THE LIBRARIANS: THE NEXT CHAPTER Recap: (S01E03) And the Ghost Train

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2 days ago

Memory and time travel are always tricky things to manage. On The Librarians: The Next Chapter, 'And the Ghost Train,' Vikram (Callum McGowan) and Connor (Bluey Robinson) get front row seats to a dictator's ambitious attempt to control time to ensure he holds power forever. Two lovers are caught up in his plan, and Vikram sees himself losing Anya in their plight.
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Meanwhile, Lysa (Olivia Ross) seizes an opportunity to learn more about her connection to Anya. Mrs. Astolat (Caroline Loncq) is an unseen presence this time out, but Charlie (Jessica Green) reveals her anxiety over blowing her chance to be a Guardian. Our Librarians team members may have questions and insecurities, but do they ever know how to rise to the occasion. Photograph by Aleksandar Letic The Librarians: The Next Chapter, 'And the Ghost Train'
Connor and Lysa move equipment into Vikram's study as he and Charlie play a game of 'Real or Not Real' to test his knowledge of major figures from the past 200 years. Charlie's impressed that Connor and Lysa are working together. She mentions to Vikram that Connor and Lysa celebrated their last success by going out together without inviting Charlie or Vikram. Vikram asks if Charlie's feeling left out. Charlie insists she's only concerned that the team isn't gelling and could make mistakes, which may endanger Vikram.
Lysa and Connor return with the next-to-last of the boxes. Connor asks Charlie to open a magic door to Caucasylvia, a landlocked republic in central eastern Europe. He wants to take Vikram on a history lesson to investigate a story about a missing king. Charlie insists on going with them, but Lysa tells her to let the boys go alone and invites her to brunch instead. Caught off guard, Charlie agrees. Trains and Fairies
Upon arriving in Caucasylvia, Connor gives Vikram a quick explanation of Cold War tactics. They are in a warehouse of trains. Connor points out the closest one and calls it the Royal Train of King Kavod III (Radivoje Bukvić). Boarding the train, Connor tells Vikram that Kavod disappeared aboard this train exactly 48 years ago to the day and hour. Connor says the king's disappearance remains unsolved to this day. Picking up a small figurine, he mentions there was a rumor of an evil fairy. He tosses the fairy figurine to Vikram, who finds it intriguing. They move onto the next train car, passing a clock showing the time, 4:55.
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At a restaurant, Lysa asks Charlie about the portrait of Anya. Charlie tells her that Anya is Lysa's ancestor from Vikram's time. Lysa's shocked to learn that Vikram's in love with Anya. Charlie realizes that Lysa only invited her out to question her about Anya. Their phones ping at that moment with a message from Mrs. Astolat asking them to see her at the Annex ASAP. Foregoing their meals, they head out immediately. Ghost Train
As Connor tells Vikram about Kavod's paranoia, Vikram examines the figurine closely and concludes it's actually a petrified time sprite. The clock in this train car begins to turn backward to 4:17. Suddenly, the train car is full of ghostly figures, dining at the tables, dressed in clothes and uniforms of a different era. The train begins to move.
Lysa and Charlie return to the Annex and find a sticky note from Mrs. Astolat directing them to check the pendulum. Charlie calls Vikram to report that the pendulum is tracking a moving magical artifact. Vikram shares that it's a train.
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Vikram theorizes that the train is reenacting the king's disappearance thanks to the release of magic from the well. They need to solve the mystery of the king's disappearance before the train, encased in a very solid spirit field, does any significant damage as it follows the route it traveled in the 1970s. Vikram explains that the ghosts on this train are memory ghosts, who don't necessarily need to be dead people. Memory ghosts don't interact with living people.
Vikram plans to head to the engine to try to stop the train. He suggests Connor explore the cars toward the train's tail. Connor finds a memory ghost of a dying man wearing a white uniform in the baggage car. The man has a bullet wound in his stomach. He mutters, 'Bell,' over and over. When Connor says he has no bell, the man and gun disappear. Disordered Time
Returning to the first train car they visited, Connor notices the clock. He hears a clock chime and turns away just as the clock hands jump back to 4:43. At the far end of the car, he sees a woman holding a gun on a man in a white uniform. She shoots the uniformed man.
