Something Sinister This Way Slithers in ‘’Series’s’’ Reptile Room

''EXSSSSEELLLENNT.'' Stefano/Olaf''s ready for fortune hunting round two.

 Something Sinister This Way Slithers in ‘’Series’s’’ Reptile Room [RECAP]

**SPOILERS** 

The second misadventure in the Baudelaire orphans story on Netflix takes them into the custody of their Uncle Montgomery Montgomery. The next “relative” on the list who is more of a quirky kook than  a mad scientist. This reptile loving researcher plies his new wards Violet, Sunny and Klaus with scrumptious bakery quality coconut cream cake the instant they walk in the door, and just about charms the pants off of the bumbling banker Mr. Poe.

Think as in this distinguished Mr Muttonchops

Played by Aasif Mandvi decked out a curly ‘stach bound to be the envy of facial hair hipster aficionados and an Indiana Jones explorer hat, the latest in loco parentis in the Baudelaire saga is a stand up guy. Soooo naturally he bites (ha, more on that later) the dust...but I’m getting too far ahead of myself!

After an awkward car ride with an oblivious and self-involved Mr. Poe, down Lousy Lane, a middle of nowhere country lane that’s a real eyesore and reeks of horseradishes the trio reaches their newest residency. Unlike the Baudelaire’s glitzy and grand manor, Monty’s mansion doesn’t scream OLD MONEY so much as it does eccentric “museum”! Papered in sepia toned motif wallpaper and with swag that could be straight out of a turn-of-the-century British-India Colonel’s home, Monty’s digs are pretty darn remarkable. 

Monty (Mandvi) is all about that cake!

A Screaming Iguana Clock ricochets out from the wall by the sweeping staircase every couple of hours (heads up!) and black and white photographs that aren’t as eerie as Ransom Rigg’s in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, but are still dark and offbeat enough--especially the snapshot of the closed piano. Monty chirps that he was in that picture with Violet, Klaus and Sunny’s mom and dad. There’s nothing like music to unite people, kids!

It’s downstairs though, where the REAL magic happens. Behind an impressively locked door decked out with steampunk gears and doodads galore is the famed Reptile Room--for all intents and purposes Uncle Monty’s batcave. The Reptile Room is something to behold-- it’s a menagerie bedecked with plants and greenery galore, the inhabitants are specimens in glass cases and elegantly wrought iron cages that line the walls. It’s a sunny space with floor to ceiling windows and a cozy library nook for all manner of reptile reading, and plenty of laboratory equipment.

The jovial Herpetologist barely gets a chance to exchange how-do-you-dos with his new charges before Count Olaf ( Neil Patrick Harris) gatecrashes the party. This time, bald as an egg with a frizzy gray pubic hair beard and thick round glasses he assumes the role of Stefano. This time, Harris affects an accent that combines falsetto Italian with Kermit the frog. After charging up the stairs brandishing his knife at the kids, he approaches Monty and simpering, introduces himself as Monty’s newest assistant from a society for snakes with way too many s’s (ssssss!).

Why yesssss I am a reptile expert assssisssstant.

If there’s one thing Violet, Klaus and Sunny can agree on, their Uncle is most definitely not in cahoots with the greedy count. Now if only they can convince Monty just who Stefano is-- and it sure as heck isn’t a despicable spy from a competing snake society, like Monty instantly pegs him as! Just as before, Violet, Klaus and Sunny simultaneously face-palm about the hapless adults around them, and their survival hinges upon their own wits.

This time, Klaus (Louis Hynes) gets a chance to shine. His bookish abilities are in full form and he assumes the position as leader and discovers some huge clues! The sprawling hedge maze on Uncle Monty’s estate is the exact same design as Olaf’s eye tattoo. That shrubbery is pretty darn deliberate and Klaus is skeptical. He also comes to see that the spy glass isn’t just a relic from his parent’s murder, but Monty has one of his own. While treating the kiddos (and Stefano, stuffing his face with a tub of popcorn) as the plus-one, a night at the movies takes a turn for the bizarre. The feature film, ‘Zombies in the Snow’ is an absurd black and white movie that has (much to Olaf’s annoyance) English subtitles in every scene. The madness goes beyond musical numbers and dramatic tutu inheritances in the film (look out for it!) as we see Monty has a magic eye --or in this case, a fancy gold Hugo Cabret caliber spyglass-- that allows him to detect certain patterns in the words. He decodes a warning, urging him to flee the country and head to Peru aboard a steamship, PRONTO. The stars of the film, Jacquelyn (Sara Canning) Mr. Poe’s former prickly secretary, and Monty’s recently deceased assistant Gustav (Luke Camilleri) show that Monty’s friends in high places are closer than they may seem! 

Welcome kids to my (not slytherin! not slytherin!) kingdom.

Who these friends may be is still cast in shadow. But it maybe, just maybe has something to do with a little organization that goes by VFD. Here, at the ticket window the usher cheekily tells Monty he’s part of the Verified Film Discount program; and during the opening credits of ‘Zombies’ the production company’s initials likewise are VFD. This enigmatic acronym and its association with both the parent-slaying house fire and the current woes that follow Sunny, Violet and Klaus has haunted readers since “The Bad Beginning”.

In the Reptile Room the “woe-is-me” Crocodile’s mating call only turns out to be too prophetic when the morning of the planned escape to Peru, Monty is found slumped dead in his reptile room, puncture wounds in his neck, with an oh so sympathetic Stefano ready to spirit the children away into his care. Of course, but not without the assistance of his loyal loony acting group: the hook-handed man (Usman Ally) , in a police officer uniform with clumsy plastic hands and a chowing down on a can of peaches, and the androgynous guy (Matty Cardarople) clad in a nurse’s gown with a falsetto trill to his voice and an revulsion and fear of the autopsy he’s there to “do”.

#AGGHHMYGHAD

The incompetent clan of criminals is soon foiled again, and Violet, Sunny and Klaus prove that the venom that killed Monty wasn’t from the Incredibly Deadly Viper (a moniker he gave to the friendly serpent, as a way to scare the colleagues in his Herpetological society and get back at them for ridiculing his unfortunately repetitive birth name) but was actually administered via Olaf’s dastardly hands (or in this case, a creepy pronged injector thingy). Evading police capture, Olaf flees into the manicured hedges of Monty’s maze and makes for the center. A real bombshell falls on us, the audience, when the statue planted in the middle of the maze is not only alive but is Jacquelyn.

Ha. Looks like Meryl Streep isn't the only ''Woman in Gold''

Shellacked and sparkled up in glittery paint, her arm holding out an expanded spyglass from her eye Poe’s former secretary drops the statue act when Olaf disappears through a trap door. Chasing him down, we see Miss J  is, undoubtedly, invested in the Baudelaire Orphan’s tragedy! -gasp- On the cusp of the closing, the siblings found out that their next headed to their Aunt Josephine -who was name dropped earlier in the episode by Monty- and we see things really heat up half-way across the world.

It turns out, Mama Baudelaire (Cobie Smulders) and Papa Baudelaire (Will Arnett) may not be dead as a doorknob after all but capable escape artists...and they’re about to really start some mayhem at a shady Cantina in (of all places!) Peru. Han...shot first? Look out “The Wide Window” and Lake Lachrymose, the Baudelaire’s are on their way there, and us with them! 

**photos from the IMDB**

Colonel Mustard Photo |Clue©| via Google