A Series of Unfortunate Events season 3: Predictable but occasionally moving, Baudelaires' tale ends on emotional note

For quite some part of this third (and final) season of A Series of Unfortunate Events, you’re tempted to do just what the title track exhorts you to: “Look away, look away”. Not because you can’t stand to see what new atrocity is perpetrated on the hapless protagonists (the Baudelaire orphans — Violet, Klaus and Sunny) but because the proceedings fail to hold your interest. It isn’t that the episodes are badly made; in fact they move along at a brisker pace than those from previous seasons. But the ASOUE pattern is so well established by now, that it throws up few (if any) surprises. So in any given episode, you expect to see: 1. Lemony Snicket providing an exposition (a word which could refer to ‘a large public exhibition of art or trade goods’ but here means ‘a comprehensive description and explanation of an idea or theory’) for some term or turn of phrase 2. The meaning of that term or phrase playing out in ways both literal and figurative, on the screen — usually in the form of Count Olaf setting up some ghastly new trap for the Baudelaires 3. Violet, Klaus and Sunny finding their way out of the trap — just when all seems lost — with some ingenious plan 4. While also possibly chancing on some clue that takes them closer to unravelling the mystery of the secret organisation — VFD — their parents were part of. Sometimes these escapades involve the death of a (usually beloved) character in an appropriately gruesome way (thankfully, off-screen). Read our reviews of season 1 and season 2 of A Series of Unfortunate Events. [caption id=“attachment_5872721” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Promotional still for season 3 of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Netflix[/caption] Through seasons 1 and 2, ASOUE’s eccentric storytelling, characters, setting and aesthetic had far outshone the pitfalls of its (mostly) predictable narrative. But in season 3, this isn’t always the case. At several points, the quirks that previously made ASOUE endearing now merely seem grating (a word which could refer to ‘a framework of parallel or crossed bars’ or a ‘method of reducing [vegetables] to small shreds’ but here means ‘irritating’). Which is surprising when you consider the literal cliffhanger the last season left us with: Violet and Klaus rolling down a steep mountainside in a runaway caravan, with Sunny in Olaf’s clutches. What’s not surprising is that at the very beginning of the first of season 3’s episodes — Slippery Slope Part I — the two older Baudelaires have found their way out of peril, and are plotting Sunny’s rescue. The season swings wildly from a mountaintop confrontation between the Baudelaires and Olaf, to a sojourn in a submarine (and the discovery of an extremely toxic mushroom), to a VFD ‘safe place’ known as the Hotel Denouement (which Wes Anderson would love) where there is an actual denouement planned for Olaf, to finally — a bittersweet ending on a remote island. Along the way are brought in characters, new — Man With Beard But No Hair and Woman With Hair But No Beard (who we learn are Olaf’s mentors, and villains far more effective than he), Quigley Quagmire (the third of the Quagmire triplets apart from Duncan and Isadora, long believed to have perished in the same fire that killed their parents) — and old: Carmelita Spats (the Baudelaires’ ~hateful~ adorable school mate from Prufrock Prep) and Kit Snicket (Lemony and Jacques’ sister). There’s also Justice Strauss, the Baudelaires’ well-wisher and Count Olaf’s old neighbour, who hopes to bring him to justice by means of a carefully curated book of evidence titled ‘Odious Lusting After Fortunes’ (or OLAF). And then there are guest appearances by the “sugar bowl” — the innocuous item of crockery that caused the schism in the VFD, which everyone (but especially Esmé Squalor) wants to get their hands on for some reason. It is some of these characters — Quigley, Kit, MWBBNH and WWHBNB — who infuse season 3 with its charm. Violet, Klaus and Sunny offer little by way of novelty, neither does Count Olaf. But his troupe — long relegated to the sidelines — steps up. Among them is Olaf’s long-trusted henchman — The Hook-Handed Man or Fernald — whose intriguing back-story we come to learn. On the side of the “goodies”, there’s Dewey Denouement, whose romance with Kit Snicket and untimely death-by-harpoon-accident is one of the rare moments of genuine pathos in this season. The twists and turns are too numerous to recount here, and the payoff — the unveiling of what really caused the great rupture among the VFD’s members, the contents of the sugar bowl, and the connection between Olaf, the Snickets and the Baudelaires’ mother Beatrice — is anti-climatic. The finale, however, makes up for these failings. Olaf gets to make his one (and only) heroic/noble gesture and redeem himself, and the Baudelaires get that most elusive of things in this series — a happy ending (well, for a while at least). For a story so uniformly bleak and tragic, A Series of Unfortunate Events chose to tread the path of gentle melancholy rather than gut-wrenching grief. Its end too reflects this attitude — and as we bid adieu to the Baudelaires, there’s definitely a soupçon of regret that we’ll no longer be privy to their tales. Rating: ★★★ (a bonus half-star for the finale episode) A Series of Unfortunate Events season 3 is now streaming on Netflix. Watch the trailer here: