As we approach the last episode, it’s time for some
storylines to come together and to close off some major themes. Some well and
some… not so well.
Julia and Quentin now have Alice’s shade and go to
Mayakovsky to try and bring Alice back. He’s not a fan since it will involve
draining his batteries of magic he has spent so long developing. Quentin tries
to appeal in the name of life which the cynical Mayakovski responds with “that
assumes life has value”.
But this episode brings us Quentin who is willing to cut
to the bone more than once. Here he hits on why Alice went to Brakebills – to
learn about her brother, who became a Niffin to help the student who was badly
hurt trying to win Mayakovsky’s affections which is why he was banished. That’s
a big wad of guilt and it works
They put together the spell (also, noteworthy: Magic
using words not just gestures. Is this the first time?) and manage to re-merge
Alice
Alice is back! I have to say I always kind of suspected
it. I knew Alice was going to be around for a while – and I did think that
maybe that would be as a Niffin, maybe a humanised Niffin. But really the
unrivalled power of niffinness made her too much of storybreaker for them to
keep with that much power AND as actually part of the “hero group”
Still, either way, I’m really happy to see Alice, one of
the two actual heroes of this story (the other being Julia) back in the show
And she is not happy with this at all. She was an all
powerful Niffin who knew so much about magic and now, now she’s a nasty nasty
human again. Mayakovsky advises Quentin go somewhere else for a time.
This leaves Mayakovsky with a despairing and raging
Alice, desperately trying to record all the knowledge she is so rapidly losing.
To which Mayakovsky wins several prizes with awesome cynical pleas for a better
world from:
Niffin care only for their minds – a perfect life with no meaning
And when Alice says humans are weak shit he agrees: but
that magic is a way of making shit better, even a tiny bit – and that is not
weakness. More, if you hate the shit world that gives you an incentive to make
it better.
I could grow to love this character, yes yes I could.
Quentin, meanwhile, is joined by Elliot who explains he
has been banished from Fillory and is looking for a way back – which is a
problem because Quentin traded the Fillory travelling button to the dragon of
awesome. So time to follow some clues and Quentin’s encylopedic knowledge of
Fillory to find another portal to get back since Elliot has a pregnant wife,
fiancé and kingdom to get back to
Aside here – notice when Elliot was actually going to get
into a relationship with a man, before it can even begin he’s zapped out of
Fillory, his fiancé turned into a rat and we only have ONE episode in which to
resolve this? Uh-huh. I see you Magicians,
I see you all too clearly.
They find the portal - in a clock – in the possession of
another Fillory fanatic (Elliot: “there are two of you!”) who, after much
discussion is revealed to be another native of Fillory in exile
Umber. The horned god of Fillory who the beast was
supposed to have killed – instead Umber faked his own death and now has gone
into hiding in Canada.
Time for some hefty Fillory lore. Fillory was created by
Ember and Umber, godly brothers. Umber is order and law and structure. Ember is
chaos. With Umber now hiding from the Beast, Ember is now running Fillory like
a reality TV show, doing random weird things for his own amusement
I can’t imagine what would happen to a nation run by
reality TV star with a short attention span and an inclination to emotional
whimsical decisions based on what amuses him. *ahem*
This is also why random people are turning into rats etc.
Ember is bored. Elliot was banished because he bored Ember. And Umber is now
making a second world – even as Quentin unleashes his second surprisingly
awesome beat down of the season – he accepts he screwed up mightily on Fillory
but also thinks that it’s doomed. He’s written the world off
He does give Quentin and Elliot the portal clock though
simply because of shaaaame. Which means they can get back to Fillory. Though
they have absolutely no plan (though Quentin describes this as “the same plan
as the Beast.” What? Go to Fillory and fix it/survive/not annoy a god is the
same plan?)
This is going to be a disaster
In Fillory, with Margo in fairy land, Josh is the only
child of earth around which makes him king. He manages to deal with all of
Fillory’s problems by ignoring them and getting everyone high. Until Prince Ess
arrives looking for his father and stabbing people. And Margot keeps ghosting
in to tear into him for not finding her.
In the end he also joins them in Fairy land chasing after
drug-induced visions of Queen Fenn.
Fillory does not get more sensible
Over to Penny and with the awesome help of the very
skilled Sylvia he manages to find the back door to the Poison room – the secured
archives. He makes assumptions to why she’s doing this (for her mafia dad) to
which she excellently snarks back that as a woman she can actually have motives
of her own
This needs copying and pasting and sending to so many
writers.
