Alexx Aplin
Alexx AplinWarning: This review contains spoilers for Episode 6 of The Magicians, as well as minor spoilers from previous episodes. If you aren’t caught up, read at your own risk.
After the high note that was episode 5 of The Magicians, also known as the first half of a double whammy episode, I am surprisingly excited to dig into the other half of said two-hour double whammy. I could be giving the writers too much credit, but episode 5 felt like they had finally found their footing and if the rest of the season goes this well, I could be willing to eat crow on a few things.
To recap, episode 5 involved a quest to move the moon, and after five days of sleep deprivation and a lot of shenanigans, they sort of succeeded. The moon is now broken, but the harmonic convergence is no longer a problem, at least as far as I know. The problem is the moon deals with tides and other natural phenomena, so this could spell an even worse apocalypse.
We also had a short glimpse of Fen interacting with a Faerie and some information on Eliot, who seems to be struggling with the trauma of being possessed by The Monster last season. Marina was revealed to be behind the memory assassin and the moved depository, and it seems like she has bigger plans too.
With that out of the way, let’s get into episode 6, titled “Oops!…I Did it Again.”
Spoilers for the episode begin here!
The episode begins with a voiceover of a news report talking about the moon and that the first pieces of it will be falling to Earth soon. The funny part about this is that they also mention a tweet by the President, and I can’t help but wonder who is President in The Magicians universe because Donald Trump is not nearly that eloquent.
The entire group is in crisis mode, with twelve hours before the first piece of the Moon falls to Earth. Josh is plying everyone with pizza, while the rest are trying to figure out what to do from here. Kady returns and explains that the streets are a madhouse with rioters, looters, prayer circles, and people doing what two consenting adults do…out in the middle of the street.
I have to pause here and just mention that I find Josh insufferable half the time. He’s mostly useless and provides very little to the group, aside from the occasional joke that actually lands. Trevor Einhorn’s acting is fine, but the writing of him is just not interesting.
Kady, on the other hand, is doing real work this episode. She reworked a spell, on her own, that she thinks could work if they utilize an upcoming surge. Additionally, with the hedges at her disposal, with the right cooperative magic, it is an actual viable option. The Magicians is at its best when it has a clear goal in mind, not a thousand muddled plots that don’t connect.
It is also nice to see that Julia and Kady are back as friends again. They’ve had a rough go of things, but the sheer levels of Girl Power that work in this episode (and the previous episode) make me wonder what the writers were doing before? Did they finally figure out how to treat their ladies well? Or is this just a passing thing that’ll end up blowing up in a few more episodes?
We get a twelve-hour time jump, which this early in the episode makes me worried. They can’t resolve this crisis that quickly right? Just like I suspected, the spell doesn’t work and the moon literally falls to the Earth in pieces. Except this is a time-loop episode, teased by Sera Gamble previously, that becomes readily apparent when Margo and Eliot have the same conversation they had twelve hours before the meteors all fell.
Margo and Eliot seem to be the only ones who remember what has happened, so we watch the first scene again but this time with Margo and Eliot looking very confused. This leads to another great line from Margo “Of course we’re the chosen ones. We’re us!”
They begin to explain to the crew what is going on, which leads to a new plan, of sending Penny 23 to the moon. Without his traveling powers, this is dangerous, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The first attempt goes very badly, but the next time loop leads to a new plan, moving the Earth instead.
This plan doesn’t go any different from the first one or the second, and repeated attempts get more frustrating and problematic. After ten loops, Margo and Eliot are immensely frustrated, understandably so. Penny suggests calling on Stoppard, the horomancer from season 4, who lost his mother as a result of Penny’s actions.
It turns out, that the perfume made by Jane Chatwin is what has enabled them to be in a time loop. This leads to Stoppard offering to send Eliot and Margo 48 hours into the past to prevent this whole situation. Except there is a problem. Something is preventing time magic from working at all, something ancient.
To compound this issue, Margo and Eliot are unable to get back to Fillory either. They initially decide to try and focus on something else, hoping to find a new solution basically by accident, but that quickly gets derailed. Eliot is hearing the voice again. Cue a hedonistic montage that goes from booze to pillow fights, to other such things.
Margo and Eliot’s relationship has always been something I adore about The Magicians, and it feels like that is thrown front and center here. Their banter is fun, Hale and Summer play well off each other, and it is just fantastic.
Of course, despite party time, something is still nagging at Eliot. He isn’t sure what it is, and maybe he doesn’t want to face it (in pure Eliot fashion,) but it is there all the same. Eliot is still seeing “Let me out” scrawled on walls in blood and that can’t be good, right?
This escalates to a door appearing out of nowhere, with a heart drawn on it. Eliot keeps trying to resist, but the more Eliot self-medicates, the worse it gets. Ultimately (and thankfully,) Margo asks him what is going on and Eliot believes the monster is still inside him. Margo believes he refuses to face what he did while possessed, and insists on carrying on by herself until he faces his demons.
