Soooo, I’m a little behind on The Magicians again, yeah? That’s okay, we’ll binge it! Who’s up for doing two Magicians tonight? Um. Don’t answer that. Let’s roll!

At the end of last episode, the freshmen were doing their midterms; Quentin and Alice affirming each other while nekkid; as had Penny and Kady with slightly less success, everyone looked like they were in pain.

It’s winter now, and Brakebills is buried under a mountain of snow. A cold-looking fella dresses warmly and girds his loins for what lays ahead.

Julia is at the police station, dealing with the aftermath of Hannah’s death by Marina’s curse. The police have decided it was natural causes, so why not let her go? And they are, releasing her with her sister. Sister?

Oh my bad! Brakebills isn’t buried under snow all of a sudden showing a time lapse, Alice and Quentin flew to Antarctica! And joined Star Trek, I gather, given their uniforms.

Oh yay, Penny and Kady are there too. They aren’t talking, though, he’s even grouchier than his normal sunshiney self, but it may have to do with the fact that they all BECAME the birds they saw flying overhead and he ate bugs and shat a lot, so…that happened. Guess what? NO, GUESS!!! He hates snow because of course he does.

The gentleman readying himself in the first scene is Mayakovsky (Brian F. O’Byrne), they’re there to learn from him, but oh. He crazy. He also hates all of them, or rather he hates their ignorance. He quizzes them on spells, chiding Kady that unless there’s a brain behind all those batting eyelashes, she can soon expect to be ” selling oranges at on off-ramp.” So, so specific.

They have to do a hammer spell (to drive nails straight into wood) but he makes it more interesting by taking their voices; calling himself the Last Great Magician. And a Great Magician IS magic, “in his bones, blood, heart and dick. Or lady parts, whatever.” Begin! Nobody has a clue how to do a spell without being able to speak, so they just stare at each other.

Back at Brakebills, gorgeous Margo is trying on her bikini and net cover-up for Ibiza for Eliot, who has an AWESOME hat! Freshman Todd (Adam DiMarco) sidles up; he wants to go to Encanta Oculto too! But he needs an invite, so… Margo tells him a story about the bacchanal last year when who was it? That guy? Hmm, Todd! His name was Todd too! Anyway, he wasn’t meant to be there and he moped and whined and then someone (not them, no, not them) turned him into a pig and they ate him. Bai Todd. Not this trip for you.

Can I just say? Watching Margo and Eliot is like watching someone pour a really good wine; it’s all anticipation and you just know how good it will be, but when you actually get it in your mouth, you realise how wrong you were: it’s even better than that. They are gorgeous together, not the least of which is Margo.

They brainstorm over what to give the elders to pay for all the debauchery (last year it was a full bag of actually working dicks) and they decide on overheard spell for Magical Gin is the way to go. Off to the library to get the rest of the spell!

Penny is working on the hammer spell, frustrated, when Kady comes in and leaves him a…chocolate bar? Looks like it. Elsewhere, all the rest of the students are working on it as well, Quentin getting as far as to have the nail standing upright, just not exactly slamming it into the wood straight or anything. Alice can get it in, but not exactly straight.

Speaking of getting it in, Alice and Quentin are staring at each other, eye-cuddling, when the professor comes up and asks them why they don’t just fcuk already? And barring that, WORK!

Julia gets home with her sister, a statuesque blonde (I NEVER get to say statuesque, that’s awesome!) who is staying, thanks, not leaving her alone. Julia drinks. I’m guessing this is Mackenzie (Jessica Harmon).

Margo and Eliot are trying to translate the rest of the spell, but it’s in Arabic, and it’s not going so well. Margo pouts that a “Bag of Dicks is sounding AWFULLY good” and a stranger says “ooh, copy THAT” and did we just find a boyfriend for Eliot??

His name is Mike (Jesse Luken) and he aced Arabic here a couple of years ago…can he help? Absolutely! Woo hoo, he is TOTALLY a boyfriend for Eliot! Meaningful hand-holding, ignoring Margo, I would never put Eliot in a box, sexuality-wise, but this guy is totes adorbs (I miss you, GatorGirl!).

Quentin has had enough! He gets mad (when he does his best magic) and slams the nails all down at once into the wood spelling out

Mayakovsky gives him props, slaps him, and sets him to work on Bujold’s Nail Extraction. This looks fun! Or whatever the opposite of fun is.

At Julia’s apartment, her sister is assuming all this trouble is to do with Julia’s possibly genetic predisposition for alcoholism. Also assuming that is their mom, who sounds like a society maven from hell, threatening to commit Julia as her father was committed. I am feeling the pieces come together now. Julia comes from great wealth AND expectation, in a way that Quentin does not and that’s part of why she is such a spoiled ahole.

