Alexx Aplin
Alexx AplinWarning: This review contains spoilers for Episode 7 and minor spoilers for previous episodes. If you aren’t caught up, catch up then come back.
After last week’s 2-part episode, we’re back to business as usual with reviews of The Magicians. I do want to mention something that I’ve heard a lot of people talking about though. I briefly touched on it in my review of Episode 6 but it is somewhat disconcerting when a show ends a plot halfway through the season. Some shows are able to maintain the sense of urgency through the back-half, but now that we’re at the official halfway mark, I can see why some folks are concerned.
To recap, after breaking the moon and causing the destruction of the Earth, Eliot and Margo found themselves in a time loop. With some clever time-altering plans, Eliot managed to fix things except now Julia has discovered that a second apocalypse is coming, this time for Fillory. Luckily, this new quest will hopefully bring the crew to a singular goal and prevent the mess of disconnected subplots that affected the first few episodes of this season.
As I’ve said, The Magicians is at its best when it knows what it is doing. It is great television when the characters involved are working toward a common goal. This episode pumps the brakes a little on the momentum from previous episodes but hopefully, the stakes will ramp up again soon.
Spoilers for the episode begin here!
The first scene of the episode involves Todd and Julia. Todd tells Julia that the pig-man from Episode 1 gave him a quest in the form of a song. Julia tells him to go get his notes on the song and that she will meet him at Brakebills because she fully intends to take over his entire quest on his behalf.
Can I just say, thank whatever gods exist in that universe because a quest that is Todd-centric (while funny) would be far too long for the back half of this season. Besides, Julia has wanted a quest all season and technically Eliot solved the last one.
Julia lets Margo and Eliot know about this latest development and they are certain that The Dark King, or something related to him, is the cause of Fillory’s impending doom. Instead of waiting for Julia to check Todd’s notes, Margo and Eliot return to Fillory to investigate further.
We then switch to Penny who is late for an emergency staff meeting. The cause is that Lipson is now in a coma, leaving Brakebills without an acting Dean. Because the moon is not in its usual position, the circumstances for casting magic have changed. When Lipson went to reset the wards around Brakebills, there was an immediate backlash from Fogg’s security system and now she is in a coma.
Penny then discovers that he has been volunteered for the position of Acting Dean because he didn’t show up for the meeting. The next scene involves Eliot and Margo discovering from Rafe that The Dark King’s animal advisor advised him to relocate all talking animals beyond the kingdom’s walls, essentially exiling them.
Eliot is still trying to give Seb the benefit of the doubt about his knowledge of the Faerie ethnic cleansing, but I’m still not convinced. Like Margo, I can’t help but wonder if he has an agenda beyond the “good” of Fillory and stopping the Takers. There’s too much we don’t know, and on that I at least agree with Eliot.
They also learn that Fen is with the Faeries, so Margo decides to go find her and see how she can help with the situation. Eliot stays at Whitespire with the goal of trying to find out more of what The Dark King is up to.
Back in the shoes of Penny, he is searching Fogg’s office to try and find a use for the key meant to stop Fogg’s security system, when he is interrupted by a student. This leads to a montage of Penny being bombarded by a variety of ridiculous student problems and requests. The scene was a little funny, but I do not envy Penny in this situation.
Finally, Alice arrives and she and Penny have a conversation about what is going on. She explains that they have to figure out how casting works now because there are still magic surges and if people aren’t careful, more folks will die or get hurt, or worse.
Penny then finds a box in Fogg’s desk that reads “For Emergencies Only” which leads to a bit of a pow-wow between him, Julia, and Alice. They determine that this emergency red button might be the key to summoning Fogg but with magic going haywire, it isn’t without risk. Ultimately, with no other place to turn, they have no choice but to take the risk.
Before we can see whether the button worked or was a dud, we transition back to Whitespire where Charleton and Eliot meet up, just in time for one of The Dark King’s advisors to express concerns over the fact that Whitespire’s gold reserves have been depleted. Subjects of the kingdom, such as soldiers and builders, haven’t been paid in weeks, and thus they are threatening to strike. This could even lead to rebellion.
The Dark King’s advisor believes that the Faeries are hoarding gold and wants to go into the Whispering Woods to find them. Eliot, likely thinking this is more racist anti-faerie rhetoric, suggests a more diplomatic attempt at getting whatever gold the faeries may (or may not) have. Charleton, in a moment of echoing my thoughts (and that of other viewers probably), points out that The Dark King is smart and charismatic, but not trustworthy.
