The Magicians
“Will You Play With Me?”
April 4, 2018
Okay kids, tonight’s the night. The Season 3 finale of The Magicians and boy did we have an episode. Betrayals? Check. Sacrifices? Check. Tacos? Check. Tick throwing shade? Check. Amazing Music Montages? Check. Great Easter Eggs? Check. Crisp dialogue, twists you can’t predict and things just make you go, the fuck is happening? Check.
Sera Gamble and John McNamara, who wrote tonight’s show (they’re also the creators, 2 of the EPs and Sera is the show runner), and Chris Fisher who directed, closed out this Season in amazing style while setting up a lot of great questions for Season 4. Without another wasted moment, jump into our recap and review of The Magicians‘ season finale, “Will You Play With Me?” … after the jump!
The Cottage. We open on Quentin narrating animation of Chapter 8 of “The Tale of the Seven Keys”; a refresher on what the first page said (from our recap last week):
“The Knight remained imprisoned in the Castle at the End of the World. The Castle stood alone, as black as night. Stretching out for miles in all directions, dozens of dark towers reaching for the sky, not a single window on its face. Even a warrior as great as he could not break the seven bonds placed on him by the Witch. Even he could not escape.
But his daughter never gave up. She was to a fullfledged knight. She had fought creatures real and imagined, monsters without as well as within. She had persevered through seven quests. She had won all seven golden keys. And now she set sail for the Castle at the End of the World. The girl [descended] from her ship full of confidences, her brand new armor shining in the sunlight, thick scabbard carrying a sword as big as she was. Seven keys safely on a thick golden keyring in her pocket.
[From here on, there is half a line of text too blurry to read and then] had been questing towards for [intelligeble.] The Castle at the End of the World. The girl approached” [that’s the end of the page.]
Q gets through basically this first page before Margo interrupts him to cut to the chase; where is the damn Castle? Its so nice (and a little jarring) to see a two eyed Margo. Anyway, back to the story, Quentin goes on that the daughter inserts the 7 Keys into a funky door which swallows them up. Inside the Castle, she finds her father, the knight, and his 7 chains. The story goes on that the daughter inserts the 7 keys into each of the locks on the chains which, what? As Eliot points out, the daughter just fed the Keys to the Door? Sloppy Plotting or a Paradox, as Josh proposes; which he says, is a clue.
Yes, we pull back in The Cottage and everyone is there (except 23TL Penny). Kady, ever the optimist, pouts that The Library is just going to swoop in, power up their Siphon and fuck them all, anyway. Alice protests, saying that without the Fairy Dust they were planning on, thanks to Julia’s intervention, The Library doesn’t have the juice to power the siphon and/or interfere with them. As this conversation continues, Julia is distracted by voices she hears. She gets up to look around and finds herself alone with a woman bathed in golden light. Meet Iris (Madisen Beaty): Messenger Goddess, Bon Vivant, Rainbow Aficionado. “Let’s chat.”
Turns out that Julia is now, Our Lady of the Trees, due to her Arboreal Fillorian Work last week. With that final act, Julia has fulfilled the task set out by OLU and is now a full on Goddess. While Julia sits gobsmacked, Iris is all, “lets go, lots to do, shop chop.” What about the Quest, Julia asks? And Iris is pretty dismissive; Julia’s mortal friends can take it from here – Julia’s got some God work to do.
We cut to Julia and Q having a nice moment of goodbye, complete with “I love yous” (in a really natural, friend way which is honest to the evolution of their relationship this season), “I’ll miss yous”, and the exact amount of goofy and slightly awkward joking you’d experience if you all of a sudden found yourself a Goddess and your closest friend wasn’t sure if he should bow to you now. Its so sincere and loving and pitch perfect to who these people are and where they are and how they’d act in this exact moment. Maybe my favorite scene with these two, ever.
Before she goes, Julia gives Q the power to do one, “in case of emergency” spell. Title Card.
