Violet finds the answer just in time. Because early the next morning, Flacutono has commanded Klaus to get on with causing an “accident.” Meaning tying Charles to a log and putting him through a buzz saw. After walking in at the nick of time with her sister, Violet struggles to figure out the words to control and later unhypnotize her brother. She first yells at Klaus to call attention to him. Once Flacutono commands Klaus with “you lucky boy,” the oldest Baudelaire realizes the catchword, and seizes upon it. What follows is a shouting match between Violet and Flacutono using “lucky” and telling Klaus to either push in or pull out the log with Charles on it. Then Dr. Orwell and Shirley show up. The evil optometrist tells Klaus not to listen to his sister, reducing Violet and Sunny pleading their brother. But then Violet remembers the last time her brother snapped back and says the word, “inordinate.” What follows is a chaotic scene with Sunny engaging in a swordfight with Dr. Orwell using her teeth, Violet being seized by Count Olaf and Flacutono, and Klaus having to use gum to move the log from the buzz saw which saves Charles’s life. Then Sir comes in and Dr. Orwell accidentally steps in the buzz saw’s path.

The song I chose for this scene is The Beatles’ “Hey Bulldog” from the Yellow Submarine album and film, which I think exemplifies the desperate circumstances and chaos surrounding the Baudelaires at this point. Yet, the original version is about how some people don’t think anyone understands them despite that there are other people around experiencing the same problems and want to talk. The second verse is about how people who aren’t understood by society are driven to extreme thoughts and actions like school shooters. In this version, I had the Baudelaires respond more to extreme actions than conduct them, unless you count Sunny engaging in a swordfight with her teeth against Dr. Orwell.

“Hey Buzz Saw”

Bald Man with Long Nose (as Foreman Flacutono):
Lucky!
Push the log again

Violet:
Lucky!
Might want to refrain
It’s not an accident if Klaus is hypnotized
What makes you think you’d orchestrate this gruesome exercise?

Bald Man with Long Nose:
Lucky!
Put log in and stat

Violet:
Lucky!
Better get it out
What kind of magic words must I have to say?
So Klaus’s trance can suddenly fade away?

You can talk to me
You can talk to me
You can talk to me, if you know me you can talk to me

Bald Man with Long Nose: Lucky! Log in!
Violet: Lucky! Log out!
Bald Man with Long Nose: Lucky! In!
Violet: Lucky! Out!
Bald Man with Long Nose: Lucky! Log In!
Violet: Lucky! Log Out!

Dr. Orwell:
Lucky! (Yeah)
Please ignore your sis

Bald Man with Long Nose:
Lucky!
Put the log back in!

Dr. Orwell:
Soon the young Baudelaires will be in Shirley’s care
They’ll all be fired while we’ll have their fortune share

Violet:
You can talk to me
You can talk to me
You can talk to me, if you’re know me you can talk to me
Hey!

Sunny (translated babble): Don’t hurt Charles!

Violet:
Please no, Klaus! Please no, Klaus!
Please no, Klaus! Please no, Klaus!

Violet: Inordinate! Inordinate!

Klaus: What? What d’you say? Jesus Christ!
Bald Man with Long Nose: Not so fast! Wooaah ha ha ha!

Count Olaf (as Shirley): You’ve got him, that’s great! That’s right! That’s it, man, hoo!

Dr. Orwell: Ouch! Not so fast, baby face! Engarde! Ah ho! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Klaus: Got to use some gum to get the log. Let’s see if this does the trick.

Dr. Orwell: Say your prayers, baby! Maybe there will be an accident after all…..Oh, shit!

Sir: What the hell’s going on here?

All:
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!

Realizing that she must find a way to get out her and her siblings’ situation, Violet takes it upon herself to save Klaus. Oh, yes, Sunny helps if she can, too, though she’s a baby. That night, she reads up on Dr. Orwell’s book on Advanced Ocular Science. Sure enough it contains information on hypnotism. Yet, the book contains a lot of long hard words and she struggles to work out exactly what the chapter means. And she can’t really use a dictionary because the Lucky Smells library doesn’t have one. But she eventually establishes that there’s a word to induce hypnotism and a second word to get that person out of a hypnotized state. Though finding the answer keeps her up all night. And she feels quite lonely and wishes Sunny could talk to her since she’s not quite old enough to carry a proper conversation.

