This is it, the season finale of The Magicians! Lots going on all at once, let’s get right to it!

There’s too much to go over what happened the WHOLE SEASON, but hopefully you have some idea and we’ll cover it as we go along. Deal? Yay! I will say that one big thing is that Julia and Quentin are finally working together now, is there anything these crazy kids won’t be able to do?

Quentin is writing book 7 of the Fillory and Further series (book 6 was written by Jane Chatwin / Eliza and only ever read by Penny), title TBD, but holy shit you guys, Fillory. A little backstory, yay! There was a mass of magic energy and gave birth to the gods Ember and Umber (now THAT makes sense) that birthed Fillory.

So that’s Julia and Quentin’s plan, to seek out Ember and Umber but they don’t know exactly how. In the books, Martin’s blood sang out to the gods, eep. No bueno, it was literal. Blood sacrifices it is. Why does everyone always cut across their palms?? I mean. Slice a forearm, Q! You’re not gonna try to pick something up with your forearm! ANYWAY, he puts his hand into the handprint (so let me shut up) and whew, there they go into the outhouse-smelling garage-filled special Fillory space.

A voice intones that it is customary to bow, Children of the Earth, and have they brought him little cakes? It looks like a centaur? Horns and hoofs, baby, I don’t know from specifics.

We go back to when they first time traveled back to 1942 (thanks, Hitler!), following Jane through the portal to Fillory. They get to watch all of the shenanigans that Jane got up to (I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this recently, but Jane was kind of a jerk every time she popped up in the beginning of the season), but no! Not just watch, they’re supposed to be The Witch and The Fool like in the book!

Jane is trapped with a rope wrapped around her foot, but it’s not just any trap, it’s an answer to the ethical dilemma of hunting animals who can talk. If the animal is smart enough to answer the riddle attached to the rope, it’s released. So if Quentin wasn’t there to explain that to Jane and give her the answer, she’d be et? Whut?

They were followed into Fillory, too, and their stalker turns out to be Martin, Plover’s ward and victim. They tell him they want to help him get rid of Plover, has he ever heard of a Filloarian knife called the Leo Blade? He doesn’t, but he might know someone. That someone is a blacksmith that can make the knife, but doesn’t have enough moonstones yet. He can breed them and make more, but that’s expensive and takes time. Plover already has 6 fingers (why six fingers? What’s the deal with an extra digit?) and a lot of practice in the dark arts, so I would think time would be of the essence, but they agree to the blacksmith’s deal and walk out. The blacksmith thinks Quentin and Julia, being from Earth, are kings and queens, he wants a seat at their court. Er. Won’t that be a problem later?

Just then they walk into a clearing and it’s beautiful, it’s Ember’s temple. But there is always a dangerous side to magic, and the clocks go crazy as Martin rabbits; The Watcherwoman is coming! But when the Watcherwoman arrives, it’s Eliza! Quentin introduces her to Julia, while Eliza ruefully chides them for being there ahead of time, ahem. Quentin tells her about this being the last time loop and she calls him the Volunteer Tomato (suuuree) and why’s that? Oh great job, Quentin, now you’ve got to tell her when she dies! RUDE!

There’s a confusing bit when Julia asks Eliza why she’s The Watcherwoman, who is a villain, and Eliza says that The Watcherwoman inspired her to be strong in her magic but now she IS The Watcherwoman and…it hurts mine and Q’s melons.

Ohhhh, Eliza can sense that there is a patch on Julia’s memory, a Hedge one, it’s there to be a beautiful but false replacement for what actually happened and we get to see how the invocation with Our Lady Underground went! Well. Not yet, but Julia’s mission for OLU is undoubtedly the problem. What exactly is that mission, anyway? Eliza warns Quentin to protect Julia and he apologizes for not being able to protect her. That was never his job, though, and at his request, she sends them forward to Fillory 2016.

Fillory 2016 is a dump, yo. But there’s an enchanted paper airplane from Eliot leading them to where they need to be. And Margo is being such a bitch. I wish those two would make up already!! They’re my favourite couple, hands and pants down. The Beast has destroyed Fillory but they find the gang, who all still hate Julia.

They need to get to the Castle That Isn’t There (phosphormancy!) to find Victoria and then the knifemaker, but along the way, their path is littered with graves of the Chatwins and just about everyone else.

They find the knifemaker, or rather, the knifemaker’s son (so hawt), the OG is dead but will they have what this person wants as payment? Ahhhh, it gets very Game of Thrones up in here; he wants to have one of them marry his daughter, and I don’t suggest they Walder Frey him. A blade will pick the pure royal blood of the high king of Fillory, who will it be? Not Q, Josh, Penny and that leaves…Eliot. The High King and that makes ALLL the sense on so many levels. Those dudes always had beards! On their faces and in their living quarters.

Oh, but now there is a real wedding. But not a real wedding like at home, where there are also real divorces and real annulments. In Fillory, once you are married, that’s it for life, there is no separating and no going back to Earth, either. Huh. Eliot wants to do it, though, his life on Earth doesn’t mean anything and he wants to be part of something…bigger. I think he and Margo make up and I’m glad. I love them as friends.

Penny is agitated, this wedding is taking FOREVER, so goes off to travel

while Eliot introduces himself to his new lifemate and proposes. He’s researching where Victoria is instead, and the ceremony is over!

The happy hawt blacksmith brings over their blade; it’s theirs! Except none of them can pick it up, exactly (cute slapstick moment with Penny – I wonder what he’s like in a comedy?!), it’s 1000 degrees for their non-Master Magician arses. I think Julia or Alice should try it, they’re waaay advanced over the boys.