We come back to The Cottage at night and Josh and Quentin are trying to work through the mythology, find some truth in the Quest Book. Josh is pinging on a picture in the book which has the Witch of the Story in the Castle at the End of the World, looking at a table on which sits a model of the Castle at the End of the World. Josh is convinced this is a clue and posits that the “Witch” is a stand in for the real world Architect who built the Castle; which jives with the info gleaned from Reynard last week. Which, is really solid detective work and logical reasoning for a guy who is mostly high all the time. Mini-Quest, find the Architect!
The next day, the 7 remaining Questers are getting down to the task of identifying every magical Architect they can. Margo banters about the randomness of Julia being made a Goddess, even with all she’s gone through. Eliot and Josh come out firmly on the side of happy and Quentin says Julia seemed sure that they could complete the Quest without her. This isn’t really german to the plot, I just love the banter and the character beats when these guys are all together. Anyway! Plot! Calypso!
Margo comes up with Calypso, “a nymph in Greek mythology, who lived on the island of Ogygia, where she detained Odysseus for seven years” (Wikipedia). Interesting, her name means variations of “to conceal”, “to hide” and “concealing the knowledge”. Sure that won’t be important. The story of Calypso is that she was a nymph who wanted to bone Odysseus so she lured him to an island with her temptress song and kept him there for 7 years (the time varies depending on the story). Eventually calypso has husband guilt and whines he wants to go home. Zeus orders Calypso to release him, which she does, but not without commentary on the Patriarchy frowning on goddesses boning mortals when they (the men) do it all the time. Preach sister!
Back to the story, “Ogygia,” besides being a fictional island, is also the name of a tech company which makes Candy Crush Collider; an addictive mobile game Josh has pored many hours and cash into (prisons and prisons). Their CEO is named Callie. Great, let’s go!
Ogygia’s Offices. Q, Margo and Josh have found Callie (Michaela McManus), who is willing to speak to them BUT ONLY because she promised Prometheus she would. Truth be told, she blames the Magicians and their magic quest for Prometheus’ death and thinks the whole thing is stupid and they’re stupid and a waste of her time. She’s not very warm to our friends, if that’s not coming through here. But, she made a promise and she wouldn’t break her word to the P man. Exposition time!
The Castle at the End of the World was Callie’s greatest commission of her career, a prison that secure for clients of that caliber. When she mentioned she was going to need the most “steadfast jailers,” Prometheus (Georgie Daburas) offered to help her find them; by creating a Quest. In flashback, we see Callie and Prometheus were, if not lovers at least kissy face friends. Callie defends herself to Margo’s accusation of locking up a girl in the Castle as a slave, by saying that the Daughter as her Father before her, are there of their own free will. The Father, “the Knight”, offered himself freely to act as Bait. Callie goes on to say that she offered them the opportunity to “perform a sacred task to keep the world safe” and when you put it that way, you can see why a true “Hero” would accept such a fate. the Daughter is free to leave, Callie says, but also, a good Quest requires sacrifice. Right Q? I say this because Callie is staring at him pointedly as she makes this final point. Moving on, when Prometheus was looking to stash his Back Door to magic, Callie already had the perfect spot; “a place full of monsters where no one wants to look.”
Prometheus promised to make the Quest difficult for the exact purpose of ensuring no faux Quester could just roll up on the Prison Castle and jeopardize its security … which remains absolutely paramount because of the whole HORRIBLE MONSTER thing. Back in flashback, we see Prometheus pour all of his power into the making of the 7 Keys and the visible toll it takes on him. He “horcruxed himself” as Margo puts it. Callie defends Prometheus’ action by saying that he believed in the human Magicians and he believed wholeheartedly that a time would come when the humans would save the Gods, but only if they had Magic.
Quentin asks the right question at this point, the fuck does that mean? Save the Gods?!? Callie is all *shrug*; guess we’ll find out if you get to the end, right?
The end of the story: Prometheus’ enemies, sensing his weakness, descended upon him and killed him. He was powerless to stop them. Back in the present, Callie is showing as much emotion as we’ve seen but almost totally loses it when Q shows her one of the Keys. Composing herself, she shrugs off her own moment of weakness claiming it was long ago. Josh picks up the narrative by asking if Callie might be willing to specify where her Castle is and how to get in? Pretty Please? Sure, she’s been waiting to show them.
