“The misery does not end here.”
In a lot of ways, “The Miserable Mill” is A Series of Unfortunate Events at its scariest. The Baudelaires enter the burned-out mill, making their way cautiously through ziggurats of lumber, when out of nowhere appears the friendly Charles (the always welcome Rhys Darby). It’s surreal and foreboding, more so when they catch sight of a building in the distance with a window that looks exactly like Count Olaf’s tattoo. “This lumber mill is hardly a safe place for children,” Charles says, not unkindly. “And I should know; I run it.” The location and the characters are straight out of Bradbury – shades of Something Wicked This Way Comes – and the only relief is that Charles is a decent person.
If only it ended there. If only decency were enough.
Violet and Klaus find out more about their parents from Sir (Don Johnson), who tells them that their parents started the fire that burned down the once-prosperous Paltryville (which boasted, according to Charles, two hot yoga studios). This is the closest we see the Baudelaires come to giving up hope; Violet says they have to stay to clear their parents’ names, while at the same time Klaus says they should just leave.
And of course Olaf is there. As it happens, the optometrist of the Lucky Smells Lumber Mill is Dr. Georgina Orwell (Catherine O’Hara), Olaf’s former girlfriend. This is where I’d like to commend Unfortunate Events for giving the role of Orwell to an actress in her middle age, and furthermore commend the show for its canny use of character actors like O’Hara, Aasif Mandvi, Patrick Warburton, and Alfre Woodard. Orwell is none too happy to see Olaf – we first meet her throwing darts at a picture of his face, and she brushes him off with the frankly perfect line, “I have my own life now, and my own evil scheme.” As “The Miserable Mill” progresses, we see just how perfectly suited Olaf and Orwell are to each other. It’s funny, and weirdly sweet, but also frightening, because it shows us that, yes, there are people in the world just as evil as Olaf. It doesn’t stop with him.
A running theme of the episode is the dangers of optimism. Lemony Snicket warns us against it, saying optimists can be dangerous, and the episode’s most blatant example is the Baudelaires’ coworker Phil (Chris Gauthier), who optimism looks like delusion in the face of the horrific working conditions at Lucky Smells.
The mill is a hell of a set, and director Bo Welch uses it to maximum effect, showing just how dwarfed the Baudelaires are in rooms filled with machinery that could kill them. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Welch directs the show well; he’s also its production designer. James Newton-Howard’s score is the best it’s been all season. It sounds automated and industrial, and the whistling mimics the cruel whistling of factories all over the nation. It’s metric, call and response construction is also a great sonic reference to the workers’ brainwashed state.
Orwell has been brainwashing the mill workers, and when Klaus comes in for his eye exam, it’s his turn. This is the lowest we’ve ever seen one of the siblings sink, and it’s also one of the few times we’ve seen one of them alone. The hypnotism is an eerie, tense sequence, mimicking similar scenes in A Clockwork Orange and even Marathon Man. Louis Hynes does good body work as the hypnotized Klaus; when he returns to the machinery, his eyes never lose focus and his arm movements are jerky and mechanical. “The Miserable Mill” does an impressive job of making it seem as though there really is no hope.
But what about Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire?
Yeah, about that.
This was the hardest part of the episode for me – in fact, it was quite a gut punch. After more of Will Arnett and Cobie Smulders’ terrific banter (“Partners?” “Always, darling.”), we find out that they are not Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire, but rather parents to a set of manor-bound triplets we’ve never seen before (but whom I’m sure will becomes major players in season two). This whole time we’ve been waiting for them to reunite with Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, and while it’s a happy ending for the parents, it means one thing: Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire are really, truly dead.
“Pretend this story has a happy ending,” Snicket tells us at one point. Would that it were so simple. The Baudelaires’ best shot at salvation is now gone, and Klaus is under the control of Orwell and Olaf, who shows up in his latest disguise, purring “My, my, my, aren’t you a…lucky boy.” (It really can’t be understated how good Neil Patrick Harris is as a villain, and O’Hara, with her Nurse Ratched single-mindedness, matches him beat for maniacal beat.) A Series of Unfortunate Events never gets dark enough to make it full-on misery porn – although it gets plenty dark – but it makes you sympathize with Violet, Klaus, and Sunny so much that you find yourself agreeing with Lemony Snicket: maybe optimism is for suckers.
A Few Thoughts
- “Did they seem like orphans? With an enormous fortune?” “Your cruelty is as sweet as this coffee I’m dumping sugar into.” “Let’s run away together, and find a charming little country to take over.”
- My new theory: Will Arnett is playing Lemony Snicket. They both fought an “unfriendly refrigerator repairperson,” but that’s all I have to go on at the moment.
- I love how ambiguous the relationship between Charles and Sir is. It’s heavily implied that they’re a couple, but never made explicit.
- The hook-handed man looked pretty scary in his foreman disguise.
4.5/5
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