ER S11E09

I wanted to recap this movie because I thought it actually was about librarians, and after years of making fun of my librarian mother for that scene in It's A Wonderful Life where, after seeing that without him in the world, Mary has become a mousy librarian old maid, George begs Clarence to let him live again, because it was okay when his brother was dead and his entire town had been taken over by Mr. Potter and turned into seedy strip joints and the pharmacist had accidentally killed that kid, but Mary's being a librarian was the one thing George just couldn't allow to happen. So I thought recapping a movie where librarians apparently go on cool quests and stuff would sort of make that up to her. Plus, she could do fact-checking about the movie librarians' shelving techniques. It was perfect.

We open on spooky, mood-setting music, which becomes a lot less spooky when accompanied by the title graphic: The Librarian: Quest for the Spear. It's even got a little spear on it, just in case you needed a visual in order to enjoy the movie fully. We fade up on a group of students wandering through a pyramid, taking notes. Female student expresses frustration at her inability to translate the hieroglyphs on the wall. Suddenly, Noah Wyle enters the room through a light-filled doorway, striking a pose with his lantern and safari jacket. He clears up the glyph confusion as the students hurriedly take notes and follow him through the pyramid. In the most self-important tone known to mankind, Noah Wyle tells us about the ancient Egyptians and their master pyramid craftsmanship, being sure to add that if any of the pyramid's support stones were even an inch out of place [pause for trumpets of suspense], the entire structure would collapse. THIS FACT JUST MIGHT BE IMPORTANT LATER.

Noah continues leading his pupils down a passageway. Employing his best Shatnerian delivery, he rhetorically asks how the Egyptians could have "unlocked the magic" of trigonometry and calculus. I don't know, but when I was in eleventh and twelfth grade, I remember very much wishing that they hadn't. Noah walks outside and squints in the sunlight. He takes out a handkerchief and soaks it in water, and then pats himself down with it before putting on his pith helmet. He then turns around and dramatically pronounces the pyramid the greatest of the "original seven wonders of the world." At this point, a guy in a janitor's uniform walks up and asks where the mochaccino spill is. Noah points to a spot. The janitor drags his mop cart over there as the camera pulls back to show Noah standing in front of a less-than-Great, both in size and computer graphic-rendering, Pyramid. And it's in the middle of a large room that is decidedly not Egypt. The Egypt Noah was standing in front of earlier was simply a backdrop. And it won't be the first time Noah stands in front of a backdrop in this movie.

A woman tugging on a thick rope yells at Noah to "quit posing and join the rest of the students." Noah grabs a hold of the rope behind her and we see the pyramid's capstone lowered onto the pyramid. Once that's been done in all its bad CGI glory, Noah cheers loudly and goes for high-fives with his fellow students, all of which are rebuffed. A wimpy English guy steps forward and thanks everyone for their efforts on this project, about which he will now exposit exactly what it is: a perfect one-twentieth-scale pyramid, made of "pyramid stones," complete with capstone. There is much applause, and the professor dismisses them.

Noah runs up to the professor and asks if he can head the "translation team," because they don't seem to be getting it. Professor says that Noah won't be continuing on with the project at all. Noah asks how this could be; he's the best student in the class. Professor says that this is true, and that Noah is always the best student in everyone's class, and that he's never done anything but be the best student in every class he's taken. Oh, and he has twenty-two degrees. ["Okay, learning is cool and everything, but...neeeeeeeeeeeeeerd!" --Wing Chun] "School is what I know," says Noah. Professor asks whether Noah knows any of his classmates' names after working with them for three months. It turns out that Noah doesn't. He claims that this is because everyone has a nickname, and then points to a random guy and calls him "sweater guy." "Freak," says Sweater Guy, apparently having no problem making fun of his classmate right in front of their professor. Professor tells Noah that he is a "professional student" who is avoiding life by staying in school. Noah says that he totally has a life outside of school, which he obviously does not. Noah asks Professor what he's getting at here. "You NEED to FIND a JOB, [Noah]!" Professor shouts. He says that he has talked to administration and approved Noah's degree. Noah is done with the program.

