrive. Tell me what you love best about it!
Oh wow I love this question! I get to metaphorically roll around in the thing that I love hehe *cackles with glee* but I do promise I will try and keep it brief. Alright! *rubs hands together*
The Librarians
I’ve said before that when I watch it, there’s this palpable feeling of warmth. It is comforting to watch, like being wrapped in a nice cosy blanket buuuuuut that’s how it feels! So what do I love best?
Oh man this is so hard to put into words actually, there’s just so much joy. I mean I honestly do love everything about it! The setting, the concept, the plots. Sure it’s not 100% perfect but nothing in life is and even when I go “hmm?” it’s not in a bad way. It’s in like a “that’s good but this might have been better” kind of thing. I’ve watched dozens of shows and pretty much without fail there is at least one episode I blacklist, and never ever rewatch. With this I’ll happily watch every single episode and I’m still super bummed that there isn’t going to be anymore.
Sorry I’m still waxing lyrical and not being specific.
I guess what it boils down to in the end is the characters and their interactions. I’m going to try not to do spoilers, I hope this isn’t too spoilery
I love how Jenkins at the beginning was closed-off, pretending not to care, but gradually he came to accept them as colleagues and then they became family.
I love how enthusiastic they all are about their chosen interest. Flynn’s expression when he goes “I do not know and isn’t that fantastic!” because he just loves learning
I love how accepting they are of each other. They bicker and they want to help each other become the best versions of themselves but ultimately they care for each other how they are. I really want to get specific here but #NoSpoilers but it does apply in a way to all the characters.
I love how everything about them just feels natural. Like they aren’t just reacting to the plot/events, they are bantering with each other.
I love how unique their voices are, like how Flynn repeats words or says the same thing three different ways when he gets flustered.
I adore how excited Cassandra gets about science. She jumps on the spot and it’s so cute. I mean I just love all of the characters enthusiasm. It makes me happy to watch.
I love how the characters evolve (I mentioned Jenkins before) but they all have a journey and it’s subtle and there’s some backsliding but it’s there. They just feel like real people.
The dialogue is amazing, the banter and just ugh everything! There’s a lot of quotable/amusing lines – it’s brilliant! 🙂
I love that I don’t have a favourite character! I mean sure, I ship Eve and Flynn, but I love all the characters equally. There isn’t anyone I dislike.
Ultimately though, it just comes back to what I was saying at the beginning. What I love most about The Librarians is undefinable in a sense because it’s a gestalt – the show just simply makes me happy. It comforts me when I’m sad, when I watch it I feel like I’m coming home. There is just so much joy somehow wrapped up in a TV show.
The only other show I watch that generates the same sort of warm fuzzy feelings is Leverage, which is actually by the same showrunners/creators. I’m trying to explain this because this warmth/comfort is different from just general love for a show. I mean you know how much I love Stargate right? Well that doesn’t have the same feeling. I enjoy watching it, I love so much about it, but there’s not that warm fuzzy comfy blanket feeling. I’m explaining this really badly, it’s hard to put into words.
In today’s wondering – what would have happened if Flynn hadn’t made it?
“Judson’s gone, Charlene’s gone. If anything happens to me they are the future.”
“Most of the magic has gone back into the Earth. He’s dying, I think we both are.”
“I need Flynn to pull it together. I’m too new at all this.”
So thought experiment, Flynn died with Excalibur by the stone of King Arthur. Problem #1 what happens with his body? (Side note: practicalities like that aren’t a strong point of TV) but taking a leaf from said TV’s book, that isn’t what I’m really wondering about.
I was thinking today about Jacob Stone and Eve Baird.
In the season 1 finale when they skip through alternate timelines Stone kisses Eve and she goes “no, no, nope, no, no” (side note: I love it when she does that) and so it made me wonder how they were together for 10 years in that timeline, but our Eve can’t even contemplate it.
So I do what I do when I’m thinking about things, I half remember stuff and then have to rewatch to firm up my memory. First thing – Santa’s Midnight Run!
Eve says that she spent 12 years in 12 different countries, and that doesn’t count the army bases she grew up on as a child. Santa says that maybe this is why she feels like she doesn’t belong anywhere (side note: thematically the desk in the library constantly resetting is a great angle on this, making Eve feel like she doesn’t belong).
Second – The Crown of King Arthur!
