From the moment Count Olaf pins his own murder on the Baudelaires, the kids call on Hector to defend them. Since he was the only adult who was with them that night, making him their only hope for an alibi. First, Hector is nervous around the townspeople, particularly the Council of Elders. So he can’t say anything in their defense. Secondly, he and the Baudelaires were doing quite a lot of illegal things the previous night like repairing his hot air mobile home and looking up info in his secret library. Since the townspeople don’t know about Hector’s secret library and workshop, such testimony is unlikely to convince the townspeople, especially if it comes from Violet and Klaus’s mouths. The village of V.F.D. disowns them while the Council of Elders schedules to burn them at the stake the following day. Because the townspeople are crazy and don’t believe in a concept known as due process or innocent until proven guilty.

For Baudelaires’ pleading to Hector, I went with “Tell Her About It” by Billy Joel. Of course, in this version, Joel is telling any guy listening to him to tell the girl they care about how they feel. It even has its own 1980s musical video depicting Joel with his band on the 1963 Ed Sullivan show as B.J. and the Affordables. In this version, the Baudelaires are pleading to Hector to vouch for them because their lives depend on his testimony. Too bad Hector is too nervous to come through. To be fair, I think I’m having a little too much fun with this considering the song parody selection.

 

“Tell Them About It”

Sung by Violet and Klaus Baudelaire

Violet:
Please Hector
We don’t want to have our young lives
Burn away
We all have solid alibis
You can vouch for so we’re not burned at
The stake
We’re all real nice kids
And we’d never hurt a fly
But they won’t believe us as they see us full of lies

Klaus:
Please Hector
I’m sure that you sure can get it all
Under control
I know the Elders may scare you now
But you got to grow some balls
You’re a good man now
Please never let us go
But you got to tell the Elders what
They ought to know

Both:
Tell them about it
Tell them where we were last night
Give them every reason to accept
Our alibis

Tell them about it
Tell them we were with you
Don’t need to give details
Let them know we’ve told the truth

Klaus:
Please Hector
It’s not automatically a certain guarantee
To save our lives
You’ve got to provide communication for once please
Cause when we do that
The adults always ignore
And there’s only one good way
To reassure

Both:
Tell them about it
Let them know we weren’t near
Tell them what we were doing
Don’t be held back by your fears

Tell them about it
So we all can go free
Please try to convince them
Give them something to believe

Violet:
Cause pretty soon
They’ll get to kindling
Just because you didn’t speak up
For us now
Though you may not have done anything
Will that be a consolation when we’re gone

Klaus:
Please Hector
It’s good information from a boy
Who’s made mistakes
Just a word or two that they get from you
Could be the difference that it makes

They just trust adults
They’ll put their trust in you
But if you don’t tell them now we won’t
Know what to do

Both:
Tell them about it
Tell them where we were last night
Give them every reason to accept
Our alibis

Tell them about it
Tell them we were with you
Don’t need to give details
Let them know we’ve told the truth

Tell them about it
Tell them we were with you
Tell them about it
The Elders won’t wait too long
You got to tell them about it
Tell them now and you won’t go wrong
You got to tell them about it
Before it gets too late
You got to tell them about it
You know they’ll burn us at
The stake, you got to
Tell them about it