Robert Langdon Timeline & Summary

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Robert Langdon Timeline & Summary

  • Langdon's rudely awoken by a summons to help the French FBI regarding the death of Jacques Saunière, because his expertise in symbology was needed.
  • He meets with Bezu Fache, French FBI head guy, at the Louvre, who expertly questions Langdon about the odd circumstances surrounding Saunière's death.
  • Sophie arrives at the murder scene and warns Langdon that he's the primary suspect.
  • The two of them meet in the men's room and hatch a plan of escape involving a bar of soap, a tracking device, and a lucky throw onto a moving truck.
  • Before they can really escape, though, Langdon realizes the clue Saunière left them would lead to the Mona Lisa.
  • Langdon and Sophie manage to flee the Louvre after collecting their clues, thanks to some pretty quick thinking on her behalf.
  • When they're prevented from getting to the American Embassy by a bunch of cops, they concoct a ruse to throw the police off their trail, and take a cab to the address Saunière had written on the back of the key he'd hidden for them.
  • He gives Sophie a lesson on the history of the Priory of Sion.
  • When they hear their names over the cabbie's radio, they steal the cab. You know, like you do.
  • The address they were given ends up being a fancy bank.
  • After finally piecing together the account number (thanks, Saunière!), Langdon and Sophie recover a fancy wooden box from the bank's elite vaults.
  • Thanks to their new friend André Vernet (the bank president), they narrowly escape capture once again, and flee to the countryside in the back of an armored truck.
  • While ensconced in their getaway vehicle, they open the box and discover a cryptex built by Sophie's grandfather, a device based on secret blueprints drawn up by Da Vinci.
  • It becomes more and more clear that they have embarked on a quest to find the Holy Grail.
  • Vernet betrays them (thinking he's defending Saunière's last wishes), but Langdon outwits him, kicks his butt, and then steals the armored truck and once again flees with Sophie. (This is becoming a pattern for them.)
  • The two of them head to Sir Leigh Teabing's house, because there's no better expert on the Holy Grail than that eccentric Brit.
  • Langdon and Teabing have a great time explaining all about the true Holy Grail, and how it's a bloodline, not a cup.
  • Silas crashes the party with a gun and the goal of stealing the cryptex. Langdon gets cracked over the head.
  • Cops arrive. Teabing, Rémy, Sophie, Langdon, and a captive Silas escape through the woods in a fancy car.
  • They make it to Teabing's private plane and they all head to London, where Teabing's sure they will find the next clue.
  • They once again narrowly escape capture, this time at the airfield, and go to the Temple Church to search for clues and a missing orb.
  • Silas, freed by Rémy, once again tries to steal back the cryptex.
  • Rémy is forced to intervene when Silas seems to be botching it up again. He gets the cryptex from a reluctant Langdon and takes Teabing as a hostage.
  • Langdon and Sophie go to the King's College Research Institute to try and piece together Saunière's riddle about a missing orb, and figure out that they need to find Isaac Newton's tomb.
  • While there they are lured to a deserted area by a note from the Teacher, their mysterious nemesis.
  • It's revealed that Teabing has been the Teacher all along. He's the bad guy. Langdon is stunned.
  • …but not too stunned to finally figure out Sauniére's riddle. He secretly opens the cryptex, removes the papyrus, and then throws it high in the air, allowing it to dramatically smash into smithereens, leading Teabing to think the papyrus has been destroyed.
  • Bezu Fache storms in, and in a glorious deus ex machina move, saves the day by arresting Teabing.
  • Langdon and Sophie go to Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland for the last clue.
  • There, they find Sophie's long-believed-dead grandmother and little brother. Turns out Sophie's family is the Holy Grail bloodline.
  • Langdon wants to know where the sacred texts proving it are stored, now. Sophie's grandmother reassures him that they're not there anymore.
  • Langdon and Sophie make a date to meet in Florence. Aww.
  • Langdon goes back to the Louvre, because in his sleep he finally realizes that all the symbols and Sauniére's clues tell him that the Holy Grail is resting under the inverted glass pyramid that forms the focal point of it's entrance.