Hanging on a wall is a draft drawing of Fillory; Callie explains that when she built her Castle, it was before the Rams got there and it was just a “distant, wild little world.” Quentin’s light bulb goes off and speaks of the legend that the Dwarves built Castle Whitespire based on the “most perfect design that they’d ever seen,” a castle called Blackspire. Margo says that it can’t be because Ember destroyed Blackspire but, no no no, Callie says rather, Ember flipped it over and started on the other side.
To recap: Margo’s castle is based on Callie’s prison. Blackspire is still there, just underneath, in what I am going to call the “Upside Down,” because I love Stranger Things. And, Callie isn’t going to tell them how access the Upside Down or get inside because, just like the Daughter before them, they need to go through the suck as to be prepared for what’s locked inside. Last bit of info: “What’s locked inside that Castle? Can never ever be allowed to escape.”
I am sure this will end well for everyone involved. Commercials.
Fillory. When we return, we’re in the throne of Whitespire where Acting High King Fen is speaking with the Minions. Things to note here, Tick is full of unbridled shade and derision everytime he refers to Fen as “Acting High King”; someone is bent out of shape for not being left in charge while Margo and Eliot are away, I think. Fen asks for the tax collector’s latest expense reports which doesn’t seem to be a request the Minions expect (I can’t see Margo or Eliot being very good with the minutiae of ruling), and Fen apologizes. A lot. Once the Minions leave, the Fairy Queen appears to scold Fen; stop apologizing! Power comes from Margo but is flowing through Fen so step up and be a badass boss lady! But that’s not really why Fairy Queen is here. Six Fairies have disappeared and a piece of night vision gear was found near one of the abduction sights, which leads Fairy Queen to the conclusion that humans are responsible. Someone is hunting her people.
Earth. Goddess Style. We cut to a trippy view of the Earth, in the type of shot we usually see when we’re headed to The Library, and join Iris and Julia in a forest for some God lessons. This surreal looking place is Iris’ labs, where she mediates and experiments. I should note that she and Julia are both sporting very high born lady parasols (see below) and it just adds to the surreal-ness of it all. Julia asks if she gets to create worlds now? Iris says, duh, but they’ll start with one for now, start small, build up. Other duties include answering prayers a couple of times a week to keep morale up. But mostly, its all very “big picture” being a God. Julia asks about her friends, she still feels her connection to them but Iris assures her that will fade over time and she really needs to stop thinking about them. You can tell its totes annoying to Iris to care about humans and fairies. Iris goes on that Julia’s powers can be better spent on creating new worlds where Fairies and humans never come to harm.
The Cottage. The gang discusses next steps over cocktails. Margo shoots down 23TL Penny’s suggestion that he travel in to Blackspire; they “still have enough Penny blood on their hands from the last Penny.” Hearing 23TL Penny’s question about if they can even be sure the Daughter in the Castle will help them, Quentin gets an idea. No one does “light bulb goes off” face better than Jason Ralph.
In another room, Q uses his one blast of Magic to transport himself into the head of the Daughter, Ora is her name (at least that’s what it sounds like and I’ll edit it post episode if I’m wrong and she’s played by Alexandra Metz), who is currently dreaming. As to not freak her out, he quickly explains that he’s in her head, she’s asleep and the monster she is guarding is not involved. She guesses he wants to ask about the Magic Fountain (“yes”) but she says she can’t help (“boo”). Quentin asks if its because she’s guarding the Monsters but she stops him right there; no plural anymore, this last Monster killed ALL of the other Monsters so its just the two of them there. And, as you may be able to tell, something so powerful and horrible requires all of her energy and that’s why she can’t help; she “can’t risk the security of [her] charge.” What if I’ve got something to trade, Quentin asks?