This upsets Noah a great deal, because it's the middle of the semester, so he won't be able to take another program for six months. "Exactly," says Professor. Noah begs Professor not to do this to him. Professor tells him it's time to face the "big, bad real world." Noah takes off his pith helmet and safari jacket and leaves. Observing this scene from a balcony is one Mr. Bob Newhart, who you should all know right now is totally awesome.

Noah arrives at the home he shares with his mother, who makes a few comments about how smart her son is as if she agrees with Professor that Noah should not be going to school anymore. If that is the case, why is she paying for it? I doubt Noah is, seeing as Professional Student isn't a very highly-paid profession. ["Maybe he's really, really good at writing grant proposals?" -- Wing Chun] Noah sulks upstairs to his room, his mother following. He speechifies to her about how his books are "slices of the ultimate truth...they speak to me." Mom tells Noah that if the books start telling him to set fires or hurt small animals, he shouldn't listen to them. Noah is not in the mood for jokes, and goes down the stairs. He says he's heading to the bookstore. Then the doorbell rings.

Oops! Mom brought the daughter of a friend of hers over to meet Noah! With a "you two look great together," Mom leaves the pair alone, and they sit on the couch. The woman (Deborah) and Noah express disgust over their mothers' stereotypical wishes to fix them up, as if, Deborah says, they were sitting around in their rooms all day. Noah stops laughing because that is exactly what he does. He asks Deborah what she does, and she says she's a social worker, working mostly with convicted felons. Deborah ask Noah what he does, and you'd think he wouldn't have asked her that question knowing that she would ask him back and the answer would be so pathetic. "I'm a student," he says. Debroah asks Noah if he has spent his entire life in school. He says he has, and that there is nothing wrong with that. "You're in your thirties and you're still in school," says Deborah. "Exactly!" says Noah. "And you live with your mother and you're okay with that," she continues. "Yes!" says Noah, then, "No...no. Wait. I have to change my life." "I would," says Deborah meanly. Mom comes back in the room just in time to hear Deborah make her excuses and leave. Quickly. ["Maybe Deborah needs her mom to fix her up with people because she's such a bitch. On the other hand, Deborah? Word." -- Wing Chun]

Noah asks Mom to stop trying to fix him up. She says she just wants her son to have someone to love. "I will," he says, "one day. When it's right." This is enough of a prompt, apparently, for Mom to say, "The things that make life worth living -- they can't be thought here." She points to his head, and then continues, "They must be felt...here." And then she puts her hand on his heart as the music swells, telling us that THIS MIGHT BE IMPORTANT. "Maybe you don't know so much," she concludes. Damn, Noah's mom is mean.

Noah looks through want ads, a few prospects circled. He sighs and sits against his bookshelf as his mother creeps into the room and puts some papers on the bookcase, then creeps back out. Noah slams a book on the ground, which magically prompts several books to come flying off the bookshelf and hit him on the head. Last to arrive is a piece of paper, which floats to the ground accompanied by some piano notes. Noah opens it and takes out a blank piece of paper. The paper suddenly begins to glow and a letterhead for the Metropolitan Public Library appears, followed by writing which is also read in a voice-over by Jane Curtin. It's all very Harry Potter. "You have been selected to interview for a prestigious position at the Metropolitan Public Library," she says. "Now how did you do that?" Noah asks, not seeming quite as freaked out by the glowing paper with self-writing ink as I would be.

Noah dashes through the New York Streets and enters the Library, carrying a portfolio and wearing his best suit. He makes his way to the interview area, only to find a very long line of applicants. Very, very long: it goes up countless flights of stairs. Replace the people with cars and the stairs with asphalt, and you're looking at my commute to work. Fortunately, a dissolve spares us from having to spend the rest of the movie watching Noah Wyle in line. Now he's at the front, watching a sobbing lady walk out of her interview. "!" yells Jane Curtin. Noah decides that he's not going to do this, and tries to walk away. But Jane Curtin sees all, and calls him into the room.

