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A Series of Unfortunate Events Season 3 Review

The return to form is witnessed in the third season of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The show ended on such a poignant note that it was beautiful to witness.

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“The night has a thousand eyes, and the day but one.

Yet the light of the bright world dies with the dying sun“

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This final season adapts the last four books of the series, which are for the most part an improvement over the previous batch of novels, so the show itself naturally ended up being better this time around. The first season remains the best one, but this one came quite close.

‘Slippery Slope’ is an entry that I really enjoyed reading despite its flaws. I would even say it is quite underrated among fans of the series. Here, it was treated very faithfully while also focusing heavily on the best elements that made this story wonderful. The show could have done more with the natural elements such as snow gnats as the setting didn’t quite feel fully lived-in this time around, but it does characters extremely well.

This is the first time where the Hook-Handed Man shows his good side and the highlight of these two episodes is the wonderful friendship that develops between Fernald and Sunny. Sunny is very memorable here as she was separated from the trio. Another highlight is the introduction of the highly menacing and dangerous Man with a Beard But No Hair and Woman With Hair But No Beard. They are just as evil as they were in the book. Minus points go to the whole part with Esme that felt dumb and badly written as in the novel itself.

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‘Grim Grotto’ is the least interesting story of this season. I have never been the biggest fan of the source material either. The revelation about Fernald was fantastic and it changed the whole series for the better. The moral conundrums are phenomenally realized as both him and the newly introduced Fiona are two genuinely grey-area persons whom you can’t hate, but can’t really like either. That was the highlight of this story, but the mushroom itself, though very important, wasn’t quite as well utilized here, and the setting, though terrific, was just as weakly realized as it was in the book. It’s the slightest story of the bunch.

‘Penultimate Peril’ is, well, the penultimate part of the series, and it’s one that I cherish profoundly. Although chaotic in the first episode as a lot of things happened all at once with way too many characters introduced and returned, the second episode was so impactful that it felt like a series finale unto itself. The last scene was incredibly dark as we see the whole hotel ready to burn, but don’t know who will die and who will survive. Strauss was wonderful here and that whole trial was the highlight of the story. The Denouement brothers were also memorable and well acted.

As for ‘The End’, this was actually a rare installment that genuinely felt like an improvement upon the source material. It was cut into just one episode with the entire island allegiance drama also being discarded, but it was a choice done for the better as it led to a more intimate, beautiful story about the Baudelaires, Kit Snicket and Olaf. Kit was great in Slope previously, but here her story was quite touching. Olaf’s death was genuinely heartfelt despite all odds and Harris killed it throughout this episode. Another standout is the final sequence, which operated at such a cinematic capacity while giving every supporting character their due and their closure unlike the book. It was a change that blew me away and a perfect way to close this show.

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