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Vikram grabs Connor's shoulder and tells him delightedly that it's a time loop they're caught in. There's no way to stop the engine. Connor can't figure out how the uniformed man could be dying in one car, but only now gets shot in this car. Vikram acknowledges the loops aren't playing in order.
Another clock chime sounds, and the scene at the other end of the car changes. Now, the woman is talking to the uniformed man who inspects a briefcase's contents. Getting closer, Connor recognizes the uniformed man as Kavod. Opening the doors to the next car, they find the memory ghosts of the woman and Kavod sitting on a couch, kissing passionately. The clock in this room says 4:22. Starting at the Beginning
In the next train car, the time is 4:19. Kavod chews his fingernails, alone. The woman enters, carrying the briefcase and accompanied by the two large men seen in the earlier train car. Shaking her hand, the king thanks the woman, a member of the British Intelligence Agency, for doing this job for him. She pulls her hand away, admitting that everyone has their price.
Connor wonders how they could go from meeting for the first time to kissing to her shooting him in such a short time. Vikram steps to the doorway of the other car, where she gives her papers to the bodyguards. Back in the primary train car, she tells Kavod he should confirm the item's authenticity. Kavod unwraps an item, revealing a living time sprite in a glass cylinder. If the artifact she brought him is genuine, it will affect the sprite.
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Kavod opens the cylinder slightly, and the sprite petrifies. He is ecstatic. Connor asks Vikram if there's anything they can do for the sprite. Vikram says the Nectar of Niobe can reverse the effect, but he doesn't have any on him. Meanwhile, Kavod explains to the woman that the artifact will help him rule forever. Connor tells Vikram they need to know what is in the briefcase. The Librarians: The Next Chapter – Photograph by Aleksandar Letic Falling Into Place
Just then, a woman screams as she falls off the train's roof. Vikram heads to to roof access. He and Connor climb up. There's another clock on the roof. This one shows the time is 5:17. They hear a chime, and the minute hand jumps back to 5:12. Vikram notes that when the chime rang, the spirit field phased out momentarily.
Ahead of them, the woman climbs onto the train's roof. She mutters, 'Cufflinks,' over and over. Falling to her hands and knees, she rolls off the roof, screaming. She lands safely and stands up, looking regretfully at the passing train. Vikram is fascinated and insists they learn who she is. He tells Connor about seeing the bodyguards checking her papers. That's their chance to learn her identity. Her Caucasylvia papers show her name as 'Ava Ryba' (Natalie Mitson). Waiting List Bound
In the Annex, Charlie expects to be thrown back on the waiting list. She tells Lysa that The Library invited her and three other candidates to try out for Guardian. She was the only one who didn't make the cut, although she doesn't know why. Stone (Christian Kane) gave her a second chance when Vikram returned.
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Her phone rings. Vikram tells her to find a British spy using the alias Ava Ryba and find out what artifact she gave King Kavod. She and Lysa track that alias to a spy named Bella Goodridge (Sorel Johnson). She's alive and drawing a pension to her home in Sussex, England.
Connor and Vikram stride quickly through the train cars they've already seen the time loops in. However, this time, Connor notices the man Bella is kissing doesn't have chewed fingernails. They realize that Bella and the king's double were lovers. Bella brought the artifact in exchange for the double's freedom. The real king and his bodyguards enter. 'Don't you just love love?' asks Kavod III. Bella
Lysa and Charlie enter a dark room to find Bella Goodridge, but the body in the bed is a decoy. Bella ambushes them from behind, tripping them up and sending them tumbling to the ground. Once they explain why they're there, she apologizes and serves them tea. Charlie tells her Kavod's train has come back to life. Bella has no trouble believing it, explaining she left the Scythe of Time on the train.