Inside the room -- an ornately decorated Great Hall-type of affair with, surprisingly no books in it -- Noah takes a seat about twenty feet away from Jane Curtin's desk. "What makes you think you could be The Librarian?" she asks him. Noah says that he has read a lot of books, then chuckles nervously. "Don't try to be funny," says Jane. "What makes you think you could be The Librarian?" Noah goes through his librarian credentials, which include your typical knowledge of the Dewey Decimal system, but Jane isn't having that either. "What makes you think you're The Librarian?" she says. Noah doesn't really know what to say. "Stop wasting my time," says Jane, and asks him to tell her something that none of the other interviewees can. Noah approaches Jane and says the following: "You have mononucleosis, your marriage broke up two months ago, you broke your nose when you were four, and you live with three cats." Jane's like, "uh..." Noah Sherlock Holmeses how he knows this: she has swollen lymph nodes, a not-completely-disappeared ring-shaped indentation on her ring finger, a scar typically given to children under the age of six with reset noses, and three different types of cat hair on her blazer: "A white Himalayan, a tortoiseshell, and an orange-striped tabby." Jane says she was five when she broke her nose.

Suddenly, the disembodied voice of Bob Newhart rings through the hall and asks Noah what is more important than knowledge. "The things that make life worth living can't be thought here, they must be felt here," says Noah, conveniently forgetting to give his mother credit for that little gem. Jane picks up the receiver of her antique phone and tells someone to dismiss all the candidates. Noah turns to leave, but she tells him that he has a six-month trial period. If he doesn't screw it up, he will officially be "The Librarian." And if he's ever a minute late, she will dock his pay. Noah says that's great, but that he wants to know exactly what he did right in this interview so that he can do that "time." Appearing out of thin air, Bob Newhart says that there won't be a "time." He tells Noah that he's about to embark on a "wondrous adventure."

Bob and Noah walk down a long hallway. They're followed by two armed guards, which Noah asks Bob about even though he didn't seem to mind it when Bob WALKED THROUGH A WALL. Bob says that The Library is "the most secure place in the world." They stop at a bookcase, and Bob quotes Shakespeare. Noah identifies the quote and grabs the play it's from from the bookcase. When he pulls the book, a secret door opens and the music of merry whimsy begins its tune. Bob and Noah stand in front of another door while the guards place and turn keys in keyholes on opposite sides of the door at the same time. "Isn't that what the army does with nuclear weapons?" Noah asks. "Where do you think the army got the idea?" Bob asks. The door opens, and Noah and Bob step through, leaving the guards behind.

Bob and Noah ride an elevator and stand around awkwardly, as you do in elevators. With slightly ridiculous Star Trek-sound effect swishes, the elevator doors open, revealing two more guards and another set of doors. Bob and Noah walk up to the doors, and Bob tells Noah that he's about to see something that few "men" in the world have seen, opening the door. Despite all the future technology, though, the room isn't rigged to light up when someone enters it, so Bob has to flick on a light switch. We see a long, seemingly endless row of books. Noah's psyched. Bob tries to crack a smile, but seeing as he hasn't done that since, like, 1952, it's a futile effort.

Post-commercial, Bob and Noah walk into the big room, and Noah stops in front of a big gold box thing. He states its exact dimensions, which he can apparently tell by sight, and pronounces it to be an "exact replica" of the Ark of the Covenant. "That's not a replica," Bob replies, drawing the Wheezy Laugh of Assholes out of Noah. He tries to touch it, but Bob tells him to keep his hands off unless he wants to be electrocuted or "smote down." Noah asks if he's being punk'd. Bob says he's being destiny'd, and that he is now the guardian of the treasures of The Library. As he and Noah walk and Bob continues to tell Noah what a special person he is to get this job, something catches Noah's eye, and he stops to look at it. It's a silver box with an intricate carving on top. Bob keeps just walking, obliviously talking to no one. That's a great first impression to make on one's new boss, Noah.

