So we find ourselves at Prufrock Preparatory School where we first meet 2 out of the 3 Quagmire triplets, Isadora and Duncan, we also meet Prinicple Nero, who looks exactly like the cover of the fifth book, it’s a little uncanny. We also meet Carmelita Spats and she’s prettier than what I pictured in my head… I know that sounds really bad, but they really dolled up her character.

Count Olaf is looking for the children, and he overhears a couple saying where they are. I’m not sure how I feel about that because in the books we never knew how Count Olaf found them, he just did and I liked that weird suspense about it. Knowing how he found them ruins that a bit. So he kills the gym teacher to become the new gym coach… okay when they introduced him, why did he have this ridiculous accent? I guess I’ll roll with it.

Another thing I found a little odd, maybe it was supposed to be funny, but he mistakes the Quagmires as the Baudelaire’s, he’s never done that ever because he’s kept close call on them at all times. Plus, he knows everything about the Quagmires that I can’t recall if he did in the books. To be honest Count Olaf didn’t seem to know about anything in the books, I’m curious where the TV show is going to take this.

There are people trying to help the Baudelaire’s at every turn, but it always gets intercepted. I do like that Mr. Poe seems to think they are completely fine and his secretary is the one hiding and trying to help the Baudelaire’s.

So by the second episode things start to follow the book more. The Baudelaire’s are forced to run laps every night which means they are too tired to “learn” anything. They are forced to take a comprehension test in front of everyone, but they still have to run laps all night so they have no time to study. So the Quagmires take their place running laps for a night so they can study… but that doesn’t go very well. They are pulling Sunny on a string, but it breaks and that’s when Count Olaf gets suspicious.

Now the Quagmires have to run away from him and his associates. They hide in the library where they find a book that shows the spyglasses both Klaus and Isadora have. They learn how the fire was started, and about the mysterious V.F.D… the whole purpose of the rest of the books. They get spotted in the library and taken away. After the Baudelaires pass their tests… which ends in an arm wrestling contest between the two children and Count Olaf… which is weird, Sunny exposes the tattoo and everyone freaks because they know the truth, the Baudelaires try to run after them, but they’re trying to catch a car… so they can’t catch up. So now Count Olaf has the Quagmires and we’re off to the next chapter.

Why does everyone talk so fast? It’s like they’re trying to get in so many words at once, it’s kinda annoying. What is also annoying is the amount of chanting there is at the school, ugh it hurts my ears.

I like that Nathan Fillion plays Jacque Snicket, that’s a good fit, but we don’t meet Jacque until later in the books, but we’ll see where the show is going to go.

What I also like is the added background to Count Olaf is that he used to go to Prufrock Preparatory when he was a kid, but he was expelled. This just gives his character more depth since we didn’t get a lot of it in the books.

Now the children have been taken to live in the city with Jerome and Esme Squalor. This is my favourite book in the series, and boy did they botch these two episodes. I am so disappointed. Not only did they change a whole bunch of stuff, but they made the characters talk suuuuper fast, like they just wanted to get through the episodes, I hated every second of it.

Jerome was still the really sweet innocent guy, and Esme was still the rich bitch, and Count Olaf comes to town as Gunther, a foreign auctioneer, and I have to say it was funny to hear him say ‘please’ all the time, that I somewhat enjoyed.

This is where Jacque and the librarian start to follow the children, with the help of Larry the waiter and Jacqueline, Mr. Poe’s assistant, they try to look out for the children, but so far no luck.

The Baudulaires know that the Quagmires aren’t far, but the penthouse is huge. That’s when they realize that the elevator is an empty shaft and they go to investigate. That’s where they find the Quagmires locked up, but they don’t have anything to get them out, so they must go and find something to help free them, well that doesn’t go well because the second time they get thrown down the shaft, find out that Esme is really Count Olaf’s girlfriend, and the Quagmires are no longer at the bottom.

