"The Grim Grotto: Part One" Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Queequeg

"For Beatrice-- Dead women tell no tales. Sad men write them down."

When the Baudelaires finish their stay in the Mortmain Mountains, they ride a sledge down the frozen Stricken Stream to, coincidentally, the same spot where a submarine anticipates breaking the ice out at sea. Though it would make sense that there's nowhere else to go, the Baudelaires find that they have trouble entering the sub if only because they don't know the password. They are, however, let inside when they say enough V.F.D.-related things, and with that they've arrived inside the Queequeg.

The Water Cycle, Lemony Snicket explains, involves three key phenomena: Evaporation, Precipitation, and Collection. All are equally dry, a word which, here, means boring. Snicket wishes he were studying the Water Cycle as the dryness of the topic would beget something less unsafe than studying the Baudelaires' predicament.

Answer: A manatee

The children descend into the Queequeg as the hatch seals shut above them and the sub sinks into the sea. Beckoned into a control room, they're greeted by the captain of the sub, a young Fiona Widdershins, who's heard of the Baudelaires-- at least through the incorrect news at 'The Daily Punctilio'-- and made her own assumptions as to whether or not they're dangerous. She explains that she's a fairly new captain, accounting for her age, as her step-father, the original Captain Widdershins, answered a distress call from a manatee and never came back.

The Baudelaires ask if they can be dropped off on shore to make it to the Last Safe Place for Thursday's meeting, but no-can-do; Fiona is on a mission, and it's perhaps the most important mission in V.F.D. history. She needs to find the Sugar Bowl.

The Baudelaires volunteer to help, of course, provided she drops them off when they've completed their mission.

Answer: Cookie

On the coast, Count Olaf and his shrunken troupe, now just consisting of Esme, Carmelita, and the hook-handed man, don unique disguises and rent a submarine. The encounter with the rental agent doesn't all too smoothly, but as it would happen, the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard anticipated the rental and made sure to prepay for the most terrifying submarine on-hand under Esme's name.

In the sub, Fiona explains that one of V.F.D.'s agents was trekking through the Mortmain Mountains in hopes of delivering the Sugar Bowl to Headquarters, but when it fell into the Stricken Stream, it was lost. Both sides of the schism in V.F.D. are after it, but the contents aren't all too important-- at least not to the Baudelaires.

There's not too much time to think on that, however, since the submarine's cook appears, and it turns out to be Phil, a friend of the Baudelaires from the Lucky Smells Lumbermill. Fiona refers to him as 'Cookie', but Phil doesn't seem to mind (being an optimist and all). He's just happy to be away from the unpaid work at the mill, even if he can't cook. Sunny offers her assistance in this case.

Answer: Lost

The Baudelaires outfit themselves in naval garb before heading to their specific jobs on the Queequeg but it's clear that with Fiona's mechanical mind, Violet doesn't have much to do. Klaus doesn't mind this being an issue, but Violet feels that Fiona rubs her the wrong way, especially since the Queequeg's motto, which she takes as a mantra, is 'he who hesitates is lost'. Considering the children need to find the Last Safe Place, it seems at odds.

Quigley Quagmire, who didn't hesitate in the Mortmain Mountains, made skis out of tree bark and trekked back to the city to meet with Mr. Poe in the Department of Orphan Affairs in Mulctuary Money Management so that he could reunite with the Baudelaires wherever they may be. Mr. Poe, however, doesn't feel as though he can begin to help. Someone who can help, however, is Kit Snicket, who's still in Mr. Poe's orbit and can recognize a Viciously Fraught Dilemma when she hears one.

Answer: Octopus

Olaf worries. Deep under the sea in a terrifying submarine shaped like an octopus, he complains about his hunt for the Baudelaires, but it's clear that they aren't the most important goal for this trip, especially knowing that the Sugar Bowl might be in reach. Olaf retires to the galley where the Hook-Handed Man, making a meal, struggles to keep up with the rest of the troupe having abandoned the cause on Mount Fraught. Olaf, however, is angry with his remaining henchperson considering his failure to kill Sunny Baudelaire.

Over dinner, Count Olaf impolitely asks the Hook-Handed Man to leave the room and eat in the brig. He's not family, after all.

