Review of "The Miserable Mill" (Netflix)

SPOILERS

“The Miserable Mill” is the episode most removed from the source material when it came to small details, and strangely, I’m okay with that. It’s clear by this point that the story the show is telling has a different agenda than the story the books are telling. Like I’ve said before, the show introduces the VFD from the start, unlike the books which it takes until about halfway through to introduce it. One way the show made a change to satisfy this story is by having the children find the picture of the mill and going there themselves, instead of the book situation where Sir is another one of their guardians who just puts them to work.

The rest of this episode follows the basic structure of the story: the kids work in the mill, Klaus is hypnotized, they are almost caught by Count Olaf in disguise. They meet Phil and Charles (who, pardon my Tumblr-talk, are just precious cinnamon rolls) and find the library. I’m not sure which library I like better, the one in the book with only three books that are written in uncommon language (with no dictionary in sight) or the one in the show that is just filled with the same book (and a Verified Functional Dictionary). Of course the book in the show has a little hint about their parents, and all the workers know who they are.

One thing that did come to an end in this storyline was any hope we had that Cobie Smulders and Will Arnett were Beatrice and Bertrand. I held out the tiniest hope that they were for the first few episodes, but by this point I was waiting for the penny to drop and drop it did. They’re the Quagmires! It took me a little while to figure out why the names of the kids seemed really familiar. Then I remembered. I can’t wait to keep reading the books.  

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not applaud Neil Patrick Harris on his performance at some point. His Count Olaf is arguably different than Jim Carrey’s, but I think NPH feels more like the Olaf from the books, a poor actor who is definitely, definitely dangerous and capable of terrible things. And it takes talent to keep that in mind while wearing a very loose disguise and playing different characters and let it slip through occasionally when the kids need to see it and hide it when the adults are around.

I, for one, cannot wait until the next season. They say it’s already in the works and will cover books 5-9. I was very impressed and hopefully the next season holds up to the standard this one already set.

VFD noticed:

VFD on Dr. Orwell’s board

Verified Functional Dictionary

Very Fancy Door

Vigorous Fire Defense

Click here for my full series review!