Count Olaf (2017)/Synopsis

The story of Count Olaf from the 2017 Netflix adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Backstory
Olaf was born, as the rebellious son of a highly respected and noble army corporal and chief of the City's fire-fighter departement. He attended Prufrock Preparatory School were he met and befriended a young man named Lemony Snicket (which they both joined the school's drama club), as well as his sister Kit who he fell in love with as well as another young woman named Beatrice (whom Lemony fell for). While being the son of a good man and having several good people as his friends from an early age Olaf displayed fairly disturbing behaviours.

After graduating from school Olaf joined VFD and began his career as both an actor and acting coach eventually to the point of taking a young woman named Esmé under his wing as a student.

One night in the midst of attending an opera performance with Lemony, Kit, Beatrice and Esmé, along with his father in the growd. However, as Beatrice was arguing with Esme to give her sugar bowl to her to put the sugar hybrid that give immunition against the deadly fungus Medusa Mycelium to the consumer, saying that certain volunteering traitors within VFD who don’t want to put out fires at all, believing that start fires can solve any problems in the world, could use Gregor's research and perhaps, recruit other volunteers to their side. Esmé still refused however, declaring that her sugar bowl completed her tea set. Much to Beatrice and Lemony's frustration, they both decided, without hesitation, to distract Esmé, steal her sugar bowl and run away. When Esmé was about to get some more sugar for her tea, she realized what had happened and chased after them. As they leave, Esmé surprised Lemony and Beatrice with a poisoned dart, and they engaged in a duel. Hearing what's happening, Olaf and Kit encountered Esmé, Lemony and Beatrice about throw darts at each other. Then Beatrice accidentally landed one directly into the neck of Olaf's father, who came tried to intervened after hearing the noise, killing him, leaving Olaf horrified at the site.

This sent Olaf of the rails as he swore vengeance and set on a path of villainy, blowing off all of his old friends and even his engagement with Kit and joining the Man with a Beard But No Hair and the Woman with Hair But No Beard who became his mentors.

The Bad Beginning
Unlike the book or movie, the second episode explains how he ended up as the Baudelaires' guardian. Shortly after the Baudelaire fire, he improvised a disguise calling himself Yessica Haircut, a consultant who arranged a meeting with Mr. Poe who unsurprisingly falls for his disguise. Haircut convinces Poe that the Baudelaires should be entrusted to their parents' closest living relative, in distance, who is of course, Count Olaf. Just like in the books and movie he first appears when Mr. Poe drops the Baudelaires off at his manor and once they arrive he greets them and explains who he is with a rather charming and elegant gratitude. As soon as Mr. Poe leaves Olaf immediately gets on with mistreating the kids and eventually forces them to do all of his chores awaiting to enjoy their enormous fortune. After a while he invites his troupe around and forces the kids to prepare them dinner and the children do so, making a pasta dish. Once the orphans present the meal to them Olaf asks them where the roast beef is and begins a rather demanding attitude, he later struck Klaus across the face for annoying him by explaining how they won't have the fortune until Violet gets to the correct age. The next morning he pretends to make amends with the Baudelaires. He learns that Klaus was correct however if he were to marry Violet then the fortune would be his. He decides to get the kids to be in his play "The Marvellous Marriage" however they find out about it being a scam so the children visit Justice Strauss, Olaf's neighbor. Soon Olaf arrives and takes advantage of his lonely neighbor and convinces her to become part of the cast in the play for her to only make the marriage official. He blackmails Violet into becoming the bride in the play by threatening to drop Sunny from a cage dangling from the roof outside. The night of the play arrives and everyone remains oblivious to his true intentions and being bored at the play constantly dragging on until the end when the marriage finally takes place. Olaf then reveals everything much to the shock of everyone attending however Violet reveals she signed the certificate with her left hand making the marriage false. After Mr. Poe demands Olaf be arrested he switches off the power and slips away from the play out of his secret exit. He is later seen murdering Gustav Sebald, Montgomery's assistant.

