LIBRARIANS #106 "Fables of Doom" answer post

"Fables" was the first episode broken by the full Writers Room.  I'd broken and written the two-part opener over the previous fall, the pickup decision was made in January, and it was shot pretty much as written ... as much as something with a constantly shifting cast and shooting schedule can be shot. "Fables" was a good first episode to take a run at: very clean high-concept and mystery arc, unified space in and around the town, and we could play around with who we thought the characters are by exploring who they aren't.

Now we didn't jump straight into it.  Despite our compressed timeline, we still spent the first full week breaking the character background and relationships.  There's a very pretty little diamond pattern -- well, here's the rough whiteboard version.  I would ordinarily never post this, but what the hell, you people gave us good ratings.  Note that NOT ALL OF THE MATERIAL ON THIS BOARD IS CORRECT OR RELEVANT, as it was the first week brain-puke. Some of these ideas were erased or tossed by the end of the week.

As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure neither John Kim nor Lindy Booth were actually cast yet when we were working this up.  (Protip: Do not do that)  John Kim's smart-ass audition tape and then his performance definitely drove Ezekiel in a different direction once the season proper began. 

Second week was putting everything going up on the boards to find story arenas and establish world-building. Everything went on the board.  Every fantasy trope, every myth, every legend, every unsolved mystery we could think of, every lost land or weird artifact or ... everything.  The model for the show is"magical mysteries" not "artifact hunt", which is both freeing and, well, there's a reason guardrails exist.

At that accelerated pace, I'll admit we may have punked out a bit and then taken a swing at one of the first and cleanest cards up on the wall: "WEAPONIZED FAIRY TALES". It was one of the first because Kate Rorick (@NobleRorick) had pitched the idea in her interview for the job.  We'd met with her for a different gig with my production company, and when the staff was being slammed together for this, we immediately thought of her.  She came in with a list of ideas, "fairy tales coming to life" being one of the top ones on the list.  Once we were in the room we combined another one of her story ideas, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, which originally began as a puzzle-book treasure hunt plot spanning the centuries.  A lot of this episode's purpose was to put not just the characters but the actors through their paces, figure out how they delivered jokes. It was illuminating.  And hey, John Larroquette delivering the "existentialist vending machine" speech will forever remain one of my favorite career memories.  Kate wrote the shit out of that script.

The other purpose was to resolve one of the lingering questions for the show -- why have a thief?  We wanted to establish that the characters were not just chosen for their skills, but for how they fit into the sometimes messy job of the Library -- and how that job, with the return of magic, was changing. It's unfortunate that the resequencing of the episodes put "Apple" and "Fables" so close together, and in inverted order.  That made it seem as if we were hammering the point that Ezekiel being a bad guy was an asset as far as the Library was concerned.  Rather than the intention was "Fables" was supposed to come first, as the setup, and "Apple" later, as the payoff.  

The order as originally written/intended took us through a very specific tour of the characters (I know the episode titles are out there, so I don't feel bad listing them):

1. & 2.)  Crown/Stone: Re-establish the mythology, set up the characters and the return of magic.

3.)  Horns of a Dilemma: Being the team's journey to learn to work together. Badly.  Oh, and the back door. Somewhat Baird-y, but we tagged all the relationships.

4.) Fables of Doom: Team still not working together great, Ezekiel-centric.

5.) Heart of Darkness (will air 8th): Still spiky, addresses everyone's relationship with Cassandra.

6.) Santa: Team working better together, bonding over Christmas, Eve-centric.

7.) Apple of Discord: Bring Flynn back, which eats a lot of show, and round-robin through how the team has changed.

8.) City of Light: Big Stone episode. (Will air 9th)

9.) Rule of Three: Very much a team episode, although some juicy Jenkins goodness in here (air 7th)

10.) Loom of Fate: ... spoilers.

Boy, 10 eps is not a lot of room. Particularly with a 2-part opener.  One focus episode each, and that's on top of whatever the plot of the week is.

That order was what we were arc-ing off of and working with before we knew exactly when Christmas fell during the season, or that our last two weeks would be double-ups to keep us from running into TNT's basketball coverage so the intended spacing out of the stories in the audience's perception would be off. 

