Violet and Klaus must find a way to save Sunny after being left for dead on the winding slopes of a mountain, but help arrives from an unlikely source. Olaf discovers he is not alone on the mountain either, as his old VFD mentors have plans of their own...
Tropes:
- Call-Back:
- The Man With a Beard but No Hair and the Woman with Hair but No Beard use trained attack eagles, like the kind that have been mentioned to attack Lemony and Jacques before.
- The Mrs. Bass subplot concludes with her finally raiding Mulctuary Money Management, and getting arrested after several days holding Mr. Poe hostage.
- Kit uses a dragonfly outfit to fly, much like Beatrice did.
- Cliffhanger Copout: Following on from the previous episode's cliffhanger, just as the caravan gets to the edge, it hits a rock and swerves back onto the road, allowing it to continue rolling long enough for Klaus and Violet to find a way of saving themselves.
- The Dreaded: The Man with a Beard but No Hair and The Woman with Hair but No Beard, Olaf's mentors. Lemony states they are called that because people are afraid to even mention their names, and even Olaf is clearly upset to meet them.
- Feathered Fiend: The Man with a Beard but No Hair and The Woman with Hair but No Beard use 3 trained eagles as their mooks.
- Freudian Slip: Olaf addresses TMWBBNH and TWWHBNB as "mom and dad" despite their not being his parents.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Just as the freaks are reconsidering their choices in life, the Man with a Beard but No Hair and the Woman with Hair but No Beard murder them for no reason.
- Hope Spot: Two of them.
- V.F.D. headquarters has been burnt down by The Man with a Beard but No Hair and the Woman with Hair but No Beard.
- Neither Baudelaire parent survived the fire. Jacques meant there was a survivor from the Quagmire fire.
- Hypocrite: The Snow Scout pledge includes several positive traits, none of which could ever be used to describe Carmelita.
- It's Probably Nothing: On hearing the circus freaks screaming as they die, Olaf just dismisses it as weasels.
- Killed Offscreen: The circus freaks are murdered off screen by Olaf's mentors.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Carmelita reappears and addresses Klaus and Violet as cakesniffers, it cuts to Olaf describing catchphrases to his troupe.
- Lima Syndrome: The Hook-Handed Man develops this towards Sunny while Olaf holds her prisoner. He looks visibly upset whenever Esmé abuses her, makes her a set of warm clothes and helps with the chores Olaf and Esmé force her to do. Lemony's narration refers to it as "Mount Fraught Syndrome" based on their current location and presents it as an inverse of Stockholm Syndrome.
- Meaningful Echo: The freaks, mocking Kit Snicket, borrow the troupe's chant of "not like us!", only to stop after a few seconds.
- Never My Fault: When his mentors berate him for his lack of succes, Olaf is very quick to blame his troupe. He states that he would have burned down the VFD headquarters by now if his troupe had not insisted on having breakfast first.
- No Sympathy: The troupe are nasty and bullying toward the freaks, who just want to be treated with dignity, even though they've all been treated the same way by Olaf.
- Pregnant Badass: Kit Snicket is officially revealed to be pregnant in this episode, but she is no less badass because of it.
- Recognition Failure:
- The freaks don't recognise Kit, even though she addresses them by their names, and says the very thing she used to say while being Madame Lulu. They just assume she's some random weirdo.
- It takes Carmelita some time to recognize Klaus and Violet beyond their being cakesniffers.
- The Reveal: The episode ends with the masked boy who assisted Violet and Klaus revealing himself to be Quigley Quagmire, the last of the Quagmire triplets who was believed to have perished in the fire at their house.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Klaus' tone when he realises the person coming towards him and Violet is Carmelita.