Even though the item of Noah's interest could have electrocuted him if touched, Noah has no reservations about poking the silver box. In fact, he even opens it, revealing some leftover Witch's Bubbling Cauldron sound effects and a bunch of glowing ghosty-looking things. One of them rises up out of the soup, and it's a baby, a tortured screech coming from its CGI lips. I guess Noah has found the Ark of the DEK "Look How Unique My Show Is" Devices. Bob runs up and slams the box shut. He explains, with his trademark delivery: "Um [clears throat], this, uh, box once belonged to a girl named, uh, Pandora.' She, uh, opened it one day and, uh, evil controlled [pause] the land for [pause] a thousand years. So I think it's best not [sniffle, throat clear] not to repeat her mistake." Noah seems a bit shocked by the whole thing, although still not quite as much as I would have been had I opened a box and a ghostly baby head screamed at me.

Noah staggers around a little and comes across a sword stuck in a stone. "This cannot be Excalibur!" he says. Bob tells him to go ahead and try to remove the sword from the stone. Noah says he doesn't think he's quite worthy of it, and asks how exactly he was chosen for this job, although he doesn't seem to care what exactly his job entails, or why there are screaming baby faces hidden in boxes under his purview. Standing in front of what I believe is a goldified King Midas, Bob explains their process for choosing candidates for The Librarian job. Noah decides he'd rather juggle the golden eggs laid by a nearby goose than pay attention to Bob, and then says that he can't wait to tell his mother about his new job. At that point, Ominous Music plays and Excalibur unsheathes itself from the stone and hovers in front of Noah's neck. Bob informs Noah that The Library is a thousands-of-years-old secret that only The Librarians know, and since Noah's mom is not The Librarian, she will be kept in the dark. Bob calls off Excalibur, and apparently he calls off my TiVo as well, because it pauses for a few seconds.

When it decides to work again, Noah is grabbing books off of shelves until he comes upon a jetpack. Ah, one of our Earth's treasures indeed: a prop from Lost in Space. Noah sits in front of it and presses the "go" button. We cut to Bob, ambling along with a book. He looks up to see a riderless jetpack go flying past him, followed by Noah, telling no one to worry. Bob looks at his watch as we hear Noah and the jetpack struggling off-screen. I love how bored Bob is by this movie.

At the end of the day, Bob escorts Noah out. He tells Noah that he could be a truly great Librarian, and shows him a wall of dignified, yet still cheap-looking portraits of former Librarians. Last in the row is a picture of the last Librarian, one "Edward Wilde," who looks a lot like Kyle MacLachlan. Bob says that Noah is taking Wilde's place, and that Wilde died.

Night has fallen on The Library, and Bob is still at work. The man is tireless in his Library devotion! He's alone, which is why he's suspicious when he hears a glass breaking. He gets up to investigate as the soundtrack plays mood-settingly. He comes across two fallen guards, but doesn't have time to do anything before someone comes up behind him and thwacks him across the back of the head with a very fake sound effect. "Ugh," Bob says on his way to the floor. Would it have been really awesome if he had said "uh [coughs, clears throat] ugh"? Yes. Yes it would have been.

A man with a silly-looking snake tattoo on his hand stares out the window of a high-rise. "Everything went exactly as you said," says Kelly Hu, who is wearing a big black velour pageboy cap, like that is appropriate cat burglar attire. I mean, come on now. The man turns to face her so that we see his profile in silhouette, and that is the unmistakable chin of Kyle MacLachlan.

Morning! Jane Curtin rushes to open The Library, and Noah comes out from behind a corner with two coffee cups. He informs her that she is one minute late, so she'll have to dock her own pay. Then he offers her a coffee. "I hate a kiss-ass," Jane says, before taking the larger of the two cups.

Inside The Library, Jane is alarmed to find the prostrate forms of The Library elevator guards. We know she's alarmed because she flatly says, "Oh my."

Noah and Jane have propped Bob up on a couch and are administering first aid in the form of a wet washcloth to the forehead, when really, a trip to the Emergency Room would probably be more helpful for the seventy-five-year-old man with a severe concussion. I think Bob wakes up, although it's hard to tell since he doesn't really look much different when he's conscious. He, Jane, and Noah move to check out the surveillance footage from Bob's desk, which is on a screen that comes rising out of the desk when Bob pushes a special button. Noah loves this feature, expressing more surprise about it than he did when confronted with, say, the box full of screaming ghost hell babies.

