Hi guys! Time for The Magicians, I hear this one’s a gooder! Let’s roll

So last episode, Alice and Quentin brought a quick-fingered Penny (he touched Martin’s door button!) back from the Neitherlands with their sexmagik, Margo found out she has a Margollum, Eliot is high AF all the time and Julia blah blah something; she’s BORRINNNGG!!

Quentin is researching while the others are giving he and Alice a hard time for the bang-spell, he thinks he’s found a weapon they can use against the beast. Eliot is still high. Plover had been working on form-changing spells, so would soon be able to follow Martin into Fillory (not good), so Martin found an enchanted knife called a Leo (whut?) that could kill a God, and in theory a mutant magician as well. Martin thought what I thought; get the knife maker that made the Virgo blade! And the guy said he could (love that guy, says Penny), but that’s where the pages end.

There is a note about Martin failing to recover the blade, though, so maybe it’s just hidden somewhere! Maybe like with the button, all they have to do is dig up the corpse of a small child! Yayyyy: hard pass. Margo and Eliot want to give the Beast the button; screw Fillory and render themselves harmless: DONE. Alice wants to hold a vote. She too wants to strike a deal with the Beast and for once; Penny and Quentin are on the same page! HUGS, GUY!!!

Majority rules means they will hand over the button to the Beast, but Alice can’t make Quentin like it, so THERE. They walk into their Physical Arts lab to find everyone dead or dying and the room destroyed, with a Beast happy face on the wall. Margo coughs up blood while she cradles a dying Elilot saying “We should have listened to you, Q” and now I know it’s a dream or fantasy. Also when Alice dies (with a really theatrical neck snap), no way she’s going anywhere. Quentin chokes to death next to the spinning, glowing coin…

And they all come to, great fcuking spell! Eliot reassures Margo; she is FABULOUS.

She is just under the influence of a probability spell. In Penny’s reality, the Beast ripped his head off in the Neitherlands, and has everyone got it now? The Beast for sure enjoys toying with them a lot more than that stupid button.

They only have one more shot at choosing, out of 8 tries (and 8 coins), they’ve died 7 times and one just went white; which was when they went to Fillory. Do THAT! Everyone is unsure, but without trying, they’ve got zero chance of the Beast not coming and killing everyone the following week.

Penny does NOT accept that logic and goes off on his own, to be stopped in his tracks by the Beast in his melon again. The Beast used to practically live in Penny’s head (booorrrrinnng, all bile and boning), but he’s been gone since Penny first traveled on purpose and ended up in a castle basement in Fillory. The Beast tells Penny to deliver himself to him (in Fillory?) or he will up the ante by driving Penny insane in the membrane. Is he going to pretend to be a four-year-old with a microphone for the first time? Cuz that would do it. But no, it’s like a feedback sound that gets louder when he tries to think about the Beast.

Back at Julia’s amazing apartment, the Good Witches are listening to Richard talk about the gods, who nobody has spoken to in centuries. Richard has a plan, though! He wants to try to communicate through magical creatures, like vampires but not unicorns (he thinks they’re a myth and if DISGUY doesn’t believe in unicorns…), work his way up through the food chain until they can get to something big enough and old enough to remember the gods, they can get there. This seems like a lonnnnggg game and also the basis of every cop procedural ever.

They have been working at it for quite a while and have gotten about as far as you’d expect; but now they have a chance: all eyes on Julia. Richard was testing her when he gave her that prayer, and it’s never worked until then. So. She’s god-touched and nobody knows why, but they’re pretty sure: she’s the key.

Quentin and everyone are sitting around planning how not to die; they need some serious battle magic. Margo and Eliot are in at “illegal.”

Alice gets a note and calls her mom, Joe’s killed himself! Whut? That happy, sex-covered love machine offed himself?? She has to talk to Penny

Oh no, Joe was hearing voices and they were getting worse; threatening him and they do not have much time now. As he was a traveler, Alice thinks he was targeted and how is Penny? Penny tells her it was the Beast, he has it under control, but the feedback sound gets louder…and he’s gotta go.

He goes to his mentor Stanley, who is also getting feedback. The Beast is indeed targeting travelers as a way to block all roads into Fillory. Stanley has a plan to remove all the leverage the Beast has on him and I’m not watching him kill himself, dude. Totally called it, totally watched between fingers, Me: 1, The Magicians: 4000. Stanley doesn’t have to worry any more.

Eliot has found a book on battle magic in Sunderland’s office, it’s in Japanese, but of course Alice can translate. Magical missile coming up! Quentin’s Popper 43 is off, but even Alice can’t get it to work.

Now they’re thinking guns, but really, they have all the battle magic they need, they just need to tap into it. Through anger. Hey, who do they know that is an EXPERT on anger?

Penny’s in the library working on a spell, but they didn’t mean him, I guess, they need him to find Kady. He does a mirror spell and gets her, but he doesn’t want to go with them. Quentin recognises the apartment.

Eliot, Margo, Quentin and Alice knock on Julia’s door, which is opened by Kady, who spends a bit of time pointedly looking behind them for Penny. Julia isn’t there but they want her anyway.

Penny is trying to deal in his room, but now the woman trapped in the basement is screaming in his head too, so drinking and loud music is how he’s handling. Plus coke. The Beast taunts and taunts

Kady thinks the plan of meeting the Beast on his own turf is stupid AF and she can’t teach them battle magic anyway. Hey! Now I know why they asked her, she did this in the second episode:

She’s been learning battle magic for years, that’s why she can do it on cue, not just when mad or her adrenaline is up. She can’t teach them how she learned, though, no time, but there is this thing Hedges use…super dangerous. Sounds good!

