Did I mention that The Magicians have been renewed for a third season? Woot Fandom! It was announced a while ago, but since I’m still not done recapping season two, I can totally flog that. Rolling S2:E11 The Girl Who Told Time (wait: are they talking about Jane Chatwin?) after the break!
We open in the past exploring one of those 30 alternate realities we didn’t getta see previously, Julia Wicker (Stella Maeve) at Brakebills impressing Dean Fogg (Rick Worthy) who has eyes even! Last time we saw those…
And of COURSE Julia was totally knocking it out of the park, magically speaking. I kind of miss Julia of the old days, trading her bum for sketchy spells in back alleys. She’s gotten blank/dark, which makes sense considering Reynard the Fox (Sean Astin) and all. I GUESS.
Julia is just finding out when she falls on the magic spectrum; she’s a meta composition or Knowledge student, meaning she’s “drawn, mind and body, to the discovery of magic.” He knows coz he are one! He’s jealous of all the discoveries ahead of her, like when I told Veronica I was starting Breaking Bad. 2 years after it ended.
It’s Dean Fogg letting her out of the locked room now, too. Julia’s bestie Kady (Jade Tailor) tossed her in magic jail after she almost got Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) killed as bait for Reynard. He knows her, though, she’s a Searcher and even if she can’t feel anything right now, she’ll find a way to help herself.
Also not feeling himself is Q, determinedly drinking his way through his grief at finally letting Alice Quinn (Olivia Taylor-Dudley) go. High Queen of Fillory Margo Hanson (Summer Bishil) has HAD it with Emo Quentin and pours out his wine for his homies.
She’s a little tense. She needs a little alone time.
Kady can’t believe Dean Fogg let Julia go, now she’s gotta deal with that AND find Reynard! And no, she doesn’t want help, Penny (Arjun Gupta), Reynard is her problem!
Also: Reynard was always Julia’s problem, not Kady’s, amirite? Except for the Universal part.
Guess whose new neverending gig at the Library starts today? Penny walks out the door to be welcomed by The Librarian (Mageina Tova) who is…kinda handsy, yes?
High King Eliot (Hale Appleman) is visiting traitorous assassin Bayler (Rhys Ward) in his cell to ask Y U DON’T LIKE ME??? He fixed the famine, stopped a war, got the wellspring back, what’s going on?? He’s polling at 22%! Any human will tell you polling numbers don’t mean what they used to, but Bayler’s confused: why ask him? Specially since he tried to murder Eliot back in the day, before he found out about earth foods like nachos. He advises Eliot to make his upcoming wedding to Idri (Leonard Roberts) public, it’s a great time to appeal to the serfs.
Josh Hobeman (Trevor Einhorn)’s Baked Sale (one makes you feel like you’ve been blown by a rainbow!! Was this during Pride month?) is interrupted by Quentin, he’s bringing Josh back to Fillory for Eliot. Sure they have time for some rainbow blowing first!
In the other world Quentin has self-medicated himself to, he’s enjoying the trippiness until he notices 12-year-old Julia (Imogen Tear) almost crying in the corner. She’s Julia’s shade and she’s lost; how can she find Julia?
Quentin finds Eliot moving figures around a map: are they at war?? Nope, these are wedding place settings, much worse. Q wants to go help Julia (course he does), is El okay if he heads out? El is not, but grudgingly allows him to go on one condition:
Kady asks a library tech Howard (Brendan Taylor from Vancouver!) for a book on how to kill gods; turns out there isn’t one. Um. DUH. But the Beast did manage to kill Umber, so it’s not impossible, just not written down.
Penny would love to help her, but he’s gotta track down a ten-years-late book first. Can she help?
Fen (Brittany Curran) is feeling and acting weird, and not just because her husband is marrying another dude shortly. It’s totally de rigeur there, isn’t it on earth? “Only in Utah. And some websites” makes Fen brighten, she knows what those are!
It had nothing to do with the plot, but she looked adorable.
Turns out she doesn’t care about the wedding, she’s totes down, but the problem is she keeps having visions of fairies lurking around waiting to steal her baby, so.