It’s first meeting time! This is the critical thing, this is what mostly makes the difference I reckon. When our Eve met Stone he was on the ground, she protected him and then he was instantly folded into a team structure. All those years in the military with the anti-fraternisation rules meant her mind considered him off-limits.
Whereas meeting 10 years earlier, when Stone said that Eve was fresh out of military intelligence training, that’s a whole different scenario. Eve wouldn’t have been so hardened, more used to taking orders than giving them AND most crucially they would have met as equals.
It’s that equals thing – that first meeting and putting people into boxes – that ultimately made all the difference I reckon. Our Eve met Flynn, was confused by Flynn, there was the push and pull and challenging one another. They talked in the forest, there was empathy, both of them lived for the job, they are both lonely. Eve is used to control and Flynn defies expectations but he’s genuine.
“I like the librarian, he’s weird but he’s interesting.”
Flynn might push Eve out of her comfort zone but he says what he thinks – quite literally “henge” anyone? – and so Eve trusts him enough to contemplate feeling feelings. Once open to the possibility it develops. Whereas in our reality with Stone she was never open to the possibility.
Also I can’t ignore a key fact in that Stone was different in the alternate reality! It wasn’t just that they met at a different time and place in their lives – 10 years earlier – but Stone made a different choice.
In our timeline he never showed up for interview, in the alternate reality he did. He took a chance, he didn’t just say that “I got a job, family business, responsibilities” and spend another 10 years writing under pseudonyms. Stone must have had more hope in his heart – been more open himself, he’d had 10 fewer years of hiding his true self after all.
Conclusion?
I ship Flynn and Eve so hard BUT I could totally see how Jacob and Eve could have worked in this alternate timeline. In fact I can actually see the potential in our timeline should Flynn ever have permanently been out of the picture.
As time went on Eve became less of a leader and more of just a team member. That was because from the very beginning, their first mission together “we’re not soldiers. we’re partners” – so Eve had to transition to treating them as equals. It would still need something to smash the box that Eve put Stone in, so she could actually see him in that light, but it’s definitely possible.
Stone is the most like Flynn in terms of his knowledge and his approach. He’s a bit more physical and a bit less scatty but no less passionate. Eve never picked a tethering partner after Flynn apparently quit, the most she said on the subject was “why not Cassandra?” after Stone and Ezekiel asked her to choose between them.
I thought a lot about who would be the best candidate to be essentially a librarian for a couple of thousand years (or until eternity). I went back and forth because I was thinking about balance. The library chose Stone, Cassandra and Ezekiel because they are all different. Like the finale said, the library lived in all of them for different reasons.
I wondered for a while if perhaps Stone was too much of a traditional librarian but I think ultimately that just solidifies him as the best candidate. He said it himself, as long as he was around the library would always have a librarian.
Eternity is a long time to be lonely. If Flynn really had quit and Eve had picked Stone to tether with. Yeah I think they would have transitioned from supportive best friends to lovers eventually.
(still prefer them as platonic best buds though, this was just a thought exercise)
#have I said how much I love this show today? because I love it#one day I will stop flailing over this show but that day is not today
I just added a picture set of libraries to my queue, hardly the first one I’ve reblogged either – towering stacks of books set in jaw dropping buildings is kinda irresistible.
Anyway it reminded me of how disappointed I was seeing the actual library in The Librarians (aka the Reading Room, or the symbolic representation of the library) because it wasn’t jaw dropping inspiring at all. Honestly my university library with the endless stacks of floor-ceiling book shelves is more impressive.
^^ see what I mean?
Picking from that aforementioned library picture set I think it should have looked a little more like this:
or this
Moar books, books as far as you can see, books with rails, books with ladders, books that say “hello this is a library” and feels like it’s a few thousand years old. That book collection supposedly hearkens back to the library of Alexandria and it feels more like the children’s section at Barnes and Noble.
See, knowledge isn’t old or gnarled or knotted.It’s young, always growing. That’s the thing about knowledge. No matter how much you think you have, there’s always room to grow.
Flynn Carsen (The Librarians)
#I love this quote#their enthusiasm for learning is just one of the infinite reasons I have for loving this show so much#this is my 10000th post on tumblr the big 10k#and I thought I’d pick what it was#this quote just really resonates#tumblr milestone
In today’s procrastinating I’m wondering who Judson was in history. I mean he was the first Librarian, an immortal like Jenkins, and I’m kinda assuming he took on a different name just like Jenkins.
