We almost did it, hey? We almost got caught up on The Magicians! Never fear, we’ll get it this weekend. Let’s roll E11 Homecoming with all the spoilers after the break.

Last time, Quentin got to visit the famous home of his very favourite writer, Christopher Plover of the Fillory and Further series. We found out several horrifying things about Quentin’s literary hero, including pedophilia, child abuse, murder and dabbling in dark magic. Quentin was crushed. They DID find a button that was a doorway into Fillory, however, and Penny just jumped on in and touched it, disappearing instantly. I guess it helps now that Mayakovsky had removed his corporeal traveling tattoo.

We open in black and white, with Penny climbing out of the fountain what likes to eat first year students. Looking around, he sees a hooded figure walking around and holds up his hand in the age-old symbol

“Do you talk?” and who sent this guy as the first diplomat? I mean. It’s a woman, who asks where he’s from and rebukes him gently for trying to mind-probe without even drinks first. She introduces herself as Eve (Katie Findlay) and she’s born and raised in the Neitherlands. It’s a way station, essentially and she’s the welcoming committee! She loves the Earthers, they always have the coolest magic, including a fat guy on a sleigh pulled by..not zebras…”Santa Claus?” says Penny with a smile on his face FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER yay!!!! It’s GLORIOUS.

She’s all flirty and jokey and “yeah, he’s a really nice guy, do you know him?” and then asks to see what he’s got to get there. Penny resists for a second, unsure, but she presses, moving closer, so he pulls it out and everything changes. She grabs his arm and growls, he ducks out of the way just in time and then travels all over the place trying to avoid being shot with her magic lightning bolt-y type things.

Everyone is gone and Penny is alone and freaked OUT because the fountain now has a new statue which I will find out about STAT. He draws a circle on the ground, sitting in it and boom! He’s in colour again, and Julia is there. She’s in Princess Leia’s slavegirl outfit, I THINK and there is Alice, dressed as the Khaleesi? And then they start making out

Penny is trying to figure out WHAT is going on when Quentin pops his head round in an Indiana Jones outfit, replete with rope, and the other penny drops for Penny: “nice dream, loser!” and HAHAHAH. Penny!

Quentin come to, he’s been napping with Alice and tells her about seeing Penny, but not er, the circumstances. Well, a little bit, hearing that she was kind of making out with Quentin’s lifelong crush makes Alice ECSTATIC, or whatever the opposite of ecstatic is.

Quentin asks Penny where he’s been for the past three weeks which freaks Penny out, he thought he’d only been gone for 6 hours! He describes the Neitherlands for Q, all the fountains lead to different worlds and he’s LOST and WHAT’S GOING ON?? Quentin can’t remember about the fountains in Fillory in his dream, he’ll check when he wakes up but Penny is desperate. He can’t control his traveling yet, he needs help.

Alice and Quentin are going over it with Eliot and Margo, which is not super helpful, with Eliot tripping balls and Margo somewhat disinterested. Alice does know someone who can travel, although apparently she hasn’t shared this information with Quentin before and he pouts.

Side note: Alice is supposed to be the giant-nerd super genius girl on the show, but they put her in a lot of distracting outfits, super-tight tops and extremely short skirts. Every time she turns around first I’m worried Imma see her halo, fo reals.

Penny is back in the Neitherlands, Eve has gathered a gang to help her with him, he sneaks up to the Earth fountain and is swallowed up by a trap door. He’s inside a library and he’s made a right mess. H walks down the hallway as Julia logs into her online spellcasting group Free Trader Beowulf. Everything is online!

She’s called herself Vicious_Circe because of COURSE she has, and they’re all meeting up IRL! Like, right now! Richard (failstaff) knock at the door, he’s the first! He hands her a binder full of 12 spells that she has to master before levelling up; it’s helpfully marked with a label that says “Spellbinder” hahahaha. Me and Mackenzie Astin love puns!

Richard uses a spell to make a portal for the others to arrive; first through is a very tall Sally Kellerman lookalike named Silver, then Bender (Marco Grazzini. I think), danked-as-shite (yay chemo meds?) Menolly and finally Asmodeus, who is just coming from uptown and is HOLY SHITE, is KADY. Huh. Since Julia was involved in a spell that got her mama killed, I don’t imagine this is going to go very well. Richard asks them to play nicely, since the group needs both of them for whatever they’re doing, so we’ll see.

Quentin and Alice are off to see whoever she knows that also travels, awww, he calls her Vix! Like vixen, a female fox and it’s a little reminder of when they boned like forest animals prone to rabies. It’s so cute!

