Welcome back to Fillory where everything is as beshat as The Wellspring, thanks Umber! Or Ember. One of the half goats: hey, I just started reading The Magicians book series by Lev Grossman, I could do a whole post on differences! But I won’t, I’ll just enjoy it in a different way. Rolling S2:E12 Ramifications after the break!
We open with Julia Wicker (Stella Maeve) and Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) asking Mayakovsky (Bryan F. O’Byrne – huh, Irish playing Russian, interesting), of all people, how to get Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley) back from Niffin with her shade.
Currently Alice’s shade is hanging out in Julia, which makes her empathetic and…less Julia than she has been for awhile.
Mayakovsky pffts and pisses and moans as usual, this will never happen, many have tried, they all failed! Including Alice trying to bring her brother Charlie back from Niffin, so they know from whence he spaketh. HOWEVER, they do have Alice’s shade, so it’s worth a shot. Mayakovsky’s also got a bunch of magic batteries kicking around, not that he’s sharing and with that: Q has had enough.
He reminds Mayakovsky that Alice wouldn’t have even been at Brakebills turning Niffin if she hadn’t been trying to find her brother, who niffinated trying to help Mayakovsky’s former lover. Mayakovsky knows he’s been made.
Quentin asks if for sure Julia wants to give up this last bit of humanity?
Time to start! Quentin pulls Alice’s shade out of Julia and locks the twelve year old girl in a cage. SEEMS LEGIT. Mayakovsky starts to activate the magical batteries as an extremely angry Alice appears and then
And Alice is back and nekkid and mad as usual. Yay. She’s not talking and it seems weird, you know, weirder than usual. She wants to know why they brought her back? She’s soooo grateful
Sylvia (Roan Curtis) and Penny (Arjun Gupta) are working on gaining access to the secret lair in the Library called the Poison Room, it’s where all the god-killing books live. They’ve figured out that the room is technically another world, accessible through a fountain.
Eliot Waugh (Hale Appleman) surprises Quentin, he’s pretty sure he’s been banished from Fillory, High King or no. He hits Q up for the button, but they traded it to a dragon to get Alice’s shade, see, so. Eliot sees Alice wandering around like an angry ghost and gets it.
Looks like Josh Hoberman (Trevor Einhorn) is the last human standing in Fillory, sup High King? Not only is Josh High King, he’s a hakuna matata HIGH king, so.
Julia misses her Best Bitch, but Kady Orloff-Diaz (Jade Tailor) isn’t ready to play house again just yet. Julia wheedles, she needs Kady to be her shade, now that she’s given back prepubescent Alice. Maybe just to help her slam on the brakes if necessary, ya know? Kady needs her help with Senator DemiGod John (Christopher Gorham) who really wants to break away from his dad, Reynard the Fox (Sean Astin).
John stops by to ask the women for help and leaves with some magic training homework, in between dropping off some valuable information. He knows what the deal is with Reynard picking on all of Persephone’s followers (by that I mean raping and murdering), he is just trying to get back at Persephone. He heads back to the office, let’s just say Reynard is on to him. Reynard has cut his daughter-in-law into tiny pieces and John WILL listen to his evil plans.
Eliot and Quentin are workshopping the way back to Fillory by re-reading the books, how did the Chatwins get in? Well, there is that clock, which he saw…where did he see that again…oh at the Yale interview that didn’t happen because the interviewer was dead in the very first episode! (I just read about that so I’m feeling EXTRY smug) Sure, let’s go see if a relative ended up with it!
Ghost Margo Hansen (Summer Bishil) makes an appearance to haunt Josh from the fairy realm, why is he passed out and high af and NOT LOOKING FOR HER??? Go ask Rafe (Sergio Osuna), he knows how to get people there!
Penny and Sylvia gain access to the fountain super duper easily, which is just not a good sign. Sylvia’s in this to get her book, it has a blank spot and so do a bunch of others, they’ve been rounded up and moved to the Poison Room so nobody can read them and get freaked out about The Great Blank Spot.
