This is the penultimate episode of the first season of The Magicians, it got a little…sticky last episode, so let’s see what we can look forward to for the finale on Monday. All the spoilers after the jump!

It was a bit tense at the end of last episode, there has been a rift forming within the group, Alice and Penny on one side not wanting to use the emotionally damaging tiny Japanese emotion bottles and Quentin, Margo and Eliot on the other with their emotions all over the place. The second group ended up banging like screen doors in a hurricane together after an overlong battle magic practice, to be found by a grim Alice in the morning. Oh and Julia is the daughter of a goddess and she’s to bring three presents to a man by the bridge and Julia will be directed to her path again.

Julia and Kady are visiting the man by the bridge, a sleek and modern condo with hip-hop music blaring was NOT what I expected, I was thinking man down by the river, living under an overpass, or in a VAN under an underpass.

They have brought him two of the three gifts specified; forsythia, honeycomb and they don’t have platinum. So sorry, exit through Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe. Wait! They did bring him something of great and shining worth: their faith. I mean. He likes that, it’s tricky! He’s sensing skepticism, however, and Kady says she’s trying! He reads her aura (wiggles his fingers, I dunno), telling her that her mother was not her true mother (whut??) and the goddess has decided she needs a miracle. He touches her forehead, Kady gasps and she believes! The tightness in her chest since her mother died, gone! He tastes her faith in the air and smiles.

Mr. Faith Healer with the two tiny man-ponies (just so you know, just because you CAN gather your hair into the tiny toddler pony or two, doesn’t mean you SHOULD) wants to know what they want with Our Lady Underground ( and for real? That’s her name?) and wants to know why they think they deserve an audience with her? He asks Julia with his hand to her throat, which is…motivating, I guess?

She wants to help and heal her friends but Tammy Faye Bakker and I call bullllshiittt on that, but she convinces him she’s just trying to do what she’s supposed to do and if Our Lady Underground is around and wants her daughters to do well…

Oh, he’s a Hermit! The Hermit hands her the invocation, saying OLU has been waiting for a long time for the call, but gives her a word of caution: you can’t unring a bell, and you can’t unsummon a goddess. Know THAT! They’re oot

Back at the cottage, Penny can’t figure out why nobody’s talking, and hey, “why do y’all look like you did crime last night?” you know, or each other. Penny is pushing for them to go after the Leo blade, they don’t have much time. Quentin’s too busy watching himself bone Margo in flashbacks to pull much together, and why come I don’t get any more QUELIOT??? Okay, little bit, slightly mollified.

Alice stormed out after seeing them all together, slapping Quentin and there’s still so much tension in the room; Penny is perplexed while they all shout at each other (except Eliot, who’s probably high again) and Alice storms out again. Threeways with buddies always SEEM like such a good idea.

The Beowulfers are having a party! I assume to celebrate getting the meet with OLU, there’s wine and bad music and even worse dancing, yay! Kady tells Julia to chill, bruh! The Hermit was creepy but they are gonna rock this oot!

Alice is drinking alone in her room when Penny bursts in; he wants to know what’s going on and she’s the least crazy. Man I hate her skirts, so short and make her look heavy, and Olivia Taylor Dudley is NOT heavy. Is it wrong that I want Alice to get back at Q by riding Penny’s adorable permanent sneer all the way to the ceiling?

Aw man, she’s drinking Triple Sec! Triple Sec is just so margaritas don’t taste too much like lime, you don’t drink it SOLO, Alice! Penny jumps on it, though, dragging out a little bit from Alice: it’s to do with Quentin. Isn’t everything, really, about Q, though? Penny doesn’t make fun of her “not good” choice of liqueur, though, he used to drink Midori in high school, which tastes like “melon, crossed with perfume, crossed with ass.” And sits on the bed. Hmmm. He was trying to shut up the voices, and he can tell she is trying to make something go away.