Now that said, once we got Bruce Campbell for Santa, hells yeah, jam that in early and the week before Christmas rather than after.  And when the run of the show collapses from ten weeks to 7, you need Flynn to return to in one of the middle weeks, not necessarily one of the middle episodes.  So  FWIW I think broadcast order actually worked just fine for this season -- in particular, "City of Light" and "Rule of Three" flip just fine, it was more important to make sure they stayed in the back half than worry about specific order. "Heart of Darkness" in the back half also works, it was a gimme on which side of the "Apple" midpoint it fell, and it's very tonally a one-off.  "Fables" is the only one I regret sliding late, particularly because it's so damn funny.

When you got the big comedy episode, you call Jonathan goddam Frakes. Unfortunately Frakes wasn't available for as many episodes as we would've liked given the short notice of the season start, but getting him for this one was just perfect.  He also directed the finale, BTW, and killed the big high drama too, so I don't want you thinking he's a one-trick pony.  He's at least three tricks. The one day I was on set, hearing Frakes scream on the hospital set "Sicker!  THE GIRL IS SICKER!!" filled my heart with glee.

Going with prosthetics and practical effects was the stronger choice on this one. Make-up and hair did a great job slowly changing everyone's look as the "infection" took hold. Big props once again to Critter and wardrobe, who slowly evolved the character wardrobes to track their descent into the archetypes.  Production had a lovely bit of fun with the animals in this episode.  Props built a great foam wolf to be carried and then cut open, but rather than a CG wolf, why not get a real one?

That's writer Kate Rorick with the wolf in question. Before we shot with the wolf, we got test footage of him wearing different granny nightcaps. You know what? Any job where you can say "Hey, at lunch, let's look at the photos of the wolf in the granny caps", that's a good job.  The owl on Stone's arm was originally intended to be a bluejay harassing Baird, but apparently corvids are smart enough to know they should be paid scale to hit their marks, so the much more compliant owl was used.

It was a real pleasure  to have Rene Auberjonois as the guest villain. We seemed to have stumbled into some fun casting this year, because much as in Leverage, we do deliver a lot of "Hey, I never get to play that role" opportunities.  Particularly looking forward to you guys finally seeing Bex Taylor-Klaus and Alicia Witt in this week's "Rule of Three".  

Before we hit questions, I want to recommend to all of you -- ALL OF YOU -- that you check out Seanan McGuire's INDEXING. It deals with a similar theme, and if you dug 41:30 of this you'll love a whole damn book exploring the idea in a deeper, more memetically complex manner. You should also read all her stuff as Mira Grant, while you're at it. Feed tore through the Leverage crew like a wildfire.  Hopefully one day, perhaps around Halloween, we can explain why we're such big fans and good friends with Seanan ...

When it comes to specific plot stuff, you guys always lead us into much better than I can through your questions.  So lets dive in:

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@Alyssa Parens: I loved the different fables that were played out in this episode, and it was so great that our Librarians got affected too. How was it decided who got which fable character? Side note: props for making Cassandra Prince Charming. That was really awesome, and worked perfectly.

We knew we wanted Ezekiel as the Jack (rogue), so for primaries that left us with the Huntsman, Princess and Prince Charming -- any "old Advisor" role would fall on Jenkins, and for various reasons he's immune to magic.  From that it was a discussion in the room about who would make the most interesting performances, and who the archetype would be most revelatory for.  Stone as Prince Charming was just too easy -- you might not notice until way too late that there was something amiss, as women being attracted to Christian Kane was not exactly a stretch, and Baird as the Huntsman fit the role she was already to a great degree playing in the show.  


As we've mentioned Rebecca has a wicked sense of humor, so giving her the chance to hit the Princess jokes was just way too satisfying.  The singing bit was an improv between she and Christian.  "Princess" also fit what Baird is always denying, her looks, to focus on her job.  That tossed Huntsman to Stone, which worked out well because we could hide that archetype on him for a while and it fit a hero role which he was born to play but, again, denied himself.  

That left Cassandra with Prince Charming.  For a variety of character arc reason that worked just fine, and fit our "who or what is the most amusing/interesting choice" rule, so we went for it. It has deeper meanings that play out over the show as a whole, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.  We'll leave it at that.


