Warning: This review contains spoilers for the 13^th Episode of The Magicians’ Final Season. Also referencing the rest of the season throughout. There may also be language some readers may find distressing.

The irony is not lost on me that the final episode of The Magicians aired on April Fool’s Day. This series has meant a lot to me, but I’m under no illusions that this ending is not going to be what I hoped. In fact, the episode has so many plot threads and things going on that I doubt any of it will end satisfyingly. You’re probably thinking “if you have such a pessimistic outlook, why review this at all?” because frankly, I need to see this through, and I’ve come this far, so our readers deserve an honest take from someone who loves the show.

This show represented hope for me for a long time, until the end of season 4 at least. There have been good points in this season, things that reminded me of why I love the show in the first place. However, I’m also realistic. I know that there are too many plot threads, too many things the writers have messed up, or written contrary to things that were established previously. So, we’re just going along for the ride, and hopefully, the ending doesn’t send us all careening off a cliff.

To recap what we know so far. Rupert Chatwin wants to resurrect his lover, and will unleash the undead on the world to do so. Additionally, Alice, Eliot, and the rest of the team (sans Julia and Penny) stole the World Seed, and are preparing to evacuate Fillory and make an entirely new one. Julia and Penny met Penny’s mother and discovered a magical link between her and Penny, that also exists between Julia and her child. If they don’t fix that, Julia will continue to have psychic attacks.

With all that out of the way, the final rush to save Fillory, stop the Dark King, and prevent the dead from rising, is all that is left. Let’s get into the episode review, shall we?

Spoilers begin here!

The episode begins the morning after Santa rescues the team from the Nave hotel. Alice wakes up and finds a Christmas Tree, Stockings, and all sorts of other holiday things prepared. Santa explains that while he was there already, he decided that due to their quest-heavy existence, there was no guarantee that they’d live to see December, so he wanted to give them a few gifts.

Santa also reveals that Alice’s gift was the page involving the World Seed. Quentin was not the one that found it, he did. He knew Alice would need it, to get back in the game and have a cause to fight for, so that was her gift. That makes me somewhat annoyed since that’s yet another thing that renders Q’s presence unimportant, but my issues with the writers are well documented at this point.

We then have a montage of everyone opening their gifts. We don’t get to see much of what people got; they gloss over it fairly quickly. They are interrupted by a bunny arriving, telling them that Fillory needs them immediately. The message tells them that the Dark King is planning to open a portal to the underworld on that very night.

Plum arrives in the midst of a pow-wow, where they attempt to formulate a plan. Eliot and Margo will go to Fillory, rescue the Fillorian residents, and then make their way to the Clockwork Heart. Their escape plan isn’t assured, but while they’re doing that (and attempting to turn back the clock on Fillory) Alice, Fen, and Zelda will work on growing the World Seed. As a side note, why didn’t Plum get a present?

Margo mentions that the new Fillory needs a Wellspring, so that they don’t permanently lose access to magic. At this very moment, Julia’s water breaks. While the Brakebills infirmary is preparing for Julia’s impending birth, Kady brings in Fogg. This is not Psycho Fogg, but the one from this timeline.

In the meantime, Margo and Eliot manage to convince Hyman to help them by offering to free him from his body, giving it to Charlton instead. Except there is a catch; Hyman will only give them his body if Charlton has sex in it once the transfer is done.

Back in the infirmary, Lipson tells Julia and Penny that she can sever the magical connection between her and the baby, but she’s never done it before. Julia’s baby is a rarity, so they are all in uncommon territory here. Ultimately, it’s baby time, so they don’t have time to debate it. We quickly move back to Eliot, Hyman, and Charlton. The body swap is complete, though I think the writers are clearly patting themselves on the back too much by having Hyman say (and I quote) “This is the best episode EVER!”

We also learn that Charlton is having trouble learning to travel, so rather than wait for that, Margo reveals that she (conveniently) has a shortcut out. Why did they need Hyman in the first place then? While Zelda, Alice, Fen, and Kady are prepping the World Seed, Fogg escapes from the infirmary and steals it. Kady runs off after him, but who knows why he needs it really.

