The Unfortunate Blogger

The Wide Window-Part Two

Talk about an improvement from the last episode! Well...kind of.... I'm not going to say that this episode was fantastic, but my goodness are there cool things in this one! Well, don't let me rant and rave too long. Here are the pros and cons for part 2 of The Wide Window.

THINGS I LIKED ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

1) The kids don't catch on immediately about the cipher- I know this sounds like the strangest thing, but I actually kind of liked that the children were too grieved to consider the note's strange misspellings. Not that I mind the movie's rendition, but...I thought this was rather appropriate.

2) Larry- I know I've said that Jacqueline kicked butt, but Larry is a close second! Though he's stuck in a pretty tight spot, he still recognizes immediately that the children want to escape and he knows that they need to get away, so he introduces the peppermint candies as part of the bill, which was very clever. On top of that, I really sympathize with him thinking Josephine is dead. He just seems like such a clever and relatable character.

3) Aunt Josephine's escape- In the film and even in the book, they never fully explain how on earth Aunt Josephine escaped Count Olaf, except for the thing about her faking her own death. Here, they show you how. And boy does she do it in the best way! Talk about an awesome escape! Narrowly, but still escaped!

4) "Here's Shammy!"- No other words are needed. If you get the reference, heh heh....

5) Aunt Josephine's last stand- Talk about the last moment of triumph! Even though she was scared throughout pretty much the whole two episodes, Aunt Josephine made me very proud in the last few moments of her life. Unlike the movie and the book, she actually stands up for both herself and the children, calling them formidable and fierce, like how she once used to be. She says that she wants to be that person again and gives the whole finger-pointing lecture to Count Olaf, which was by far one of the best scenes. Of course, she's undone with the grammar lesson, which was kind of funny given her speech, but dang was that the greatest moment to see. 

6) Better placement for Lemony Snicket- You know how I keep complaining that  Lemony Snicket keeps popping up in the same scene as the characters and it was very distracting? This time, he pops up in other locations which minimizes the distractions. I liked that. You see him where Josephine's house used to be and at the weather station. Those are good placements and I liked how they remedied this for the past two episodes.

7) The children go on their own- Yes, I know this deviates from the book quite a bit, but I like how they've come to realize that Mr. Poe is going to be of no help, so they go off on their own in the hopes that they'll get more answers and escape Count Olaf's clutches. Yeah, they're by themselves, but I think they're just as safe if not safer. We'll see how this goes. Plus, Mr. Poe was a good distraction for their escape.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

1) Klaus versus Hurricane Herman versus the house- This was a very badly animated scene. At least in the movie, though the circumstance was very lucky, the animation wasn't bad. Here, the house conveniently flips up and down, allowing Klaus to CGI flip his way to safety in just about the worse graphic imaginable. Like...come on now!

2) The parents don't fly down to help the kids and Josephine- Like the Monty ordeal in episode 3, I didn't so much hate this as much as this was just another moment where I was like, "Noooo! Go down and help theeeeem!" Initially, the parents were going to fly down and save Josephine and the kids, but then spotted a boat and left to have a rocky landing. If only, if only! They've deviated this much, what's a little parental rescue going to do? 

3) Sunny's CGI- If you thought Klaus' CGI was terrible, get a load of Sunny! I get if she bites his wooden leg and makes it come down. That's fine. But make it at least look believable. Plus, she's a baby not a paper shredder! She bites things! She doesn't shred them! It would have looked so much better had she just unknowingly been biting the wooden leg and then it fell off to her efforts! This...why, guys? Why?

Well, that's all I can think of for now. The children are alone, they've had four people they've cared for die, and Count Olaf is still after them. I'm interested to see what they do differently in the next episode. Especially now that we're into territory that the movie hasn't gone into, so we only have the book for comparison.