@Video Beagle: 1.) We now have the "origin" for the Kane throwing an axe promo image, so the question we're left with, and with Casandra's closing scene (and the Sheriff still eating jell-o™ after the spell is broken) is how much/what residue is left? I'm guessing there's a "once you're touched by magic, it's always a part of you" bit to the universe, but does Jake now have Axe skills? What about the robot stuff?

2.) Also, having watched ABC's Galavant tonight, I can't help think there would be an awful lot of magical music stuff out there...Musical episode anyone? :D

1.) Honestly, everybody else shook off the residue of the Fables town pretty quickly, so the fact Cassandra held on to just a little magic for a bit ... Hmm. Let's say some of you guys are closer than you might think to tumbling Cassandra.

2.) I will never do a musical episode. Next showrunner, you can bully him/her. But no.

@marti jackson: 1. shot of that cursed Libris reads Vol. I on the spine... how many volumes of that damned book are there? 

2. wishlist for guest stars/villains: Mark Sheppard. end of list. 

3. seizing the Annex might be a foothold for Dulaque, but Jenkins pointed out several magical items are "lost" with the Library at this time. would Dulaque need to liberate all the magic items to "win", or is there a tipping point? 

4. shot of chalkboard list of magic items includes Jacob's Step Stool... *snort* 

thanks for sharing your misspent villainy.

1.) I believe there are three. There are always three.

2.) I'm sure there's a  voicemail from Mark waiting for me as I type this.

3.) Dulaque has multiple plans in play of varying scope and urgency.

4.) You can thank Kate Rorick, yet again, for filling the chalkboard with hilarity, although I believe there was a call to the Writers Room for backup.

@hansfish: 1) This is mostly a question about whether we're going to get more Jenkins bits like the vending machine thing, which, though it took an alarming turn at the end, was absolutely amazing, oh my goodness. :D?

2) So the little bit of blue Cassandra had at the end -- is she still Merlin, and therefore can't be killed -- !!! -- or is it just a little bit of residual magic she managed to hold onto? Is there any likelihood whatsoever that you'll answer this question instead of giving me a cryptic "that's a good question but SPOILERS!" answer?

3) You mentioned not wanting to set guardrails up in the answer post for 105; is that your attitude toward Cassandra's reaction to getting all those phone numbers, or is there something more concrete afoot here?

4) Having escaped mostly unscathed last week as a result of, as you stated, having accepted himself completely as he is/being the most spiritually advanced, is that related to the fact that Ezekiel would have been the only one to make it out of the tales tonight with a relatively happy ending, or is that just a quirk of the fact that the jack/knave/lives by his wits personality type will probably coexist with the one who's accepted himself the most completely?

5) Also seconding this: seriously, any way you could get Mark Sheppard?

1.) You get much more Jenkins. Hoo boy do you.

2.) How about "Don't read too much into, but don't read nothing into it."  Sometimes names aren’t names, they’re titles …

3.) I don't know 100% yet, to be honest. But we were very strict (and Lindy was excellent) in making sure she found it odd she was out of character, not distressed that she was being found attractive by/finding attractive the various female admirers.

4.) In the intended order, this ep is meant to reinforce his narcissism, which is why he feels comfortable relying on it in "Apple".  Not that he needs much help. 

It'll be interesting to see how you guys deal with Ezekiel. I see some people saying they don't like him, and that's fine.  The reason we hired John Kim is because his personal charm almost but does not quite over-ride the unpleasantness of Ezekiel Jones.  There's a real tendency to play to the fans and try to get everybody a little fan-base by softening the characters in genre world, cut people to either the good guy or bad guy side.  We're okay with you only liking some of the characters some of the time.  They're characters in transition.  As long as you stick around for that journey, it's all good.

5.) I think I just heard his car pull up.

@vickysg1: 1. Did you film this episode in the same town you filmed "The Low Low Price Job" episode ofLeverage? Because it looks a lot like it.

2. About Ezekiel, is 'Ezekiel Jones' his real name? I mean, thieves usually go for aliases (like Sophie, Parker or Tara) so why wouldn't it be an alias with The Library specifically recruiting this alias?

