It's part two! We begin with Javert slowly walking down a long, long flight of stairs. Cripes, this is dull. And apparently pointless, because we immediately

Cut! to Chez Thénardier, where typical stuff is happening. This is also kind of pointless, so we

Cut! to Fantine's deathbed, as Sister Sexy Simplice tells her that the mayor went to fetch Cosette. Madeleine, who I shall now call Valjean, sprints in, and Fantine asks where Cosette is. Valjean is like, "OMG Simplice I can't believe you LIED!" and I wonder why it was that important that she'd break her lifelong vow and lie over something so random. Javert strolls in and sweetly sits on the side of Fantine's bed, carefully bringing her up to speed on what a LIAR Valjean is and how she will NEVER… EVER… SEE… COSETTE… AGAIN. What a douche! Fantine agrees with me, and responds by dying. Javert tells Valjean to come along nicely, but Depardieu AWESOMELY JUMPS THROUGH THE SECOND FLOOR WINDOW AND DASHES AWAY. My ovaries approve.

Cue chase scene! There are dogs and a river and stuff. Valjean finally ends up setting fire to a shed and then hiding in it. Works every time.

Valjean returns to the House of Simplice, where he and the unnaturally good-looking sister flirt. He asks her to turn around while he changes clothes, and you totally know she wants to peek. But, I mean, she already lied, so why not go all the way? She doesn't, though. Valjean finishes changing and tells her she can turn around, but she won't because looking at him will make her cry. So she doesn't turn around, but she cries anyway. Valjean grabs some money and leaves.

Javert tells somebody about Cosette. I think.

Chez Thénardier. Cosette goes out to fetch some water from the well in the wood. Goofy-looking Éponine approves, and Azelma once again reminds everyone that she exists. Madame gives Cosette some money to buy bread, or whatever, and Cosette goes out in the woods and drops the money and Valjean shows up and you know. Stuff. He buys the Thénardier girls' doll for Cosette, and the Thénardiers let Cosette sleep in their bed while Valjean stares at her from a nearby chair. That's… inappropriate. The Thénardiers are snoozing on the attic floor. And when I say snoozing, I mean making out. Geez. Thénardier has one of those gendarme-disguised-as-a-bourgeois sword-cane things. He takes it downstairs, and finds that Valjean and Cosette are gone.

And where have they gone? Why, to an outdoor market, where they meet the poofy-haired guy who cut Fantine's hair. Apparently, besides wig-making and tooth-pulling, he sells little girls' clothes! So Cosette goes into his cart to change. While she's in there, Thénardier wanders up and threatens Valjean, but Valjean threatens him right back and the innkeeper runs off with his tail between his legs. Cosette emerges, clad in mourning blue, and Valjean looks her up and down, saying that she looks just like her mother. Inappropriate!

Javert shows up at the inn and arrests Thénardier for selling children. I'm not kidding about that. It happens.

Suddenly, we see a gamin pushing a coffin around. I guess this is a shoutout to the Valjean-escapes-in-a-coffin scene that everyone ignores despite its awesomeness. Some guy takes the coffin from the gamin, calling the boy Gavroche. Oh, that's Gavroche? Okay, apparently we've jumped ahead in time.

Or so you think!

Valjean appears, holding sleeping little Cosette in his arms, and Gavroche takes him to some kind of abandoned shed full of carriages. He says something about rats, which alarms young Cosette, who is YOUNGER THAN GAVROCHE. Apparently this is their way of apologizing for excluding the elephant and the boys. I guess Valjean and young Cosette spend the night there. Valjean tells Gavroche that his name is Monsieur Leblanc and drops some money for him to find.

Cut! Javert appears, still wearing the black leather, and gets some lackey to follow Valjean and find out where he lives. And that would be the Gorbeau place. Yay. Ma'am Bougon mentions that a cop moved in down the hall, so Valjean grabs Cosette and runs. Cue a chase scene that is awesomely like the one in the Book, ending with Valjean hoisting Cosette up the wall via a rope and both of them landing in the nun garden.

Javert stands in the dead-end alley where Valjean disappeared and stares at the wall for several months. I think.

Fauchelevant takes "Madeleine" and Cosette in, and things progress in the Bookverse. Except for the amazing coffin escapade, but I have yet to see that included in a movie.

Javert talks to some guy. He has way too much screentime in this movie, and I think it's because he's John Malkovich. But he's boring.

Cut! It's the Gorbeau tenement, and Gavroche is dragging a monstrously ugly guy up to Ma'am Bougon, telling her that his friend would like a room there, and also he is a baron. Loony: "Oh please oh please let Gavroche have a friend who is a baron but isn't sweet little—"

Gavroche: "His name is Marius!"

Loony: (facedesk)

Okay, let me describe this man for you. He has really thick, Soul-Glo curly black hair, which is weirdly shiny. In profile, his face kinda slopes outward toward his pointy chin, and he has freakishly huge teeth like Guy Pearce. And fat lips. His nose is long, crooked, thin, and points downward. From the neck down, though, the guy is kinda cute. His name is Enrico Lo Verso. Imdb him or something. He's monstrous. Hahaha, on imdb someone started a thread on his message board called "ICK" that basically discusses how ugly he is. Word, person on imdb. Word. Anyway…

Gavroche is helping "Marius" move into the Gorbeau tenement, and Marius finds a child's drawing taped to the wall. Obviously, it's something Cosette left behind, because it's a picture of a little girl with a bucket in the woods, and a giant shadow behind her that represents Sylar. Or the phantom of the opera. Or something. Marius kinda pokes the picture but leaves it there. Right-o. Ma'am Bougon tells him all about Valjean and Cosette living there for a while, but I don't really know why he would care at this point, seeing how he hasn't met either of them and probably wouldn't associate "Ursula" with Ma'am Bougon's boring story anyway. Gavroche stands around. Marius is his BFF.

