The Bad Beginning, A Multi-Voice Recording recap

The three Baudelaire children, inventive Violet, bookish Klaus, and biting baby Sunny, lose their parents in a fire that destroys their home. The banker Mr. Poe places them with a distant relative, Count Olaf, a cruel actor who forces them to do chores in his filthy house and cares only about their inheritance. Olaf devises a scheme to seize the fortune by staging a play in which Violet, without realizing it, will be legally married to him before a real judge, their kind neighbor Justice Strauss. To force Violet to cooperate, Olaf kidnaps Sunny and dangles her in a cage from his tower. During the performance Violet signs the marriage document with her left hand rather than her right, and afterward reveals the trick, so Justice Strauss rules the marriage invalid. Olaf's plan collapses and he escapes into the night, vowing to return, and the children are taken away from him to be placed elsewhere.

While spending a gray day at the beach, the Baudelaire children, fourteen-year-old inventor Violet, twelve-year-old reader Klaus, and their infant sister Sunny, are met by the banker Mr. Poe with terrible news: a fire has destroyed their home and killed their parents. Poe explains that their parents left an enormous fortune, to be kept in trust until Violet comes of age, and that the children will be placed with a relative. He delivers them to Count Olaf, a distant cousin and shabby actor who lives in a grim, dirty house in the city. From the start Olaf is hostile and greedy, giving the children a single filthy bedroom, ordering them to do exhausting chores, and striking Klaus when the children complain. The only bright spot is Justice Strauss, the friendly judge next door, who invites them to use her fine library. The children quickly sense that Olaf has no affection for them and is interested only in the money they will inherit.

Life under Count Olaf grows more menacing. He announces that the children will take part in a play he is producing, called The Marvelous Marriage, in which Violet is to perform the role of his bride opposite him. Uneasy, the children research the plan and realize with horror that Olaf intends the on-stage wedding to be a genuine, legally binding marriage: if Justice Strauss, a real judge, presides and Violet signs the document, Olaf could gain control of the Baudelaire fortune through her. The children try to warn the adults around them. Mr. Poe refuses to believe that a respectable guardian would do such a thing, and kind Justice Strauss, who has unknowingly agreed to play the officiating judge, does not grasp what Olaf is really planning. Using Klaus's reading and Violet's cleverness, the children search for a way to stop the scheme, but Olaf's grip on them tightens as the night of the performance approaches.

To make certain Violet cannot refuse, Count Olaf has his henchmen seize baby Sunny and lock her inside a birdcage that is hung high from the tower of his house, out of reach. He warns Violet that if she does not go through with the marriage exactly as planned, Sunny will be dropped. Trapped and desperate to save their sister, Violet and Klaus can see no way out, and the performance proceeds as scheduled. On stage, before an audience and with Justice Strauss presiding as a genuine judge, Olaf directs Violet through the ceremony and has her sign the official marriage document, apparently completing his plan to bind her to him and take control of the family's money.

After the ceremony, Olaf triumphantly announces that he is now legally married to Violet and in command of the fortune, but Violet reveals that she signed the document with her left hand even though she is right-handed. Justice Strauss confirms that because Violet did not sign in her own hand as the law requires, the marriage is invalid and Olaf has no claim to the money. Exposed and furious, Olaf and his troupe use the confusion to flee before they can be arrested, and he vows that he will find the children again and take their fortune. Sunny is rescued from the cage unharmed. Mr. Poe takes the three orphans away from Olaf, promising to find them a safer home, but the villain has escaped and remains free, leaving the Baudelaires wary and their misfortunes far from finished.

Violet, forced into Count Olaf's marriage scheme to save the kidnapped Sunny, outwits him during the live performance of his play by signing the wedding document with her left hand. Because she is right-handed and did not sign in her own hand as the law requires, Justice Strauss declares that the marriage is not legally binding, so Olaf gains no control over the Baudelaire fortune. Enraged, Olaf and his troupe flee before they can be arrested, and he warns the children that he will find them again and get their money one day. Sunny is freed unharmed. Mr. Poe removes the three orphans from Olaf's care, promising to place them with another relative, but Olaf has escaped justice entirely and remains at large, so the children's troubles are far from over as the series begins.