And we’re back! And still a wee bit behind on The Magicians, but we’re getting there!

Last episode Julia proved herself to self-proclaimed “top bitch in New York” Marina, Quentin figured out how to throw stuff at people AND block, Kady is a teef, Penny hears The Beast in his melon, Eliot is a stone-cold killer, brah, and Margo is not as mean a girl as we think she is. Caught up? Yay!

Julia is already push pushing Pete, to learn more and more and more, surprise, and seems to be getting along a little better with Marina, anyway

While Quentin is learning from Dean Fogg about snazzy shades and how to control the energy of his magic. Ahhhh and Dean has his eyes back but they look weird!

The students’ areas of concentration are all to be tested individually to divine their disciplines, there are cards in everyone’s bags as to when / where their examination will be. They show Alice’s card, so it must be important that she’s to go to the Dean’s office at 3 pm.

Julia’s calling her so fun boyfriend James, whom I gather is NOT understanding, and a lurking Pete waits for her to hang up on voicemail before holding forth “Never gets old, does it? Having a secret? You have magic. They don’t. Better than money, better than sex” *meaningful glance*. She swears her shit is handled, but Pete and I are skeptical. She’s looking shaky and overly spray-tanned, too. Lay off the blow, Oompa Loompa!

The Dean is trying on new glasses (these ones feel like the blues!) when Alice arrives for her concentration test; show Professor March what you can do! Quentin is in with Professor Sunderland, but he’s talking too much and not magicking enough, unlike Alice, who is getting all the As for her physical magic. They decide he is an Undertermined, and Alice is a Phosphormancy, which means she bends light, but also that she can make her hand disappear. Whut? Quentin is a Nothingmancer!

Quentin’s moving into his new digs, the cottage with Eliot, yay! There’s a sign on the locked door, though: “Physical Kids: Let Yourself In :)” and neither he nor Alice can figure out how to get it open. They’re awfully cuddly, are they gonna be a couple??? Hmmm

Anyway, Alice bends the light hard enough to burn a big hole through the door; PHOSPHORMANCY, BITCHES! Woooooo!! There’s a big party and Eliot has their signature cocktails waiting. Eliot and Margo cuddle adorably in the corner

whilst Alice and Quentin sit together in the middle of a massive chesterfield. Alice has been hitting the booze; she can’t figure why the spell they did didn’t work for reaching Charlie, her dead brother. She wants to try again, and she’s much more determined than he is, so I imagine that’ll happen any second.

They leave the cottage and go to the fountain in the middle of the grounds; there’s a multi-boobed nursing cow in the centre? Apparently 15 students and one dean have killed themselves innit, come on! They say some words over the water, and there’s a match but they leave, thinking nothing is happening. A hand breaks the water, reaching into the air…then flipping them the bird.

Kady and Penny are walking along (we see Kady’s tiny belly again!!  LOVE IT)

when Penny starts groaning; he can hear the Taylor Swift playing in Q’s melon.

James is trying to engage Julia in conversation about Yale, he wants to know what’s going on, yo! Is she cheating, is she lying, DAFUQ JULIA??  She tries to kiss him out of if, I bet a little mouth hugging would go a lot further right now.

A couple of Psychic kids are hanging out by the fountain, they can feel that something is different, but not quite soon enough to not get et. Alice and Quentin are concerned; racing back to her room to find it full of little glass horses, which is exactly the spell big brother Charlie taught her back before he died. Nu nu nuuu nu nu!!

Alice is SURE her brother totes wouldn’t be eating psychic kids, and also positive she’s not telling Margo about it. On the other hand, Margo’s discipline is Gossip (for REALS??) so maybe getting information from her is the way to go! Eliot drags Quentin off and it’s starting to feel very much like a grade 9 dance or Newfoundland up in here: ladies on this side of the gym and gents on the other.

Eliot’s freaking out; Professor Sunderland is looking for a book; it got lost during a party and books aren’t exactly just books, and fines are not exactly fines…FIND THE BOOK!

Julia is blocked; she can’t move past moving coins around and Marina tells her: it’s us or James. That’s not exactly what she says, but that’s what she means fo SHO. With real magic: she’s gonna have to be all in or it’s tits up.

Alice finally cracks and asks Margo for help; who doesn’t know much, but points her at a girl named Emily who took Charlie’s death really badly. Somehow she knows a lot about where this woman is now…including where she works and where the two of them will be visiting shortly. Alice doesn’t wanna take her, but really, what choice does she have, asks Margo?