The Cottage. Margo is not pleased that Q used his emergency Magic to “chat with the help” but he defends himself saying he made a good guess that she’d know how to sneak in and out of the Castle AND be willing to help .. in exchange for what, Kady is the first to ask? Quentin is very specific when he lays out that all they have to do (not including himself in the pronoun) is get in, turn the key, and get out fast. Ora will take care of the Monster, in response to Josh’s follow-up question, and “I stay” in response to Alice’s follow-up follow-up question. Everyone’s head whips around real fast but he defends the decision (seemingly to himself as much as his friends) by saying that Ora has done her time and he’s strong enough now, thanks to the Quest – its a fair deal. Alice and Eliot chime in that this isn’t the solution but Q quickly counters (he knows his friends, that’s for sure because he has these answers ready) that Alice literally already died for them and Eliot was willing to stay in Fillory forever – this is no different. Counter-Offer from Margo: use the gun with God Killing Bullet and shoot the fucker dead in the face. Eliot agrees! But Quentin already promised that there’d be nothing clever. There is only way through, the hard way. It’s what the Quest demands. Commercials.
Fillory. When we return, Gavin (from The Library, remember him?) and Irene (fucking McAllistairs) ambush a Fairy walking through the forest but TWIST! Its Fen in disguise. She calls out her guards who were in hiding (where were they hiding that Gavin and Irene, who were also hiding, didn’t see them?!? That’s some next level Hide and Go Seek shit right there). Gavin reminds her that as a Traveler, he can come and go as he pleases but she baits a hook when she says there is something at the Castle the Fairy Snatchers need to see.
Back at Castle Whitespire, Fen assures the Fairy Queen that according to bunny texts from Margo, they are very close to turning Magic back on. “Hooray for them,” is Fairy Queen’s reply, but Fen’s not done. The Library is looking for a large source of Fairy power to run some thing that when powered up will … “Blah blah blah, don’t care” Fairy Queen interrupts (that’s a paraphrase), she only cares about saving her people and to hell with everything else. Fen is shaking slightly with frustration but nothing doing, Fairy Queen knows exactly what she has to do.
To the Fairy Snatchers, the Fairy Queen offers herself which comes with the power of 50 Fairies in one body. In exchange for a new and entirely unbreakable deal which will see that no Fairy is ever hunted again by a non-Fairy. Deal? Deal. As Irene gets right to murder preparations, Fen begs the Fairy Queen, there must be another way?!? The Fairy Queen has secured the safety and freedom of her people, totes worth it. As Fen begins to tear up, Fairy Queen lightly mocks her for having tears for her enemy but then she gives Fen the most gentle of kisses on her cheek. Its a nice finale for these two as well as their arc of mortal enemies turned allies.
Brakebills. We Alice and Dean Fogg in medias res on the latest doings of the Quest but that’s not why Alice is here. She wants a potion that will not only wipe her memory but create a whole new persona. Why? Because once Magic is back on and all around her, she knows she’ll be too tempted to take her Magic Thug Life too far. She wants a total break from Magic and its world. Henry counters that she’s one of the best Magicians he’s ever seem but she doesn’t care, she doesn’t want to be beholden to what her parents think or what she learned at Brakebills or what The Library wants her to do. He’s not sure that’s the best path to happiness but … nope, she’s stepping off this ride. Dean Fogg hands over the potion and gives her the final warning, once the reboot takes hold (takes about a day), she is on.her.own. Sometime later, we cut to Dean Fogg walking in on … Zelda the Librarian. She’s in a sitting room but we’re at Brakebills – correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think we’ve ever seen Zelda outside The Library?!? She looks up from her book and says, “so?” “We need to talk … about our arrangement,” is the Dean’s only reply as he sits down and we cut to Commercials!
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?!
Fillory. When we return, we join the gang on the Muntjac (still eating tacos). Down below, Alice has clearly told Q her plans for memory wipe; she asks him to not say anything else to anyone else. She tells him that the only regret she has is that she won’t remember that she loves him. They kiss.
Castle Whitespire. The Fairy Queen prepares herself for her sacrifice and we see her take a silent gulp of air; its the most vulnerable we’ve ever see her and Candis Cayne really sells the import of this moment. We cut to the Fairy Queen who is now strapped down on a table while Gavin and Irene stand over her. As Gavin hands Irene a knife, the Fairy Queen tells Irene them that they made a deal they’ll regret. “You’ll never know,” Irene smarms back to her. True but at least the Fairy Queen will die a Queen and “not some mediocre, power hungry girl.” We pull out of the shot as we see Irene lash down in a rage stroke into the Fairy Queen’s chest.