She asks if Midori works? And he says “nothing works forever. But if you stop worrying about forever, there’s a lot of shit that can get you through the next hour” and Alice and I want to know if that means what it sounds like it means!!

Richard finds Julia out on the balcony, still brooding and unable to enjoy the party. The Hermit got to her, but Richard reminds her that the most important thing about what they are doing is intention: theirs are pure (oh lord, please don’t let them be misunderstood. If you got that, we must have beers) but maybe Julia’s aren’t and that’s why she’s worried? OR! OR! HIS intentions AREN’T good and that’s why he’s using old easily-manipulated Julia to walk Point. You think?

I had  feeling about these two…and yeah, they stare at each other’s mouths for a minute then we cut to them in bed. You can tell he’s the Good Guy because she gets to lay down and everything, not just lean up against a counter like with Pete. Granite countertops are so bruisey. They enjoy  post-coital cuddle and she will miss him when he goes; he’s the one doing the invocation I gather. She asks if he’s coming back, but he just wants to roll with the flow. Whatever Our Lady Underground wants him to do: he’s down.

They have a nice talk; he encourages her to keep questioning things and pushing against envelopes and to “not lose the fire” and it’s kind of cool that he supports her crabbiness like that. There’s this whole thing, stop me if you’ve heard it, where women are encouraged to be pretty but nice and nobody likes an angry, argumentative woman, it’s not showing chutzpah or a can-do spirit like with a man! He is not a supporter of that, he loves her speaking up and questioning things. If he’s being honest, he’s a keeper, Julia!

Margo is icily informing Quentin that she will not be apologizing or needing a pass for having sex with him and Eliot, and they’re welcome, by the way. Quentin goes off to find Alice while Eliot stares at his toes. Q hears a lot of moaning coming from Alice’s room…yay! Well, I’m excited for Alice, but Q isn’t, freaked out and hurrying away. You know, it’s college, guys. It’s the human condition to want to settle with one person (and also the human condition to not be monogamous, soooo), but maybe this is a good time to find out what some other people taste like before it gets truly solidified, I’m just saying.

The Beowulfers are ready to invoke, y’all! They gather their hangover arses in a circle at first light and close their eyes.

Quentin and Alice fight about her and Penny, interrupted by Eliot, who reminds them that if they don’t hurry up, they’ll all be killed by the Beast and none of this will matter anyway. Chop chop!

They all use the emotion bottles save Penny; Alice explaining that how she was feeling about Quentin would have gotten them all killed. Quentin says he was mad earlier, but now he can see Penny and Alice would make a cute couple. Penny scoffs and touches the button.

They’re back in the Neitherlands Earth fountain, and Alice loses grasp of the map, which falls into the fountain. Eve of the Welcoming Committee from Hell appears and pushes Quentin back into the fountain while the others run away. He ends up on the floor in front of the fire in the cottage at Brakebills?

Everyone else ends up in The Library, Penny leads them to the Librarian, who has been expecting them! And calls Margo Janet, saying “this time” when corrected. Whut? Penny just BETS she knows why they’re here and she says yes, they can stay. But no harming the books, and no food, drink or intoxicants are allowed in the Library *pointed look at Eliot*. He hands over his flask grudgingly, and then she breaks their little bottles and they get all their emotions back, which will make them awful in battle.

Margo/Janet is particularly mad, she PLANNED HER WHOLE OUTFIT AROUND THAT BOTTLE!! While Eliot collapses to the ground. The only one unaffected is Penny, since he chose to not bottle up his emotions, so I’m guessing he’s now leading!

Quentin has turned up in Dean Fogg’s office; oh not just that, he managed to slip the Dean some banned Truth Serum and I did NOT need to hear about his losing his virginity (although 24 seems on the later side of the time scale) but that was a tester question so Q knew the serum was working. Now down to brass tacks; who is Eliza? He is shocked to find out that she was Jane Chatwin, as we were just before the Beast used Mike to squish her head.