Eliot is sent with the king’s advisor. He is told that if they find the faerie encampment, he has one hour to negotiate. If the negotiation fails then the advisor is given leave to use force. We then find Margo, who is traversing the woods, when she is held at spearpoint by a faerie. It seems that history has not been kind to the tale of Margo interacting with the Faerie Queen, and the faeries now blame her for their current predicament.
At Brakebills, Fogg surprises Penny. The button worked and now Fogg…well, he’s fallen off the wagon. This is no surprise considering he was in the Etheric Realm for so long, right? After filling in Fogg on what is going on, Alice explains that she thinks she has found a work-around for being able to cast. Her plan is to use her new workaround to teach people magic again, so that they can cast without harming themselves.
As Fogg explains his exit from the Etheric Realm, I found myself suspicious. It doesn’t track with what we know of the realm so far. What is going on? In any case, Penny gives Fogg the master key and before Penny can ask more questions about student issues, Fogg essentially tells him that he can figure it out himself.
The next scene involves Fen and Margo discussing how things are different in the way Margo is perceived by the faeries. The faeries blame her for their current predicament because very few of them remember what actually happened. Fen is trying to appeal to them, but Margo loses her temper. It is really interesting to see Brittany Curran playing this role because she manages to show Fen’s emotional turmoil working with the faeries, while still trying to do the right thing.
I am a little annoyed that Fen sleeping with Josh has been pushed aside so easily but I suppose that is a plot thread that will get dropped entirely. I’m getting Season 4 flashbacks. Fen and Margo interacting so easily after that just doesn’t feel right. Fen comes up with a plan to get the faeries on Margo’s side, though before we can find out what that is, we cut to Alice in the Brakebills library.
She meets a prospective professor, a man by the name of Hamish. Alice then discovers that her fix for the circumstances no longer works because they have changed again. She knows she has to warn Fogg because if he tries to do anything with magic it could backfire. Before we can see what else happens there, Julia and Penny take focus, going over Todd’s notes.
This leads to an argument where Penny believes that Julia will never be done with quests and solving other people’s problems, while Julia argues that he just thinks it is a response of her grieving Quentin. At the end of the day, regardless of her motivation, Julia believes that Fillory deserves to be saved. Penny knew what she was like when they got together and, quite frankly, the whole relationship reeks of “I loved the version of you from my timeline, here, be my replacement.”
Stella’s acting in this scene is nothing short of skillful. I’ve said it before, but her acting is so good that even if The Magicians doesn’t see a Season 6, I want to see her do more on TV, or film for that matter. Her acting is more than good enough. Julia breaks things off with Penny, but before they can even process that, the alarms go off. Fogg has somehow triggered the emergency protocols and now no one can leave.
Fen and Margo’s plan ultimately goes bad, mostly due to Margo’s temper flaring and the faeries being unwilling to see reason. However, before they can throw Margo out, a bunny appears with a warning. It seems Eliot and The Dark King’s advisor are on their way.
We then see more strangeness from Fogg. He claims that Alice’s circumstance workaround didn’t work and triggered all the school’s defenses. So, he wants them to stay put. However, something about him still feels strange. He called Todd “Eliot” which is Todd’s first name but no one calls him by that name, so it doesn’t make sense.
Julia and Penny begin talking about how strange Todd and Fogg are acting and it becomes clear to them that something isn’t right. Penny doesn’t want to risk following them but when Julia insists on going, he can’t help but follow along. We see more between Alice and Hamish and I have to say, Alice getting sassy with this new guy, was absolutely hilarious.
Alice’s attempts to reach Fogg keep failing because of a strange new problem. The circumstances of magic keep changing erratically. Hamish helps her take down the ward on the room they’re trapped in and they’re off to find Fogg, or they would be if Hamish didn’t get a nasty wound from trying to disarm the ward. So, they decide to head to the Greenhouse instead.
Eliot and Pickwick (the advisor) arrive, but the faeries are gone. Pickwick believes Eliot warned them, while Margo helps the Faeries escape, proving her loyalty. Pickwick has planted gold in the faerie encampment, obviously pushing his anti-faerie agenda in an attempt to incite violence. Charleton catches the deception, but Eliot has pulled one of his own. He actually did warn Margo of what was happening and gave her time to get the Faeries to safety.
Julia and Penny find a rather flustered Todd, who seems nervous and wants to get something to Fogg. He’s acting strangely, though Julia and Penny don’t have time at the moment to dwell on it. Before he can do so, he steps on a magical “landmine” and promptly explodes. Except now we know something is going on because the real Todd shows up, just in time to say “…did I just die?” Honestly, the comedic timing of that is absolutely hilarious, even if a bit…morbid.
Alice and Hamish make their way to the greenhouse to find a healing option for Hamish’s arm. I have to admit, I hope this is a new love interest or at the very least a new friend for Alice. They seem to make a good team. They find a magical terrarium that allows circumstances to be made consistent on a constant basis. Alice realizes she can use this to fix the mess they’ve made.
