A Series of Unfortunate Events‘ biggest mystery is also its least expected. Let’s investigate the question of the Baudelaire parents. Warning: Spoilers.
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”
Albert Einstein said that. I know this because Violet and Klaus Baudelaire quote these wise words in the first episode of Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.
And these are words Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events takes very seriously.
There are literally dozens of mysteries teeming from the pores of the new adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s confounding book series, no surprise for fans of the books. But the most profound (and surprising, and frustrating) of these mysteries should be a jolt to everyone from the freshest newcomer to the most battle-hardened veteran of the unfortunate.
Seriously, spoilers ahead! Do not read until you finish all eight episodes.
What we think is happening: The ‘Unfortunate Events’ parents are alive?
That mystery, of course, is the saga of Mother and Father (played by Cobie Smulders and Will Arnett) thatruns parallel to the Baudelaire children’s misadventures. First introduced handcuffed and kidnapped at the end of premiere episode, this resourceful, intelligent couple are easily assumed to be the Baudelaire’s presumed-perished parents.
A Series of Unfortunate Events wants us to think this; the show wants us to hope. Mother quotes Albert Einstein and builds grappling hooks like Violet. Father uncovers VFD symbology and the network of organizational tunnels that seems to span the globe.
During their escapades, Mother and Father resolve to tell the children “everything. What we do. Why we do it.” The very questions, in fact, that are currently haunting the Baudelaires.
But when Mother and Father do make it back to their children, waiting for them behind a Very Fancy Door, it is not Violet, Klaus, and Sunny with whom they reunite.
What is actually happening: These aren’t the ‘Unfortunate Events’ parents we expected
In a deft and devastating feint, Mother and Father are not to be Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire. They are Mr. and Mrs. Quagmire, parents of the triplets Quigley, Duncan, and Isadora. The same three children who woke in a beautiful house to be served blueberry pancakes by an indulgent butler, presumably followed by a very good day.
Of course, that joy was not to last. (Hi, this is A Series of Unfortunate Events.) On the very night that Mr. and Mrs. Quagmire return and promise to reveal their secrets, the Quagmire mansion is mysteriously burned to the ground by an arsonist with a laser pointer.
You might call it a Very Fatal Destruction.
Mother, Father, and one of the triplets perish in the fire. The only survivors are Isadora and Duncan, whom the Baudelaires will meet and befriend at Prufrock Prep. (See book five, The Austere Academy… and hopefully season two.)
A Series of Unfortunate Events‘ decision to feint with the Quagmire’s backstory is both slyly brilliant and utterly maddening. The hope that the Baudelaires did not even know to look for is dashed. The answers hinted and promised by Mother and Father are destroyed as though they had never been.
In exchange for sapping our emotional and intellectual security, however, A Series of Unfortunate Events offers us a deeper look at its own world. The ongoing, dangerous work of that mysterious secret organization remains concealed but heavily present. The network of tunnels, the similarities between the Baudelaire and Quagmire families, and their links to Count Olaf are closer to the surface than ever.
So what do we know? An ‘Unfortunate Events’ parents guide
In spite of six episodes of sleight-of-story, we do have some information about the Baudelaire parents.
As per the library in Lucky Smells Lumbermill, we know that Father’s name was Betrand. He spent time in Egypt with Josephine, and in a piano with Monty. Mrs. Baudelaire, name unknown, was an excellent whistler — even with crackers in her mouth. Like Mrs. Quagmire, she is known to have been quite a badass fighter with a penchant for wrestling enemies to the ground.
Both parents were involved in Paltryville’s heyday, and the recovery from terrible fire. The Baudelaire parents knew Count Olaf and Georgina Orwell, took a stand against Orwell’s unethical medical practices… and forbade her from seeing their children.
What is the VFD in ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’?
And perhaps most importantly, both the Baudelaire parents and the Quagmires were in possession of one half of a very curious spyglass, beginning to explain what is the VFD in A Series of Unfortunate Events. A clear indication of membership in VFD, the divided spyglass also begs an older connection between the two families — perhaps dating back to the time of Aunt Josephine’s photograph.
Speaking of that photograph, Unfortunate Events also cannily tells us what the Baudelaire parents looked like.
‘Unfortunate Events’ parents alive in a photo
The answers to VFD, the Baudelaire mystery, and Lemony Snicket’s life’s work are not fulfilled in A Series of Unfortunate Events — not the books, and not (yet) on Neflix. But as it confounds us with questions, the series suggests that answers are not always to be found in books or old friends.
“We don’t know what they wanted. Not anymore,” Klaus says of the Baudelaire parents at the end of the series. “We don’t know why they were in Paltryville, we don’t know why there are so many things they never told us. But we do know how we remembered them.”
“The parents I remember would have wanted us to help.”
And at least until A Series of Unfortunate Events season 2 arrives to shred us to pieces again, perhaps we can all take comfort in that.
A Series of Unfortunate Events is now streaming on Netflix.