Margo, Josh, and Eliot start the “Rapture” of Fillorian citizens, but Eliot is stolen by Rupert Chatwin partway through, taken to the Taker realm for his “help.” Before we can figure out what is going on there, we see Julia give birth to a baby girl, just in time for Fogg to come in and forcefully cut the energetic connection between her and the baby. Now she is unconscious, and Kady is chasing Fogg to try and find the seed.

Rupert reveals to Eliot that he wants Eliot to close the door quickly so that the dead don’t flood out after he gets what he wants. Eliot tries to appeal to him, but he is not deterred. Of course he isn’t, all he cares about is what he wants. Except, his plan backfires, he was never contacting Lance at all.

Martin Chatwin had been masquerading as him the entire time, which means that the man Rupert kissed in Eliot’s body, was his own brother. Can we talk about how gross that is for a second? The writers can’t give their queer characters a happy ending, but they can provide incest by proxy? Not to mention the fact that Martin basically raped Eliot in Season 1. Seriously, and they say they aren’t homophobic.

Martin prevents Eliot from closing the door, and unleashes the undead, planning to take Fillory for himself, by killing all the living. At the last moment, Rupert saves Eliot from being killed by Martin, just moments before Martin and the dead march from the Taker realm, right into the Neitherlands, where Alice, Zelda, and Fen are waiting for Kady.

Zelda takes Fen and Alice to a portal, and tells Alice that Master Magicians can cast, even with a single hand. She believes that Alice can do the spell herself, and Zelda will take this chance to try and stop (or stall) Martin as long as she can. It is heartbreaking to see Alice and Zelda part this way, considering their relationship.

They had gone from enemies to reluctant allies, and now to a place where Zelda is a part of the team. Mageina Tovah has brought grace and wisdom to the series, and it is sad to see her sacrifice herself in such a way. The writers do so love “Heroic Sacrifice” though, don’t they?

We then get a scene where Rupert heals Eliot’s hands and asks Eliot about their plan. He ultimately decides to try and stop more of the dead from pouring out of the door. Eliot, of course, tells him that he doesn’t want him to die. After everything this man has done, Eliot still believes he deserves to live, and honestly? If they had taken more time to build this relationship? Maybe I’d agree. All Rupert has done however, is hurt people in the name of his own selfish gain.

Lipson tells Penny that the baby is fine, but that Julia hasn’t woken up and her organs are shutting down. After all, Julia has been through, this can’t be the end for her, can it? Penny begs Plum to take him back, to take him to Jane Chatwin to figure out how to keep Julia from dying, and strangely, Plum tells him that they can’t do that because they already have.

Jane had told Plum that she only had enough plasma in her blood to do a single time loop, which meant that this do-over, was the only one. Though, in talking to one another about what changed, they realized that Fogg didn’t attack the first time, and because he remembers the time loops, they think maybe he figured out a way to change this one.

Lipson reveals that the only way to make Fogg even remotely lucid, is to give him a cat to hold. The cat will take all of his crazy while he is holding it, and will go crazy in turn. Did the writers run out of Hail Mary attempts? Were they out of ideas? I’m starting to wonder. This isn’t silly, it’s just ridiculous.

Fogg tells them where the seed is, in the lab. He also says that the energetic connection needs to be replaced, connected to someone who can handle the strain of it. So, it looks like Penny is the candidate if I had to guess. Fen, Kady, and Alice find the seed, and decide to try their luck, to risk the circumstances going wonky because the Fillorians need a place to go.

In Fillory, Margo reveals that she didn’t have a shortcut at all. She is going to go into the Clockwork Heart, and she will die when Fillory is destroyed. She says that the one thing that she learned from Quentin is how to sacrifice for those she loves. I find it interesting how she hardly acknowledged Quentin’s death all season, but now they choose to have her mention it?

Julia wakes up and gets to hold her baby, and Penny reveals that he now has his psychic abilities back thanks to the transplant, but only when holding the baby. They decide to name the baby Hope, with the middle name Quentin. I knew Julia would want to name the baby after Quentin in some way, and if there’s anything about this episode that feels right, it’s that.

Eliot and Josh make it out of Fillory with the Ark, and Margo turns back the Clockwork Heart, which will Destroy Fillory. There is a montage of Fillory being destroyed, and at the very last moment, Penny manages to save Margo from dying with Fillory.