On the surveillance footage -- which is of remarkable quality compared to the only surveillance footage I've seen, which was of my apartment complex's laundry room when my manager and I tried to find out who stole two loads of my clothes from the dryers. It was so grainy that even though we could see someone grabbing my stuff, we couldn't make out any distinguishing features and the mystery remains unsolved. We see Kelly Hu and some assorted henchmen attack the guards, and Jane says that they knew about some failsafe feature in the room that would only give them time to take one item. We see Kelly grab a big staff. "They [pause] took the Spear of Destiny," says Bob. Jane asks Noah if he knows anything about the Spear of Destiny, other than the obvious fact that it has a very silly name. Noah says it's the spear that pierced Jesus when he was on the cross. He exposits that the Spear has mystical powers, and that whoever possesses it will have control of the world. A Google search also says that it is a classic computer game. But I'm pretty sure they're talking about the Jesus one. Bob further exposits that everyone from Charlemagne to Napoleon has had possession of the Spear. Noah blows this off, saying that Kelly Hu only has one fragment of the spear.

Bob stands up and says that a Librarian hundreds of years ago decided that the Spear was too powerful to remain intact: since it couldn't be destroyed, he broke it into three pieces and scattered those pieces around the world. Noah says that's great then, because the burglars only have the fragment and that won't do any harm, will it? Bob says that Hitler had a fragment, too, and look at what he did. Suddenly, Jane gasps, and my TiVo again pauses itself. So I don't know what exactly happened there, but my guess is that she noticed that one of the robbers had a snake tattoo on his or her person, and that means that the spear was stolen by The Serpent Brotherhood, an evil organization that remind me of G.I. Joe's opponent, C.O.B.R.A.

Noah picks up the phone to call the police and report the robbery, at which Jane makes fun of him for not realizing how crazy he would sound if he were to inform the police that a fragment of the Spear of Destiny had been taken. Noah puts the phone down. Bob tells Noah that he is the only person who can bring the spear fragment back to The Library. Noah laughs at this, knocking some items of a desk while he's at it. Bob says that Noah is the only person on the planet who can do this, and Jane adds that if Noah is successful, he'll be a hero. Noah is all, "'If'?" Bob ignores this and gives Noah a special book that the burglars didn't find because Bob was hiding it in the "plain sight" of his table. Bob says that the book contains all the clues Noah will need to locate the other two Spear pieces. He says that the second piece is somewhere in the Amazon Jungle. Jane throws Noah his backpack and tells him to get going.

The trio proceeds down a staircase. Noah skims through the book and instantly deduces that it is written in the language of the Birds. At first, I thought this meant that the book was just a series of tweets and chirps, but Noah is actually talking about the language spoken by all humans until they all got together and, with the awesome teamwork skills that come with sharing a common language, built the Tower of Babel and it got a little too close to Heaven for God, so God made humans speak in all different languages. And that's why we have Spanish today. Noah says that the language of the Birds is a "dead language," although to be "dead," I thought something had to exist in the first place. According to this movie, however, the Bible is true and everything in it totally happened, so I'm kind of wondering why this is showing on TNT instead of, say, the PAX network. And how I always get stuck recapping shows with these pseudo-religious themes.

No one knows how to read the language of the Birds, says Noah, so how can he use the book? Bob responds with a throat-clear, and Jane whips some plane tickets out of her purse, which apparently has a tiny travel agent inside it. Noah says that it took Egyptologists seventeen years to decipher the Rosetta Stone. Bob says that Noah has less time than that. Noah breaks it down and says that he doesn't even have his own parking spot yet (not like he'd really need one in New York City), so he probably isn't quite ready to fight an evil international conspiracy. Bob appeals to Noah's ego, saying that the most valuable object in the entire world isn't a box with screaming ghost hell babies; it's Noah's brain. Noah starts to walk off, and then turns back to Bob and Jane. "The fate of the world is in my hands?" he asks. Bob nods. "That is just so...sad," Noah says, walking away. "Oh, god help us all," says a rightfully disgusted Jane. Then she and Bob stare at each other, and turn back to Noah. Bob does a double take, which is great, and we see Noah walking out of The Library's massive doors and into a bright white light, which envelops him and then the rest of the screen. I guess it snowed outside or something.