They get inside, it’s a party and Quentin says it’s like a TARDIS in here; I only know that references Dr. Who, I am too much of a heretic to know WHAT it means in Dr. Who. I do not like Dr. Who. I don’t even care who plays Dr. Who, although I understand there have been several Doctors on Dr. Who.

She explains that the peeps there are using Thibideau’s Planar Compression and somehow that involves togas. Oh. And dudes leading other dudes on chains, one of whom is Alice’s dad, Daniel (Tom Amandes). He’s the leader, not leadee, if that makes any difference to anyone.

Oh. It’s a full on orgy. Well, PG-13 orgy, lotsa dry toga humping, looking like some kind of laundry-room bacchanal. Quentin’s freaked out more by the fact that he’s meeting her parents without notice, which is why she didn’t tell him. It’s not that her parents are travelers, her mom knows one and her dad just hopes Alice comes back in time for the Saturnalia, which is apparently much freakier than this tame old laundry-orgy. WHET?

Vix asks Quentin to distract her dad for 30 minutes while she talks to her mom in the tepidarium (bath). Yay says dad, throwing an arm around Quentin’s shoulders, they’re off to have a fatherly chat about Q dating Dan’s daughter.

Back at Brakebills, Professor Lipson (Keegan Connor Tracy) is all mad she has to look at Eliot

But he’s fine. He has a massive drug problem, but at least he’s medicating and I literally have heard a doctor say that NEVER. Now Margo, on the other hand, is in dire need of medical intervention. A glass shatters next to her and something is draining her life force. Has she been up to any unprotected rituals lately? She thinks for a minute and then “that sonuvaBITCH!” That so reminds me of the horrific movie Kids where Rosario Dawson goes to the STD clinic to get checked and Chloe Svigney just goes to keep her company and turns out to be positive for H.I.V thanks to that bastage Telly. Nightmares for YEARS. Anyway, it’s just like that!

Julia and Kady are facing off over Hannah’s death; Julia apologizes but doesn’t take responsibility for it, as it’s not actually her fault, and they kiiiind of come to terms.

Ah, Penny is in the Neitherlands Library, and he’s now met The Librarian (Mageina Tovah). She explains about the hooded gangs lurking around the fountains; they worked for the library before but things went south and now they’re forbidden from using the fountains and have to find other methods of employment. Like for The Beast. He asks for a way back to the Earth fountain, but maps are at another branch and it would take two to four weeks (2 years Earth time) so Penny passes on that.

Alice find her mom, I mean Stephanie (who I recognise, but IMBd refuses to name), soaking in the tub, and she’s not letting anything go at all from their last talk. Remember when Alice couldn’t talk about anything but Charlie, the brother that disappeared at Brakebills trying to save his best friend from a disfiguring spell? We haven’t heard about him in AGES, not since he came out of fountain and tried to kill Quentin anyway. It seems Alice’s mom, I mean Stephanie, doesn’t think there’s any point in going over it and over it and Alice…disagreed.

Alice refuses to admit that her mom has the right to her feelings (I think…) so Stephanie stomps off. Wet and in a towel.

Quentin has ditched Daniel and is digging exploring Alice’s room (The Garden State Soundtrack? the 70s version of The Joy of Sex from her dad, but her mom thought she should know what pubic hair looks like HAHAHAHHA. Wait. Is Stephanie my mom?), she’s mortified but he’s like, into damaged chicks, so it’s okay. She asks “like Julia?” and we knew that was coming. He says they were just two smart kids who tested well, got put together and he got a crush becuz: hormones and she didn’t and the end. Alice hasn’t really done a lot of relationships, well, not ones that lasted longer than “Can we just do this standing up?” at a party and HAHAHAH I mean awww! He thinks that the fact that she even WANTS to have sex after living in this house is impressive and WERD.

So what’s the story with the traveler, asks Q? Let’s get this show on the road! The traveler is Joe, and they can’t talk about it in front of her dad, because well…her mom and Joe have been mashing sloppy bits and when her dad found out about a previous affair her mom was having, he threatened to kill himself. So. Marriage is hard, y’all, especially when there are sex parties and pubic hair and public AND private sex to worry about. Tricky.

Kady and Julia are communing over one of Kady’s memories. She was on her way to kill Marina when she met Richard, who introduced her to Free Trader Beowulf and took her off the path of sure death or pain.

Penny and The Librarian are checking the shelves, he finds books for every one of them! He snatches up his own (why are there are these flowers and shite onnit??) but she cautions him that people don’t seem to like their own books.

He finds Martin’s, Jane’s brother, but she won’t let him check it out without a library card. She does photocopy several pages for him, though, saying he was planning to take it by force anyhow, and this way no books get hurt. Librarians are so smart. She pushes him and there he is, back at the fountains, but it looks like the SAME fountain, so he’s back where he started.