Eliot and Quentin head over to the home of the newest owner of the Fillory clock, he shuts them down initially until Quentin spots some Fillorian paraphernalia in the background and throws out some lines from the books. Nigel (Nico Evers-Swindell) bites HARD, him and Quentin nerd out while Eliot looks for the clock. This guy’s house is covered in Fillory and Further merchandise, some of it hella rare. Did I say guy? I mean god: this is Umber.
Julia and Kady came up with a not-great plan, all of the the appearances of Our Lady Underground have taken place during a lightning storm, they’re gonna fake a storm and bring Reynard a-running.
John walks in, excellent timing as always, demi-god, he’s exhausted and hoping Julia hasn’t been destroyed by Reynard as the Trickster god thinks, “whatever happens.” He uses The Force to get her out of the library to get pizza: WHAT’S HE DOING??
He makes Kady’s head hurt while he talks about protecting Julia, what’s going on??
We’re back with Mayakovsky trying to help Alice but she’s frustrated because she can’t do magic, so she’s extry obnoxious and angry in response. Mayakovsky responds with a…unique pep talk and some Adderall.
I strongly dislike Alice in this show, but I WANT to admire her: she’s absolutely brilliant. Just like Penny, her attitude takes away alllllllls the awesomeness. You know she’s written completely differently in the books? It makes me wonder if that’s an actor thing or a director thing.
Kady comes in covered in blood, John made her do WHAT? The ritual? What ritual? The one where she murders a demigod?
Penny’s arm is burned with acid as he reaches for a book and he understands suddenly the perils of the library and goes running to find Sylvia.
Ohhh so Umber faked his own death and escaped to Vancouver, Canada! I used to live there! It’s the grouchiest city in Canada, fo SHO. Very pretty, though, ANYWAY, he’s been working on another world, but Eliot’s not ready to give up on his first world yet, peez. Can he go back and fix Eliot’s kingdom? Umber laughs and laughs, the humans were never meant to actually rule Fillory, they were meant to be court jesters as kings, entertaining the masses with their deaths and failures.
Sylvia collapses on the way back to the fountain, he has to leave her or die with her. He makes it back to Kady just in time to pass out, handing her the book on how to kill a god.
Prince Ess (Arlen Escarpeta) comes looking for his dad (who has been changed into a rat, now we know that was by Ember!) with swords-a-blazing, killing everyone but Josh while storming the castle.
Umber warns a resolute Eliot: there is nothing that Ember likes more than a “whimsical death” so watch oot!
Julia has a plan!
Penny is getting fixed in the infirmary, but his latest brush with death wasn’t in vain as Julia’s managed to put all of John’s power into a bullet meant for Reynard. It’s super fancy!
Josh smokes out Prince Ess and his army and upon seeing Fenn (Brittany Curran) being dragged off by Fairies, he swallows the potion Rafe gave him to go to the land of the Fairies to finally help.
Josh Hoberman’s character is so different from the books that it’s almost impossible to follow.
Julia and Kady create a cool lightning storm and do indeed bring Reynard a-calling, but OH! It’s drawn the real Our Lady of the Underground and Persephone (Garcelle Beauvais) shows up just in time to stop Julia from shooting her tormentor in the melon.
Persephone asks Julia to spare Reynard’s life; I think that was the first time he realised he was actually in danger. And why should Julia spare him? Because he’s Persephone’s son. Dang.
She knows that even without her shade, Julia is still capable of mercy. Julia’s fixated on the fact that Persephone knew what the hell her son was up to with her followers (the raping and murdering) and chose to not intervene until now, to spare his life.
But lets Persephone lead Reynard away, making Kady very angry. She killed John for this??!! Awwwww, Julia’s shade shows up!
It’s Quentin’s turn to make a run at Alice, he’s here, almost crying again, ready to stay if she wants him too…just say the word…she glares at him in between ignoring him, it’s going really well with those two.
Quentin tries to calm down Eliot next, but Eliot is ready to start storming castles himself. Oh so, just like the Beast, Q asks? They stare at the clock: who’s got a better idea? And we’re out
Until next time! Cheers
