'The Librarians' Recap: 'And the Hidden Sanctuary'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

At some point or another in our lives, we’ve all used or heard the phrase ‘if you love something, let it go’ and oddly enough, I’ve come to find over the years that that particular phrase applies to so much more than just relationships. Because truly, those powerful and important words speak to the fact that sometimes in life, we simply have to take a step back from something important in our lives to make sure it is one hundred percent right for us and last night on The Librarians, that particular phrase was explored in great detail, all by way of a fascinating journey that centered around Cassandra.
 
Granted, we all knew a Cassandra-centric episode was headed our way since last week’s teaser basically spelled that out for us, and I think we all fully knew that this episode was going to explore in great detail what the Library means to her since that has been an overreaching focus/plot thread of season four as a whole. But I use the word fascinating simply due to the fact that this story didn’t explore any of those issues in traditional fashion. Whereas Jake and Ezekiel were able to come to their own personal conclusions about their role in the Library in somewhat smooth fashion, Cassandra’s exploration was in fact far more harrowing and surprisingly relatable.
 
Because in reality, this particular tale stripped away the mysticism and comfort of the Library and allowed for Cassandra to deal with something that quite frankly, all of us deal with on a regular basis; fear. Yes, that’s right, a Librarian, a champion of magic and silent hero to the world succumbed to fear, a fear of death of be exact and well, the fact that Cassandra could have perished and her teammates along with her on a nearly botched mission…rattled her enough to the point where she felt she needed to leave the Library for just a little bit to see if by chance, she’s missing out on anything in life and well, while that seems like a simple setup and by the numbers way of addressing fear, what came next proved otherwise.

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Because what followed was in fact a powerful character study, one that took all of us by surprise since Cassandra was in essence, running away from her problems as quickly as possible and to compound the matter further, she made a point to hide from any further possibility of ever having to face them and I call that surprising because we simply don’t expect that from a hero, but it’s also brilliant in its own right…because we’ve all walked a mile in Cassandra’s shoes when it comes to this. We’ve all taken the time at some point or another to run and hide from our problems and our fears all in the hopes of never having to deal with them.
 
If anything, what I truly appreciated about this story the most, is the fact that eventually Cassandra had no other choice but to stand and face her fears and even then, it wasn’t easy. The fear was still there, the panic settled in, but in the end, she finally came to see that the people of Havenport saw her as their only hope, and that seemed to serve as a reminder that she was in fact a hero after all, and of course she figured out how to save the day and come to realize her place in the Library. But what mattered most, is the fact that Cassandra’s story was designed to send quite the important message our way, in that, while sometimes it’s a healthy thing to take a step back and evaluate something big in our lives, eventually, you have to face whatever it is, head on.
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In the end however, I have to admit, this was quite a departure episode for the series. The show rarely takes the time to tackle issues such as this, and well, I’m quite glad they did. It made for a refreshing story through and through and I tip my hat to writer Kate Rorick and Director Noah Wyle for making this story so incredibly realistic and relatable and of course, credit is also due to Lindy Booth for putting on a tour de force performance in this episode, since she was able to bring Cassandra’s powerful internal struggle to life. Either way this really was quite the wonderful episode and I’m so happy to see that Cassandra finally understands what the Library means to her and that she finally knows that she is in fact, one incredible hero. Until next time.    

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