The song I chose is “One More Night” which is a deep cut from Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline album. The original song is about a guy trying to get over a woman who dumped him and how he’s trying to get over it night after night. In this version, I have Violet trying to get through the night finding the answer to unhypnotize her brother.

“One Long Night”

Sung by Violet Baudelaire

One more night, the stars are in sight
But tonight I’m as lonesome as can be
Oh, the moon is shinin’ bright
Lighting ev’rything in sight
But tonight no light will shine on me.

Oh, it’s shameful and it’s sad
My brother’s in a trance
He just doesn’t seem like the boy he used to be
I will turn my head up high
To that dark and rolling sky
For tonight no light will shine on me.

Finding a hypnosis cure’s a pain to read in this big book
And you can’t talk much to a baby under two

One long night, I will wait for the light
While the wind blows high above the trees
Oh, I miss my brother so
I can’t close my eyes and doze
So tonight no light will shine on me.

One long night, the moon is shinin’ bright
And the wind blows high above the trees
Oh, I miss my brother so
I can’t close my eyes and doze
So tonight no light will shine on me.

During The Miserable Mill, Violet bears the emotional burden on what’s going on with Klaus. As the oldest Baudelaire child, she feels responsible for looking after her younger brother and sister as her parents told her. Sure her parents probably meant along the lines of making sure Klaus didn’t stick his fingers in an electrical outlet or Sunny didn’t eat rat poison. Now that their parents are dead, Violet takes the blame when something goes wrong, like Count Olaf trying to hurt them or steal their money. In this book, she feels that Klaus’s strange behavior is somehow her fault. Thus, she has to figure it out and make everything better. Now that she knows that Dr. Orwell is hypnotizing him, she’s still at a loss to find out how to get him to snap out of it.

The song I chose to view Violet’s state of mind through her emotional rollercoaster is “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from The Phantom of the Opera. In the original version, Christine is mourning for her late father at his grave. Here Violet isn’t just trying to talk to her dead parents, she’s also at a loss for what to do about Klaus. Because she doesn’t know how to fix him.

“Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” (ASOUE Version)

Sung by Violet Baudelaire

You were once my two companions
You were all that mattered
You were once my mum and father
Then my world was shattered

Wishing you were somehow here again
Wishing you were somehow near
Sometimes it seemed,
If I just dreamed
Somehow you would be here

Wishing I could hear your voice again
Knowing that I never would
Dreaming of you won’t help me to do
All that you dreamed I could

I swore I’d look after our Klaus
But this time I didn’t
He wanted to leave this sawmill
And I made him stay here

He’s acting strange
It’s all my fault
Nobody else can fix him

Wishing you were somehow here again
Wishing we could say goodbye
Try to forgive, teach me to live
Give me the strength to try
I can invent, fix anything
So how can I fix my brother?
I don’t know what to do
Not sure I can fix him

Seeing that her brother’s been hypnotized by the sinister Dr. Orwell, Violet decides to put Klaus in the dormitory and see Sir for help. Mostly because he’s the Baudelaires’ current guardian and she doesn’t have anyone else to go to. However, Sir has issued the kids a memo about the accident, which he blames them for and thinks it’s a sign that they’re “bad workers” and that these aren’t tolerated at the lumbermill. Also, he threatens to send the kids away to a receptionist in town who’s named Shirley. Nonetheless, you have to wonder about Sir here. Because he runs a lumber mill, a dangerous place where accidents usually happen like all the time, especially if the workers aren’t wearing protective gear like safety goggles for instance. Secondly, he sees absolutely no problem with putting children to work in such a dangerous place where they shouldn’t be or operating heavy machinery kids shouldn’t get their hands on. All of a sudden, Sir is concerned about the Baudelaires causing a workplace accident? It should be plain to see that Sir’s just using the accident to get the children off his back. But Violet decides to see Sir anyway because she’s worried about what instructions Klaus might receive while under hypnotic influence and that Shirley is Count Olaf. But Sir doesn’t believe any of that. Charles also proves quite useless as well since Sir is a complete asshole.

The song I picked for this meeting was Steely Dan’s “Pretzel Logic.” The original version is a bluesy song about time travel with references to Napoleon and minstrel shows, according to Donald Fagen. But one writer thinks it’s about Steely Dan’s quest for stardom and that whatever they’ve done in the past doesn’t matter anymore since it’s gone. The first verse is said to reflect their distaste for touring, particularly in the American South. In this version, I have Violet pleading to Sir and Charles who don’t amount to anything.

