The Spiderwick Chronicles (2024) – Episode 5 Recap & Review

A Midsummer’s Daydream

Episode 5 of The Spiderwick Chronicles begins with the news about the sleeping sickness plaguing the town of Henson. Jared believes that Simon has been missing which is validated when Dr. Brauer visit the Spiderwick house to tell Helen about Calliope being missing too.

Meanwhile, Simon and Calliope are on their way to visit Simon’s father, Richard, in New York. Before they board the bus however, Calliope changes into the bus driver. Meanwhile, there’s a storm brewing and Helen finally finds that Simon is on his way to meet Richard. And as a way to punish Jared for his behaviour with Simon, Dr. Brauer suggests Helen to confiscate Jared’s phone and he also gets hold of the Field guide pages. It’s revealed that while Calliope and Simon made the decision on their own, Dr. Brauer wants to exploit the situation to find the page about the dragons hidden in the house.

In the bus, Simon finds that magical creatures cannot lie and that Calliope is a fetch. Whoever she changes into for a brief second is bound to die. All the creatures abhor her. In the meantime, Mallory confronts Bree and Valentina about their secrets and Valentina’s involvement with Lucinda. Valentina suggests to make Malory forget in return to grant all her wishes. Back at the house, Helen prepares to leave but Dr. Brauer makes her stay, since he can threaten Jared with her presence.  Jared finally meets Thimbletack who tells him about the dragons’ significance in Dr. Brauer’s plan feed on the people.

At New York, Simon discovers that his father lied to him about being in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Calliope suggests to find a fae who can help track his father. Meanwhile, Jared finds a door with the nazar with Thimbletack’s help but something’s wrong because it doesn’t work. He has a heart to heart with his mother but sees Thimbletack about to kill her and pushes her away. THimbletack considers Helen a foe for colliding with Mulgarath.

Meanwhile, Mallory denies to forget her memories and Valentina offers to spar with her and if Mallory wins, she will tell her the truth. However, she isn’t able to win against Valentina, and falls. At the same time, Calliope and Jared visit a shady Chinese restaurant owner. But its revealed that instead of finding Simon’s father, she wanted to ask him to help her escape Mulgarath.

The owner has other plans though, which include fae and human meat. Simon escape and locks himself in the bathroom. Meanwhile, Valentina takes Mallory into the bathroom and asks her to breathe some medicinal herbs. Miraculously, she sees Simon on the other side and gives him tips about escape. Simon successfully escapes with Calliope. He briefly sees Calliope change into Jared and is informed that Jared is going to die. However, he leaves her in anger to find his father.

Back at the house, Helen tells Dr. Brauer and Jared about a secret room in the house. She tells them that the key has to be turned until the dragon wings change shape but before they can do it, she receives a call from Richard. While Richard is talking about how soft Simon is, Simon overhears their conversation. Richard finally tells him the truth that he isn’t cut out to be a father.  Simon leaves him

Mallory, being worried about Simon, passionately pitches to Valentina about helping her and Valentina recognising her pure emotions, finally agree. She removes her gloves to show her not a hand. But smoke. She also tells her that Simon is safe.

Meanwhile, at the bus, Simon rescues the bus driver and he believes that he can save Jared too. Meanwhile, Jared makes another attempt at the dragon door and is successful in finding the dragon page. Dr. Brauer and Helen have come close and they kiss. Jared sees this and Thimbletack warns him that “the people you love will leave you”.

The Episode Review

In episode 5 of The Spiderwick Chronicles, this episode was barely magical and laboriously uninteresting, with most of it having the characters just talk, again. We find that Calliope is a fetch. Simon and Calliope are able to form a friendship bond owning to Simon’s nature since he accepts her however, she is. Although, that is commendable for the target audience of the show but plot and character-wise, he’s a little too nice to the point of being frustrating. Being unconditionally nice, makes his character quite predictable. Even while having argument, his emotions aren’t well realised.

The scene that I found utterly cringy is Mulgarath and Helen’s relationship. The show’s adapted Mulgarath is nowhere near the dark, evil and horrifying one of the books. And making Mulgarath’s character seem like a comic villain repetitively mentioning his “hunger” makes the entire character of the books collapse.