Alice and the crew all come together to make the new world. Alice explains that their internal circumstances can only be controlled if they accept all that they are, good and bad. If they do that, then the Moon being upset, won’t hurt them.

The spell works, Fen talks about what Fillory should be, not what it was. That is enough to make the seed bloom, and a new world forms from it. Then suddenly Alice, Margo, Josh, and Fen are transported to their new world. This leaves Eliot and Kady behind, along with Julia and Penny.

We then see Lipson and Fogg talking about the new results of the quest. Eliot is now a professor at Brakebills, and the hedge witches are keeping a Lunatic on retainer to help them adjust for the moon’s circumstances.

The truly messed up part is, Eliot is alone. He and Charlton are together, but the one character that always feared being alone, now no longer has Margo, Alice, or even Fen to talk to. He is truly alone, and that is probably the worst part of this ending. They’ve given Eliot nothing but pain all season, for two seasons really…and now he’s alone, and can no longer reach his friends.

Rupert and Jane are now together in the Clock Barrens. Outside of time, but no longer tethered to Fillory. They are forever stuck, never aging, never dying, and there is nothing to be done for it. Charlton reveals however, that the bracelet Santa gave Eliot, allows him to take on his proper form, not the form of Hyman’s body.

Then, Charlton asks Eliot if he could ever be romantically attached to him, and surprisingly (despite no chemistry between them really), Eliot agrees. They share a kiss, and then go upstairs to…well, make good on the stipulation Hyman gave in using his body. To make matters weirder, Hyman follows them to watch from the astral plane.

Julia and Penny are on a new quest, taking their daughter to track down Alice, Margo, Josh, and Fen, in their new world. The new world, has pizza trees, trees that have knives growing on them, fields of crispy bacon, and who knows what else. In talking about what comes next, Fen, the “birthmother” of this new world, tells Margo that she is now “High King Margo, the Creator” a nice full-circle moment from being formerly named Margo the Destroyer.

Margo presses the button to release the people from the Ark, and the show fades to black. I have a lot of problems with this ending. Mostly, my issues stem from how rushed it is. Charlton and Eliot had no real chance to bond as more than what they were. Charlton was a sounding board, but there was no hint of romance between them before that.

Why include Martin Chatwin at the end if there really wasn’t going to be any reason for it? It’s gross that he kissed Rupert in a previous episode, but they could have just gone with nameless zombies. Julia and Penny at least get to continue looking for their friends, but what happens when they find them? In some ways, the episode was a full-circle moment, but in others, it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

There are so many things left unanswered. Did the underworld get fixed? What happened to the dead that escaped the door? Did they go back to the underworld? Is there a danger of the dead rising again? Why didn’t they consider fixing the moon problem, before going to look for Alice, Margo, Fen, and Josh? What was the point of the idiot Pigman beyond sexist drivel? What became of Marina?

There are so many questions and so few satisfying answers. Ultimately, I’m sad and disappointed because the show meant so much to so many people, and with an ending like that, I can’t help but feel…let down. Despite that, the cast did a fantastic job, and I can honestly say that there is no other cast like The Magicians on television. I hope that Stella, Olivia, Arjun, Hale, Summer, Trevor, Brittany, Jade, Jason, Kacey, Mageina, and everyone else that was a part of the show, have long, great careers.

Maybe someday we’ll see a sequel series that shows us what lays beyond Fillory and Further. Maybe we’ll find our own stories. New worlds, put in the hands of writers that tell tales of hope, perseverance, and healing. Pain is all over our media, it’s a fact of life. The Magicians was once an escape and now it is up to someone else to take up that mantle. This was quite an episode for April Fool’s Day, though maybe those of us who were hoping for a better end, are the real fools here.

Thank you for joining me in the reviews of this final season. I’m not sure yet what next week will hold, but I will do my best to have another series review ready.

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The Magicians

2.5

Score

2.5/10

Pros

• Fantastic acting for Olivia, Hale, Summer, and the rest of the cast
• A few fun throwbacks

Cons

• Lots of Loose Ends
• Referenced Incest by Proxy
• Unsatisfying Endings for Characters
• Arrogant Writing
• Rushed ending