Siege
- Safe in his study after wrapping up his explosive conversationwith Root, Artemis revels in the destruction of the whaling ship (which he finds objectionable) and in demonstrating his seriousness to the fairies.
- Artemis checks on the surveillance camera that's in Holly'scell and has what we think might be a moment of remorse… Oh wait, never mind. No remorse for this kid..
- Artemis heads downstairs to chat with his prisoner, but runsinto Juliet, who tells him that his mother says Artemis Senior has come back.
- Artemis feels a wave of guilt for having given up on thesearch for his father, coupled with a brief bit of hope that he could possibly be alive and home.
- Even with the potential return of his father, Artemis waversbetween continuing his plan and going upstairs to check out the story.
- Artemis runs upstairs and hears voices coming from his mother'sroom—he bursts in and sees the lights on (which never happens), and for a single second he thinks it might be true.
- Angeline calls her son Papa, though, destroying Artemis's hopesas it becomes clear that she believes Artemis to be his own grandfather (who has been dead for a decade).
- What's worse, his mother has made an Artemis Senior doll outof an old suit and some lipstick features on a pillow, and is pretending it talks by lowering her voice. So... he'll need therapy.
- Artemis almost sobs, plays along with the scene like heusually does, and then leaves with the resolve to continue his work.
- Meanwhile, Holly has been slowly putting her own plan intoaction, starting with retrieving the acorn that's been digging into her ankle.
- She checks out the walls of her cell and finds that there's nodirt to be seen and she's stuck.
- Artemis silently comes in on this moment and they have theirfirst full conversation, and Artemis tells Holly that his plan is to use her to obtain the hostage fund.
- Holly doesn't know how he found out about that, so Artemisclaims he drugged her with truth serum for three days. This is one of his crueler moments, since he makes Holly believe she betrayed her entire species and will be banished if she ever gets free
- Holly, in a moment of prophetic warning, tells Fowl he's goingto meet a troll and she wants to be there to see it.
- While Holly and Artemis are exchanging threats, Foaly isdebriefing a slightly charred Root on the Fowl family.
- Fortunately, Root learns that Fowl Manor is nearby and thiswhole mess can get sorted out before daylight—he orders the squads to set up formation around the Manor.
- Foaly, since he's the only one there who rivals Artemis in intelligence,points out that Artemis may still be a step ahead, and also that he's twelve.
- Retrieval flies over to Fowl Manor, which is actually anestate with a 15th-century castle in the middle of a ten-foot stonewall and guard towers.
- Lieutenant Cudgeon, Retrieval Squad's leader and apparentlythe most gung-ho of all of them, skips everything else and suggests complete devastation of all living inhabitants.
- Root threatens him with some violence when Cudgeon dismissesHolly as an acceptable loss.
- Artemis returns to the surveillance room, where Butler hasbeen monitoring the house and grounds—everything looks quiet until Artemis has Butler freeze the image on the new camera that's designed for taking photos of hummingbirds and things like that. Bam. The Retrieval squad appears on the video.
- Butler dons a modified version of the camera on Holly's helmetso he will be able to see the fairies without freezing an image.
- Artemis sends him outside to earn his bodyguard salary andscare the pants off the intruders.
- Outside the house, a new character joins our zoo—CaptainTrouble Kelp, Holly's counterpart in LEPretrieval One. Yes, he named himself Trouble.
- Apparently Trouble's little brother, Grub, is on the squad aswell, and they make it all very unprofessional by squabbling over the radio.
- Trouble hears a weird noise and has his team sound off insequence—number four is missing, and there's a pair of LEP boots sticking out of a shrub beside the door.
- Retrieval believes their cover is intact because they're shielded,so they assume the giant man standing in front of them has no way to see them.
- Grub checks on the fairy in the bushes and Retrieval silentlyspreads out around the giant man, who is wearing a suspicious hood pulled low over his eyes.