Now, what does Jane have to do with the Beast? Ember gave Jane the ability to “fcuk with time on a global scale” and she used to it create a time loop to keep trying to stop the Beast. Oh wow and then Dean asks him to imagine how many times they’ve had this conversation? 27 times Quentin has managed to slip him the truth serum and it’s like Groundhog Day with college students, so like waaaay more banging and illegal drug use. Awwww and Quentin brings up Groundhog Day too! Dean gets to remember all this, though, and he’s not watching that “fcuking movie”, it’s become a point of pride.

Every single time, Jane resets the loop with a change to see if anything makes a difference. Like the sigil she burned into Quentin’s hand in the beginning to bring him to Alice faster. Every single time, each loop has ended in Quentin’s death, 39 times. There won’t be another chance, Jane’s dead and the loop will close, so better make this one count, Q! The Dean can see the time loop, but can’t change it, but he might be able to tell Quentin what was changed this time around.

Penny is working through books with the Librarian, she explains him that travelers have written the most amazing books in the Library, but he is looking for technical information on mastering his travel, he needs to be able to take the group with him. That’s at another branch, of course, but she tells him “if” he survives long enough, he WILL get a handle on it and stares at his mouth. I understand that some women like a challenge, but how do you even snog someone who’s lips are always drawn back in disgust?

Quentin shows up at Julia’s apartment, SHE’S the part that Jane changed; she was supposed to be at Brakebills and was the 39 times before, but Jane thought maybe throwing Julia out would make her stronger and it did! Julia is just excited because that means she was RIGHT this whole time, and I had almmooostt forgotten I called her Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong, but there it is.

Quentin apologizes for not believing her. She apologizes for the spell she cast on him with Marina, and awwww, how long until they bang? He knows his chances are slim of surviving and he didn’t want to die mad at his oldest friend. Now the banging? They share a loooong hug and he can’t get over how well she’s taking this? She knows there’s bigger and better magic out there; they found a GOD! Q scoffs, but she has proof! A creepy Mary statue that cries milk tears, but look under the hood: incredible.

The summoning of Our Lady Underground (which maybe is not the BEST name, but still better that Goddess of Agriculture, which is what I’d been calling her, so) went beautifully, Menolly’s breast cancer was cured, Julia was kissed (whut?), Richard gotta go, it was beautiful.

ANYWAY, goodonya Julia, but Quentin needs you to come back to Fillory with him. Ohhh she’s kept that drawing of Fillory under the table that they looked at as children, they lay there and now the banging?

But first, she explains; Our Lady has given her a mission to find a new kind of magic, one that can’t be given, it must be found.

I feel as though I should apologize for giving Julia a hard time this whole series, she’s just been such a JERK, but if her destiny was to actually be at Brakebills and Jane cast her out for kicks (like Marina), that would explain why she’s been working so hard and so insistently. After all, who ever helped a smart girl? I still don’t like her. But I will try to temper it with the knowledge that there’s a REASON she might be acting like a giant arsehole and after all, she WAS right.

Quentin has a plan, he wants to follow the Chatwins in when they first went in to Fillory, and they do actually know when that was. Time magic has been what’s controlling everything since the beginning, he figures Fillory is magic and once you are in, there is always a way. Julia wants to stop by Brakebills first, Richard gave her an idea! Sure, says Q, just need to be a registered student to get past the wards, but Julia has an alumni key.

HEY! There is a whole thing about Alice just walking up to Brakebills unregistered, she was so amazing that she found it on her own and pfft.

Back in the library, Eliot is reading Mike’s book (the Beast’s meat puppet that killed Jane) he’s just torturing himself but then ends it by setting the book on fire. The Librarian appears out of nowhere and that’s it, they’re banished! Not just over a book, each one is a life, and huh? They’re at the fountains, all of them save Q, still in the Real Worlds, but a different fountain, with a cubed structure on top.