It’s with perseverance that they get out of the shaft and figure out where Esme and Olaf have hidden the Quagmires… in one of the items labeled VFD being auctioned off. In the end it turns out to be just a box filled with doilies, when really they were hidden in a red herring statue. So Olaf is off once more, and Mr. Poe is left to find them a new home because Jerome is too timid to do it.

Well now the children have been taken to the town of VFD. I have to say they followed the books for these two episodes a lot more than the past two episodes.

They get set with Hector, a guy who always faints when he’s in court. The town has so many rules that everyone is bound to break them at one point. It takes a village to raise a child and so the “village” is to raise them, but really it’s Hector who takes them into his home and shows them this inflatable mobile home he built (which is of course against the law as one of their rules is no mechanical devices). They plan to escape in that, buuut things don’t go according to plan.

Jacque Snicket finds the children and tells him who he is… apparently the eye tattoo was never an eye but of the letters VFD. We also learn that Jacque and Count Olaf once upon a time knew each other and in that very town used to work alongside each other fighting fires, some interesting backstory.

But of course it’s too late for Jacque as Count Olaf claims that Jacque is really Olaf, locks him up and then kills him, putting the murder on the children, because his new disguise is Detective Dupin and Esme is his right hand girl as the towns new chief of police.

Now the children are in jail, but they figure a way out, (not the same as the books, but this I can live with). They used their detective skills to find out where the Quagmire triplets are being held, as Isadora has been sending them couplets as clues. They find the two in the fountain and all five now have to make their escape… and they almost do as Hector is in his flying house, the Quagmires climb aboard, but the town has caught up with them and Esme starts shooting a harpoon gun at the mobile home, when she hits a crow, the towns beloved animal, they start to turn on her, but by this time the Baudelaires have run out of time and rather escape in a fire truck, off their next destination.

What I really enjoyed out of these two episodes was the witty banter between Olaf and Jacques, that was really entertaining. This show also does a really good job of showing how unbelievable things were in the books, like they make Sunny drive… of all people, but it fits with how the books were set up.

The weird music they kept using in these two episodes didn’t match the scenes and it felt so out of place, I hope that drops.

The children take that fire truck they stole to the middle of the Hinterlands. They hit up the Last Chance General Store where they try to send a telegram but they get stopped by Count Olaf, now they are back to really running for their lives. They meet a bunch of volunteers who are going to a hospital that’s in the middle of nowhere.

Heimlich Hospital is where they end up, and slowly Count Olaf and his henchmen head there too. There they find the library of records which they believe will give them more information on Jacque Snicket. That’s where they meet Hal, an almost blind man who runs the library. Hal teaches them the ways of the library, and it’s in the library where they find a tape that tells them that there was a survivor to the Baudelaire fire.

Meanwhile Olaf has made his way to the hospital disguising himself as a doctor. The Stephen King/The Shining thing they do with the twins is weird, yet I kinda like it.

Esme is really, really interested in getting her hands on this mysterious sugar bowl. It’s the librarian from Prufrock Preparatory school who tells Esme where it is. That’s when Esme chases the children through the library to get her hands on said sugar bowl… only the children don’t have the sugar bowl, it’s just the tape. That’s where Esme kidnaps Violet as Klaus and Sunny get away.

Olaf plans on cutting her head off, and Klaus and Sunny need to think fast so Klaus pretends to be a doctor and they use their detective skills to find which room Violet is kept in… only when they get there he finds out that Violet is being prepped for surgery. Olaf knows that Klaus is in disguise but he plays along, making Klaus the one to make the incision. But Klaus stalls until Violet wakes up where the children get found out and everyone knows they are “murders” thanks to the newspapers.

I have to say the audience in the hospital were very eager to see Violet’s head taken off… this one volunteer was like freaky into it, she scared me on so many levels.

