The Librarians (US) - Second Season

Librarians, talk to me! What's happening?

No response on any military signal protocol.

These are secure links through buried cables

of hardened cell towers.

It's supposed to work during a nuclear war.

Okay, all military communications are down.

- What else?! - No Internet.

You can push the signals through the physical pipes,

but the nodes aren't responding.

The Internet is gone. Welcome to 1995.

Ooh, I hope not.

I made some very poor bicycle pant choices back in '95.

There are no good bicycle pant choices.

I just got into the conduits in the street.

There ain't no electricity. I mean, at all.

I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna try to find the difference

between the alternating and direct currents.

Maybe just a-a battery that'll hold a change.

This isn't 1995. This is 1859.

Carrington Event.

Massive solar flare that supercharged

the Earth's electromagnetic field

causing anything even remotely electric to become fried?

Telegraph machines bursting into flames,

sparks dancing along telephone lines.

This is just a modern-day version, frying computer chips.

Okay, well, that would just burn out electronics,

not keep electricity itself from working.

No, no, no, no, it's a magic Carrington Event.

You see, instead of electromagnetic energy,

Prospero has infused the atmosphere

with electromagic energy rewriting the laws of physics.

Right now nothing electronic is working.

If this continues, it may never work again.

We never get technology back. Ever.

He's remaking the world.

Into what?

A forest.

Cassandra's managed to link into some satellites

that are above the ionosphere,

so out of the effect of the ley lines.

- Ah. - They can't send or receive signals,

but new satellites with live broadcasts,

they have a video buffer.

They retain a certain amount of data before broadcasting it.

So we can see the news from right before it got cut out.

Good Intel.

As we are seeing below us,

a giant forest is growing out of downtown...

Giant forest.

Yes.

And at this rate,

he will turn the entire world

into an arboreal paradise within days.

Maybe a few hours.

Well, we're luck... Jeez.

Dangerous?

- No. - It's just lucky

that he's only using the Staff of Zarathustra

to aid him in his spells,

'cause if it had been the original Staff of Power,

it would be a lot worse.

Wait, could we use the Staff of Power to reverse this?

Uh, yes, that probably would be

the only artifact with enough power,

but as you know it's broken back in 1611.

In fact, I will make a list of all the artifacts

that have enough power.

It may take me a second.

That's your left-hand handwriting.

Yes.

Where's the note we found, Jenkins, from the broken staff?

Uh, top right drawer, Colonel.

Write this with your left hand.

"Not yet..."

- "Not yet..." - "Not yet..."

- "...but soon..." - "...but soon..."

"...and long ago. I pray your journey..."

"I pray your journey..."

- "...does not end..." - "...does not end..."

"...in woe."

Whoa.

Whoa.

- Whoa. - That's your handwriting.

- That's my left-hand writing. - Left-hand handwriting, yes.

I just didn't... I didn't recognize it.

I wrote that note to myself in the past?

I know when the staff pieces are.

- Where? - Not where. When.

What the devil are you doing?

The eternal forest

within which men and women find joy,

simplicity, their true nature.

'Tis a happy ending for all humanity,

I gift to thee.

I'm more of a city villain than a country bumpkin.

You asked for refuge, and I gave it to you.

I took mercy on the Librarians as you asked.

'Tis no fault of mine you cannot hold a spell.

This is not your story.

What?

There is nothing in the play "The Tempest"

that says this is what you want,

what Prospero wants.

No, this?

This is someone else's dream.

You know not my mind!

Arrogant knave!

I summoned thee and I can crush thee!

You will see.

You will all see...

in time.

Is this the time machine room?

Of course, it's the time machine room.

The Library has to have a time machine room.

These are all time machines?

All locked down and taken apart

to make sure that they never, ever work again.

All their owners tried to change history,

got caught in temporal loops because you can never,

ever, ever violate causality.

The very first time traveler learned

that if you change any event in the past,

any event of significance in the past,

your timeline collapses,

your entire history wiped out.

That's why you left the vague note.

Future me knew that past me was going to John Dee's estate,

but I couldn't tell past me because that would violate

the chain of events leading present me

to know that future me was going into the past.

- I'm going to hate time travel, aren't I? - A lot.

Ah! Here we go. This is the one.

We do have a little wiggle room, however...

because we know the staff is broken.

But we don't know how.

And we only vaguely know when.

So there's a lot of uncertainty in the story.

So if we borrow the staff, bring it back to the present,

use it to defeat Prospero,

and then break it without anybody knowing,

we didn't violate any rules. It's Schroedinger's Cat.

No, he's upstairs in the Theoretical Animals wing.

- He's alive? - And if we screw up?

Grab that base.

Then we suffer the fate

of the very first time traveler.

Dr. Pinkerton Chantasaur.

Was the world originally ruled by talking dinosaurs, Flynn?

Were we all dinosaurs?

- Don't even think about it. - Was there a dinosaur me?

I said don't think about it.

Remember, in 1611, they didn't, um...

You know, don't do anything that's gonna change history.

Don't say anything to anybody that's gonna violate

cause and effect that's gonna tell people

- what's gonna happen. - Right. Cause and effect.

All right, all right, all right.

Hey, you're gonna be there at the Library in 1611,

- right, Jenkins? - Uh, no.

No, I had a midlife crisis during the Elizabethan era.

I was a mess.

Yeah, well, we're not going to the Library.

I'm calibrating this for Prospero's first manifestation.

If we can figure out how Shakespeare creates Prospero,

then we grab the staff...

That should bring us home.

Or in 1611, we just stop Prospero from ever...

No, no, no, no, 'cause then, we wouldn't have to go back

and then we wouldn't have stopped Prospero.

Then we wouldn't have to go back

and then we wouldn't have stopped Prospero.

Then we'd have to go back and we wouldn't stop Prospero.

I'm really gonna hate time travel.

The good news is that no matter how much time

we spend in the past, we return to this very moment.

From your perspective, we're gone no time at all.

5-second drift, maybe. We'll be back 5 seconds, tops.

What if you don't make it back?

Hmm.

That's why you're staying.

If we don't come back, you have to stop Prospero somehow.

I have faith in you.

You've trained for this.

Aah!

How will they get back?

- One second. - They're not.

Two.

I mean, there has to be another way, right?

Three.

Each time machine carves its own path through time.

- Four. - You must use the same machine to return.

- That's five. - Wh...

The sphere... it's... destroyed.

They're never, ever coming back.

Do you see that?

Ghosts from the past.

Not spirits. We see the past itself.

How?

This place is the seat of my power,