Two Librarians, a Guardian, and a Cleaning Lady wake up in a cave, dripping wet... the start of a joke, or the middle of an adventure? A magical assassin has been hired to take out Eve, but before she can escape it, she needs to remember how she got in this situation to begin with...
Tropes:
- Book Ends: The adventure begins and ends at a pizza place in Nevada.
- Chekhov's Gun: The "useless" compact mirror that Eve found outside her door turns out to save her life. Moreover, it was given to her by the library specifically to be this.
- How We Got Here: The episode opens with Eve, Ezekiel, Jake, and a school cleaning lady in a cave, soaked, before Eve starts remembering how they got there. The episode then alternates between flashbacks and the present.
- Immortal Assassin: The Reaper
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Nina gives herself away as The Oracle of Delphi by using the term "Prophecy Glass", something that no one had said in her presence.
- Noodle Incident: The Librarians had just recently explored an underground pyramid hidden under the Luxor Las Vegas pyramid when the Reaper first appeared.
- The Reveal: The person that hired The Reaper to kill Eve is The Oracle of Delphi aka Nina the cleaning lady, so that she can avert her own demise.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: As mentioned in the title. Some of the prophecies in the episode probably would have come true whether or not they had been seen, but others definitely fall into this category. For example, Eve and Ezekiel and Jake see a prophecy that they'll attack each other in a room full of weapons. When they meet up in the room full of weapons, their suspicions triggered by the prophecy make them attack each other.
- Stable Time Loop: How the Prophecy Glass and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies actually work; visions of the future are guaranteed to come true unless another Prophecy Glass vision conflicts with it, or unless an outside party interferes. For example, a vision of Ezekiel donating a coin to a museum guarantees that the coin won't be lost or damaged before then.
- Who Watches the Watchmen?: It's asked in-episode that, if Eve is the Guardian to Librarians, then who can guard Eve? The answer: the Library.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Played with. People who are the subject of a prophecy can avert it, but only if they create a bigger prophecy that negates the first, which obviously only certain people (like the Oracle) can do. However, someone who isn't the subject of a prophecy can intervene to change it, which is how Jenkins saves Eve. Also, even if you aren't able to change fate, you can use it to your advantage: Ezekiel beats the tile challenge by realizing that his last coin can't be destroyed, since he's going to donate it to a museum in the future, so any tile he throws it onto has to be safe.