“Lucky Smells Logic”

Violet:
Well, I came into your office
Because I don’t know where to go
Cause you’re supposed to be our guardian
And my brother’s hypnotized

Orwell’s got him in a trance, got Phil’s leg smashed
Sounds like a broken record on a phonograph
You might send us to Shirley
Who’s really Count Olaf, oh yeah

Sir:
You really suck as workers
And you caused the accident
If you ever cause another
Then I’m gonna have you sacked

Besides, there’s just no way Shirley’s a man
She’s only got one eyebrow, but plenty have
She’s not at all Count Olaf
Now get out of my face, oh yeah

She has her name right on a plate
No, I didn’t even see her legs
Because I’m being a gentleman
No, you can’t all Mr. Poe
Now why can’t you girls just go

Charles:
Well, please don’t mind my partner, he’s not that bad
I can’t solve all your problems, but here’s some snacks
You should be seen as family
But, what can you do, oh yeah

While Dr. Orwell’s practically hypnotizing Klaus at the moment, the Baudelaire girls are stuck in the waiting room with her receptionist, Shirley who’s Count Olaf in a skirt. He may seem like a polite receptionist who made cookies. But once he’s alone with the sisters, he’s more than willing to tell them what he’s up to and that he’s working with Dr. Orwell to get to the Baudelaires. He also offers them a cookie and tells them that he wished in his life was to raise 3 children. Violet and Sunny aren’t having. Though to be fair, Sir could just as easily hand over the kids to Shirley since he doesn’t care much for them. Else he wouldn’t have them work in a dangerous lumbermill for coupons.

The song I used for Count Olaf as Shirley is “Just You Wait” from My Fair Lady. In the original version, Eliza Doolittle fantasizes about getting revenge on Dr. Henry Higgins for putting her through his abuse, which is kind of hilarious. But in this version, I have Count Olaf discussing his plans with the Baudelaire girls and the song taking a far more sinister tone.

“Just You Wait, Little Orphans”

Sung by Count Olaf (as Shirley)

Just you wait, little orphans, just you wait
You’ll be sorry but your tears ‘ll be too late
You’ll be dead and I’ll have money
Will I help you? Don’t be funny
Just you wait, little orphans, just you wait

Just you wait, little orphans, till you’re sick
And I’m sure a poisoned cocktail will do the trick
I’ll be off a second later and go straight to the the-ate-r
Oh ho ho, little orphans, just you wait

Ooo little orphans,
Just you wait till your brother has an accident
Ooo little orphans,
Thanks to Paltryville’s resident hypnotist

When someone’s sliced up in half
I’ll just giggle when you’re sacked
Oh ho ho, little orphans, oh ho ho, little orphans, just you wait

One day I’ll be famous, and real stinking rich
While the Baudelaire children will be deep in a ditch
I’ll douse their bodies with acid so they’ll never be found
Before I bury their remains in the ground

Then after I get them out of my path
I’ll spend their fortune fast
I will hold lavish parties with hookers and blow
I will have a fancy car with a fresh painted coat
I will make sure my critics are soon put to death
But I’d like Lemony Snicket’s head

But for now I’ll need to shave my legs
And sit all day at Georgina’s desk
But soon her hypnotism on bookworm will pay off
And he will manage to piss the mill owner off

As he raises his hand higher, he’ll shout
“Children, you’re fired”
Oh ho ho, little orphans, down you’ll go
Little orphans, just you wait

However, unfortunately for Klaus, Dr. Orwell is a uniquely sinister character. In fact, she’s a greedy psychopath who’s willing to manipulate others through hypnosis and exploit their lack of free will. And she’ll hypnotize people to get what she wants, including Klaus. Though it’s unclear how often she employs her hypnosis on eye patients. For in the books, she only hypnotizes Klaus. In the TV series, she hypnotizes the whole lumbermill workforce in conspiring with Sir because there’s just no way anyone would agree to work for coupons. In The Miserable Mill, she conspires with Count Olaf for a share of the Baudelaire fortune before the kids arrived. Oh, and Count Olaf is posing as her receptionist Shirley but I’d rather not taste her cookies. Still, Dr. Orwell is quite one of the scariest and vilest villains in the series. After all, she knows that one catches more flies with honey than with vinegar. But Dr. Orwell is the honey, the Baudelaires are the flies, and Count Olaf is the vinegar.

