The Grim Grotto

Plot

The Baudelaires manage to drift along the river after being separated from Quigley Quagmire. They stumble along the submarine "Queequeg" in which they are welcomed by an energetic Captain Widdershins, whose motto is to never hesitate on anything, and his stepdaughter Fiona, an aspiring mycologist. They are also welcomed by the ship's cook, Phil, the Baudelaire's optimistic past fellow worker at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill. The Baudelaires discover that the crew of the Queequeg are searching for the mysterious sugar bowl.

Klaus examined the tidal charts to estimate the location of the sugar bowl relative to the water cycle. He suspects it to be in the Gorgonian Grotto. An octopus-shaped submarine, captained by Count Olaf, appears on the Queequeg's sonar, but it is driven off by a mysterious ship which appears only as a question mark on the radar screen.

Fiona then looks in her mycological textbooks to research the Gorgonian Grotto. It is a cone-shaped cave which houses a rare species of poisonous mushroom. They wax and wane periodically, but when the mushrooms are waxing, they are extremely deadly. The grotto is remote enough that it can quarantine the Medusoid Mycelium from the outside world. Fiona suspects there may be an antidote to the poisonous effects of the fungus. Over dinner, the Baudelaires discuss everything that they have learned from their journey so far. Widdershins mentions the Snicket siblings, who fought on the side of good. Jacques Snicket, whom the children saw murdered in the Village of Fowl Devotees, was a researcher similar to Klaus; Kit Snicket, who helped build the Queequeg; and before Widdershins mentions the third Snicket Sibling, Fiona interrupts him, wanting to know about the VFD Headquarters the children had been to.

When the submarine arrives at the Grotto, Fiona, Klaus, Violet and Sunny are sent in. Inside it is a sandy beach scattered with many items that have washed ashore. Then they find a narrow room with a tiled floor and walls with three lamps bearing the letters "V", "F" and "D". Only the first two are lit up, so they assume the letter on the third one was not visible.

Whilst they search the beach for the sugar bowl, the Medusoid Mycelium suddenly wax, springing up from the beach and the tiled floor and walls - and the children retreat to the narrow room where the spore does not appear. While they are waiting, the children occupy themselves by continuing to Back on the Queequeg, Klaus and Violet search for a cure for Sunny and with the help of V.F.D. couplets, realize that the antidote is horseradish. They search for horseradish, but find none; Sunny manages to gasp one word, wasabi, and her siblings give her some of the condiment she brought back from the cave.

While Sunny has a short nap, the telegram machine produces a Voluntary Factual Dispatch from Quigley Quagmire, the siblings are summoned to a certain coded location the next day, just two days before the V.F.D. meeting at the Hotel Denouement. Klaus decodes the first poem by Lewis Carroll: they will be met at Briny Beach. As Violet begins decoding the second, based on T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land, they are discovered by Olaf and his accomplices. Olaf announces triumphantly that they are just minutes from the Hotel Denouement and Fiona has joined his team to be with Fernald. The Baudelaires are to return to the brig. Shortly after, on the radar, the mysterious question mark ship reappears on the radar; Olaf, who clearly recognizes the ship, orders everyone to battle stations to prepare for flight. Fiona, knowing she has made the wrong decision, allows the Baudelaires to escape in the Queequeg. This is also when we know Klaus and Fiona had feelings for each other. Sunny fixes the huge hole that Olaf created on the submarine using an enormous ball of gum and they eventually manage to use it again.

The next day they arrive on Briny Beach - back where all of their troubles began. Surprisingly, Mr. Poe emerges from the fog. He received a message from the mysterious J.S. - whom he assumes is The Daily Punctilio's reporter Geraldine Julienne - that he had to meet them at the beach. He tells the children to come with him to the police station to resolve all of their troubles. Violet, however, has decoded Quigley's message and has concluded that a taxi will be at the beach for them, and she sees it in the distance. They bid farewell to Mr Poe and arrive at the taxi to find an unknown woman at the wheel, who reveals herself to be Kit Snicket. The children climb into the taxi and leave, ending the book with fortune to their favor for the first time.

Foreshadowing

There are two references to The Penultimate Peril:

Literary allusions

Translations

Adaptation

The book will be adapted into the third and fourth episodes of the third season of the television series adaptation produced by Netflix.