Alexx Aplin
Alexx AplinWarning: This review contains spoilers for Episode 5 of The Magicians, as well as references to earlier episodes. If you’re not caught up, then read at your own peril. Further warning, that a tweet featured contains strong language.
It’s that time again folks! The Magicians Season 5 is back with a double episode this week! Now, as I mentioned in the review for episode 4, I won’t be covering both 5 and 6 in a single review. Instead, Episode 6’s review will be going out early next week so that you guys get double the content and we’re not off track when episode 7 arrives.
To recap where we left off, Alice helped Zelda prevent the Visigoths from having access to everyone’s books. Kady and Fogg went on an acid trip, Margo discovered that The Dark King is doing something with faeries, and Julia made a deal with a god, which led to Penny losing his psychic abilities. We also learned that to prevent the Harmonic Convergence from killing everyone, they have to move the Moon.
The cliffhanger at the end of 5 is insane. And causes the insanity of episode 6. So the network thought this could be a fun treat for fans. #TheMagicians https://t.co/1JWQ3jbwQ3
— Sera Gamble (@serathegamble) February 6, 2020
Before I get into the actual review, I wanted to mention that one thing The Magicians does very well, which I haven’t mentioned before in these reviews that involve set design and costume design. Every character has a unique style, even if some of it is questionable. The set designs are also usually done very well, though I saw a few people talking about the Etheric Realm from the last episode and, in hindsight, I agree it could have been done better.
Without further fanfare, let’s get into the episode, shall we? Sera Gamble explained the reasoning for the double episode, so I’ll put her tweet in here as well, so you know where we all stand.
Episode Spoilers Begin Here!
Episode 5, titled “Apocalypse? Now?!” begins with Zelda, Julia, Alice, Kady, and Penny, discussing the Harmonic Convergence and their plan to move the moon in order to prevent it from magnifying the surges and causing a mass extinction event. They also happen to explain that due to magicians casting spells on the moon for millennia, magic no longer works on the moon.
In fact, it is covered in “spell debris” which prevents spells from working on the moon’s surface. There is also likely a bit of foreshadowing in this scene where Zelda admits that moving the moon may very well change how magic works on Earth, thereby creating a new problem. Considering every time the crew attempts to fix something, they break a dozen more things, this doesn’t bode well.
Zelda explains that they need to consult beings known as “lunatics” or “lunar fanatics” which have achieved a sort of connection with the moon. I somewhat feel like this could be in bad taste considering the writers’ relationship with depicting mental health, but for lack of a better term, I’m sure it works fine.
Thus, Alice and Julia find themselves at a mental hospital, seeking to meet with one of these aforementioned lunatics. During the meeting with one such lunatic, who has a tattoo of a crescent moon on her eyeball (ouch) there is a humorous bit of dialogue discussing that the moon, according to this woman, identifies as a she. I hadn’t given the personal pronouns of the moon much thought, but it was an unexpected bit of humor.
Things take a bit of a weird turn when the lunatic reveals that in order to move the moon, they must ask her to move, which can only be done by three people acquiring “Moon brain”. Something tells me we’re in for another acid trip experience, though a bit less Candyland and more…Close Encounters of the Third Kind?
After that incredibly strange, but weirdly entertaining segment, we find ourselves in a new scene with Penny and Doctor Lipson. She confirms that Penny would not be able to safely travel and because of that, he intends to step down as a professor. There is a small problem though. Now that Fogg has stayed in the Acid realm from the last episode, Brakebills has instituted their “Dean vanishment” protocol.
She explains that as acting-Dean, she doesn’t think that it is a good idea to let a professor leave his post after becoming magically disabled on campus. His contract is to be honored and enforced, which makes me confused on a few levels. How do you teach people to do things you yourself can no longer do?
We then shift to Eliot and Margo, who are discussing the revelations from the previous episode. Eliot isn’t convinced that Seb is the person behind the Faerie hunting and thus suggests that they should find out more before they kill him and accidentally make things worse. Personally, I think he is a tad bit naïve because there are a variety of things that point to The Dark King as being behind this whole thing.
However, they are interrupted in their conversation by Josh, who delivers a bunny message that basically is a big fat SOS message from everyone else. Finally, everyone is going to be grouped together again. I should also mention that as usual, Eliot and Margo’s banter is a high point in every scene they have together and despite the fact that I like Trevor Einhorn as an actor, Josh drives me up the wall.
Before they leave, Eliot asks Fen to ask around about who in the castle hates faeries. He also gives her a laundry list of other ideas, like talking to the faeries themselves. Fen is understandably apprehensive about this plan, as she wants to help stop the apocalypse too but this scene further cements her arc of being a relative outsider this season. Plus with her tensions with Margo, I can’t imagine the two of them in the same space being that great of an idea.
The next scene is a general pow-wow of everyone together, discussing their next move. Alice and Julia have discovered that Moon Brain only comes from five consecutive nights of no sleep. While the rituals to contact the moon are simple, that level of sleep deprivation (and the ensuing insanity) is dangerous.
The next section involves the various lengths that the team goes through to stay awake. Julia has taken to taking a lot of cold showers. Josh is providing everyone coffee and yet suddenly Eliot is hearing a voice, saying his name. Before he can investigate whether it is an auditory hallucination or something more, Alice discovers that NASA brought back moon rocks from the Apollo mission. 180 of these rocks were given as gifts and have apparently gone missing.
This entire scene had me laughing because of Margo’s wit, such as the quote “If I get 9 hours of sleep a night, I’m still a b***h so this should get interesting.” Another great part of the scene was the entire group’s reaction to Josh’s intention to find something to keep them all awake, which the group immediately asks if he means meth.