I decided to go with “Music of the Night” from The Phantom of the Opera which I used before to parody Peeta’s hijacking from my Hunger Games musical. Though hypnotism isn’t as bad as what Peeta received, it’s quite scary. The original version is supposed to have the Phantom putting Christine into a trance once he’s lured her to his lair. He sings of his unspoken love for her and urges her to forget the world and the life she had before. Nonetheless, the lyrics are just as creepy because the Phantom is a selfish control freak who wants Christine all to himself. Explaining why this is a great song when a character put under mind control. In this version, I have Dr. Orwell hypnotizing Klaus.

“Torture of the Night” (ASOUE Version)

Sung by Dr. Georgina Orwell

Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation
Darkness wakes and stirs imagination
Silently the senses abandon their defenses
Helpless to resist what’s in your sight
For I subject you to the torture of the night

Slowly, gently, pain unfurls its splendor
Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender
Hearing is believing, hypnosis is deceiving
Hard as lightning, soft as candlelight.
As you’re thrust into the torture of the night.

Close your eyes –
For your eyes will only tell the truth
And the truth will just only make you flee
In the dark it is easy to deceive
That your free will would surely cease.

Softly, deftly trances shall caress you
Hear it, feel it secretly possess you
Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind
In this darkness that you know you cannot fight
The darkness of the torture of the night

Close your eyes –
Start a journey through a strange new world
Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before
Close your eyes –
And let my methods set you free.
So your mind will belong to me.

Floating, falling, sweet intoxication
Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation
Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in
To the power of hypnosis I ignite
The power of the torture of the night!

You alone can make my aims take flight
As I control you with the torture of the night.

Fortunately, after Klaus smashes Phil’s leg on the stamper, he shortly snaps back into himself once someone asks what “inordinate” means. Though he should be lucky that Phil has no hard feelings against him since he’s relieved he still has one good leg left or half-priced pedicures for life. Not to mention, Violet and Sunny are inordinately overjoyed that they have their brother back though he may have no idea what’s going on. However, Flacutono blames Klaus for the accident and trips him again, breaking his glasses. Despite Violet’s offer to fix the stamper machine, Flacutono refuses and said that her brother should see Dr. Orwell. Given her suspicions based on what happened to him the first time, Violet and Sunny decide to go with him just to see what happens. On their way, Klaus suspects that Dr. Orwell hypnotized him based on what he read on hypnotism. Yet, despite her office being shaped like an eye, her office doesn’t seem too scary indoors. Dr. Orwell seems rather pleasant as well for she invites them all in, assures them it won’t take long to fix Klaus’s glasses, tells the Baudelaire sisters to help themselves to her receptionist’s cookies, and assures them she won’t hypnotize him. Though given who her receptionist is, the girls should remain skeptical.

The first song I picked for Dr. Orwell is “A Spoonful of Sugar” from Mary Poppins mostly because I wanted her to seem as unthreatening as possible by this point. And what can make her seem more pleasant than giving her a Mary Poppins song? I mean Mary Poppins is supposed to be an umbrella flying nanny who’s practically perfect in every way. Though the original version is about doing chores. But I think the metaphor sticks to Dr. Orwell’s approach as far as she says since he’s all about attracting more flies with honey. Yet, she’s basically the farthest thing from Mary Poppins.

“A Spoonful of Sugar” (ASOUE Version)

Sung by Dr. Georgina Orwell

If you want to attract the flies
Using honey will be nice
But use vinegar to do the same
They all escape

And ev’ry task you undertake
Becomes a piece of cake
A lark! A spree! It’s very clear to see that

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-wown
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way

Do come in and have a seat
Come enjoy these tasty treats
These cookies made by my receptionist
Yes, I’ll fix your brother’s frames
So they’ll be right as rain
It won’t take long to move the job along for

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-wown
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way

You must have quite a playful mind
To ask whether I will hypnotize
Your dear brother for a second time
Well, you must be full of crap
To think I’d do a thing like that
I won’t, so please
It’s stuff you only see
In certain scary movies

Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h ah!

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-wown
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way