1.) Nope, but there are a couple of roughly identical small towns outside of Portland. 

2.) It is, improbably, his real name. Why the hell his parents called him that, well ...

@GadgetDon: 1.) The things said in this episode seem to put fairy tales firmly in the "legend" category - we won't see Snow White from Fabletown showing up (or similar enclave), the Magic Mirror isn't in the Library, etc. True? Or am I leaping to a conclusion.

2.) Way back in the first Librarian movie, Jensen (Bob Newhart) compared the magical artifacts in the Library to the cell phone. Is magic something you just need to understand to use, or do you have to be somehow "gifted" with the ability to use it? If it's just something to be understood, Cassandra is very good at understanding things, so her moments as Merlyn could have unlocked something big.

1.) Pretty much.  Although you can also assume that some of these ideas wound up in folk tales because they're reflections of real things or stories the storyteller at the time heard of.  John Dee did have this kickin' obsidian mirror ...

2.) Let's say it's easy to misuse magic without much understanding (as you will see this very week) but to use it properly, that takes someone special. Whether Cassandra has that knack ... 

@antisocialbutterflies: 1) The black mask, future plot point or throw away line?

2) It's never the genie's lamp; Is this an homage to House, ala it's never lupus. 

3) In the episodes leading up to this one, the writer's have made a point of emphasizing Jones' luckiness. Was that all leading up to this episode or is there something more to it?

4) Was Kane happy to do some more Eliot-style ultimate bad ass fighting, rather than Jake's bar brawling? 

5) Should we be concerned about TNT burning off episodes as two-fers?

6) I was watching the extended cuts and in episode 1 or 2 Baird has a line post-Buckingham palace break-in along the lines of "what's next the Vatican, the Taj Mahal, the White House?" Since we visited the Vatican in Apples of Discord, does this mean we will be hitting the Taj Mahal and White House before the end of the season? 

1.) Was originally the main plot for the season, faded into the background for next year, maybe. But good catch.

2.) Yep, nice to see how many people caught that.

3.) Addressed above.

4.) He's always happy to throw a punch.

5.) Nope, it was a scheduling decision made well before we began to air.

6.) Nope, but they're on a different list.

@Mario Di Giacamo: 1) Given the possible-but-never-actually-outright-stated presence of more high-tech organizations like the Middlemen and the Banzai Institute, are there any plans to have the team go after some more sci-fi artifacts?

2) Who do I have to bribe to get a cameo appearance by either Parker or Miranda Zero? I'll settle for Ezekiel or Cassandra getting a weird cellphone in the mail....

1.) Absolutely.

2.) The Global Frequency is canon in the Leverage-verse, not here. But the Bleed being the Bleed, and with hints dropped this week by a certain someone ... well, who knows?

@theuglybugball: 1.) I've read and understand that this episode wasn't shown in the order intended. I couldn't help laughing when Cassandra asked Stone, wide-eyed and sincere, about winning his trust back. Doesn't quite work after last week's black-eyed evil Cassandra. I hope you can order the episodes as intended on the DVDs. 

2.) Lamia's henchmen grabbed as many artifacts as they could carry in Sword in the Stone, and then the library folded up. How does Jenkins know which artifacts stayed with the library? Does the interface with the Annex include inventory lists?

3.) I was hoping Stone would keep digging inside the wolf and find Grandmother.

Haven't seen the extended version, but the scene with the troll under the bridge felt unfinished. Was this a budget issue and/or time issue?

4.) I enjoyed the gender bending with Cassandra as Prince Charming. Was it just for fun, or is there a clue about her character here? By the way, it brought back memories of the movie Dead Again with Emma Thompson. 

5.) Sophia Mitri Schloss was excellent. If the Library ever has a junior librarian spinoff...

1.) That actually lines up perfectly with Evil Cassandra.  Cassandra is pushing Evil Cassandra way way down, and her own insecurities are certainly part of the reason EviL Cassandra acted the way she did.

2.) Precisely.  Information from and about the Library can be accessed from the Annex, but not the physical space.

3.) We barely fit Red in there!