Now Noah's on a plane, and it appears that although The Library has the funds for all that security, they couldn't spring for a Business class seat. Fortunately, there's no one sitting to Noah, so he has two Economy class seats' worth of space, which is roughly one cubic foot. He's irritating his neighbors with his audible attempts to translate the Bird language until he sees a gorgeous woman enter the cabin. We know she's gorgeous because her entrance is heralded by Sexy Saxophones, beauty light, and slow-motion. She walks up to Noah's seat, having just witnessed an invite-only showing of the plane's takeoff from the cockpit, and requests an aisle seat. He moves aside quickly and clumsily. When Gorgeous is finally settled, Noah volunteers that this is the first plane trip he has ever been on. Apparently he never had a chance to study abroad in his four hundred years of school. Gorgeous stops him and tells him that he's "way out" of his league with her, so he should just give up trying to chat her up now. So Noah focuses on a package of peanuts, which planes never give out anymore, and rips it open with his teeth, spilling peanuts everywhere.

Time passes, and Gorgeous is enjoying champagne while Noah has done some more translation work, if the multicolored post-it notes stuck all over his seat are anything to go by. Suddenly, he makes a few celebratory wheezes and a "woohoo!" and announces that he has learned the Language of the Birds, and that it only took him seven hours. The pilot stops by and invites Gorgeous to see the sunrise over the Amazon from the cockpit. Noah's all "ooo!" thinking that he has also been invited, but then he quickly realizes that he'll be watching the sunrise from his tiny window. Gorgeous leaves.

As the plane starts its descent, Kelly Hu - apparently moonlighting as a flight attendant -- tells the plane's "air marshal" that there is a problem. When he answers her, she sticks a hypodermic needle in his neck. As the rattlesnake sound effects announce the Brotherhood is here, Kelly and a Vin Diesel lookalike crony head toward Noah. Noah stands up and bonks his head on the overhead compartments, and Crony is not very impressed. Noah and Crony meet in the aisle, and when Noah sees Crony's snake tattoo, he becomes suspicious. When he notices that every other passenger on the plane is in league with the Brotherhood, he is even more suspicious. And when Crony punches him in the stomach, he is very, very suspicious. Kelly approaches Noah with a hypodermic needle, but before she can stick him, Adventure Music plays, and Gorgeous deals with all the bad guys with a series of swift kicks. She grabs Noah's hand and leads him to the plane's emergency door. "We're going out," she says, ripping the door open. Even though Gorgeous and Noah should be getting sucked out of the plane right now, both are able to stand firm on the plane with seemingly little effort. It's a miracle of science! While Noah spouts off some crap about the odds of his surviving a jump from a plane, which is totally not important right now, Gorgeous puts on the parachute she managed to sneak past airport security and then shoves Noah out the door.

Meanwhile, in another part of the airplane that somehow has no idea that anything strange is going on, despite there just having been a huge fistfight and an OPEN DOOR on the plane, passengers are too engrossed in their reading material or whatever else you do on planes to notice Noah flying by their windows. In a more realistic section of the plane, passengers are freaking out and putting their oxygen masks on as Kelly and Vin run towards Gorgeous. She jumps out of the plane, very narrowly missing its engine. Kelly and Vin reach the open door and watch. "He brilliantly lowers our expectations and then jumps without a chute!" Kelly says. "Remarkable!" ["Sounds like Noah's almost as good a Librarian as Homer Simpson was a union rep." -- Wing Chun]

What's even more remarkable is that even though the time between their jumps was, like, minutes long, Gorgeous is able to catch up with Noah in the air and deploy her paracute. They glide over the Amazon in some bad special effects.