The Reptile Room
He appears in these two episodes in his second disguise, Dr. Stephano and arrives at the house of the new guardian of the children Dr. Montgomery and is seen posing as his new assistant despite everyone even Monty himself knowing that he was false. That night Monty takes the children and Stephano to the cinema, and looks through his spyglass to decipher a code hidden in the movie's subtitles. After a failed attempt to kidnap and kill Monty he discovers that Monty only thought he was a spy and not actually Olaf. Taking advantage of this Olaf pretends to leave in defeat only to return late that evening to murder Monty. In the next episode he is seen fooling Mr. Poe into thinking he's not Olaf, a nurse who was really The Henchperson Of Indeterminate Gender arrived to examine his body and concluded it was a bite from the Incredibly Deadly Viper. The kids however know this isn't true since it was named by Monty ironically. Violet later deciphers that Olaf stole a venom sample and made a hand crafted gun to make it seem like the murder was in fact a snake bite and shows this to Mr. Poe. After learning everything (even that the viper wasn't dangerous) Mr. Poe demands to see Olaf's ankle again and uses his hanky to wipe away the make up covering his iconic tattoo of the VFD symbol on his ankle. Olaf once again flees however and Mr. Poe takes the children to their next nearest guardian, Josephine.

The Wide Window
Olaf appeared once again nearby where the Baudelaires were dropped off to their newest guardian. After a brief battle with a VFD member Olaf found out that their new guardian was Josephine when the man he was fighting accidentally told him. He later manipulated Josephine by telling her a fake backstory in his new disguise Captain Julio Sham. The two later went to get a fried egg sandwich and this is when Olaf revealed himself to her. He forced her to write a note saying she took her own life and was leaving the children to Sham. Josephine wrote the note but hid a message for the children in it saying CURDLED CAVE then faked her death and hid inside the cave. The next morning the children were devastated after her supposed death and Mr. Poe arrived but once again he refused to listen to anything they said to him about Sham being Olaf. Olaf invited everyone to the Anxious Clown restaurant where he and Mr. Poe began work on the adoption papers while the children gave themselves allergic reactions with peppermints after Larry (the VFD member who fought Olaf earlier) gave them to the kids. While he and Mr. Poe continued to work on the papers Olaf became very suspicious of the children and left Mr. Poe to finish up on the papers. He later brought his theatre troupe on a ship and the sailed out to the lake hoping to find the children. After the leeches attacked The Baudelaire's rowboat Olaf came to their rescue. On the ship Josephine admitted to Olaf they were going back and she would betray him and she stood up to him. This however ended poorly for Josephine as Olaf shoved her overboard to the leeches who devoured her alive. Once they returned Sunny revealed to Mr. Poe the truth about Count Olaf however Olaf once again slipped away along with his theatre troupe however at the same time the Baudelaire's slipped away from Mr. Poe going to a run down mill town their parents apparently ruined leading into the events of the final episodes.

The Miserable Mill
Olaf appeared in the final two episodes first when he hitched a ride with a mill worker who told him the Baudelaires arrived in the town. He later reconnected with Dr. Georgina Orwell and disguised himself as her assistant Shirley St. Ives. The two then brainwashed Klaus during an eye exam he was getting after his glasses broke with the trigger word being INORDINATE. During a meeting with Sir, Orwell introduced Sir to her new assistant, who came up with another backstory of being a lonely woman wanting children of her own. Sir then decided to allow Shirley to have the Baudelaires should they cause any trouble. This leads the two into making Klaus cause mayhem and eventually leads to Klaus severely injuring a mill worker named Phil's leg to the point of amputation. Later Olaf and The Hook Handed Man attempt to make Klaus murder Sir's partner Charlie however Violet figured out the word that would make Klaus take out her orders  as well as the word to free the other mill workers since Hook Hands accidentally said it. At this point she and Olaf kept going back and forth between controlling Klaus until Orwell arrived and told him not to listen to her. She and Olaf then get into an argument and Violet figures out the word to free Klaus. Despite this Orwell grabs Sunny and tries to throw her into the furnace and blame it on Klaus however a mob of mill workers burst through the door catching her off guard causing her to fall backwards into the furnace to her demise. Olaf and Hook Hands successfully flee. Olaf later appears in the final scene during a musical number foreshadowing the next series.

The Austere Academy
In the first two episodes of series two Olaf and his crew make their way to Prufrock Preparatory School the new location of the Baudelaire children, they hijack a school bus but are disrupted from entering the school after seeing an advanced super computer that is designed to recognise Count Olaf.

Stumped for a plan Olaf hides underneath the school bleachers and spots Carmelita Spats of whom he immediately convinces to let him into the school undetected. After succeeding in these he and Carmelita have a brief confrontation with Your Waiter Larry who they lock in a meat locker. Olaf than gets to work with creating a new disguise becoming Coach Genghis managing to fool the vast majority of people in the school including Vice Principal Nero and even the advanced super computer.