Jenkins was Galahad. The villain in season one was Duloque (Lancelot) and Morgan le Fay made an appearance. We saw a little of the Lady of the Lake and of course Excalibur is a big deal. Duloque wanted to wind back the clock to when magic ruled the world – the time of Camelot. Is it much of a leap to think that the library was formed after the fall of Camelot?
I’ve said before that I think the library has more people tied to it than the ones we’ve seen, in immortality terms anyway. Otherwise how are Jenkins and Duloque immortal? I do think that tethering and the immortality component are not the same. You have to be immortal to tether but can be immortal without tethering (being the moral anchor).
My pet theory is that Judson was Percival. He was the original knight who searched for the holy grail (before Galahad ‘took over’) which is a nice thematic nod to how Jenkins took over management of the library after Judson.
Jenkins said that Merlin’s powers were fearsome. I can’t remember if I’ve posted here my theory that they discovered how to become immortal after Merlin’s death or not. I sort of headcanon that if Merlin had still been alive then it would never have happened, and maybe Camelot wouldn’t have fallen. I figure that maybe due to finding the grail, they magic-up a way to be immortal and then Lancelot makes his play to be King of the world. Arthur is killed, Camelot is consumed by war, with magic getting thrown around so many civilians are killed as the knights choose sides.
I know Flynn said that magic was drained off into artifacts but that never made sense to me. Ley lines, magic, is part of the Earth and therefore should renew themselves. The stone was referred to as a lock, with the sword being the key. What if instead of magic slowly disappearing, instead someone locked it away? Maybe it was even Arthur and the strain killed him. That would have ended the war, as there wouldn’t be all that magic to throw around anymore. That would also explain why the library was formed “to keep magic out of bad guys hands” – the only magic left in the world, aside from the trickle that kept them immortal etc. was in the artifacts.
Judson hoarded them like a dragon, content to just keep them out of Duloque’s hands. Jenkins saw no harm in research because maybe he was a “hope for the best, prepare for the worst” kinda guy. Should things ever go wrong, it’s better to have a few tricks up the sleeve. He didn’t have the power to put anything into action (like the magic door) until magic returned to the world, but then stuff like that wouldn’t be needed unless magic was around once more. Dangerous times, desperate measures.
Now I always wondered how come Flynn didn’t know Jenkins when that librarian from the past, Darrington Dare, did and Jenkins said “pleasure to serve you once again sir” which comes back to what I said about the annexes yesterday. Darrington Dare was Sherlock Holmes era. Jenkins went to parties with Dorian Gray which was about the same time – they were in London. So what if back then Jenkins was at the annex in London?
For an immortal 10 years is probably the blink of an eye and Jenkins was very much “librarians die, we go through them like tissues” at the beginning of the series. Also it’s like Eve said to Nicole Noone “you’ve spent your life saying goodbye”, it must be hard for an immortal to get close to people because they die. Jenkins took some time away from the library in Shakespeare’s time, and perhaps isolating in the Oregon annex was another time-out.
Which means that for today I just have one question left. If there are annexes, especially a lot of annexes around the world, why did Flynn not know about them? Is that because they got closed/shuttered mostly with the advent of jet travel? Enquiring minds want to know.
So today I wound up obsessing over organising my music collection rather than writing *rolls eyes at self*
Now I’m watching The Librarians again and today’s thought is about the annex.
When the library was set up the world was smaller or very big depending on point of view. They didn’t have ships to cross oceans and they definitely didn’t have planes. Even just a hundred years ago it took weeks to cross from Europe to the US.
The library was anchored to New York though I do remember them saying it moved around, being located in the dominant (and therefore presumably the safest) country. The annex is in Oregon on the opposite coast but still top of the country.
So is there an annex in California? Florida? Colorado? Is there one in Canada? How about South America? Australia? Every country on Earth? Do the annexes move? I mean the one on the show has an entrance in a bridge and that isn’t all that old, or is that annex just more newly established? How are new annexes set up?
Also if Jenkins was working at the annex on his research why is the entrance so dusty? I know as an immortal he doesn’t have to eat but I’m presuming he occasionally would want to stretch his legs. Was there a side entrance? I’m presuming the backdoor through the tree was a later addition as it led into the library itself.
