Alexx Aplin
Alexx AplinWarning: Spoilers for the 12th Episode of The Magicians can be found in this review. If you aren’t caught up, please do so, or read at your own risk.
Well, the penultimate episode of The Magicians is here. Interestingly enough, it is also the annual musical episode. Personally, my favorite musical episode of the entire series to date, is the Season 3’s musical episode where “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie was front and center. With plenty of questions to answer and only one more episode after this one, I can’t help but wonder if it will all come to a satisfying end. Based on the track record of these writers, it could go either way.
To recap the previous episode, The Couple now has access to the page of information on the World Seed, as well as the circumstance machine from Brakebills. On top of that, the seed itself is housed in a hotel for magicians, so Alice and Kady enlisted Marina’s help to steal it. Rupert Sebastian Chatwin is also trying to break down the door separating our world from the underworld, so that he can get his lost love back. If he does so, every dead being will return to life, and the world will be overrun.
The stakes are high, and there’s a lot to get through. So, despite my reservations on whether the writers have the skill to tie everything up nicely, we’ve come this far, let’s see where this magical mystery tour leads.
Spoilers for the Episode begin here!
We begin this latest episode, with an info-dump from Marina. She tells the group that the Nave hotel is the ultimate “magician safe space.” No battle magic can be cast, no traveling in and out by magic, cell phones don’t work, and if you are caught scamming the hotel or the guests, you’re done and dead.
It is essentially the Magicians’ version of John Wick’s Continental Hotel. Normally this is where I would give a sarcastic jab about SJH being “really original,” but this is actually an interesting way of re-using their favored heist trope. Original or not, here we are.
Their second obstacle is the bellhops, golems who can use empathic magic to sense microaggression and intent. On top of that, there is the vault, which is protected by a variety of wards and protections. During Marina’s explanation, she reveals that the vault was freezing cold, which Fen mentions means that there is no way the seed could be housed there.
The seed must be in a place that is climate controlled to 99 degrees Fahrenheit, hot climates, not cold ones. We get a temporary interlude of Julia suggesting that she and Penny talk to Penny’s mom in Connecticut, to ask her about Traveler moms. After that, we’re back with the group, using Marina’s “heist book” to help them plan their attack on the Nave.
They realize that one room is hotter than the others. Problem is, how do you get the seed out without killing it? Well, after a bit of a pow-wow, they realize when The Couple stole it initially, they used a bag that was enchanted as a sort of incubator. So, all they have to do is duplicate that bag, and they are golden. Also, they realize that the conductor spell used in all other musical episodes, will allow them to bypass the hotel’s wards and communicate during the heist.
Sadly, before the plan can get into motion, my least favorite recurring character shows up. The Pigman is back, and immediately pisses off every female character in the building. This leads to the first song of the episode, a rendition of “Cruel to be Kind” by Nick Lowe. To be quite honest, and I know this is both graphic and probably rude, as great as the choreography was, and the performance itself, I’d rather shove an icepick through my skull rectally than sit through this Pigman’s idiocy. He is quite simply the worst idea that the writers have ever had.
After watching the musical number and sending the Pigman (thankfully) on his way, the group realizes they’ll need to use emotion bottles to bypass the Golems and prevent them from breaking into song every five seconds. Then we switch to Julia, who goes to Overland Psychiatric Hospital where Penny’s mother has been living for quite some time now. Except Julia discovers that Neela, Penny’s mother, isn’t crazy, she’s working at the psychiatric hospital.
After telling Penny, who is justifiably shell shocked by this knowledge, we see Pete bring a suitcase into the Nave, which the group promptly climbs out of like something out of Fantastic Beasts. Watching Hale Appleman (as Eliot) climb out of a suitcase was absolutely hilarious. The man is tall and lanky, definitely not someone you’d consider compact, and it just struck me as funny.
Pete distracts The Couple while Margo, Fen, and Josh grab the bag and the World Seed page. Fen notes that the seed page has been translated by The Couple incorrectly. Personally, I think having Fen there jeopardizes everything since she knows HOW to translate it, but…this is the whole “best-laid plans” side of The Magicians. Things go great until they don’t.
Just as I expected, Fogg 17 finds Margo, Fen, and Josh before they can steal the bag and the page. While trying to do the next part of the whole heist, Eliot, Kady, and Alice wind up having to make out in a hallway to keep from being spotted by The Couple. Why do they have the canonically queer male frequently being put in a position to make out and/or sleep with women again? Oh yeah, because the writers don’t understand what proper LGBT rep means.