RIP Fairy Queen. I used to hate you and then I loved you and now, I just miss you.
Fillory. We join the Muntjac as it travels to the Upside Down and takes our Questers to Castle Blackspire. A beautifully haunting song, Jagwar by Shells, comes up as we watch our Heroes’ look out on the final stop of their season long Quest.
Let’s stop and look at the lyrics of that song:
Give a little, get it all
Honey and gold for the taking
Fire up my amber heart
Can you feel the ground beneath?Wouldn’t hold you, make you my captive
Don’t hold me too
And the tighter you grip, yeah, the harder I’m pulling
‘Til we fall throughI’m a jagwar calling
I make a bad, bad prisoner
I’m a bird free falling
Wasn’t born just to please ya
If you love it, let it go
If you love it
If you love it, let it go
If you love itThrow, throw a kiss into the wind
Leave your hands open and waiting
Cause the fear can hold us in
And suddenly, everything’s fadingWouldn’t hold you, make you my captiveDon’t hold me too
And the tighter you grip, yeah, the harder I’m pulling
‘Til we fall through
Fucking Ominous. The Upside Down, you’ll not be surprised to learn, is all Hellish Landscape complete with molten lava bleeding from volcanoes and darkness, so much darkness.
The montage fades out as Ora opens a backdoor to the Castle at the End of the World and the Questers enter. Eliot holds up the Golden Keys as proof of their bona fides (but really, who the fuck else is showing up at a backdoor to the Monster Castle, at this time of (perpetual) night?!?)
Alice gets a “I’m about to do something really stupid” look on her face and peels off from the group as Ora takes Quentin down to meet his charge. As they walk, Ora explains that she’s only alive because she satisfies the Monster’s needs: to serve, coddle, love … like a child. You can sense the relief on Q’s face when its child like love … which again, Ralph’s faces emote so much. Anyway, Ora says the Monster thinks they’re playing hide and seek right now (its how she was able to get away to let them in) but he’s getting bored.
Back in the main hall, Eliot hands Margo the keys “in case I get held up” he says before hugging her. What’s Eliot planning on doing?!? They were supposed to turn the Keys and go. What are we doing folks?!? Why can’t anyone ever stick to the Plan?!?
In the Lair of the Monster, Ora calls for the Monster to come out while she gives some critical additional information to Quentin in response to some final questions: A. It has no name. B. Its dangerous because the Gods created something that simply wants, without end. Something that can’t be satiated. “So, it has to know one secured place and constant love.” If not? If its appetite goes unfed and its unleashed, not even the Gods can stop it. (I should totally note that Alice AND Eliot have both snuck down here to the Lair, separately, and are watching the events unfold.)
“What can it do,” Quentin asks as we see a young man come out from the darkness. “Will you play with me,” the Monster asks with its demon eyes. Fucking. Chills.
Quentin steps forward with his greatest weapon in his hands; a deck of cards. The Monster seems eager to play but that’s all interrupted when Eliot steps out from his hiding spot, levels the God Killing Gun and Fires. As Quentin screams, “Eliot no,” the bullet drops the Monster to the floor and Ora rushes towards it. Commercials.
When we return, Quentin confronts Eliot, this isn’t what we agreed on. Eliot makes the fair point that he didn’t actually agree to anything and he wasn’t going to allow his bestie to rot in a castle forever. While they bicker (and man, Hale Appleman TOWERS over Jason Ralph), we see (but the boys don’t) a golden dust leave the Monster’s dead body and enter Ora’s. Whelp! When they turn to look, Ora is gone. “Where she’d go,”Eliot asks but doesn’t really waste any time thinking about it.
Back up in the Main Hall, the Keys are handed out – time to turn Magic back on, bitches. But, Alice has other ideas. Having sniffed some Fairy Dust, she magics the Keys out of everyone’s hands and proceeds to smelt them. Right there, into nothingness. First Margo, then 23TL Penny try to stop her but she blasts them both back before returning to her magic. She’s got a look of crazy on her face, mixed with anxiety and determination. Its a lot of mixed emotions Olivia Dudley is conveying and she’s killing it the entire time. Kady yells at her that she doesn’t get to decide that the whole Universe doesn’t get magic but, maybe she does?