In this disguise Olaf manages to take over the entire school and torments the Baudelaires by forcing them to do all night laps around the school under the excuse that it was an orphan exercise program. After this the Baudelaires are forced to an examination in several areas in front of the entire school which would decide whether they stay on or get expelled, it is here that Olaf's plan is revealed to be forcing the children out of school and taking their fortune by kidnapping them.

The night before their examination the Quagmires go and do the exercises instead however this eventually backfires forcing them to hide in the closed school library where they are kidnapped by The Hook Handed Man. On the day of the exam the Baudelaires actually do well surprising most of the school however Olaf steps in saying they have to pass a fitness test. This results in Violet and Klaus arm wrestling him for their fitness test, the two win and Sunny shreds Olaf's left trainer which exposes his tattooed ankle. Olaf flees with his troupe having successfully kidnapped the Quagmires and now on the run from the law with a city sized man hunt now in search of Olaf.

The Ersatz Elevator
In the following episodes, Olaf disguises himself as a wealthy foreign man named Gunther and strikes a deal with his former acting student Esmé Squalor to become one of the new guardians of the orphans along with her husband Jerome who is completely oblivious to their plan of using the upcoming city auction to sneak away the Quagmire triplets. He first reveals himself to the Baudelaires behind a curtain in the Squalor apartment, where he doesn't even try to hide his voice. He suggests to Esme that they take the kids out to lunch to a restaurant called Herring Houdini (which is run by the henchmen). However, Esme is horrified at the terrible state of the resuatrant and they instead have lunch at the Salmonella Cafe. Larry the Waiter (by orders of VFD) distracts them by hosting a 40-course salmon meal. Larry then suggests that Olaf sing a song to entertain the guests; he reluctantly performs "Follow Your Schemes," which is an amazing success. In the next episode, Olaf appears with Esme at the auction. They oversee bidding on a box called VFD, which everyone (VFD agents, the henchmen, the Baudelaires) desperately try to bid on. Sunny succeeds with help from Larry and Jacqueline, who knock out the Hook-Handed Man and disrupt the auction. Olaf reveals the box is really "Very Fancy Doilies," and he and Esme escape when Esme causes a panic by saying the auction hall is "out" and another one is "in." It's revealed Olaf put the Quagmires in a fish statue strapped to their car, and they flee the city.

The Vile Village
Now on the run from the law once again, Olaf and the gang make their way to the Village of Fowl Devotees and take refuge in a local bar where Olaf disguises himself as a barman. This disguise fools most of the village population before Jacques Snicket and Olivia Caliban arrive and uncover him. This results however in the capture of the two thanks to Esme, Olivia is placed in a prison cell while Jacques is dressed up as Count Olaf who himself takes on the new disguise of Detective Dupin with both disguises fooling all of the town's residents with the exception of the Baudelaires.

Dupin convinces the townsfolk to burn "Olaf" at the stake much to the horror of the Baudelaires who know that the perfectly innocent Jacques is going to be wrongly convicted and murdered. Jacques however is killed early and Dupin once again convinces the townsfolk that the Baudelaires are responsible with even Mr. Poe believing they are guilty. Towards the end of the episode Dupin, Esme and the rest of the troupe along with the townsfolk attempt to stop the Baudelaires escaping before Violet defeats them by revealing Esme's harpoon gun was a mechanical device.

Olaf and his troupe end up on the run again although this time only from the villagers as he is now a free man as he is presumed deceased by the public.

The Hostile Hospital
Olaf and his troupe head to the Heimlich Hospital, where Esme is convinced the mysterious sugar bowl is. They stop at a general store where Olaf finds the Baudelaires. He chases them but they are saved by a VFD van- the Hospital's "Volunteers Fighting Disease." Olaf takes the troupe to the hospital where they disguise themselves using medical clothing. Olaf gains access by disguising himself as Dr. Mattathias Medicalschool, and he takes the Head of Resources Babs hostage, effectively taking over the hospital. He issues PA announcements revealing the Baudelaire "murderers" are in the hospital, forcing them to seek shelter with librarian Hal. Esme and Olaf ambush the kids in the library as they look for the Snicket File, and Violet is kidnapped. Olaf straps Violet to a bed and reveals his plans to kill her and her siblings once he has the fortune. He puts her under anesthesia and summons all the doctors, henchmen, and Volunteers to the operating theater. His plan is to have Klaus (now disguised as a doctor) perform a cranioectomy on Violet. Klaus discovers Violet's fate and is forced by Olaf and Esme to perform the surgery. However, he stalls, allowing Violet to wake up. Olaf then reveals Klaus is a fraud to everyone. In return for Violet's life, Klaus has to hand over the Snicket File. Olaf leaves and watches the file, learning a Baudelaire parent may be alive. He angrily smashes the projector, which burns; Olaf blows on the flame to start a fire in the library. As "Dr. Medicalschool," he issues an announcement that the Hospital is burning down, and everyone needs to catch the Baudelaire "arsonists." As everyone in the operating room (led by the Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender) chases the Baudelaires, Olaf, Esme, and the remaining henchmen escape to the car. As they wait for the henchman, the escaped Baudelaires decide to hide in the trunk of Olaf's car, since there is no other option.

