Hi guys! It’s Thursday so I must be late with The Magicians! I am. It looks like we’re visiting Alice’s family this week, though, so a super inappropriate orgy is just around the corner. Let’s get to it!

We open with Quentin (Jason Ralph) niffin-baiting Alice (Olivia Taylor-Dudley) while Eliot (Hale Appleman) and Margo (Summer Bishil) watch in horror.

You can bring a niffin back by doing something that pleases them (Quentin thinks his Cirque de Soleil dance is where it’s at) where they left this earth…is Q humping the ground?

He’s totally humping the ground. Eliot and Margo convince him to give it up, no matter how much he thinks Alice wants him to help her. He saw her mouth that at him, see, so he’s been trying. He’s got to go talk to Alice’s (extremely gross) parents at Alice’s memorial; then he’ll come back and rule as a king in Fillory, okay? Okay

The memorial is as weird as I was expecting, there’s a goat (NOT a party favour, but rather a sacrifice, so) but everyone’s wearing people-clothes so it looks normal until you get close enough to hear words. Like Alice’s mom Stephanie (Judith Hoag) making it about her: she’s such a better mother than her mom!

Quentin runs his hands through his luxurious hair (ten bucks says somebody’s been reading the fan pages) and looks sad; the sound of weeping draws him to a corner. It’s NiffAlice again, leading him to a locked door and disappearing. She scratched the access code on the wall opposite before dis-encorporating (that should totally be a word!) so he gets in to…a study.

I thought it was Brakebills again because all roads seem to lead there, but it’s just a regular study filled with books and oddly shiny suits of armor. Isn’t that shite supposed to be old? A tapping from inside an intricately carved wardrobe grabs his attention and he opens it to find a book almost falling into his hands.

Alice’s dad Daniel (Tom Amandes) catches Quentin just then; he envelops Q in a long, inappropriate squeezy hug before questioning him as to what he’s doing in Daniel’s private study.

Best Bitches Kady (Jade Tailor) and Julia (Stella Maeve) are regrouping back at the apartment; Kady sucking back her magical methadone and Julie getting at pickles. Julia found something in the past in Hoboken, New Jersey, woot! Sounds promising, get thee on a train!

Eliot just doesn’t like ANYTHING to drink in Fillory; who doesn’t want a unicorn milk latte?? Nobody, that’s who. Fen (Brittany Curran) keeps trying to interrupt to explain about Foo Fighter Bayler (Rhys Ward) but then Penny (Arjun Gupta) interrupts HER and Eliot tells “Uncy Penny” about his baby-to-be on the way. “Like I need more people calling me Daddy”

Penny’s not here for updates from the newlyweds OR condolences about Alice, he needs moss for Mayakovsky.

Daniel believes that Quentin has been talking to Alice; he even thinks he knows why Alice lead Q to this specific book. They have to do something with this lopsided pyramid thingy

Prince Ess (seriously dude, f*ck your parents) (Arlen Escarpeta) has come with a deal for Fillory; he wants to split the befouled Wellspring and to offer his hand in marriage to the “virgin High Queen Margo” who immediately takes offense.

She turns down the kind offer, looks like we’re into Plan B

Me and Eliot: a wand?

Penny’s trying to find out where the moss is from the Royal Cartographer, but a sudden earth shattering noise stops everything. Prince Ess took the castle back to his land of Loria (sp?) where it will remain until they come around to his offer.

Eliot and Margo fight after; why couldn’t she be more diplomatic?? He agreed to marry a perfect stranger on the spot, except it’s sort of different in that not-really-bi Eliot is stuck with not-really-cock for eternity. Margo didn’t like Prince Ess on sight, but I think it’s too early to judge his views on consent. Except that he did kidnap their castle when they wouldn’t do what he asked, Margo might be on to something there.

Kady and Julia are investigating the lone building left standing after the shenanigans in Hoboken thirty years ago; Kady gets a call from an old contact of her mom’s. She might be able to help with the baby situation, so Kady’s off to check it out. Should she leave Julia alone like that?

Daniel’s got some plan to get Alice back, it involves a ladder, mirror and some Arabic that Quentin has to memorize. Daniel gets super testy when Q suggests he do it instead, hm.

Julia’s found her Reynard-banisher! She looks like a suburban mom (Lee Garlington from The Killing!) but has picked up Julia’s scent right away. She’s reluctant to speak but Julia’s pregnancy gets her a meeting at least.

Daniel has a fear of heights; that’s why he was so snappy with Quentin just then. He tells the tale of Alice’s poor kitty Alanis Morrisette who got stuck in a tree and Daniel couldn’t get her.