- Because he shouldn't be able to see them, Retrieval lets theman walk into a tactical position that would really be a problem for the fairies. They pull out buzz batons to avoid friendly fire—but then suddenly the giant reveals his makeshift goggles and it's game over.
- Flip back to Butler's perspective on this whole thing, and hetakes out the first fairy just by opening the door.
- Butler figures out which of the little fairy squad is givingorders based on the way the others' heads are tilted.
- He strolls into the perfect position, lets them switch toclose-quarters weapons, and has himself a little laugh at their shocked faces when he speaks directly to them.
- Butler takes out the entire squad single-handedly, but gets astrong zap in the chest by Grub, who hits him with his buzz baton.
- When everyone else is unconscious, Butler issues demands toCorporal Grub Kelp, who doesn't even think about refusing: (1) Bring in medics for the wounded; (2) they'd better be unarmed; and (3) anyone else will be shot by sniper fire.
- Butler demands Grub's weapon, and Grub actually has thecourage to refuse, so Butler lets him get away with his weapon and Butler's message.
- Over in Holly's cell, her plan is going into action. She'sslamming the bed frame over and over again into the concrete—until Juliet bursts in.
- Holly covers her actions by demanding food, and goes back toher plan as soon as Juliet leaves.
- Artemis is back in his surveillance room, where he's includedthe feed from a hidden camera in his mother's room. Yes, that is exactly as creepy as it sounds.
- Butler returns from his LEP-smashing fun and Artemis fills himin on everything.
- Huge foreshadowing moment here where Artemis claims not even a dwarf could tunnel under and get into Fowl Manor, and the narrator tells us he is so very wrong.
- Outside the house again, we get to watch as Foaly initiatesthe fairies' secret weapon—the ability to stop time around a specific area and give themselves more moonlight to work with.
- Time-stop used to be done by warlocks through casting a spell,but people aren't reliable for that long and Foaly decided to make the whole thing mechanical.
- Foaly has another moment of almost suspecting what Artemis isup to when he notices that Fowl Manor is designed perfectly for a time-stop.
- Instead of listening to Foaly, Root yells at him to push thebutton.
- Now that they have eight hours, Cudgeon is already countingdown the minutes until he can bomb everything. This guy needs a new hobby.
- Unfortunately, we learn that if they can't fix this whole messin the next eight hours, it's actually likely that Cudgeon will be allowed to "blue rinse" the house.
- Root finds Foaly and gets outfitted for his mission into thehouse to negotiate; Foaly warns Root that Cudgeon will stab him in the back someday soon.
- Root suits up with a finger dart and a contact lens camera,since Butler has made a practice of gathering up any fairy technology they're dumb enough to try to attack him with.
- Inside the house, Artemis has noticed the time stop andconfirmed our suspicions that Foaly was right—this is all happening according to his plan.
- Artemis checks in on his mother again, but she has disappearedfrom the room. We don't know why, but Artemis thinks this is really important.
- He starts to notice what Holly is doing in her cell, and almost figures it out before he's suddenly distracted by the sight of Root coming up the walkway.
- Root shows up at Artemis's door for negotiations and tries toget him to step outside. He realizes his mistake when Artemis coldly asks if he needs to kill someone before they stop trying to outwit him.
- Root is invited in for negotiations instead, and taken to aconference room that has ashtrays (Root is super happy about this).
- "Negotiations" end up being Artemis making a singledemand without budging. And he reveals he knows about the time stop, which takes away Root's advantage. The demand? One ton of twenty-four carat gold.
- Root isn't having it and tells Artemis he doesn't have anygrounds to make demands, since the fairies will just kill everyone in the house without blinking.
- Artemis denies this is the case, since he can escape the timefield (something no one else has ever done).
- Root leaves to think about this all, and realizes sinceArtemis knows all the rules, he'll just have to make up some new ones.
- Back at the temporary fairy headquarters, two randomscientists, Cumulus and Argon, analyze the video of Artemis and conclude that he isn't lying about being able to escape the time field.