The Librarians: And the Image of Image Recap

Synopsis 02×07: People keep dying of weird causes that don’t seem to be the result of their own actions, and the Librarians have to go clubbing to figure out why. There’s a reason I love this show, okay?

Rating: ★★★★★

While Cassandra and Jake were hanging out in England together, they saw someone who appeared to get hit by a car without actually being hit by a car. Insistent that it had to be magic, even though the clipping book hadn’t said anything about it, they decided to investigate further. They took it back to the Library to run it by the team who all seemed a bit preoccupied. To set up the episode, Ezekiel returned to the Library and Jenkins chastised him for taking pictures of himself doing crazy things, like skateboarding off of ancient structures. Ezekiel pointed out that images are just part of the world and it was not going to be a big deal.

When Jake and Cassandra filled in the rest of the team, they became concerned. Again, the Library hadn’t alerted them to this use of magic, but they decided to all look into it anyway. They figured out that it was not the first occurrence of someone getting hurt by strange means. A young man, Kurt, had been killed by a cocaine overdose even though he’d never touched drugs in his life. With some poking around, the Librarians traced him and the other girl back to a club where they had both been shortly before their mishaps.

Naturally, they decided the best course of action was to infiltrate the club. They put on their best clubbing outfits and tried to make their way in. Cassandra and Eve were allowed in quickly while the boys had a little bit more of a struggle. Jake decided to distract the security guard so that Ezekiel could sneak in and help the ladies investigate the bizarre club. Everyone was required to turn in their cell phones, yet there was a photographer on site to take pictures of people. The “chosen ones,” as they were, ended up on a revolving slide show.

Deciding the strange occurrences must have something to do with images, Cassandra and Eve went in search of the photographer. Yet along the way, after getting her picture taken, Cassandra ended up drunk without having had anything to drink except club soda. Eve shrugged it off, assuming Cassandra had consumed alcohol without realizing it, but it was certainly concerning as it made it more difficult for them to investigate.

They ran into a rather charming fellow who went on about the prevalence of pictures in society. He had some choice thoughts about selfies and the culture of vanity. While Eve and Cassandra ran down leads in the club, Ezekiel and Jake returned to a diner to talk to Kurt’s mom and find a young woman who was potentially the next victim. They didn’t get there quite in time, and the woman they were supposed to protect nearly died, only to be saved with a bit of Macgyver-esque thinking.

Jenkins joined Cassandra and Eve in the club after he got in with the band. They found the photographer, but it turned out the camera itself was not where the magic was infused. There was something else. Perhaps the building. Maybe something else. Eve and Jenkins momentarily left Cassandra to make a call on the pay phone to talk to Ezekiel and Jake. Jenkins quickly put the pieces together when they discussed the fact people seemed to be dying for sins they didn’t commit and realized that it was Dorian Grey behind it all.

The team thought Dorian was a fictional, but Jenkins informed them that he was a real person. The character had been based on Oscar Wilde’s actual friend Dorian. Dorian was so vain he had a magical portrait painted of himself so that he would never age, and anything terrible he did would instead be reflected in the painting. With this information fresh in their minds, Ezekiel and Jake went in search of the original painting while Jenkins and Eve tried to track down Cassandra.

Even as the boys took care of the painting, it didn’t stop Cassandra’s reactions. They realized that she was the latest “victim,” forced to take on sins that were not hers. The team went in search of the other portrait of Dorian Grey and found it. It was a digital image composed of pictures of club-goers. Since each piece of the portrait was an actual living, breathing human being, the magic called for them to take on Dorian’s sins. Of course, Dorian himself soon showed up to gloat. They couldn’t fight him because anything they did to him would happen to Cassandra.

Eve ended up sacrificing herself for Cassandra, using the camera to upload her own photo to the cloud so that she’d be the one to take the brunt of the punishment. She left Ezekiel to replace the pictures in Dorian’s portrait and followed Dorian out of the club. Jake tried to help, stuck outside the club, but eventually Eve and Dorian ended up on a rooftop with him threatening to jump. If he did, it would be her who died, not him.

He also took a moment to mock her for being a guardian. She’d die, as was the guardian’s job, unknown and unremembered. He’d met other guardians before her and believed it to be her fate.

Jenkins, immortal as he is, showed up and confronted Dorian. They’d met before, and Jenkins offered to help Dorian break the spell. He’d have to age, but, at least, he’d be able to feel again. Dorian scoffed and refused, his vanity winning out, and said that he did not want to be a mortal. Then, Dorian told them the plan to replace the pictures in his magical portrait wouldn’t work. Except, as Jenkins revealed, it wasn’t Dorian’s portrait anymore. The portrait was of Eve.

She proceeded to jump off the building, and Dorian was done. He disappeared, never to hurt anyone again.

The team returned in one piece to the Library and had a sort of depressing moment where Ezekiel pointed out that perhaps the Library had chosen them for the job because they were unknown. No one would miss them. They could do the job, but if they died, then no harm no foul. He and the others left, leaving Eve to think about what was said. It was also made clear that some part of her misses Flynn, however rocky their relationship had been upon him leaving.

Jenkins, in a way eerily similar to his conversation with Cassandra a couple episodes back, tried to offer Eve a small measure of comfort. I get a feeling something intense is coming soon.