“Why” Quentin asks? Alice says it was Quentin. When he convinced her to not work for The Library, she realized that Magic just makes people behave as different shades of Bad. The smelting complete, Alice knocks them all to their knees and takes off. Margo pulls a thin blade and heads out after her; the plan is basically to get rid of Alice, get her Fairy Dust and fix this.
Earth, Goddess Style. Iris is trying to get Julia focused on world building but she can’t shake the trouble she feels her friends are in. Let.Them.Go. Iris says. Julia sees Q, sees him on the floor. He’ll die if he doesn’t get up from the floor she says.
Castle Blackspire. Back in the Upside Down, Alice runs smack into the Monster wearing its Ora skin, “will you play with me, “it giggle asks? SO CREEPY! Alice turns tail and runs right into Margo and Eliot.
Back in the Main Hall, Q pronounces Magic permanently gone and Goddess Julia appears to say he’s right. Turning to Alice, Julia tells her that she knows Alice thought she was doing what was right for everyone, but she was wrong. “For now, I need you to stay out the way,” and with a flick of her fingers, Julia magics Alice into a corner. Julia turns to Q and tells him it was his bravery that showed her what she needs to do.
Julia then proceeds to recreate the 7 Golden Keys, Prometheus Style. Which also means she drains herself of the entirety of her God power. “I’m not connected to anything any more,” a weak Julia whispers as they all grab the newly minted Keys. Without further hesitation, they insert the Keys into the Fountain and turn. And its glorious as a water begins to bubble in the Fountain and its bathed in blue light. The happy looks are short lived though because Gavin, Irene … and Dean Fogg apparate into the Main Hall.
Irene wastes no time before putting the Questers on their knees with a Force Choke. Gavin hooks up the Siphon to the Fountain and watch as all of the Magic water becomes diverted from its normal course and flows into the Siphon. We quick cut to The Library where we see a Zelda looking very pleased as blue lighted Magic water starts to flow again.
The task done, Irene starts to go in for the Kill on the Questers but Henry calls her off; they have a deal and unless she wants a problem with The Library … Irene relents and we see Dean Fogg advance on the Questers a bottle of the same type of “memory and personality begone” potion that he previously doled out to Alice. We go to Commercials as Eliot looks on in pure fear.
Brakebills. When we return, some time has passed and Magic lessons have resumed at Brakebills University. Well, sort of. Seems like Brakebills is running on Magic rations doled out from The Library overlords. And it sure doesn’t seem like they’re doling out very much. Henry tells his aggrieved teacher that he’ll try to renegotiate their supply.
The Library. Henry shows up to The Library and Zelda shuts him down before he can say a word, they can’t revisit the supply request until next quarter. Henry tells her he’s spoken to the Board of the North American 4th District, Calgary. Seems they’re only using a portion of their magic Allotment and they’ve agreed to pledge the balance to Brakebills. And yes, he’s got all the forms signed, in triplicate. Knowing she’s been bested, Zelda relents, “you’ll have a decision by the 31st .” Great but Henry isn’t done. Zelda shuts this down too and tells him that unlike the others, she had a deal with The Library and broke it, so now? She belongs to The Library. “I just want to see her,” Henry replies. “Please,” he adds.
Hey Alice! Alice is locked in a small room and freaking out about the others. Dean Fogg tells her that per a deal he made with the Board, the other are all … “safe.” Seems she never got around to wiping her memory. Henry is confused because McAllistair can’t find them and even if she did, The Library’s retribution on Irene would be severe. Not McAllistair, Alice crazy persons, the Monster. The Monster can jump bodies and its loose!! And without Magic, the others can’t protect themselves.
Henry is willing to play along; hypothetically, let’s say it gets loose, why would it go after the others? Its seen them, Alice says, and it knows Magic is back that they’re Magicians … even if they don’t. Wait. What?!?