Penny is checking in at his new digs, his roomie looks SUPER exciting to see him. I’m surprised he’s never tried to control his psychic powers before, but I guess trying to shut it out is kind of trying to control it? She moves in for a cuddle and he gets the line of the night so far “less talking, NO touching.” Roger that, handsome. He tries to meditate; ends up physically on top of a building somewhere rushy?

Margo and Alice have tracked down Emily, she doesn’t want to talk to them at first becuz: Brakebills, but the name Charlie buys them a coffee chat. He tried to help her; she was having an affair with a married professor and thought she needed to be prettier…that didn’t go so well. She was trying to throw herself into that very fountain when Charlie found her. He tried to fix her face and instead the spell burned right through him and there wasn’t anything else…

So Charlie is The Beast, right?

Margo asks delicately..about her face? The professor fixed it. And she left school and never looked back

Eliot and Quentin are walking down the street; whatever is in the box Q is carrying is trying very hard to get out, they’re selling it at a magical pawn shop (where Eliot once was offered a beej for his spell and it was “hardly worth it”), and hey! That’s not JUST a magical pawn shop, that’s Marina’s magical pawn shop! And Julia is there!

Pete asks how she knows these guys and there’s a hilarious exchange where Eliot says “That’s right, we’re from Brakebills. We’re classically trained and we want our book back”; it’s so camp and delish! Then the box flies open and the book inside flies off, to be met by the OTHER book which totes WAS there and then the books hump.

For reals, the books bump bindings like nobody’s bidness and no one knows where to look.

Off they strut; Julia comes charging after Quentin: what is he doing there?? What is he doing there, what is SHE doing there?? Slumming because she can’t accept that she doesn’t have it?? And it all comes out, they were best friends but she knew very well how he felt about her and this is time for me to make my Just Friends Rant.

Ladies: or menz, really, do you have a best friend that you know is in love with you or, at the very least, has more than the friendly feels for you? And you don’t wanna date them, maybe you’re dating someone else, maybe there isn’t that spark, maybe you just don’t wanna, totes fair. MAYBE DON’T USE ALLLLLL THEIR EMOTIONAL SUPPORT TO PROP YOU UP WHEN YOUR ACTUAL BOYFRIEND / GIRLFRIEND TREATS YOU LIKE GARBAGE. You know what I mean, doncha? The “come pick me up at 3 am because Bob pulled a fcuk and chuck, so glad you’re not like other boys, you’re just so SWEET”. You know whatcher doing, you c-words that don’t moo, don’t treat people like that. Don’t use them as backup, acknowledge their feels, if it can’t be resolved, move the eff on.

Anyway, I think Q might have allowed his resentment to cloud his judgement about Julia, he thinks her tenacity is just a Can’t Be Wrong behaviour, but she says she feels magic in her SOUL and she won’t be dissuaded by the likes of him, thankyouverymuch. Eliot hovers. Can I just say? I love Eliot already. I wasn’t sure until this episode, because he definitely treads the caricature line, but his flighty body language gives him a vulnerability that just makes me lurve him so hard.

Penny is hoodie-lurking in the commons and is stopped by Professor Sunderland screeching to a halt in front of him in a large, dirty truck. Inside he finds Dean Fogg (blues glasses FTW!) and she tells Penny he is a Traveler, the most difficult discipline of all. He can move between worlds, y’all! If it doesn’t kill him, first, wah wah. Sunderland will be giving him one-on-one tutorials and I just bet she will…

Back at the Physical Kids cottage, Eliot and Quentin are enjoying cocktails while Kady literally beats the door down. I was wondering where she was!

Alice and Quentin are going over the spell plan, she’s found some new transmutation spells and she’s gonna mix everything all together and you know who else did that? Charlie! That right there is a cautionary tale, Alice, not a guide.

Julia is breaking up with James, she can’t focus on his popped collar sweaters any more and she has bigger things than quarters to lift, yo. She says she’s fighting an Adderall addiction and she’s not exactly gone full-Falkor or anything here, I’m surprised he believes her.

Alice and Quentin are setting the spell, beginning with her singing “(Don’t You) Forget About Me” and awww there he is! All smoky-like, with a giant fauxhawk and creepy eyes and Charlie isn’t a good guy any more, Alice. He steals  Q’s breath and transports all over the place and Q and I don’t think that’s Charlie anyway…

Quentin gets rid of the demonCharlie with a small box and a sprightly spell, Alice is NOT grateful. She’s leaving! Margo stops her; there’s a cute exchange, Margo DOES like competition!

And that’s it! We’re oot! It’s very angsty, and typical, and only Eliot seems to understand what college is FOR, but I still like it. Lots of splodey bits!