4.) Loved that flick.  On the gender-bending -- it seems weasely to say "I don't know yet" on Cassandra, but that's where we are, honestly.  It was for fun, true, but it was also important to show she was comfortable with it. Her sexuality hasn't been super-relevant to the stories so far, so we haven't bothered to come down hard on it one way or another, although I think everyone in the Writers Room has their own personal approach. One of the things I thought they handled very well on Warehouse 13 was Myka and H.G.'s relationship. That felt organically arrived at, and I'll admit a shade of disappointment it didn't play out into the full relationship the actor chemistry seemed to provide (and that's me as a writer-producer, not fan-me).  BTW, why does everyone focus on Cassandra as Prince Charming and not Baird throwing her those big hug-me eyes?

5.) There's another possible junior LiT coming.

@ChelseaNH: 1. "Weaponize fairy tales" is such a Baird turn of phrase. Are any writers gravitating towards certain characters/voices?

2.) RR tweeted about weave withdrawal. Are there any props or costumes that you're expecting to wander home with any of the actors?

3. I thought Ezekiel might be turning into the Gingerbread Man (you can't catch me!) but it seems he's actually a luck dragon.

4). Can you explain the coin? I feel there's an allusion that I'm not getting.

1.) Everyone writes everyone, but whenever you see a big fat Stone speech or Flynn tongue-twister, those are generally my heavy hand. On Leverage certain writers definitely gravitated to certain characters or types of stories, but it's a little early to figure out the patterns here yet.

2.) I believe we actually made John Kim take home ... oh, wait, spoiler. Finale, I'll answer that.

3.) I wish I had thought of luck dragon.  Damn.

4.) It's not a specific reference.  The coin is the bond between Ezekiel and the Girl, so it's the "object" in the Fairy Tale which is the key to defeating the "Evil Magic User", a gift of pure intent. We ran out of time to explain it properly.

@awa64: 1) Ezekiel's been in the "I am safe from this magical influence because it's only driving me to be who I already am anyway" seat two weeks in a row. Assuming it's not some broader influence imbued by wearing Santa's Hat for an extended period of time (...is it?), are any other characters slated to sit in that particular seat?

2) To the point of that plot riff being more noticeable as a back-to-back occurance, and other mentions of stuff you thought might have worked better in a different order, any plans or desire to rejigger the episode order for the DVDs?

3) It looks like Cassandra kept either some of Merlin's magic or some of Merlin's knowledge after the book was shut down. Did Stone keep any robot-ness? (I'd ask if Baird kept any ninja-ness, but I think she already had plenty of that...)

4) I couldn't help but think of Mr. McGuire's ultimate fate as being "Myst'd." (Rene Auberjonois did a fantastic job this week, as he always does.) Mechanically speaking... is it possible someone could accidentally trade places with him within the book, freeing him and trapping themselves?

5) Is there a future bottle episode in cataloging the Adjunct Library's new rare book collection and something going horribly wrong?

6) Jenkins continues to be awesome. No question, I'm in total agreement with you on nightshirt-Wolverine, I'm just enjoying the ride on that front. (I loved "It's never the Genie's Lamp.")

7) Are there any magical-artifact cards that you've had to take off the wall due to rights/clearance issues?

8) I love Stone's art geekery, and as much as I love his terse matter-of-factness about the subject, my inner art school student kinda wants to see him get an opportunity or two to discuss art at greater length/depth. How much of that terseness is his own discomfort with demonstrating that part of his personality, how much is mercy toward the not-art-geek part of the audience, and how much is other-factors-I-haven't-considered?

9) With magic coming back to the world and expressing itself in increasingly-prominent ways, and the ridiculousness of "Librarians with the Metropolitan Public Library" as a cover story lampshaded this week, how liable are the LiTs to start developing a reputation for weirdness and trouble in the non-magical world?

10) So far, it seems like the magical artifacts driving weekly conflicts have all been deliberately sought or wielded by individuals with malicious purposes in mind—this week teasing an innocent, unknowing user and veering away as a major twist. Is the "dangerous artifact in the hands of an innocent/ignorant user" trope off-limits as Too Warehouse 13, or just one you haven't gotten around to yet because it's not as thematically on-point?