At Brakebills, Julia and Quentin are going through different artifacts, trying to find one that will take them back around the right time. They find a thesis written about a group of students that went back in time to kill Hitler (’cause they didn’t know Hitler was a serious Battle magician, which is common knowledge. pfft) and that time frame of April 19, 1942 would probably work.

In the Neitherlands, the gang has made it back to the Earth fountain but it’s all blocked off as they thought. There is a goofy looking Josh Hoberman there, though, he tells them to come with him if they want to live. He must be part of the missing Class of 2016!

He leads them to his lab, but don’t eat the psychedelic carrots. Or maybe do…? The peaches taste like pizza! Josh has been waiting for a while for people to come find them, they all went to Fillory for Spring Break and Victoria (the one being tortured in the basement by the Beast in Penny’s head) is the only reason Josh is even alive.

V was so good as a traveler, she was able to go ANYWHERE but wanted to find Fillory and did. I think it’s interesting that the school put the earth-tattoo on her and she cut it off herself, she’s essentially the exact opposite of Penny. We’ve only seen traveling portrayed as a massive burden, causing nothing but pain and endless sarcasm. She enjoyed it, yay! Right until the Beast started torturing her in a basement, I guess. ANYWAY. It was supposed to be just her and Josh traveling, but once the class found out…and she COULD take people with her, so maybe stop working on your snark, Penny, and celebrate and work your gift. You know, if you live.

Spring Break was freeakky, but at least the animals could give consent, sooo yay? So how did they get stuck? He and Victoria were trapped with what looked like a quest; it was a bloodbath. Victoria sent him out and went back in, where we know she was trapped.

So since Penny is a traveler, they can just go get her, right? But no, he doesn’t know from ride-alongs just yet…but Josh knows where the Fillory fountain is, they just need to get past all the “battle magic dick buckets” guarding it. “Discuss.” hahahahaha

Julia and Quentin are in his room; looking at pics of the him and his friends, he apologizes again and remember when he lashed out at her for not letting go of Brakebills? She says it was a good thing; she found out what magic is actually for: fixing things. She pushes his hair back over his ear and now the banging??

Alice is burning the midnight oil trying to figure out how to get them all to the Fillory fountain, but shouldn’t PENNY be working on that? Oh right, not at this branch. He does ask if she needs a hand and they talk a little bit about what happened with the bouncing; it was fun, okay? They’re friends and he respects her. She’s so worried that Quentin won’t be able to see Fillory and and. He calls her out on her booshit, it’s just another excuse for her to give up (so weird that she gave up on rescuing her brother after one TINY little incident involving him trying to kill her and Quentin) and okay. She’s ready to focus.

She tells the group she can use Phosphormancy to bend the light and make them invisible, they just have to stay super close or they’ll be seen. Ready to go? Eliot trails, and we see one of the psychedelic carrots is missing. Addiction is a BEAST, y’all.

Julia and Quentin are in the park; touching the time travel artifact, they’re off to 1942! There are air raid sirens and planes flying overhead, gotta go!

Alice is leading the gang past all the battle magic dick buckets; it’s working but Eliot is just starting to slip down the acid carrot rabbit hole. He hangs back and it seen by a mercenary, who raises his hands to cast…and is shot by Margo. “Yeah I brought a gun! Thanks, Margo!” But he’s still high AF and they have to run, everyone can see them now. Everyone but Penny makes it into the fountains, thanks to Alice’s battle magic and correctly positioned Popper 43, Penny lagging to be confronted by Eve. He kills her with a slash across her torso, that was much more real than all the blasting. It’s very…affecting. She looks so young.

Julia and Quentin have found Jane, coming across her just seconds before she steps into the enchanted phone booth that first led to to Fillory. They follow and are SO HAPPY! I got goosebumps, Fillory looks amazing!

We oot! Until next time, Script Kiddies.