Welcome back to The Magicians where we’re super far behind again! I know! Let’s roll with all the spoilers behind the break
Instead of an entire spoiler paragraph, I’m just going to randomly sprinkle backstory throughout, mmkay? Awesome!
Quentin wants to know what’s gonna happen to Julia (last time she and Marina created a super-strong spell that had Q trapped in a mental hospital in his BRAIN – totes trippy), Dean Fogg jokes that he’s gonna kill her. HAHAHAHA um. That’s not appropriate. He thinks it’s hilarious and my meticulous research (10 episodes of Mr. Robot, whut whut!) has shown; people who say they’re just messing or fcking with you, as the Dean does here: 100% are aholes. True story.
He says he’s not the magic police, and doesn’t figure that gang will be around any time soon. All hellfires will rain down on them, blah blah.
Julia has been banned from the renegade magic gang, only Pete will talk to her and he won’t let her inside or anything. Now, see, this is partly why I don’t like Julia. She absolutely cannot accept that someone might know more than her, have bigger picture ideas or that people won’t take her right in with open arms because she’s a GENIUS. She was denied entrance to Brakebills, and the other side quite effectively used her resulting petulance as a lever against her supposed bestie Quentin, who’s been in love with her for years. Then, after she was discarded, which she can barely believe either, her being the best at magic EVER (snorta), she doesn’t take this as a time to reflect on her life’s goals and her role in her unhappiness, she figures threatening a bunch of much more skilled magicians is the way to go.
I wouldn’t be in my early twenties again for alla your chocolate angels.
Dean Fogg is walking in a garden with Alice, he’s trying to talk her into returning to the school. She left after a combination spell brought back a sadistic version of her poor departed (and probably Beast) brother Charlie.
Eliot and Margo circle a magic mixer during Alumnae Week while Quentin gets his ear bent about fungally toes (shout oot to Violet!!); in walks Alice and Mrs. Doubtfire
I guess the talk with Dean Fogg worked? They ARE trying to make Quentin and Alice a couple. Huh. Q apologizes for his role in banishing DebbilCharlie, Alice don’t curr, she swears she will do her best to accept his death. SURE.
Penny is mixing some…spices? And in walks Stanley, his mentor. Of COURSE Penny doesn’t want a mentor *eye roll*, but Stanley don’t curr either. Being a traveler can be very dangerous (almost lost a leg but for a deeply confused Sherpa) and he will need a guide for this life-destroying burden. He shows off a tattoo on his neck, it stops him from being able to travel and THAT MAKES NO SENSE. Stanley says there hasn’t been anyone like Penny in 35 years and Brakebills is gonna help him whether he wants it or not.
It’s mentor time all over! Everyone’s gonna get one! Margo says there will be a tournament, all the disciplines compete and the mentors will be watching and will be looking to be impressed.
Alice interrupts some ridiculous looking finger casting of Quentin’s with a message, his dad is sick. Get thee home, Curly-Q!
His dad has the “good” kind of cancer and I did not know that existed. There is a good prognosis, but it’s BRAIN CANCER and um. ?? He counsels Quentin to seize the Card Tricks day, he thinks Q is there studying finance and I believe he starts yelling at him for checking himself into a mental hospital and not taking his meds. This is all very confusing. Aren’t dying people naturally sympathetic characters? This guy is coming across as a bit of a dick. He even calls Quentin broken, whut?
Margo and Eliot are bracing Alice about her walkabout, they want her aunt, Mrs. Doubtfire, as a mentor, let’s see who she recommends!
Julia has cooked supper for James, awww, she’s gonna use him now too!
Quentin finds his dad puking in the bathroom, his brain tumah (it IS a tumah!) is treatable, kinda, but he’s decided not to go that route. Quentin strongly disagrees. They talk a walk down memory lane; Quentin broke the model plane for Quentin Roosevelt’s historic run across the Atlantic Ocean and when Dad tried to fix it…he made it worse. Like trying to fix the tumah, get it?? Get it??
Quentin goes back to the Alumnae mixer and asks the fungally toes (Violet!) magicker to fix him. She gently reminds him that if magicians could cure cancer…nobody would have cancer. What he is asking is kinda maybe possible, with illegal magic, but it will require a lot of energy, more than he has.
Eliot and Margo are facing off over Mrs. Doubtfire; Eliot has baked cupcakes
and Margo has sourced a double-charmed bottle of Sake from Okinawa, sounds totally even to me! I love watching these two together (“are you sure you can afford it?” “Oh please, I have the metabolism of a Jamaican sprinter”), more Eliot and Margo!
Julia send James off with a kiss and reassuring housewife pat on the bum, back to work spellcasting! She gets a burny one to work, but no supervision or guidance leaves her with scorched digits and an almost burned down apartment. She calls Pete, who totally wants some of that second-rate sex he waxed poetic about previously. They have a moment in the kitchen and then she jumps on him; she’s using her body to get info, and he’s buying!
