TV Review: THE LIBRARIANS: Season 1, Episode 8: And the Heart of Darkness [TNT]

TNT’s The Librarians And the Fables of Doom TV Show Review. The Librarians: Season 1, Episode 8: And the Heart of Darkness, lands The Librarians at the doorstep of the house of all haunted houses…and they quickly find themselves placed in a position where they have to destroy it.

I do remember mentioning issues with performances in past episodes. In this episode everyone manages to hold up their end in the acting department. One thing that caught my eye right away, was the whole shroud of darkness that hovered over this episode. For the most part, the show has had a cheesy format…no real danger. This episode was a game changer. Now I don’t know if they are going to roll with this feel in the future…but this played out very dark.

Cassandra Cillian (Lindy booth), has been stepping up all around and this episode was no different. After the incident with her betraying the team she has felt that trust is still lacking. Eve Baird (Rebecca Rominj), being the linear thinker she is, continued to place Cassandra on baby sitting duty when she wanted to see some action. It didn’t take much to realize the reason why Eve was going here. She wanted to protect Cassandra and felt the best way to do that was to have her watch Katie Bender (Lea Zawada). Without realizing it, she was actually placing Cassandra in harms way. Katie was not what she appeared to be in the end. The thing to make note of, was the performance Booth was delivering. She was frustrated and still living on the page with the team not trusting her. Her tumor was also giving her trouble and this was creating level after level of conflict. She handled it like a champ. All the while Cassandra ended up being the player to end the terror. We can only hope Eve has learned something. They all have a role to play and she cannot afford to put anyone in the safety-box. This episode proved there will be times when there is no safety-box…only folks who rise to the occasion when they have to.

Lea Zawada, deserves much credit here. She played Katie and delivered a very menacing performance. This episode took the show way out on the edge and she was successful at selling the young damsel in distress to Cassandra right up to the point where Cassandra had to stab her. Very impressive, I hope they invite her back to be on the show again.

Ezekiel Jones (John Kim) and Jake Stone (Christian Kane) took some lumps in this episode. For the most part, I have been very critical of Kim’s performances. He seems to walk through scenes and doesn’t have the proper motivation and is simply overall disconnected. In this episode he finds his way inside a dollhouse and plays video games. As funny as it seems, he ends up in a position where he can do no harm. Kane has been solid and he plays his part well here. The funny thing is Eve starts off disrespecting Ezekiel and seems to be doing so in most of the episodes. She tells him she is ignoring him…then he ends up in the dollhouse for most of the episode. Almost suggesting he had no interest in participating in what was going on. The bigger play was, this episode was not for Ezekiel or Stone…it was about Cassandra. On this show every actor needs his or her screen time and moments to shine.

In a very humbling turn of events, Eve gets beat up by Hammer Man (Kendall Wells). This comes off kind of comical because she was basically telling Cassandra she didn’t belong in the haunted house because she couldn’t defend herself. With the military training and her trusty pistol…Eve was given a black eye and a time out. Gut busting. Good writing. She was humbled and looked at Cassandra with the proper respect in the end. The only thing to cap this episode off, was to have Ezekiel steal the dollhouse…and he didn’t let us down.

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