Smash Cut to Margo, dressed to the nines and waiting for a car to pick her up at the airport. She’s on the phone and ALL business. Hey, its Josh. Josh rolls up and gets out and asks for a “Janet.” I’m confused because Margo gets in the car. I am MORE confused because Josh says his name is Isaac. The fuck is happening?!?
In the car, the two lock eyes for a second but then “Janet” scolds “Isaac” for being late, and the moment is broken.
Cue Until the Ribbon Breaks’ cover of Blondie’s “One Way or Another.” Fucking Haunting.
We montage to Julia who is now an architect it seems? And pitching a new building for “Tribeca for the Arts.” 23TL Penny is a DJ (and very grungy looking, more so than usual). Kady is a drug dealer. Quentin is in a bookstore looking like an academic with two big volumes (we don’t get to see the titles) in one hand and a coffee in the other.
As he walks out of the bookstore, we see a nice Easter Egg of a poster on the wall advertising a book about “Ancient Greek Goddesses” and above it, a Seattle Brunch Crawl. Which, is that a thing? Because it sounds delicious. Interesting that Quentin is now in Seattle.
As soon as he steps outside, Eliot grabs him, “Quentin, I found you.” “Brian” is confused and says, “sorry, I’m Brian.” “Do a card trick for me, Quentin,” a strange voiced Eliot asks? “Brian” chuckles and they kind of stare at each other. Eliot’s joy turns to moderate distress, “will you play with me,” he pleads? OH FUCK ALL. Its the Goddamn Monster! Wearing an Eliot Skin!
At the “play with me line,” “Brian gets super uncomfortable and skedaddles away. Eliot Monster takes on a bemused look, as if to say, “oh good, we’re playing ‘catch me’.”
We quick cut to Alice who is outright yelling at Dean Fogg; she’s seen it, felt it, even the Gods are afraid of it. “This is your fault, just as much as it is mine,” she accuses him. She’s not wrong. “Get me out of here,” she pleads, her voice breaking.
Back to Seattle, “Brian” knows he’s being followed but being wholly unaccustomed to Magic Monsters with super powers, he doesn’t know enough to drop the books and coffee and fucking run flat out; he just knows enough to looked really panicked and walk faster. As “Brian” turns the corner, there is Eliot Monster (again, Magic powers). Don’t be scared he tells Quentin. He assures Q this is going to be tons of fun given all the people that deserve their wrath. That sounds like a fucking treat, Eliot Monster. A real treat.
Eliot Monster, as his demon eyes light up, steps towards Quentin and tells him that its going to be fun, everything is more fun when you do it with a friend.
And scene.
Thoughts. Of all the ways I thought this crazy, unpredictable season would go, this wasn’t anywhere near what I thought. I mean, I guess I knew the Monster would get out but not in this way and certainly not in the rubric of the Magicians having been stripped of their memories and personalities.
WHAT WAS DEAN FOGG THINKING?!? I think his betrayal has made me the most angry of all the weird back-stabby shit that happens on this show from time to time. After everything his students did for him, for Magic, for Brakebills. I really hope he’s playing the long con here.
I love the Easter Egg on the Ancient Greek Goddesses at the end of the episode; we’re definitely not done examining the Greek mythology tropes which really were planted this season — the Cassandra/Alice duality in particular, I think we’re looking at that next season. Also, we need to remember that Our Penny was completely unaffected by all of tonight’s episode so expect a triumphant return from him next season, once he shakes off the power of the Underworld Cupcakes and Hades’ pull.
The funny thing is, other than terrified Brian, most everyone seems like they’re doing okay in this new life. Well, maybe not drug dealer Kady but at least she’s dealing and not using (as far as we know); that’s the preferable end of that business deal!
Last thought before we go, Janet – maybe my most favorite Easter Egg of all time on this show. Book readers will know that Margo’s character in the Books is named Janet and Sera Gamble has mentioned before how they made a conscious choice to change her name for the series because of the other J names they already had. So, it was a nice shout out to the loyal fans of the books.
I may have more musings I post when I further digest this episode and this season and look for my ranking of best episodes this season but for now, thank you all for reading this Season and I can’t wait to do it all again in 2019! Fillory and Further, Friends!