The Carnivorous Carnival
With the three Baudelaire children hiding in his trunk, he and his theatre troupe drive to Caligari Carnival. He and his troupe speak to a fortune teller, Madame Lulu, who tells them that the carnival needs more customers, otherwise it might close. As the Baudelaires get out of the trunk, they look around in Count Olaf's disguises, and decide to disguise themselves as carnival freaks. Klaus and Violet disguise themselves as a two-headed person named Beverly and Elliot, and Sunny disguises herself as a half-wolf baby named Chabo. Count Olaf finds them, and the Baudelaires explain that they're looking for a job in the house of freaks. Count Olaf makes Violet and Klaus try to eat an ear of corn, and hires them after this. He disguises himself as a ringmaster, makes the "freaks" perform in a humiliating show, and eventually decides that one of the freaks will be thrown to the lions. Later on, at a show, he picks Violet and Klaus to be thrown to the lions, but they escape. Madame Lulu, who is revealed to be Olivia Caliban (the librarian at Prufrock), falls into the pit and is eaten by lions instead. Count Olaf later burns down the carnival, taking all of the freaks with him, and puts Violet and Klaus in the freaks' caravan, taking Sunny with him in the car, and the rest of the freaks in the trunk. He later throws the Baudelaires off the cliff.

The Slippery Slope
After having abducted Sunny, Olaf and the troupe take refuge atop the Mortmain Mountains, and force to perform laborious tasks for them, unbeknownst to Olaf however The Hook Handed Man and Sunny begin to form a bond and he slowly starts rebelling against Olaf's rule. Much to Olaf's sheer horror his old mentors the Man with a Beard but No Hair and the Woman with Hair but No Beard who quickly begin belittling and insulting their old pupil whilst holding him under their thumb with the promise of giving Olaf the rest of the Snicket File.

Following yet another encounter with the Baudelaires Olaf is left enraged when he discovers they made a deal with Esme to obtain their sister back and as such demands the White Faced Women to throw her from the top of the mountain, an act which prompted all of his troupe with the exception of The Hook Handed Man and Esme to leave in disbelief and disgust. An unwilling Olaf is then pressured into adopting Carmeltia Spats by Esme.

The Grimm Grotto
After the Man and Woman leave they bestow Esme with a gift; a Submarine which Carmelita decides to name after herself, and use children abducted from Prufrock and the Snow Scouts to power it. Much to his annoyance Esme takes the position of captain since the vessel was given to her leading Olaf to persistently take out his fury on The Hook Handed Man. Soon enough they encounter the Baudelaires, a girl Fiona and Phil in the fellow vessel the Queequeg the vessel owned by Fiona's father. Quickly however they are scared off when a mysterious object shaped like a question mark spooks the group after discussing a story about the urban legend behind a creature known as The Great Unknown.

However, Olaf's submarine soon returns and after overthrowing an annoyed Esme he holds the vessel in The Carmelita's grasp, before coming down to the children and telling them that he has been at the Hotel Denouement preparing for his final scheme, but had to return to search for the sugar bowl himself, the final piece in his evil puzzle. He is overjoyed to find he has also captured Fiona, and shows little concern for Sunny's condition. He is also working on perfecting a villainous laugh. As he leads the children through to the brig, before gazing in awe at the octopus style submarine now in his grasp.

Eventually, Olaf announces triumphantly that they are just minutes from the Hotel Denouement and, even worse, Fiona has joined their team. Olaf captures a sample of the Medusoid Mycelium in a helmet, which is a poisonous fungus whose spores cause death within the hour of exposure. Olaf is happy with the prospect of using it as a biological weapon. Unluckily for Olaf however this was a ruse by Fiona, who lets the Baudelaires to flee.