Quentin and Kady talk about Julia and Penny, they’re both clearly still invested. I would say in love, but.

Penny is in the healing lab (does he have his own wing yet? He’s there a LOT!), having OD’d, which Professor Sunderland knows all about. I bet it’s something most travelers would, all those voices with so little ability to turn it off. She does have a temporary fix, though, it’s a spiky thing that goes at the base of his neck, yuk. He complains and she chides him, his gifts have cut him off from a lot of “normal” things, like a family and home, but don’t be such a dick when someone’s trying to help you. Dude.

The gang has these tiny bottles that hold their emotions for three hours so they can go full battle magic. A caveat, the feelings are super intense when they return, so. Penny turns up! He DOES look damn handsome for someone who just had a heart attack. Although he always looks damn handsome, just usually for someone who has a continuous sneer while talking. Genetically blessed.

Penny’s changed his mind; he’ll go to Fillory as long as they’ll help him get that girl out.

Kady and Julia are meeting up with their god-contact, it’s a kegger! And they’re the not-blonde prostitutes and Bjorn is disappoint. Julia knows he was buying blood from a blood bank, though, so she’s here to make a deal. She’s got vials of her own right here if he can help her petition a god.

He says nobody does that anymore! God’s inside you. She wants a name then, another thing like him and that’s hurtful! They’re not a club! “Pixies are dicks, lycans are rapists, the shapeshifters all headed West back in the 50’s”…He does have ONE name…

The circle is doing their spell now, their emotions are in the tiny bottles, time to battle! First, Penny says he likes Quentin’s sweater and we’re all confused. Penny said something non-sarcastic and complimentary? Time to “go fcuk shite up!”

Julia and Kady are hot on the trail of their high level psychic, and I’m wondering why Kady is there and not Richard when we find out: the psychic is Hannah, Kady’s mom, that Julia saw die a pretty horrible death a while back.

Hannah’s SO excited to see Kady, who is freaked out beyond belief, even though she knows it can’t really be her mom. Julia says they have knives in their pockets dipped in gold, silver and shark’s blood, that seems like a tiny bit of overkill as Not-Hannah says, but they were just covering their bases.

Not-Hannah Lamia, former servant of the gods, says all the gods are dead, there’s no-one to hear them anyway. Off they scoot to tell Richard and the Free Beowulfers, , he doesn’t take it well but they vow to keep it up.

The spiky patch on the back of Penny’s neck is all bleed-y and gross, but it beats the voices! The group gets to a clearing to practice catching things on fire, then return to the cottage to regain their feelings. Remember, this will be intense!

Alice cries hysterically while Penny laughs and Alice says she loves Quentin over and over, but he feels alone! Margo cries because she doesn’t know why her and Eliot aren’t friends any more but Eliot is completely unaffected and doesn’t want to talk. Or maybe it’s the BIG bottles that still have his feelings.

Quentin and Alice are still dealing with the hangover of all those feelings; he hates everything. Even air. He’s particularly rude, when she says they should try without the bottles, basically accusing her of being a know-it-all and completely unaware of how rude she is with her assumptions. Or something. Anyway, he jelly and he mad and he leaves.

Beowulfers are working away, Julia’s trying to contact the Goddess of Agriculture again in the bathroom, to no noticeable effect.

Penny and Alice are at the clearing, they want to try the battle magic without the wee bottles, but it’s not going well.

Meanwhile, Julia is getting her response in the kitchen, water and coins and beams of light and then a goddess appears! It’s Garcelle Beauvais!! She says that everything that has happened has been to draw Julia to her; directing her to a man that has served her for 1000 years. Bring him three prezzies and he will show Julia the way. But. Um. Doesn’t she have her right now? I mean, she’s RIGHT.THERE. Oh, it’s a dream and Julia is the goddess’s daughter.

Quentin, Margo and Eliot show up in the clearing to practice, they’re getting a little better? And then they’re late returning and swallow their feelings back. They’re physically affected and return to the house where Quentin and Eliot talk languorously by the fire while drinking a LOT of wine.

Penny and Alice keep at it, and she does it! Much squealing and hugging

Quentin and Margo are dragging flying Muppet Eliot back to his room, they all end up in bed together and does that mean…Q and Margo are worried about Eliot, he’s not healed. Margo appreciates how much Quentin actually loves magic, she doesn’t feel that way about anything. She does love Eliot, though, and somehow they end up face to face cuddling…

Cut to all three naked in bed together the next morning, Quentin awakes to vague flashes of sex with Eliot and Margo while Alice watches gravely from the foot of the bed. I mean. I GOT ONE AND A HALF SECONDS OF QUELIOT?? WHAT KIND OF BULLSHIT IS THIS??? Grrr. We oot.

Besides my disappointment at the stinginess with the Queliot slash, we learned a few things this episode. Julia is the daughter of a goddess, so why didn’t Brakebills want her again? And the voices ARE controllable, so why didn’t Stanley go the patch route instead of the handgun highway? Also: college is a time for experimentation, Alice, maybe not for full blown relashies where your partner doesn’t just feel alone and you feel all the love. Deuces

**all pics borrowed from various tumblrs, thank you!