1.) As addressed, a coincidence. But nobody else is Ezekiel Jones, so that's his spot for a while. That said, it'll start to bite him in the ass soon enough, if there's an S2.

2.) We'll probably re-order for the DVD's, but not necessarily the order above.

3.) Addressed (kinda) above.

4.) S4.

5.) That may be a job for the incoming Junior Librarians.

6.) You actually get more answers -- or at least one answer -- about Jenkins than most of the other characters this season.

7.) not so far, although it is a coincidence that we were artifact-heavy in the first part of the year. None of the remaining episodes are artifact-centric.

8.) You see a bit more of it in the extended cuts, and if there's a Season 2, we'll get deeper into that.

9.) Oooooohhh yes. If only there were a government agency dedicated to investigating weird phenomena ...

10.) As I noted, we're not really an artifact show -- about 50% of the stories this Season I'd consider use an artifact as the central conceit -- but you'll certainly see misused magic coming up very soon, Very very soon.

@lisa king: 1.) Is Ezekiel warping luck? Hence the slot machine winnings from the vending machine.

2a) having held birds of prey myself, how many takes did you have to do with the owl? They weigh next to nothing but holding your arm in that position can get tiring. 

b) did not notice any jesses on the owls leg. Airbrushed out or that highly trained. 

3.) How hard was it to get Christian away from the animals, especially the wolf.

1.)  Precisely. It was a clue to how he was bing affected by the book.

2.a &b) The bird was super-well trained.

3.) Not hard. He already has his own wolf, after all.

@Teacups: I'm awfully curious to hear more about how Cassandra's synthesia/brain tumor works. For instance, in what way do her senses other than sight not work so well? Is it that they trigger memories and tangents, becoming overwhelming?

It's important to remember that her tumor didn't cause the synesthesia, it amplifies and interferes with it.  When she accesses her memory, the imagery is amplified and spun out by the hallucinatory effects of the tumor's placement.  Also -- pulp show.

@Tom Gallowy: (long question about Ezekiel not really coming across as that horrible)

Well, don't assume you've seen Ezekiel at his worst.  So far they amuse him. 

@Dan Da MAn: 1) Do you guys have a list of "weird doors they can come out of"? Because I have to think that the bathroom door would be on such a list.

2) Okay, I got to ask: Was the title and the various Big Bad Wolves simply because it worked out that way, or was that a specific reference to "Fables"? 

3) Is there a Necronomicon in that arcane book collection? ;

1.) There's a line Stone says in the "Santa" ep about "Finally coming out of a door that isn't a bathroom". They tend to be bathroom doors, actually ...

2.) We're just fishing form the same mythic well.

3.) Two.

@John Seavy: The LiTs are now bringing Jenkins all sorts of new, powerful and dangerous items like the Apple, the Liber, et cetera. Is this going to become a thing at some point? Is it a good idea to give this stuff to Jenkins?

Spoilers.

@LynRasa: Whose kid/child-writer wrote that spectacularly kid accurate ending? That is exactly the kind of narrative my 2nd graders would write.

I believe while we were working it out, Paul Guyot chimed in, as he has the appropriately-aged chidren. Although the rest of us are 12 years old at heart, if you hadn't already noticed.

@Lora: 1.) I still don't know how I'm supposed to believe that Stone doesn't trust Cassie. It's all been tell. What he shows is that he pays close attention to her, cares about her, and has a connection with her that helps with her math. Until his actions say it too, he doth protest too much. 

2.) How did the coin freeze the old man? Was it just supposed to be that the Thief is so lucky that he happened to pick up an enchanted coin?

1.) All those actions show he's a good guy.  I like lots of people I wouldn’t trust with either my life or secrets. Now whether he's being completely honest with himself, that's an excellent question.

2.) It's more about the relationship with Ezekiel and the fact that it came from a "sleeping princess".  Just one of those things we said "let it be magic, and not worry about the goddam rules. It feels right."

@Neil Jasper:  1.) Eve seems to be Flynn's designated Guardian, even though she has agreed to babysit the Librarians-in-Training. Also, the Library seems to have accepted the LiTs Is it possible that, somewhere out there, are 3 people with the yet-unrealised potential to be Cassie, Jake and Ezekiel's Guardians?