Quentin, Alice and her family are enjoying a buffet dinner (Dad to Quentin: try the fileted goat penis, good for virility. Alice: thanks, Dad) while Quentin looks for an opportunity to drag Daniel off and leave Alice and her mom, I mean Stephanie, alone. He asks to see Dan’s book and with some initial reluctance (you haven’t touched your penis!), off they go.

Alice jumps right in with a generic apology, to be pressed for specifics by Stephanie: now, was that so hard? She asks about *whisper* Joe? But oh no need to be worried, they all share Joe now! In a polyamorous triad kinda way. Joe’s anatomy is adaptable, yay! He’s like a Swiss Army Knife even!

Margo opens her door to see…Margo. And the hawt guy that apparently infected her, who tries to apologize as our Margo faints. Eliot introduces himself and the Margo clone stares.

Joe of the adaptable organs is also a licensed therapist, so go ahead and spill, Alice and Quentin! They tell him about Penny, and he suggests using a beacon. Oh and they just need to have sex to cast the spell, which shouldn’t be a problem, given that he can sense a nice connection between their genitals but he offers to pinch hit if necessary. .

The just need a bunch of random magical stuff, like candles, blood, twine oh and the most important part is that they climax at the same time. Q’s all “we got this!” and Alice is er-oooh. Not so much.

Margo is talking to her ex, who couldn’t handle her not wanting a relationship, so he used her essence to make a Margollum, who is now doing lines with Eliot.

I don’t really understand why Eliot is mad at Margo, but he won’t fess up either, so she sends his passive aggressive arse home. It’s probably to do with her not being around when his boyfriend turned into a demon and tried to kill Penny and Quentin.

Quentin and Alice are getting ready to cast (bow chicka wow wow) while he compliments her on all the non-Julia parts, like her blonde hair, and blue eyes, and “you’re also smart” and too far, too far. Cue awkward fight about her faking orgasms and it doesn’t look like Penny’s gonna find that beacon any time soon.

Kady and Julia finish their twelfth spell (reverse entrophy plus Jenga FTW!), now they can go play with the other kids on their big project! Pizza first, though. Julia goes to the door to pay for their half-veggie / half-meat and I have literally NEVER had a pizza deliveryman confirm my order, EVER, although 3 meat supremes, one veggie on wholegrain crust and two orders of breadsticks IS a mouthful. It’s a plot device to show how different they are, I get it!

All of a sudden, the wall starts to melt and the clock resets itself back a few minutes. Knock at the door again, I’m betting more pizza! And I’m right! They know it’s time magic, which is more powerful than the reverse entrophy spell they just did and while one could argue that reversing entrophy IS related to time, I’m pretty sure that’s not the point. The point is the burst of laughter from the other Beowulfers next door.

Richard explains; they’re working on a plan to break the glass ceiling and before I can even get a “right on, sister!” out, Kady says that’s dangerous and it could turn into a niffin or something…Brakebills has said you CAN’T physically break the Glass Ceiling (although we’re still trying), but Richard is convinced that his different methodology will be that big difference.

Essentially, everyone is atoning, except Mellony who is just trying not to die. Bender’s meds aren’t working, and he, well, Richard was a drug addict 7 years ago and he left his 8 month old son in a hot car. He’s doing the time magic to change things and something something blah blah he wants to summon a god, there, he said it.

Eliot is bribing (real?) Margo with chocolate to apologize, he needs to talk. He thinks he’s broken. She listens for a bit and then kisses him, it’s the Margollum! Real Margo comes in, she’s been looking for the Margollum everywhere, who has a tendency to wander off. Eliot’s nerve fails, he can’t talk to the real Margo about his worries, so he’s off to get moar booze.

Quentin is trying to apologize to Alice about his whining and insecurity and at base, he just doesn’t understand why she likes him? She can’t explain, really, but I think I can! I once had a friend say to me “do you still love me, in spite of my flaws?” (we were close friends) and I said “silly, I love you because of your flaws! The perfect shite is BORRRINNGG!” And I meant it, and still mean it. Nobody is drawn to anyone because of what they can do, they’re drawn to the beauty of a crooked tooth or an slightly unsure mind. It’s what makes us human. And the pooping, but hardly anyone ever falls in love because of that.

She explains, and this is so common for all people, but okay, especially true of young women; she has a hard time asking for what she wants. And he tells her he loves her!! Awww I had a little tear, just a minute.

They kiss then she is a little more straighforward about what she wants and that’s it… beacon coming right up! Penny sees it and yay!! And then Penny appears! In their bedroom. Welcome back indeed! And we oot.