I see you, The Magicians. I see your trolling with musician names. This is gonna be fun! Like a Smash in the Mouth!

Daniel marshals his courage and climbs the ladder, placing the mirror on the hook on top then falling off and hurting his knee. I do that too, I always fall off ladders. It’s the oddest thing.

Prince Ess and Margo are getting along better than expected; I’m glad she’s finally getting some action, but I don’t know exactly what the plan is

Eliot’s not taking the news of Fen’s affiliation with the Foo Fighters and Bayler specifically all that well; she’s there because she wants their marriage to succeed! Eliot doesn’t feel as though he knows her now, BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DOESN’T, can he trust her?

Ah the woman who banished Reynard ALSO got pregnant by him, but she had the same problem that Julia is having… she couldn’t get rid of it. She wants to help Julia, but she can’t banish Reynard again. She can show Julia how, though. Julia is led through the house, giving me ALL the heebie jeebies, this woman gave birth to Reynard’s baby and now is it locked in the basement on a floor covered by kitty litter? I’m watching through my fingers. Julia’s a little discomfited and leaves a spell marker on the wall behind her, and she sent Kady the address, so hopefully she gets found, since the woman takes her out with a baseball bat right away.

Margo’s meeting with the Prince Ess must have gone long, because she’s napping and having a dream that Penny bursts in on. She’s naked and didn’t study for a midterm, uh oh! She tries to explain where she is (purple dicks everywhere? Girl. You’re in a kingdom run by a black man from Cincinnati surrounded by rocks that look like purple dicks? Really, The Magicians?), he’ll find her!

She wakes up next to Prince Ess, they’re cute together. I told you she shouldn’t have made up her mind about his ideas about consent right off the hop!

Stephanie’s had enough of being left out of the Alice rescue mission; she and Quentin leave Daniel with his cast, painkillers and booze and go off to finish the spell.

Julia wakes up bound hand and foot; she’s in a dark room with a giant adult baby in a baby pool full of litter. All the herks. But this is it, this is the key! The way that woman (my kingdom for a name!) banished Reynard was by having his baby; it was like a nuclear reactor and she harnessed that energy to blast him out of this world and that’s how she wants Julia to do it.

This whole show is a metaphor for how some people view how reproductive rights are being handled in the North America right now.

Kady gets the help she wanted from her mom’s friend, but Julia not answering her (smashed) cell is scaring her. Julia’s scared because there is a diapered giant man-baby on a chain next to her, but he gives her a bone and maybe she can use that to get away.

Ohhhh Julia and I were wrong, the giant man-baby is not Reynard’s offspring but rather a haxenpaxen that she caught for magical purposes. Nobody can sense them while they’re near the Stinkmonster (Jason Burkart – hey, he’s from Trail, BC! I’m from a town not far from there and I once spent a night playing pool and drinking whiskey there because of a forest fire. That’s awesome). She’s scooping his poop out of the kitty litter the whole time, so….

Her son is safe, he’ll never know who his daddy is, or mommy is, for that matter. He’s “influential.”

Kady breaks in just then; she knocks out Reynard’s OG babymomma with a right hook, who needs magic? They’re taking the Stinkmonster with them, to a shower?

Eliot and Margo are strategizing when Penny breaks in on them; they won’t believe where they’ve been this whole time!

Stephanie tries to do the mirror spell to bring Alice back but everything she says is about HER, not Alice’s truth at all. She runs off crying at the little bit of truth she managed to squeak out and Quentin is left alone…with NiffAlice. His cacodemon wasn’t enough to kill her, it seems, so she’s been living in his back tattoo this whole time. What? And why is she being so creepy?

Dana (OG babymama has a name! You may have my kingdom) wakes up and hurries to lock all her doors, but she’s too late. Reynard the Fox (Sean Astin) has already breached the gates. Of course, that would be who she was really hiding from. Damn, Julia

Margo exposes exactly what Penny figured out; they were never in the Cock Barrens of Loria, they were there hiding behind an illusion the whole time.

The cartographer gives up; but he did draw a map to the moss for Penny before he did, yay! Back to the castle, where Margo is declaring war on Loria. Aww man, I liked her and Ess together, she seemed happy for the first time in a whole season! And we’re out

So I don’t know if Alice getting released from Quentin’s tramp stamp is a good thing or not; how she’s acting makes me think nooooo and hell noooo but we’ll see. I knew she’d be back, no way were we gonna get any decent Queliot reunion. Julia and Kady are kinda cool together, maybe they are best bitches after all. They have a Scooby Doo vibe. Until next week!