2.) Speaking of which, I'm probably late to the party to spot this, but Lamia's relationship with Du Laque works as a dark analogy for the Librarian-Guardian dynamic. If not for her zealotry, could Lamia have been called to the Library as a Guardian?

1.) Spoiler.

2.) SPOILER.

@DaveMB:  (long question about niche protection)

Unlike the Leverage crew who all had a bit of experience in CrimeWorld, this group is indeed specialized and needs each other for their blind spots.  But let's just say I use the phrase "niche protection" because I read it in a Mutants & Masterminds RPG book and loved how succinct the phrase is.

@Kalrane: Why does the library call in so many potential Librarians but only choose a single Guardian?

It's almost as if the Guardian were more important than the Librarian, huh?

@Amber: My question isn't specific to the episode. I bought the season pass on iTunes so I could get the extended cuts and writers vlogs (enjoying those too) but I haven't gotten any of the extended cuts since I bought it, are there not anymore extended cuts since the first few episodes? Will there be more extended cuts for later episodes?

If you look, most of the episodes on iTunes are longer than the 41:30 we broadcast at, just none of them are as significantly longer (14 minutes!!) as the pilot two-parters were.

@Michael Brewer:  I wanted to ask a question about the two parter pilot, if that's ok. Part of the reason Cassie betrays the team is because the Serpent Brother hood tells her that they can cure her with magic. Practically right at the same time, Flynn pulls out a bottle of healing water and uses it to lessen the wound he got from Excalibur. Is there a reason he didn't just toss the vial of healing juice to her when they went on the Library tour earlier or did he just absentmindedly forget or was he putting it off or what?

That vial only heals WOUNDS, unfortunately.  That vial is important, however.  Remark upon it.

@svoliga: On the facade of the Annex, there are the symbols of a book, a tree and three swords. Do they have a meaning? The book is supposedly obvious, but all the others, especially with the current theme of Arthurian mythos...

The Book is man's spread of knowledge, the sword is action in defense of knowledge, and the trees represent history, the future, and the Tree of Knowledge -- which has deeper meaning if you've seen the movies.

@Thea: 1. I forgot to ask this last episode, Eve's Catholic, isn't she? I mean, she knows which Bible verse is in which New Testament book and clearly, she's mortified they ended up on the Vatican and possibly met the Pope hehe (I would just like to point out that in her panic, it could just be a random bishop... doesn't His Holiness wear all white?)

2. Still on Eve Baird, would we get to see her family and why she is not too keen to spend time with them? I'm assuming it's that way because of the way she said "... and family" when she was talking to Flynn in the Black Forest, I sensed guilt too? Maybe, it has something to do with what Santa Nick said about her moving from one military base to another even as a child but that's me.

3. How does the Libris Fabula pick what people of Bremen turn into? For example, does Baird have an inner expert eye-batting, swiftly growing tresses, sparkly glass shoes owning princess in her? Or does the persona have a semblance to her childhood dreams, perhaps? No complaints at all, as per Rebecca's tweet, #weavewithdrawal.

4. I just want to clarify two ep-related things: one, when I checked the show's imdb page before, it listed Flynn, Charlene and Judson in Fables of Doom but no scene whatsoever - did it end up being cut or it was just plain misinformation? Second, are we getting the last two episodes of the season back to back on the 18th, too? Eep, I haven't been this looking forward to a show's episode airing in a while.

1.) Eve is a lapsed Catholic.

2.) Eve is more estranged from her family through life choices and distance than emotional estrangement.

3.) The book itself is a bit mischievous.

4.) Because they were in the two-parter, they are sometimes listed as cast members for the show overall. IMDB quirk.

@Dora: So, I was wondering....what is up with the Icelandic Swans that were on Jenkins' board of things?

DO NOT ASK ABOUT THE SWANS!! DO NOT EVEN ThINK ABOUT THE SWANS!!

@seraS:  From the way Jenkins spoke it sounded like trolls were just a part of the magic side of things and you could run into one if you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Is that essentially correct?

People disappear all the time.

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Okay, double episodes tonight. Enjoy!