In the convent, Valjean is wandering around spying on pretty grown-up Cosette, and a lot of really boring stuff happens that is really unnecessary to the plot. Basically, they cast some well-known old French actress as Mere Innocente, so they thought they would write in a bunch of crap for her to do, including Javert coming in and asking all sorts of questions about the gardeners, and Mere Innocent lying about it and asking someone off camera to whip her afterwards. Kinky!

Also, Valjean and pretty grown-up Cosette are lying in bed together—Inappropriate!—and Jean tells her about her mother Fantine.

Fauchelevant and Valjean chill in the chapel and spy inappropriately on Cosette, talking about how she's the prettiest of them all and stuff. Cosette keeps grinning at them. This is weird. And at some point Valjean mouths off to a guy who may or may not be the prefect of police.

Mere Innocent wants Cosette to be a nun, but Cosette doesn't want to, so they pack their things. Fauchelevant comes up behind Valjean and whispers in his ear that he talks in his sleep. Am I just getting tired, or is everything that's happening in the convent here completely dirty?

Meanwhile, the Thénardier family is also moving into the Gorbeau tenement. They run into Gavroche and fugly Marius in the hall, and Gavroche introduces him as a baron. Again. You can tell the Thénardiers have fallen on hard times because Monsieur's hair is slightly long and disheveled. They introduce themselves as the Jondrettes, and the emo Christina Ricci look-alike in a bright red dress darts forward and tells Marius that her name is Éponine, but he can call her "'Ponine." I had to pause the movie and run away for a few minutes at this point. Also, Éponine looks weird. Her hair is WalMart-dyed black, and there are always a few pieces hanging in front of her face. Grown up Azelma looks awesomely like little Azelma, though, so I give them props for that. Anyway, Marius gives them some money and welcomes them to the neighbourhood. Éponine drools at him as he walks away. You know what, Éponine? He's hideous; you can have him.

Anyway, Valjean and Cosette bid Mere Innocente a tender farewell, which includes the following line from Valjean:

"You said she would be ugly, but she became pretty. Very pretty. Too pretty, perhaps."

He tells Cosette to laugh, and she does, which mortifies the Mother, who tells them that NO ONE LAUGHS IN HER CONVENT, FOOL! Then Cosette kisses Mere Innocente on the cheek and they wander off. …Right.

Cut! It's a lecture hall, I'm guessing at a school, and our very own fugly Marius is giving a speech that's probably about freedom and crap to lots of pretty college boys. Loony sees someone with a bald head in the crowd and screams, LAIGLE! But… more on this in a sec. Anyway, Marius finishes rambling, and everybody starts cheering for him. Then, his bestest friend Enjolras starts talking about how cool he is to the bald-headed guy, who turns around and IS JAVERT. Why is Javert popping up all over the place like Waldo? I'm getting peeved. Also, where did all his grey shoulder-length hair go?

Marius and his bestest friend Enjolras go to the Café Musain and sing "La Marsellaise" while Javert sits in the front room and glowers at them over the top of a newspaper.

Cut! Marius wanders around in a park and sees Cosette. But that isn't enough for fugly Marius, who walks up to her and stares into her face in a really disconcerting way. Apparently Cosette has as much trouble seeing fugliness as Éponine, because she starts blushing like mad, but Valjean asserts himself from a nearby bench. Marius is like, "Hey, I've never seen you guys around this park before!" and Valjean is like, "Bugger off, wanker." (He's very British right now.) So he grabs Cosette and they leave, but she spends so much time gazing at Marius over her shoulder it's amazing she doesn't bump into grouchy old Jean. Cosette puts a handkerchief on the bench before she leaves the park, and Marius grabs it and starts rubbing it all over his face.

Cut! Some convicts are being transported through the streets, and people are yelling at them. Cosette and Valjean see them. This is another shoutout to the Book. Marius is lurking and sees Cosette walk by, but does a really crappy job of stalking her. Back in his room, he describes her to his bestest friend Gavroche, who is STILL THE SAME AGE he was before Cosette went into the convent. He tells Gavroche that her name is Ursula, according to the handkerchief, and asks the gamin to find her. Gavroche walks out the door, sees Cosette, and goes back inside, telling Marius that he found her. Wow, either Marius is really good at describing people or it's common knowledge that there is only one mildly pretty girl in all of Paris.

The Jondrettes also see that Cosette is approaching the Gorbeau place (with Valjean in tow, of course) and they put out their fire and have Azelma pretend to be sick. Yep, we know where this is going. They pretend to be worse off than they are for the sake of Valjean, and Éponine spits on Azelma. I'm… not sure why. Next door, Gavroche stacks a chair on the dresser and pops a little cork out of a hole in the wall so Marius can spy on Cosette. …Right. Also? He and Gavroche are both trying to see through the little hole, so they're kind of clutching each other in order to make sure no one falls off the chair, and it's really inappropriate. They see that Cosette is leaving and Marius makes another half-assed attempt to stalk her. C'mon, Fugly, the REAL Marius wouldn't give up THAT easy! He and Gavroche settle for clutching each other again and eavesdropping on the Thénardiers, only succeeding in learning that her name is Cosette. They grin at each other lovingly, and we fade to black.

End part two! Tune in for part three, which includes a Barricade Boy sleepover, more extremely inappropriate relationships between unlikely characters, and the unexpected return of Fauchelevant.