Todd reveals that the other Todd tied him up in a closet and apparently didn’t want him moving around. Because Todd is good with knots, he managed to escape, which tips them off that something is going on. Penny then realizes that the other Todd wasn’t a twin, he was a Todd from another timeline, which likely means that the Fogg they are dealing with is also from another timeline.
Todd reveals that he knows all about every single Fogg and this one is the Fogg from timeline 17, which he dubs “Psycho Fogg.” Apparently in his timeline, Brakebills blew up and the burns on Fogg’s hands are because he was the culprit.
Switching back to Eliot, they imply that Pickwick didn’t just find the gold, he smuggled it…in a very disgusting place. However, his deception is believed by the Dark King and with some clever work by Eliot, we discover that Pickwick has been raising beetles that excrete gold from their orifices as waste. That’s the best way I can say they’re pooping gold without getting gross about it.
It is clear that Pickwick dislikes faeries but we’re not sure why. He is going through an awful lot of trouble though to eradicate them.
Back to Alice and Hamish, we discover that Fogg got her message, which is bad news knowing what we know of him. Alice managed to manipulate the machine to fix the circumstances in the greenhouse but before they can fix the situation, Julia and Penny arrive to reveal that Fogg brought about the lockdown on purpose.
He wants to transport this Brakebills back to Timeline 17 because apparently, that timeline wasn’t reset when the loop started over. Because of this, his world is now a post-apocalyptic wasteland. He destroyed Brakebills to stop the Beast and now he wants to use this one as a do-over of sorts because he has a daughter.
Fogg offers to help Penny fix his inability to travel because he knows a Magician who can unlock “latent” abilities. Penny seems to fall for it and Fogg gets what he’s after but it is revealed that they swapped the Cinnabar that Fogg needed for Cinnamon, rendering the spell useless.
Back in Fillory, Margo and Eliot reveal to The Dark King that Pickwick has been hiding the beetles. He also reveals (when pressed) that he hates faeries because they are not Fillorian. The Dark King shows a surprising reaction, saying that he didn’t want their innocent blood on his hands. The Dark King thanks Eliot for showing him the truth and it seems he trusts Eliot now.
Charleton is concerned that Eliot is blind to the truth and Eliot admits that he likes The Dark King. It is here that Eliot admits that he believes that maybe he only deserves messed up people. He’s messed up, The Dark King is messed up, and maybe he deserves that. Charleton believes otherwise, but Eliot isn’t convinced, at least not yet.
I am a little annoyed that they watered down Eliot’s protest to Charleton’s points, down to “well, your parents loved you, so obviously you believe everyone deserves better.” Not everything is about that and it feels like Eliot is regressing more than he is growing, at least in this case.
Penny reveals that he put Fogg in a room where he can’t cast magic, called a Clean Room. They can’t send him home and they can’t kill him, so Penny intends to keep him there and ask him for advice should he need it. It feels very “Hannibal-esque” and I am curious to see what happens.
Alice suggests a theory on why magic isn’t working correctly. Apparently, the Lunatics were correct and the Moon has feelings. It is moving erratically because it is angry at them for moving her. Alice has no idea how to fix it, so she’s going to keep studying and see if she can figure out a solution. Hamish also got a job at Brakebills, so it seems she’ll be seeing him more often.
Penny and Julia come to a sort of understanding. He reveals that in his timeline, Julia went alone on a quest to Fillory and never came back, so this is a frightening prospect for him. She insists that she isn’t that Julia and I am glad she has finally made that point. He also addresses it and says he knows she isn’t the same, and he knows that the one thing they have in common is that when they set their mind to something, there’s no changing it.
Julia feels that she has to do this and after telling her to be safe, Penny watches her leave. The last scene involves the Faerie leader showing Eliot and Margo that The Dark King is using gold to summon the Takers. Now we see that he really is the problem.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions and while this episode wasn’t as fun or high-action as the last two, I think we’re still going in the right direction. This was a solid episode, if a little slow. Hopefully, things will pick up now that we have a clear idea of who the real villain is. However, The Magicians has a way of throwing curveballs, so who knows what will happen next.
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🔥316The Magicians
Pros
- Psycho Fogg was an Interesting Villain
- Stella's Acting is Fantastic
- Hamish Seems Like an Interesting Foil for Alice
- Finally Getting Somewhere in Fillory
- Actual Development for Penny 23
Cons
- Tasteless Joke about Nuremburg Trials
- Todd is a Little Obnoxious
- Eliot's Reason for Liking TDK is Regressive