We then get an unexpected team-up. Kady wants to go find the Book Repository, which is apparently in Hell’s Kitchen, so she can find the way to remove the marks from the hedges. She enlists Zelda’s help, as Zelda was formerly a librarian. Though initially hesitant, Zelda ultimately tags along, though she isn’t given much choice.
We get a short interlude of Fen interacting with a Faerie who asks her to join her for some reason before we transition back to Josh pulling muffins out of the oven…or so he thinks. He is the first of the group to fall asleep. There is a fun pep talk scene that turns into more of a “we could all die but we have to try” talk, then we flash forward three days later.
Three days later, the entire group is exhausted but they come upon a final lead. A magician who is also a Lunatic, who happens to be a billionaire that owns a moon rock. We don’t see how they get into the man’s good graces, but during a conversation with him, Eliot hears the voice again. Specifically, he hears “Eliot…let me out…” which really gives me flashbacks to last season’s Monster quest.
If The Monster is still out there, that means Quentin’s death really was for nothing and I am going to be incredibly upset. I’m all for shaking things up but if Eliot has to revisit that trauma again, honestly, when will they let him catch a break? Aside from that, Julia and Eliot learn that the billionaire fully intends to profit off of the apocalypse that accompanies the Harmonic Convergence.
We then realize that this whole entire meeting with the Billionaire is a ruse. Julia used the necklace she and Kady enchanted a few seasons ago to allow Alice to see the entire layout of the place. Because of that, they now know how to steal the rock. The problem is, Mayakofsky owned the rock first and apparently placed a rather intricate ward on it.
Then comes probably the most real moment of the episode, Eliot and Julia have a talk in private. Julia remembers being possessed by the monster’s sister vividly. She knows that Eliot remembers too, though he fully insists otherwise. It is also nice to see acknowledgment that Julia did want to call Quentin during the first few days of trying to stay awake.
Julia lets Eliot know that if he ever needs to talk about it, she is there and she has an open-door policy. What she doesn’t know, is that Margo was eavesdropping and heard the entire exchange. She knows Eliot, and I’m fairly sure she knows he’s lying too.
We then switch to Kady and Zelda, who bond over the fact that while Zelda regrets her decisions in the Library, Kady regrets leaving Fogg behind. We learn that Zelda spent 3 years in the Etheric realm, and she knows the emperor well. She also reassures Kady that if Fogg stayed, it was because he had a “flaw” the emperor saw. On the flip side, if Kady was allowed to leave, it meant that she wanted to do good, because “nothing bores the emperor like goodness.”
It is nice to see Zelda and Kady bonding, and Mageina Tovah always brings a certain regality to a scene. We then move to Julia and Alice, who meet none other than Mayakofsky’s daughter. Excuse me while I vomit at the idea of someone having relations with that creep. I digress, anyway, they learn that it was the daughter who installed the ward, not Mayakofsky himself.
It seems his daughter is just as nutty as her father. She gives them an ultimatum. She will help them, in exchange for a shade. How she can trade in souls unchecked is beyond me but…fair enough I suppose. After that weird bombshell, Kady and Zelda find the depository and make their way inside. They find the book they need, and Zelda agrees to take it to Harriet. However, they are noticed by someone, who likely has something to do with the shadow organization from before.
With one hour left until the Harmonic Convergence, the heist begins. However, there’s still the matter of the shade payment that we don’t know about yet. Also, Eliot is clearly not okay, but he insists on continuing on. This can only end badly. I will say though, the costuming for everyone involved in this segment is absolutely stunning.
Only after Eliot is left alone do we really see what he is dealing with. The words “Let Me Out” are scrawled in blood on a nearby van. Clearly this is a hallucination, but is it sleep deprivation or something more? As the party goes on, we get some great lines, such as Margo’s “Honey I haven’t had short-term memory in two days” which, after five days of no sleep makes total sense to me.
Penny, Josh, and Margo get captured but the moon rock heist does what it was meant to, so it wasn’t a total loss. It was actually a diversion, so that Alice, Julia, and Eliot could cast the spell to move the moon. At the last second, while the spell is almost complete to move the moon, Eliot disappears having followed the voice he keeps hearing.
He sees his possessed self in a mirror but before he can discern what is going on, he gets interrupted. During the next sequence, we discover that Marina (from timeline 23) is behind the movement of the depository, and she knows what they are planning. Marina wants the convergence to happen and her showboating is her ultimate downfall.
As the convergence begins, Eliot casts the spell to speak to the moon by himself. Now emboldened with the power of the surges, a spell that takes 3 people, only takes one. Except Marina interferes and as a result, the moon is now broken, essentially stopping one apocalypse but causing much bigger problems.
I’ll be honest with you. This is probably one of the best episodes that has aired all season. In fact, between the humor, the acting, and the sheer weirdness this episode, it really feels like we’ve circled back to what made the series great in the first place. Granted, there are still some issues, like the fact that Penny has no real discernable use on the team anymore, but I am very pleased by this episode.
Between upcoming threats like the moon being broken and the looming concern of whose shade Mayakofsky’s daughter has, I’m really strangely excited to see what comes next. Also, bringing Kady’s storyline back around to connect with the plot of Marina and the convergence really helps to give her something to do beyond just being a side character no one really knows what to do with.
This episode was The Magicians at the top of its game. When you get down to it, this show has always been weird, but the bonds between characters and the unexpected twists are what keep people coming back for more. Sure, I don’t think the ending was quite as shocking as the writers made it out to be but it was definitely interesting, and opens the door for some interesting narrative moving forward.
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🔥516The Magicians
Pros
- Great Costuming and Set Design
- Fun Storyline with Great Acting
- Hilarious Dialogue
- Plotlines are Coming Together
Cons
- Distasteful Use of the Word Lunatic
- Not Exactly the Most Intense Cliffhanger
