We kick off this episode with a tense hostage situation, but the majority of the time is spent in 1966, where Nick is going to help a family escape fascist Germany — as long as they help him find a certain book called The Abarat.
He's all smiles, even though it's a depressing piece of history he's caught in, and the stunning blonde librarian certainly lights up the screen. Watching Nick search for answers in spooky libraries and finding secret passageways in old coffins is a fun set up, I could watch that every week, but, naturally, trying to escape Berlin makes them enemies of the state, placing them very close to the crosshairs that would wipe the smiles from their faces. And guess who shows up to give them a push in the wrong direction?
La Croix is obsessed Nick in a bad way. There are Taylor Swift fanatics who would tell him to take it down a notch.
I like this episode, but I really don't have a lot of commentary. It's very predictable, but the sort of predictable that feels comfortable. I must say that the two stories don't really work together. For example, we see Nick lunge for the Abarat at the same time as he lunges for the grenade, but the situations aren't similar.
It does make me happy to see Nick getting a phone call from the woman he saved. He can't have his happy ending, but he can invest in people along they way, and when you live for 800 years, those investments pay powerful dividends that just might keep you going when you've had a bad day.
Flashbacks:
1966 Berlin is portrayed convincingly, and the library looks to me like a perfect place for a cup of coffee and a good read. It's hard not to be charmed by it, which makes it all the worse knowing how dark the situation really is.
Little Bites:
-Vampire lore: Whatever the Abarat is, you have to wonder if La Croix believed it truly held a cure. Normally he lets Nick fall on his face and find out the hard way when a solution isn't going to work, but this time he went through the trouble of burning the book so Nick couldn't read it. This also wets our beak a little; if that was a real cure, then maybe vampirism isn't forever.
-Schanke is Always Right. And he's a crack shot, putting two bullets into the perp's chest before he could use his grenade.
-Nick triumphantly holds up the grenade, which he managed to keep from exploding. Then he... casually tosses it to a confused Schanke.
Final Analysis: A charming flashback makes us forget about the average present-day plot. And sometimes at the end of an episode I have a feeling that something was missing, and that something is usually Janette. Still, four out of five Trapper Keeper-sized books.
Adam D. Jones is a writer, historian, and undefeated cat wrestler. He is also something of a hostage negotiator himself, having recently saved a teddy bear from being torn apart by his nieces.
No comments:
Post a Comment
We love comments! We moderate because of spam and trolls, but don't let that stop you! It’s never too late to comment on an old show, but please don’t spoil future episodes for newbies.