Now Esme begs for the “sugar bowl” in order to keep Violet alive, so Klaus does, but when she realizes it isn’t what she thought she gets extremely angry. But Olaf goes to watch the footage, and when he finds out there is a survivor he gets pissed! That’s when he starts a fire in the library… blaming it on the children of course so now everyone has to leave the hospital. The children don’t know what they should do now; they escaped the hospital but where do they go next? Violet sees Olaf’s car and thinks they don’t have any choice, so they jump into the truck of his car hoping for the best.

I have to say, this season got better as the it went on. Sure it started shaky, but it is really starting to find its footing… Neil Patrick Harris has gotten really good at playing Olaf. I know I said that at the end of last season, but it was like he lost it for a bit, but it’s back now.

In the final two episodes the children have found themselves in the back of Count Olaf’s car where he takes them to the Carnivorous Carnival.

But first I like how we open the episode on a flashback to a ball that happened years before where all of the children’s past guardians are attending. It was good to see them all in a room because it really put into perspective how intricate and involved VFD really is.

We also see Lemony trying to warn Beatrice about Count Olaf, but clearly that was a bust.

Back at the carnival, that’s where madam Lulu, a fortune-teller proclaims to have the answers that Olaf is looking for: is there a survivor of the Baudelaire fire. She keeps stalling him because of course she doesn’t know, she’s really Olivia, the school librarian dressed up in disguise.

The children on the other hand can’t stay in the trunk forever so they use what they can find to create disguises for themselves. The carnival has a group of freaks and so they use this to fuel their disguises. Violet and Klaus are now a two headed freak named Beverly and Elliot, and sunny is a wolf baby named chabow.

They get placed with the freaks, but it always feels like Olaf is onto them, but then he does something and we’re led to believe he has no idea.

When Olaf does get his answer, a Baudelaire parent has survived he decides to put on a freak show, but it doesn’t take. That’s when he decides to up the ante with lions, very hungry lions.

And once the fortune telling tent is empty, the children look through it for any information. They find a lot more than they bargained for; books, films and all sorts of disguises that all belong to the Volunteer Fire Department- the secret organization everyone is apart of. Madame Lulu finds them, but that’s when she reveals that she’s really Olivia and that she wants to help them. They try to devise a plan to get them all out. This is also where she tells them she lied to Olaf about the survivor, yes there is one, but they don’t know who it is. Now they must head to the VFD headquarters in the Mortmain Mountains to find the survivor. That’s also where whoever took the sugar bowl Esme is so hung up about would have gone with it.

But first they must get through the freak show that Olaf plans to put on. Somehow he manages to get an audience for, because everyone just wants to see someone eaten by lions.

Olaf decides it should be one of the freaks, but it’s Esme who is jealous of Madame Lulu, convinces Olaf it should be Lulu. So as a consolation prize, whichever freak pushes Madame Lulu in gets to join his theatre troupe. In the end he picks out of a hat, and of course it’s non other than Beverly and Elliot. They all walk the plank over the pit, but the children don’t have it in them to do it. That’s when Olivia falls in accidentally and the audience is in shock and horror.

To hide the mess he’s made, Olaf plans on burning the carnival down. He makes the children burn the tent down, but he doesn’t allude to knowing it’s the Baudelaires. He makes them ride in this trailer that he attaches to his car, only Sunny is left to ride with Olaf and his troupes, which at first is weird, but then he lets us all know he knows it’s the children and he has his henchmen cut ties with the trailer and they are now plummeting down the mountain, to what is supposed to be their death. But it ends on a cliffhanger and I kinda like the way they ended it.

It makes me excited for the (sadly) last season.

I love the way they described what a cliffhanger is in the process of having the plot turn into a cliffhanger- it was done brilliantly.

I also love how as part of the audience they got Neil Patrick Harris’s kids to be part of the audience; they are so adorable!

The show really picked up near the end, it wavered near the beginning and it looked like it was going to be a flop of a season, but it turned out to be a very good season. The last season is going to be full of mystery (and all the things I don’t quite remember) but I’m still very excited about it!