Lighthouse Battle and Miss Peregrine’s Rescue

Lighthouse Battle and Miss Peregrine’s Rescue is the children’s assault on the lighthouse to recover the kidnapped Miss Peregrine and Miss Avocet. Their pursuit brings them into direct conflict with Golan, costs Millard a serious injury, and ends with Jacob killing Golan and Emma bringing Miss Peregrine out of the water. The rescue does not recover both captives: a wight escapes with one bird aboard a German submarine, leaving the children with what the narration calls half a victory.

The trail to the lighthouse

The rescue attempt takes shape amid the bombing and confusion. Hugh is distraught at the prospect of abandoning Miss Peregrine, but before Enoch can answer him, Fiona arrives on the path, shouting so urgently that the children run to meet her. She explains that Millard had hidden when Golan shut the others in a basement, then followed him after he left with the cage. Her news changes the immediate problem from searching blindly for Golan to following Millard’s trail.

Fiona identifies the boat Golan used as Emma’s canoe, which she had kept hidden on a small strand. Golan had gone in circles before the tide forced him to land on the lighthouse rock. The children run there and find the others concealed in sawgrass above the shore. Millard’s warning to get down marks the transition from pursuit to a dangerous, close-range confrontation.

The plan and its reversal

At the shipwreck, the children use the rusted hull as cover and look across the water toward the lighthouse. Emma proposes a coordinated approach: she and Jacob will draw Golan’s attention, Bronwyn will strike from behind, and Millard will seize the birdcage. The plan depends on Golan’s attention being directed away from the others, but gunfire begins before they can put it into action. Emma calls for a retreat, and the group falls back across the wreck and into the water.

Golan then fires at the children from the lighthouse doorway. Millard is hit, and when the group reaches him he is kneeling in the water, dazed and bleeding. The injury makes the rescue more urgent and changes the group’s options: instead of relying on a quick grab by Millard, the children must improvise their way toward the lighthouse under fire.

Bronwyn disappears below the wreck and returns with its rectangular metal cargo-hold door, roughly six feet by four, which she has wrenched from its hinges. She carries it as a shield. The group crosses the water behind her as shots strike the makeshift cover; Emma pushes Bronwyn forward when the combined weight threatens to tip her backward on the rocks. At the lighthouse’s rusted base, a dozen stone steps lead to an open doorway where Golan stands aiming his pistol. Through the shield’s porthole, Jacob glimpses the small cage and two birds inside, crowded so closely together that their forms are difficult to distinguish.

Golan’s death

The struggle reaches its decisive turn when Jacob gets a clear shot at Golan. He fires while Golan is holding Emma and forcing her toward the railing. The shot makes Golan release her; he staggers back and sits heavily on the rail. When he tries to speak, he cannot, and then he falls and dies. Jacob’s action ends the immediate threat from Golan, the man responsible for his grandfather’s murder, and frees Emma from his grasp.

The instant Golan disappears from view, the children’s attention shifts to the sea: Emma spots a red light bobbing on the waves. Millard is alive, wearing a tourniquet, and Bronwyn is beside him, but the group cannot linger. Jacob and Emma run into the water to reach the cage, abandoning the canoe because it is too far away and on the wrong side of the lighthouse. Golan’s death therefore resolves one danger while the rescue itself remains unfinished.

The submarine and a partial rescue

A large shape rises beneath Jacob and Emma, throwing them onto a metal deck. At first it seems like a whale, a wreck, or a mechanical monster; the lighthouse beam reveals a conning tower and a bolted-down gun. Jacob recognizes it as a German submarine and understands that its arrival is connected to Golan’s plan. Emma runs across the rolling deck toward the cage, but waves knock them both down.

After they surface, Jacob sees the gunner take the cage and pull out one sodden bird. Another soldier signals from the conning tower, and the gunner carries the bird toward the hatch. The submarine begins to move, churning the water around it. In the midst of the attempted escape, Emma hears Miss Peregrine calling and swims toward the sound despite Jacob’s efforts to stop her.

Miss Peregrine is bobbing in the waves, struggling to stay afloat, with one wing moving and the other apparently broken. Emma gathers her up, and the two swim away as the submarine sinks and the water rushes back into the space it leaves behind. Bronwyn enters the water and tows them back to safety. The group later recovers Emma’s canoe and pushes off toward shore. They have brought Miss Peregrine back, but they have not recovered Miss Avocet: the others saw only Golan’s body, the submarine’s rise and sinking, and Miss Peregrine’s emergence from the sea. The missing second bird and the gunner’s escape with one captive make the outcome a rescue and a loss at once.

Significance

The episode’s reversals are built around the gap between a plan and what the changing circumstances permit. The children begin with a deliberate division of roles, but Golan’s gunfire wounds Millard and prevents the planned grab; Bronwyn’s improvised metal shield creates a new way forward. Jacob’s shot removes Golan, yet the cage is already beyond the lighthouse and the arriving submarine takes one bird away. The victory is real but sharply limited: Miss Peregrine is rescued through Emma’s decision to turn toward her call, while Miss Avocet remains unaccounted for.

Water and concealment shape the whole encounter. The children approach under cover of the shipwreck, cross open water under fire, and finally find the submarine and Miss Peregrine in the sea. The same setting that makes the rescue perilous also hides its outcome until the lighthouse beam reveals the submarine and, later, the bird in the waves. The scene closes not with a complete recovery but with exhausted survivors returning toward shore, carrying one rescued headmistress and the knowledge that the other captive is still lost.