On the train, the king inspects the Scythe of Time with Connor and Vikram standing nearby, witnessing. On the phone, Connor explains the artifact is the item Old Father Time hands to the New Year Baby. Whoever has the Scythe can use it to communicate with their past selves.
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Kavod's memory ghost closes the case and tells Young Bella/Ava that he's decided not to release his double, Nikolai. Young Bella tells him the Scythe in the case is a fake. She knew he'd betray her, so she hid the real one on the train where it would still affect the time sprite but where he couldn't find it. When she and Nikolai are safely off the train, she'll give the king the Scythe's location. The Librarians: The Next Chapter – Photograph by Aleksandar Letic
Kavod calls Nikolai in and shoots him. Bella grabs the gun. Kavod says the only way to save Nikolai is to use the Scythe to warn herself. She shoots Kavod. Nikolai gets up and stumbles away with her, holding the gun on the bodyguards. They make it to the baggage car, where Nikolai makes her promise not to let Kavod get the Scythe. She promises and plans to uncouple the car where the king and bodyguards are. Kissing him, she swears that she'll come back to him. Grabbing Second Chances
She climbs up to the roof but falls off. Vikram looks at Nikolai, bleeding out while repeating, 'Bella,' and sadly describes how Nikolai and Bella's pain stretched across decades. Connor asks Vikram if he's lost someone. Vikram says that after 200 years, he's lost everyone. He takes the phone and addresses present-day Bella, asking her for the Scythe's location. Tearfully, Bella ends the call and tells the women to leave her alone. Charlie tells her that second chances are rare and she needs to jump at the opportunity to help Nikolai now because she couldn't 48 years ago.
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Bella asks how fast the train is going. Lysa says about 90 miles an hour. Bella responds that they'll need a very fast car. Using the magic door, they travel to a farm near where the train is running and steal a red Datsun. The plan is to transfer Bella onto the train in the brief moment when the spirit field resets. Charlie despairs at getting her to the train on time. Vikram reassures her that she can do it, and they transfer Bella successfully.
On the train, Bella transforms into her younger self. As they move through the dining car, Vikram realizes the ghosts are no longer ghostly. The realities are syncing, and the train will do real damage as it becomes more solid. Bella shows them she hid the Scythe in the clock in the first train car, disguised as the hour hand. Kavod comes in and takes it. Bella tries to shoot him, but now that he has the Scythe, he is always in a different spot when she fires her gun. Just in Time
Vikram approaches Kavod and tries to warn him of the danger. Kavod believes he is invincible. Vikram reaches out quickly and makes contact with the Scythe briefly. The bodyguards shove Vikram away. Vikram stands up holding the petrified time sprite. With a smile, he uncorks a bottle, announcing it is the Nectar of Niobe. He pours it on the time sprite and revitalizes it. It flies at Kavod, furious, and reverses his life out of existence.
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Vikram tells Bella to go to Nikolai and fulfill her promise. She holds Nikolai as he dies. His ghost disappears. The train's dining car ghosts disappear next. The train slows down and stops when it hits an old statue of Kavod. Bella returns to her present-day self and thanks Vikram for her second chance.
At the Annex, Vikram explains that when he made contact with the Scythe, he sent a message back to himself to bring the Nectar of Niobe with him to Caucasylvia. Connor checks in with him and lets him know that if he ever needs a friend, he's there. Vikram thanks him for that. Lysa and Connor decide to go for drinks, inviting everyone. Vikram declines, but Charlie happily accepts. Left alone, Vikram pulls out the Scythe and considers it solemnly.
New episodes of The Librarians: The Next Chapter air on TNT on Mondays at 9 pm ET.
STRANGER THINGS: Netflix Announces Premiere Dates for Epic Final Season Diana lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where she invests her time and energy in teaching, writing, parenting, and indulging her love of all Trek and a myriad of other fandoms. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond 'til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. You can also find her writing at The Televixen, Women at Warp, TV Fanatic, and TV Goodness.