The Baudelaires find their friends — and then lose them — at the bottom of an elevator shaft. Count Olaf conducts an auction in disguise.

Violet, Klaus and Sunny get new guardians in a fashionable building, where stairs are in — and the elevator’s out. Jacques Snicket trains a recruit.

Klaus just isn’t himself after seeing Dr. Orwell, an optometrist with oddly optimistic patients. Meanwhile, Violet works to clear her parents’ names.

The children arrive at the Lucky Smells Lumber Mill and unearth some unsettling accusations about their parents. Count Olaf courts an old flame.