Back up in the frigid north, the students who have passed have gotten their voices back, but for the most part opt to not use them. Now they get to learn mind control! On a tarantula, or a moth, or other bug. Q and Alice protest, they’ve been taught that they shouldn’t try to control living things with free will and blah blah blah says Mayakovsky: how was your COW FOR LUNCH? He frees Quentin’s moth, freaking Quentin out, given his run-ins with The Beast. Penny gets a beetle and er-oooh. This may be tricky.

While dropping off the creepy whatsit on Penny’s arm, the professor notices the new tattoo anchoring Penny to the earth and tells him that he’s chained himself to a rock. A traveler not traveling is like an eagle fearing heights and he will teach Penny to SOAR. And then, with Penny’s permission, he cuts the tattoo out. OUCH!

Margo is getting frustrated, Mike and Eliot would rather just eye-cuddle and say a bunch stuff while meaning other stuff, so she tells them to go bang. “NOW!”

I’m a little concerned, how long is the gang supposed to be with Professor Mayakovsky? Because he’s making Penny travel-train and I guess that’s a good thing, he really does need to be able to control it and not using it wasn’t doing that, but this seems short term… Beach, Afghanistan, volcano, all good stuff!

Alice and Quentin are not doing as well, they can’t control their bugs so Mayakovsky ups the ante by tying their consciousnesses to a bunch of fireflies. There is a series of electrical hoops that the bugs have to fly through; every time they can’t stop one from going towards the light, they get a shock too. Stay away from the light wee bugs!

They work together and they do it! They’re so excited that they go to hug and instead he full on grabs her boobs. He’s so distracted that he lets go of controlling the bugs and the shocks knock him right the eff ooover.

The professor is there to test them; he sees Quentin passed out on the floor and asks Alice is she wants to continue alone? No, sir, and they’re back at it, getting them mostly right. A drunk Mayakovsky tells them they lack excitement but I guess they pass, meet him in the hall at 5!

Penny is all frantic after his brush with death; he begs Kady to tell him. She says she won’t, she’ll just drop her wards so he can come on in and figure it all out himself. She’s so sad about her mom, and awwww, she loves him now.

Mike and Eliot have very noisy sex while Kady and Penny have very quiet sex and awwww he thinks he can buy her out of her contract with Marina! He saw some wicket cool magic in Mayakovsky’s office!

Margo, Mike and Eliot (now I’m wondering if I will have to keep typing all three names forever? Mike and Margo do NOT get along, Margo is jelly) are ready to make some Magic Gin! And it works! But it made a Magic DJINN, a genie, not the kind needing 3 slices of lime and ice.

Eliot thinks this is WAY better than a Bag of Dicks for a regalo, yay! Right up until it swipes him aside and sets upon Mike

Back in the cold, the professor stands in front of a howling gale and tells everyone to take their clothes off, Alice and Q are like “AGAIN?? Come on!!” but he insists and sends them out in the blizzard.

They make it to some kind of hunting lodge, putting on robes and finally kiss for reals! And then presumably hump and the Northern Lights play above as foxes they control also hump.

Back at the Physical Kids house, Todd helps Margo and Eliot to understand what the Djinn did; he can read Margo’s thoughts, as she uncorked him, and she may have wished Mike to go back where he came from. She just didn’t like him coming between her and Eliot! Eliot can’t believe she did that to his boyfriend, and her and I are are “whet??” She says “he was random cock!” but Eliot is MAD. They find Mike in the library, sucking on a doorknob…Margo puts her genie back in the bottle, saying her full wish was that Mike went back to where he came from, to suck on another knob.

Penny’s lifted the super awesome magic from the professor’s office, waaaayyyy too easily, he gives it to Kady, who runs back to her room to find…the professor. He tells her that her mother is dead and that they know all about her back at Brakebills and cannot return. Now that she’s told Penny she loves him, if she takes him with her…his gift will endanger him if he can’t control it. And he can’t control it, he still needs Brakebills. So she does what she has to, leaving him a note that says “Forget me” and leaves into the blizzard.

Margo is ready to go to Ibiza! But Eliot isn’t coming, it’s not really Mike’s thing. She takes an ecstatic Todd instead as Eliot crawls back into bed with Mike, and Alice and Quentin throw down again.

I will try to contain myself, but Eliot and Mike making out is AWESOME!!!! You’ll let me know if I get creepy or objectify too much, right?? Mike gets up and all of a sudden I’m worried about our Eliot; he doesn’t have his bestie to help protect him and he did get attached to Mike awfully quickly. Mike’s just hydrating, though, but no! He’s not! He’s being controlled by a giant moth, like The Beast’s!

Mayakovsky is giving Alice and Quentin their waking papers; they’ve passed, time to go back to Brakebills.

And we’re oot! The actress who plays Alice, Olivia Taylor Dudley, looks SO MUCH like Reese Witherspoon that it’s confusing at times.

Check you next time, lads and ladies!

All photos borrowed from various Tumblrs, credit given where asked. Thanks!