Answer: Mycology

The Baudelaires meet with Fiona in the Queequeg's library to discover that many of her favourite books sit on the shelves in her mycology section; the study of mushrooms and fungi is the most fascinating to her. The conversation turns, however, when Violet insists on knowing the contents of the Sugar Bowl, if only to know what they're looking for. Fiona, however, angrily puts her in her place. The truth is that Fiona doesn't know its contents; her step-father never told her.

In the galley, Phil unpacks boxes of gum from the Lucky Smells Lumbermill and intends to make dinner for the crew, but on Sunny's urging he reveals they also have other items to cook with. With potatoes, flour, cream, black pepper, and cod, she opts to make chowder, a move that Phil thinks is brilliant...even if he wants to use the gum.

Using tidal maps, Klaus determines that the water would have pushed the Sugar Bowl through the Mediocre Barrier Reef to Anwhistle Aquatics, an island previously operated by the Baudelaires' late Aunt Josephine's husband, Ike. She never mentioned it when they resided with her, possibly due to the fire that burnt it down. There is a catch, however, since the Sugar Bowl is under the island in the Gorgonian Grotto. The discovery nearly leads to an argument, but the situation is defused by Phil and Sunny's dinner.

Answer: The Great Unknown

Fiona explains her hesitation towards the Gorgonian Grotto as the Queequeg heads towards it. To her knowledge, the cave is filled with Medusoid Mycelium, a mushroom that only grows there. A single spore is deadly and can kill someone within the hour. It waxes and wanes in cycles, and when it waxes it could doom their mission with lethal consequences.

The Queequeg's sonar goes off shortly after, and the people on the sub are quick to discover a terrifying sea beast swimming outside their walls. Sailors call the beast the Great Unknown and it's one of the things people can not fathom; it's always waiting in the darkness.

This darkness is certainly contagious. Fiona and the Baudelaires are both afflicted by darkness and sadness in the Queequeg while the inhabitants of the Carmelita (Esme's name idea) struggle with their own depression. But all of the sadness, at least in Olaf's case, comes to an end when he sees the Queequeg on the sonar.

Answer: Violet

Though the Baudelaires attempt to escape Olaf's submarine, he latches on with ease and invades like a common pirate, stumbling on the children in the control room and quickly dismantling the console to prevent their escape. Thrilled to be one step closer to killing them and to retrieving the Sugar Bowl, they keep the orphans (and Phil) in their clutches and find the key to their success in the marked-up tidal charts left on the table. The Sugar Bowl, as they find, is somewhere in their reach.

They don't notice Fiona in another compartment, hiding away unseen, as they force the Baudelaires to don diving suits and head out to get the missing item.

Answer: Mulctuary Money Management

The Baudelaires, dressed in heavy diving suits with little extra air, sink into the depths of the sea and make their way on foot to the Gorgonian Grotto through uncharted waters, a phrase which, here, means 'locations not found on a map' but which can also describe any place that's unknown-- including one's own future.

On the Queequeg, the Hook-Handed Man decides to search for stowaways but he's not as timely as he would hope. The hesitation gives Fiona the opportunity to send an S.O.S. that gets through to Kit Snicket and the telegraph machine at Mulctuary Money Management. The Volunteer Factual Dispatch Kit receives is enough to get the message across; she sends a quick message back indicating that help is on the way. Unfortunately, the sound of the return message gets Fiona found by the Hook-Handed Man...but he doesn't tell Olaf that she's there.

Answer: Quigley's

The Baudelaires arrive at Anwhistle Aquatics in due time and remove their diving suits to hunt for the Sugar Bowl. What they find there is concerning-- tables of odd contraptions and a Volunteer Factual Dispatch from a man named Fernald who recommends that they reconsider the work being done there since they're playing with fire. The orphans agree; something sinister is at work.

The Baudelaires search the grotto and find where the Sugar Bowl must have been, but it looks as though someone has taken it and wandered through the sand recently. It takes them to the spiral staircase in Anwhistle Aquatics where, to their surprise, Quigley Quagmire has already ascended with the Sugar Bowl in hand. Though they make the move to reunite with him, they're stopped in their tracks by the waxing of the Medusoid Mycellium which, as they know, is deadly. The Baudelaires tell Quigley they'll meet him at the Last Safe Place before they don their helmets and head back to the Queequeg empty-handed.

They make it back to the airlock in the submarine hoping that Quigley is alright (and he is) but something is wrong. As Sunny moves to take off her diving helmet, the Baudelaires discover that the deadly spores of the Medusoid Mycellium have gotten inside.