Strangely, after the next time loop, Margo doesn’t remember what happened. She doesn’t remember the time loop at all. Now Eliot is alone and has to figure this out himself. Josh, strangely, proves useful. He mentions to Eliot that he has seen a lot of time loop movies and suggests that Eliot actually try to let “The Monster” out. If he’s recurring so insistently, perhaps it is what Eliot needs to push forward through the loop.
Josh’s conversation with Eliot, in which he tells Eliot that he believes Eliot will find a way to fix it, is a high point in the episode. Trevor’s acting here is great, and for once, his character is not relegated to a poor comic relief role.
Eliot faces another door and meets Charleton again, also known as The Monster’s former host before Eliot. Charleton was trapped inside of Eliot and when he chose not to sleep for five days (for Moon Brain,) it gave Charleton an opening to contact Eliot.
Charleton suggests that Margo being tossed from the time loop might be due to her coming too close to the solution. So, he suggests that they make their way to Fisher Beach where Margo was going during her last loop.
At Fisher Beach, Eliot discovers a telephone wire going from the lifeguard shack straight to the ocean. Upon further inspection, he makes contact with the whales themselves. The Whales admit that they got rid of Margo’s temporal immunity because “her manner was appalling.” I’m a little surprised by that because frankly Margo gets things done, so what exactly did she say to upset them?
The whales also explain that their ancestors made a deal with the old gods, and because of this, they draw sigils on the ocean floor. They do this to ensure that the Kraken remains dormant because if it awakens, which we know it does due to the promos for this season, it will consume the world.
The reason for the time loop has to do with the fact that the moon hitting the earth eliminated those sigils made by the whales, causing the Kraken to awaken. The whales are ultimately no help, but Eliot goes back to the group to tell them what he has learned so far.
They come up with a plan to release the Kraken early, hoping that the time loop magic will send them back earlier, to a point where they can fix things. He tells the whales this and they promptly hang up on him. This leads him to yell at them from the ocean, which apparently works.
He winds up returning to a point in time during the planning stage of the plan and enlists Margo’s help in stopping Marina. After Margo punches Marina in the face, they get a chance to try again, and the plan is a success. This leads to a bit of celebration but Eliot finds himself with Margo on the balcony, at Charleton’s urging.
Eliot admits that he remembers everything that happened as The Monster. He remembers every bloody moment, at the forefront of his mind. Margo, ever the blunt sort, says she doesn’t understand why he feels like he has to go it alone and why he pushed her away. Eliot doesn’t know himself and admits that his logical side knows that they are stronger together.
He recognizes that Margo has evolved and become more of her true self than ever. This makes him question whether it is fair to her for him to be clinging to her so much, but she believes otherwise. She believes, as the viewer does, that they are a part of each other. He understands her better than anyone, and in most cases, she understands him the same way.
This scene between Eliot and Margo is powerful and it highlights one of the strongest relationships on the show. Sometimes love doesn’t have to be romantic. Sometimes, it just is being understood by someone and that someone having your back through whatever is going on.
The next scene has Todd showing up at the penthouse because the sexist pigman from the very first episode visited him with a quest. Apparently, now Fillory is in danger of an apocalypse of its own. Can’t say I’m surprised there, but at least it brings everyone else into the fold of helping Margo and Eliot stop whatever is coming.
I am cautiously optimistic about the rest of the season after seeing how everything has shaken out so far. The Magicians is at its best when everything comes together, I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it. That is the problem that season 4 had. Nothing came together in a way that made sense for the characters.
This doesn’t absolve the writers for how season 4 went. It doesn’t absolve the character assassination of certain characters or the harmful way things are sometimes depicted. However, this is a step in the right direction. As someone who was very hurt by season 4 and didn’t think the show would ever find its way again, I’m starting to come around to the idea that maybe things are course-correcting.
I have an issue with the fact that they used the door of the Mosaic cottage as symbolism in this episode, because we’re not getting any real payoff of that. Everyone else gets to save their loves, but Eliot just has to live with it and mourn. Yet despite that, the episode was entertaining and although these things frustrate me, it is what we’ve gotten. Hopefully, there will be some sort of satisfying Quentin and Eliot related thing to come.
There are still a lot of questions to answer. Whose shade got traded to Mayakofsky’s daughter? What is the big crisis that will be affecting Fillory? Will the Faeries get what they are due? So many questions, but for once we’re finally in a place that feels like things are coming together. It is strange to have the big catastrophe solved in the middle of the season, but I’m hoping this is a sign of good things to come and not a lackluster back half.
This review came out at a different time than usual because of the double episode, but I’ll be reviewing Episode 7 for Friday as usual. So if you’re still with me through all of this, please stay tuned!
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🔥529The Magicians
Pros
- Fun Time Loop Plot
- Lots of Margo and Eliot Scenes
- Josh is More Than Just an Idiot for Once
- Great Acting
- Solid CGI for the Kraken
Cons
- Odd Resolution of a Big Plot Early in the Season