Quentin is hiding in the library when Margo appears screaming at him; he’s late for Welter’s! It’s called a game of circumstances, each square requires a different spell and you have to be able to suss out what that spell is based on the circumstances. They’re competing against another team; the first one from the other side fails. Margo nails hers,
but Q spaces out, coming to when she loses it, screaming “get your head out of your twat and throw the damn globe!!” Everyone is shocked, but I’m ecstatic, because now I getta use my favourite gif of all time (so far) from Girls!!
He gets the centre square, the biggie, and the crowd oooohs. Right until he creates a massive wormhole above and makes it all windy. Then they get all shrieky. Alice and her suddenly giant bewbs have to come help him close it down, but I gather they win anyway!
Margo is trying to get Quentin to celebrate, but Grunty isn’t buying it. She reminds him that ALL their magic comes from pain and I’m suddenly very interested in her backstory. He asks why magic can’t run on “love or cocaine or something” and Margo says that’s the universe’s way of deep-Ricking them, try to enjoy it.
Julia is using her bagina-gained knowledge of other safe houses from Pete, she does a little cloud spell
and the new peeps are so impressed! But she’s not there to teach (OH COME ON!! THIS FROM 2 WEEKS OF SPELL CASTING TRAINING AND ONE MEDIOCRE COUNTER BOUNCE??), off she rolls to the next. Just a quick note: that little transaction in her apartment reminded me soooo much of Zoe getting her “inside” goods from Frank Underwood on House of Cards, just before her untimely “fall”.
Kady and Penny are enjoying messages and cigs post-coital, he’s still all “the universe hates me because I have this awesome gift that I have no idea how to control” and she’s all “but you could steal stuff, bro!” and he’s like “maybe I could!” and my brain just dropped four more cells typing that.
Julia and Pete are day drinking and if she thinks she’s gonna get a better safe house location in public with her clothes on after she set the terms…well, she does! But it’s out of town, never two in the same city. He suggests she go to the Mali Desert, maybe with him, and I really like that idea! Yeah, Julia, go out to the desert and learn some object magic for two, maybe three months! Pack light! But no, she loves her boyfriend, how could he even THINK that? He reminds her of the counter shenanigans and she says “thank you” and ugh, can she just GO already? I hear Bermuda has some wicket awesome disappearing magic she could learn!
Penny is working on controlling his gift, he’s meditating while a woman screams in his head. He travels there, but it’s the much safer astral projection his mentor mentioned, not corporal traveling. Sure, it’s safer for him, but not great for the woman in chains about to be tortured by the Beast, he has no ability to free her, just the ability to watch. This gift would be super cool in some aspects, not so much in others. The Beast sends Penny home.
Stanley is enjoying a beer at the pub when Penny bursts in; he’s figured out who that girl in chains is, a fellow traveler, and NOT from 35 years ago. She’s part of that missing third year class (4/20 still around) and Stanley don’t curr. He suggests getting that tattoo any time.
Eliot is assisting Alice in her drinking program, “friends don’t let friends drink Long Island Iced Tea” and I remember losing an entire year to that most delicious and toxic of substances.
Quentin drags Eliot away, he has questions about CancerPuppy, as do I. What kind of fcuked up name is CancerPuppy for the most adorable little Malti-poo ever?? Oh. He’s 150 years old and has every disease possible, but the enchantment keeps him a puppy and Quentin wants to cure him. He’s using CancerPuppy as a lab rat and I do NOT approve. And he kills him. Sonuva
Quentin gets called into the Dean’s office; the spell he attempted couldn’t be done by skilled magicians with years of practice and he thought what? His anger and sadness about his Dad’s condition was gonna give him the juice to pull that off? Not so much.
Q asks the Dean why he didn’t fix his eyes and he says it’s because his magical blues glasses give him the edges and really, it’s more important that his hands were okay, what with casting and all. The problem with spells like this is that you might save someone, but you will also alter their soul and that is probably not a good idea.
Curly-Q is bonding with his dad, they’re gonna fix that plane! Oooh and with magic; he shows his dad he isn’t doing card tricks OR finance any more: this is what I’ve been doing, Dad!
Julia is trying to talk to James, who doesn’t know her. Whut? We’re confused, but I’m wondering if Pete did that. She stomps into the bodega and Pete admits it, saying that it’s to protect James from her.
Alice and her aunt are walking around, who do you think the aunt chose to mentor?? Imma guess both, because I think they’re both awesome, meeeebbbbbbee Eliot slightly more so if I had to choose in a sudden death or something. I have a fatal weakness for soigne sexually-ambiguous dudes. The aunt counsels Alice to stick it out and tells Eliot and Margo: no go for either. They still have each other
At school, a bored Quentin and Alice partner up and I have this horrible feeling she’s gonna wanna try one of her stupid spells on his dad.
Penny is trying to research the images he saw to be able to find the girl he saw; Kady suggests he ask Quentin and Alice for help, they’ve also seen The Beast. Quentin is able to help, he’s seen some of those images in the Fillory books, he thinks Penny was there in Fillory. Whut?
And we oot!