The gang is gathered in the blacksmith’s home brainstorming on how to use the blade; they need the power of a god. I stare pointedly at Julia, but nobody else does, so whatever. They think maybe finding Victoria will get them closer, but Eliot can’t help, he has a virgin farmgirl to impregnate at exactly that moment, he’s out with a “YOU’RE WELCOME.”

They find the invisible castle, guarded by sentries, who Margo takes care of with her feminine…fainting skills? Penny and Alice slip past the distracted guards and find Victoria, who’s been kept in special handcuffs to stop her from traveling. There’s also someone being kept next door, they’ll grab them too. Now we’re back to the beginning with the hand cutting and the being asked for little cakes from presumably the horned and hoofed Ember?

Ember is impressed that Quentin has made it this far, Q’s usually dead by now! He was lured to cake-foresaken Loria in a trap set by the Beast, and Umber is dead. Julia doesn’t understand how it’s possible that a magician could get the drop on a god or two, but Fillory’s magic doesn’t belong to anyone, someone able to work it out could use it however they wanted, even on a god.

Quentin has had enough of Ember’s whining; is the god just going to sit there while Fillory burns and complain about boring nymph sex? Does he care or not?? Ember has been deeply wounded, scarred emotionally, by his years of battling with the Beast, he can’t do it. The Beast thwarts him at every turn. Quentin offers to be Fillory’s champion, he loves it, always has. Ember sees in him that he’s the best and the purest, and that’s all that can kill the Beast. He just, er, needs Ember’s power.

Which he gets; Ember’s power, his Largesse, his… yeah,his semen, which must be imbibed at the right moment. Q’s face HAHAHAHA. *strangled “thank you”*. Ah and Ember can also sense the shroud over Julia’s mind, he moves to remove it and now we’ll get to see what really happened at the Happy Hedge Party! We only see if for a second (like Queliot, grrr) but it looks…bloody? She begs Quentin to take her memory but he doesn’t know how to do that just yet.

Victoria wakes up with Penny watching, he immediately asks about how to travel with other people and she shows him her hands; the tattooing across the knuckles is a spell, it’s not book learning at all! They all examine the large jar of goat semen and discuss the successful rescue the night before: it was a twofer. The second prisoner in the cells was…Plover? So he’s not the Beast, as Quentin thought, it’s Martin Chatwin, as I THOUGHT! Woo hoo, totally called that one!

Plover is covered in face markings, it’s age suspension magic so Martin can come and torture him every day. Nobody feels sorry for the pedophile, though, they demand information about Martin. It seems Martin’s black heart stopped allowing him access to Fillory earlier on, but he found a way back and started searching for The Wellspring, which is the source of all magic on Fillory. Every night Martin drinks from The Wellspring, and it’s powerful magic has killed all of the human in him, he’s all Beast. Plover can still track him, though, with his mind, due to their “connection”, which makes everyone want to throw up.

Quentin feels as though this story was written for him, all these years of loneliness and magic and EVERYTHING, but now it’s true and what does he do? He talks to Alice, who thinks their relationship was nothing, so insignificant, but he loves her. Quentin needs some pep talking; he’s worried he’s not The One and now he’s Neo in The Matrix. Everyone wants to be The One! What if he isn’t? Ember is a little out of it, and let’s just say he’s been spraying that goat semen fairly liberally all over the forests of Loria. He really thinks it’s Alice, she’s a better person, a better magician, but she doesn’t believe, Q, it can’t be her. He wants to try changing something, he wants to give the blade to her and I’m pretty sure I said that above.

Ooh, Margo says “pretend it’s Prom Night and you just wanna shut him up ” and I don’t understand until I see Alice about to chug the Largesse HAHAHAHAHAHA. She, er, sucks it all back and her eyes glow green before she walks over (in her oddly proportioned too-short dress) and picks up the blade with no pain.

Julia needs a moment to talk, calling Quentin aside and now we find out what happened. Oh. The goddess was actually Reynard the Fox, a trickster of the faithful and he killed everyone, save Julia, whom he raped, and Kady, who escaped. That was not okay, Magicians. She was left alone to clean up the mess and called the only person she could think of; Marina, who helped her and patched her brain.

I understand why shows use rape as a symbol of oppression and violation, it’s a visceral display that portrays all that succinctly and clearly. It’s just lazy and sloppy. There was no reason to show Julia being raped here, was she impregnated? Was that the point of that sequence? I can’t see any other reason for showing that type of violence on this show and I will be very angry if that wasn’t why they wrote it that way.

They gather at The Wellspring and hide inside, while Julia hangs back, looking around suspiciously.

Although the outside looks like a “truck stop shitter”, the inside is Plover’s writing room and that makes sense. Plover created the monster in his writing room when he molested Martin and even now, Martin can’t stop thinking about it.

A moth flies by, and then the Beast appears. Quentin calls him by name, and the moths that have covered the Beast’s face all along disappear. He gives Quentin props for walking to his certain death 40 times in a row; Q’s no quitter! Quentin says he has a message from Jane, though, hold on, it’s right with this deck of cards, and I assume he’s distracting so Alice can slip the blade in.

But Alice doesn’t have the blade, it turns out. It’s not in the scabbard on her hip and Martin slashes her, then throws Margo and Eliot across the room and cuts off Penny’s hands?? He turns back to Quentin, to be confronted by Julia with a blade at his throat. She WAS impregnated, so I’m only half as mad as I was prepared to be. Her eyes flash green in the flashback and we’re out with Quentin saying “Jules?”

So. Not much to add, I think we covered it all. The Magicians will be back for another season and we’ll find out what happens then, but I’m guessing Reynard the Fox will have much to do then. Peace oot and thank you to everyone who read this season! And thank you to all the Tumblrs whose pics I borrowed, the top one is from themagiciansdaily. Mwah!