The Penultimate Peril
Olaf and his crew stop at a beach to call The Man and Woman about heading to the hotel only to find they already knew of their scheme and were still unimpressed by Olaf, who is then left utterly heartbroken at the discovery that the Hook Handed Man has betrayed him and stolen his vessel, forcing he, Esme and Carmelita to head to the hotel via boat.

Once arriving the group disguise themselves as a typical ordinary family and try to discover the identity of the mysterious J.S who invited everyone who had met the Baudelaires to the hotel. Improvising Olaf disguises himself as Jacque Snicket and visits Mr. Poe in the restaurant of the hotel in an attempt to steal the incriminating evidence against him before heading into the kitchen were he and Larry-Your-Waiter battle once again. With help from Ernest Denouement Olaf wins the fight by killing Larry by dropping him into a pot of boiling curry sauce.

Soon after this Olaf held Dewey Denouement and the Baudelaires at gunpoint with Carmelita's harpoon gun to obtain information before being interrupted by Carmeltia continuously demanding him to teach her how to spit leading him to finally snap at her and denounce both she and Emse by breaking up with the latter. In the ensuing chaos the Baudelaires obtain the guin, and accidentally drop it and kill Dewey. A crowd appears, woken up by the commotion, and force Olaf and the Baudelaires to stay and await a proper trial tomorrow, locking Olaf in a room.

During the trial, Olaf is able to rig it in his favor by twisting the truth about the events and forcing the children to confess their own crimes, however the court is interrupted anyway after Esme poisoned all of the patrons with her sausages leading Olaf to perform a quick verse about his innocence. Right after this Justice Strauss goes to fellow judges forcing everyone to put their blindfolds back on. In this instant Olaf kidnaps Justice and the fellow judges reveal their identities as The Man and Woman. The children give chase to Olaf while the hotel spreads into complete chaos.

Olaf heads to the basement with Strauss and the Baudelaires to obtain the Sugar Bowl and after realising the ruse to its location in a fit of fury Olaf prepares to unleash the Medusoid Mycelium onto all of the hotel's patrons leading to the Baudelaires driving Olaf out by unwittingly helping him burn down the Hotel Denouement and the four flee on The Carmelita venturing on the waters to elsewhere.

The End
While sailing away Olaf begins gloating with glee to his new companions at what he could do with their fortune before eventually being caught in a nasty storm with the three leading them to being marooned onto a small, isolated island. Thinking he had discovered the land Olaf claims at his own and dubs it as "Olaf-Land". Despite that Violet pointed out there were already people living on it. However, Olaf decided that they would see him pure enough to rule over them in spite of this however he was immediately rejected due to his rudeness and how many of the residents actually recognized him, along with their leader, Ishmael, who had came to the island, declared that he was tired of the endless battles between VFD's Noble and Villain factions, and use some formula to the islanders to forget their previous lives before they came to the island in order to "protect" them.

Olaf is soon forced to enter a bird cage as the prisoner of the islanders leading him to become significantly insecure and timid since this was the one time in his life he never felt powerful or in any kind of control. Olaf's hatred for the children also slightly softened although not by much as he began losing hope in any of his plans working.

Soon after this Olaf escaped by using a fish bone from the fish he eat give by the islanders and disguised himself as Kit Snicket via putting the diving helmet with the Mycelium inside under his makeshift dress while also putting seaweed on his head to replicate her hair. Ishmael however wasn't fooled and after losing his patience fired a harpoon directly into Olaf's abdomen, smashing the helmet and sending the Mycelium spores into the air, contaminating all of the islanders as well as Olaf himself. Although dying and in agony Olaf laughed in triumph knowing that he had just doomed all of the island's inhabitants.

Dying and having lost everything Olaf accepted his fate and was left laying in the sand awaiting his inevitable doom as all of the island's residents quickly rushed to the boat with Ishmael to seek medical attention (in spite of the danger of poisoned the outside world). However, upon finding out that Kit Snicket his old love was alive, on the island and going into labor, he uses his last moments of strength to heal himself from the toxic before carrying her to a more comfortable position. Before collapsing in exhaustion and making a final exchange with Kit during which the two share a kiss. After watching the children help Kit give birth she began to recite the poem "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes" along with Olaf, who in his final breath recited the final stanza of Philip Larkins's "This Be the Verse" before finally dying from his injuries.

Surprisingly the orphans were genuinely saddened by his death and gave him a proper burial on the island next to Kit who died shortly after him. Soon after Olaf's death the three Baudelaires took in Kit's daughter and in time decided to sail back to the city finally putting all that had happened behind them, leaving Olaf as dying an honourable death.