Julia doesn’t want to see Quentin, she thinks she should probably feel bad for offering him up to Reynard as bait last time she saw him. She’s broken and that makes her dangerous. His mention of her shade brings her head up; what kind of Searcher sits around moping until someone drops the solution in their laps? Pfft.
Okay, they still have to find the solution, maybe Q dropped hope in her lap and she for sure needed that.
They’re investigating in the library in Brakebills; an extremely high Todd (Adam DiMarco) provides a lead: Dean Fogg knows someone totally into shades! Er, knew someone: Alice.
That was during another one of those 39 lifetimes, another Alice, not their Alice but as Other Julia showed us she knew the Tesla Flexion (Love Is All Around You!), maybe they could talk to her!
SURE GIVE QUENTIN SOME HOPE BECAUSE IT’S BEEN FIVE MINUTES SINCE HE MOPED ABOUT BLOODY ALICE
Can Eliot ask Margo about women stuff?
His wife is being weird and Margo knows exactly why! Dem fairies.
Penny and Kady have arrived at Fuzzbeat where Harriet (Marlee Matlin) of the ten-year-late book works. Penny ducks and drops when she starts to sign hello because he doesn’t know from deaf? Honestly
Kady knows a little; they bond over her clickbait site, which has encoded spells for magicians inside some of their listicles. Harriet hands over the book; asking Kady why the long face? Ahhh it’s just the whole not being able to find books to kill trickster gods thing; so Harriet imparts a bit of wisdom before handing over her late late late late LATE book.
William Penny Adiyodi, Marlee Matlin is a woman deserving of respect and maybe even a little kowtowing, your rude “f***k you” over your shoulder for reals had me gasping and checking to make sure MM didn’t see or hear.
Josh has been working on a Love Potion spell for Eliot but a note in a sent back plate of nachos has him in front of the High King again. Bayler never was rehabilitated, he’s planning to try and kill Eliot and Margo again.
“And now the Foo Fighters are gonna Red my Wedding” made me laugh for a minute straight.
And then I remembered that Fen is pregnant.
Margo’s got this, she puts a tracking spell on the note and now they know where the Foo Fighters’ base is. Josh is dispatched with the love potion and all of Eliot and Margo’s hilarious well wishes.
I didn’t mention it earlier, but Harriet flicked the book return card before she handed over her late library book; when Howard stamps it he is immediately overcome. He can’t control his body, firing on Penny and trying to open a locked door at the end of an aisle. He makes it to a Kill Switch, which seems to do exactly that. Oh come on, what about a DURESS button?!!
The Librarian explains; Howard wasn’t trying to open just any door, Harriet was attempting to gain access to the Poison Room, where knowledge about killing gods and entire worlds resides. So Howard killed himself so that he didn’t have to let that out. Any librarian would do that.
Dean Fogg and Julia have set up the Tesla Flexion; Quentin has two minutes to find out everything important or everyone dies. And don’t touch anything, Q.
I’m just gonna say that I was looking forward to an Alice-free episode and Julie RUINT IT.
Oh sure Eliot, Margo and Fen talked it out, no worries. Hey Margo, what do the fairies want?
Margo is under orders to fix this, toute suite.
Okay so the Tesla Flexion is working and Alice knows a little bit about shades, because she spent a lot of time looking for Quentin’s, after the Beast tore him apart in a previous reality. The shades are in the Underworld, he’ll need an ancient Gatekeeper to get in, which she hasn’t found yet. Then some mushy talk, some muted crying and some meaningful eye contact later and Alice is gone and Quentin is crying alone in poorly-lit tent.
Harriet is gone, baby gone already, but she left a card for Kady with the information about the book she needs: it’s in the Poison Room! Worst kept secret ever.
Julia’s figured out what an Ancient One gatekeeper is! Quentin just has to literally slay a dragon, easy peasy lemon squeezy and we’re oot!
It was lovely to see Margo and Eliot relax a little and banter some, it’s been ages. We even had a good thirty minutes of Quentin not mooning over Alice, so yay that!This episode was about change: do we ever, really? Is Julia still a student of knowledge, or did the loss of her shade make her into something new? Will Alice and Quentin always love each other on some space/time continuum? Will Kady always be an insurrectionary? Will Penny always be a dick, albeit an adorable one? At least one of those answers is yes.
Until next time!