Upon landing on the ground, which is no easy feat when you consider that they just landed on a rainforest canopy of trees, Noah demands to know who Gorgeous is. She says she was sent by Bob Newhart, but Noah says that Bob told him to trust "no one." Gorgeous tosses Noah her Metropolitan Public Library ID card and we see that she is, in fact, "no one." Her name is Nicole Noone, and that is more clever than I would have given this movie credit for. And it's not that clever.

Noah whips out a cell phone to call for help, but Nicole tells him not to; the Brotherhood will use the signal to "triangulate" their location. Noah says that triangulating locations using cell-phone signals is against the law. Nicole is like, "They just tried to kill you. I don't think they're real concerned with phone-tapping rules." If, that is, there are any phone-tapping laws in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. Or if Noah's phone can even get a signal there when I couldn't get one in freaking Oklahoma City, despite the fact that my cell-phone provider said that was a service area. Noah argues that the Brotherhood didn't want to kill him -- just to inject him with truth serum so that he'd reveal the location of his language of the Birds book, even though it was pretty much sitting on his tray table for the entire flight. Of course, now it's safely tucked away in Noah's cool messenger bag.

Nicole straps a machete to her leg, prompting Noah to ask her how she got that on the airplane. Good question, but it won't be answered here. Instead, Nicole wonders where they are. Noah says he can figure it out if he can just get to the top of a tree. Nicole tells him to go ahead and climb it. Noah walks up to a very tall tree with no branches for the first hundred feet, and decides that this is the right tree to climb. He drops his messenger bag with the precious book in it on the ground where some crazy rainforest ants will no doubt be able to consume it in seconds, and attempts to climb. His efforts are met with failure and some aurally unpleasant grunts and groans of exertion.

Somehow, Nicole has managed to help Noah climb the tree, and they sit on top of it, looking over the forest canopy. Nicole asks Noah to use his amazing powers of knowledge to figure out where they are. Noah observes an "extremely rare blue condor" flying by them, which is only found in a certain area of the Amazon, and a large mountain that can only be Mount Portobello. From this, he knows that they are at -5.2 degrees latitude, -64.6 degrees longitude. Nicole angrily asks him to say it in English, which he totally did, but whatever. Noah says they have to travel 24.7 miles. Nicole rolls her eyes and climbs back down while Noah tries to appreciate the scenery.

Nicole hacks her way through the rainforest as Noah trails behind, attempting to talk while Nicole snaps branches in his face. She appears to be using her machete, as the sound effects would indicate, and yet I see no actual branches or underbrush being cut away. One particularly large branch smacks Noah in the face and he flies backward. On the ground, he is excited to see a previously undiscovered plant. Remember in middle school when you did a report about the endangered rainforest and how it had all those undiscovered plants that could be the cure for cancer or AIDS so people needed to stop burning it down? Well, this is just a flower. Noah tells Nicole that he'll name it after her, to which she predictably responds in a hostile and sarcastic manner. "Fichus narcissus," Noah responds. Oooh, burn.

Kelly and Kronies have found their way to Noah and Nicole's landing point, and I'd like to know how exactly they got away with attacking and possibly killing the air marshal, not to mention Kelly's impersonation of a flight attendant. And yet, they've had time to escape the airport and hire some guy who claims to be the best tracker in the Amazon.

"Anything is possible in the world of books," Noah Reading Rainbows. He goes to mention that his father died when he was young, and that he has been compensating for that by trying to be as much like his father as he could. Apparently his dad was a dorky, boring, know-it-all. Finally, Nicole asks Noah why he's sharing so much with her. Noah says he figured that since they were going to be spending so much time together, they might as well get to know each other. Nicole says that she is not the sharing type. She asks Noah what he thinks she's like, and when he responds that she is angry and filled with homicidal rage, she pulls a machete on him and tells him to shut up. He says he won't ask any more questions. And after three seconds, he asks another question: how long has Nicole worked for The Library, and does she do the jungle adventure often? Nicole says five years and yes. Noah asks what happened to the last Librarian. Nicole is less willing to share this information.