We then get another music number, courtesy of Alice, whose emotion bottle gets broken in a scuffle with a bellhop that realizes they are unauthorized guests. Alice sings David Bowie’s “Afraid” in a rather stunning performance by Olivia Taylor Dudley. Then, just as I suspected would happen, Fogg ties up Fen, Josh, and Margo.
The Couple appears, telling Fogg he can have his own country in their new world, but Fen (stalling them) reveals that they will kill the seed if they continue as they are. She can translate it, she’s Fillorian after all. It is a smart plan, but also a stupidly risky one.
Alice is emotionally raw after her bottled emotions returned all at once. Kady goes to help the others with Fogg, while Eliot stays behind, drinking part of his emotions so he can have a conversation with Alice. Alice mentions that she can’t stop thinking about what The Couple did to her, and how useless she felt. This leads us to our next musical number, “Don’t Give Up” by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush.
That musical duet with Hale and Olivia was beautiful and is one of the high points of the episode. To segue for a moment, it just captures Eliot and Alice’s personal struggles in one great moment of bonding and clarity. They’re leaning on each other for once; because the person they would normally lean on is no longer there…it is a growing moment for them, and it’s one I am glad to see.
Fen discovers that The Couple wants the world seed, because they want a new world, so they can have a family. They made powerful enemies on Earth, and one such enemy cursed them, making them unable to conceive. It is a sad sort of sympathetic reasoning, but their actions do not suddenly go away because they have a tragic backstory. In fact, it feels like after a whole season of seeing them as evil bogeymen, that it should have been a revelation with a bit more weight to it.
After all of that, we find Penny, who meets his mother. This scene really…I really wish they had taken more time to build this up. Having it be in the second to last episode really doesn’t give it the time or attention it deserves. Penny’s mother reveals that every time she sent Penny away, the voices would go away, but when he would come back, the voices would return.
This is clearly foreshadowing another horrible moment for Julia. One where she is going to have to choose to give up her child or lose her mind because of the child’s powers being entangled with her mental state, unless they can figure out some way to prevent it. Seeing the pain on Penny’s face as his mother has another episode after so long being healthy, is simply heartbreaking.
Kady then outsmarts Fogg 17, using his own alcoholism against him to send him to the Etheric Realm. Marina also reveals that their escape route is now gone because Pete got kicked out of the hotel. This is all just in time for Marina’s ex-girlfriend to show up and break the conductor’s baton, thereby eliminating the spell allowing them all to contact one another.
Penny watches through a security camera as Neela and Julia talk. Julia tries to show her magic, and tell her that if she can help her, then Neela can have a relationship with her son and grandchild. Neela ultimately refuses, and I cannot imagine what that must have been like for Penny to see.
Marina’s ex-girlfriend and Marina have a fight, but before Marina can process that, she tells Zelda to fix the baton. Just in time too, since a bellhop finds Alice and Eliot in the basement. This is also just in time for presumably the last song of the episode, a rendition of “I Wanna Be Sedated” by The Ramones.
Fen is held at knifepoint by the husband, while Kady holds the wife at knifepoint as well. However, they soon realize there is a large problem. The enchantment on the bag has gone out, so now if they don’t think fast, the seed will die.
Fen thought fast though, and as Margo shoots the husband, she shoved it in a…space on her body that is both warm and moist. I’ll let you figure that one out on your own. At the last moment, Santa Claus (met in season 4) comes to help them escape, thanks to a letter Alice sent earlier in the episode.
Overall, I enjoyed this episode, but I have a very big issue with how some of the episodes this season had very little to contribute to the plot, while they could have cut things to give more time and weight to Penny’s relationship with his mom, not to mention showing The Couple as more than just two-dimensional villains that they got rid of in an episode.
The Magicians is a great show in a lot of ways, but likely because the writers knew that this season would be their last, they’ve crammed a few things in that should have been given more time and exploration. Next week is the final adventure though, and it is a bittersweet moment. Despite the show’s many problems, in terms of storytelling, it is one of the best shows in the past decade. Seeing it all come to an end is a hard pill to swallow.
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🔥437The Magicians
Pros
- Great performances by Hale and Olivia
- More Backstory for Penny
- Great Pacing
- Development for Marina
Cons
- Some plots should have had more screentime
- The Nave was not original
- The Couple were Weak villains