She’s concerned because every real person’s biography she’s
read (which documents their lives) ends in 20 blank pages. All living people
have their books end in 20 blank pages. And it’s going to happen very soon. She
wants to go to the Poison Room to read her own book to see if it affects her as
well
Of course, anything written in a book is unchangeable
according to the Librarians. The Librarians have also reshelved Penny’s book 39
times due to time loops. So fate is set – but there are loop holes
SO into the Poison Room!
Which is accurately named. Being in the room slowly
poisons them and while they both get the books they were after Sylvia succumbs.
Penny tries to help her – but she’s read her own book. The only way Penny can
get out alive is if he travels out and abandons her.
Penny arrives back in Brakebills for
Damn it, I liked Sylvia. She had a lot of potential
Now to the biggy storyline – Julia and Kady. Kady isn’t
exactly thrilled they’ve gone though what they have and Julia doesn’t have a
shade. She’s also not happy with shade-less Julia anyway. But Julia appeals –
yes she has no shade but that doesn’t mean she needs to become a monster like
the beasty. If she has help
She asks Kady to be her moral brakes. Which is a much
better choice than Quentin
With Kady, John and Julia they talk about bringing down
Renard – specifically his obsession with Persephone/Our Lady Underground. They
key, again, is to use John as a weapon – not by killing him but by training
him. After all, he has demi-god powers, giving him battle magic skills may cut
it. That kind of assumes demi-god will beat a god.
They also have a plan to use a magical storm to lure him –
since these storms herald Persephone returning from the Underworld and she hasn’t
been around for a while
But Renard has rumbled them – and when John returns to
the office he sees his father. Who has a box with his wife’s ear in it. As well
as his general sadism and viciousness, Renard seems to think this will help
break John and bring him on side
Renard doesn’t understand humans very well
An emotionally broken John returns to Kady and Julia…
unwilling to put Julia through any more pain. Or, rather – he doesn’t want
Renard to win, Renard thinks he has broken Julia, turned her into a complete
monster; John wants that not to be true. He compels her to leave. Then he compels
Kady to do what must be done….
Brutally murder him to harvest his power for a weapon to
kill Renard. Kady comes down stairs, covered in blood, absolutely plastered in
it, to tell Julia they have the power for the weapon. Kady is utterly
traumatised – and what stands out really well is Julia isn’t. After all, she
has no Shade – but she still tries to support Kady (even if it feels surreally
like she’s helping Kady clean up a spill)
Their trap is ready, they have one bullet and they’re all
ready to kill Renard – complete with storm and Kady willing to distract him
with the knowledge she killed his son. Julia has the gun pointed, at point
blank range
And Persephone arrives to beg her to spare Renard, her
son.
Julia is duly furious and asks if Persephone knows what Renard was doing… she clearly did. She confronts Persephone with her rape and shade-lessness and she asks Julia to let her deal with her son
Julia responds with “come the fuck on lady” and I agree
heartily. Persephone has completely ignored her son’s rapes and tortured and
murders. In what reality can we trust her to deal with him?!
Julia calls herself a monster due to her lack of shade
and Persephone says she’s a survivor. And “don’t let him rob you of your
capacity for mercy”
Julia spares her son and the gods disappear after
Persephone tells her son she’s disappointed in him. Really.
Kady is naturally furious with Julia. But Persephone
throws in Julia’s shade as some kind of sorry gift
Ok let’s address this. I’ve not really tried to capture the emotion of this confrontation because it is epic, because it’s also some bullshit
Throwing in a Black woman who has been constantly absent
from the series as both the reason for Renard’s crimes AND to be his saviour is
bullshit and gross
Appropriating “survivor” terminology which many victims
of rape and sexual assault use, to try and save a rapist from the wrath of his
victim is gross.
Having Persephone appear now to save him when she didn’t
Having his penalty be his mother tutting at him is beyond
gross. He is not a 10 year old who broke the neighbour’s window
Having Julia’s season long quest to avenge herself and
her friends, of the trauma she faced, the horror, the loss, everything all end
with “I’m disappointed in you” is horrendous. Because this was always a black
hole on Magicians – that Julia
suffered abuse on abuse on abuse on abuse. That Julia, the far more interesting
character, was so often sidlined. That Julia was fucking EMPOWERED by rape (even
typing that makes me feel unclean) but through all of that she survived and she
was COMING for Renard. This was going to be the moment that made that storyline
better – not ok, not by a long shot – but it wasn’t going to be just the story
of the rape: but a rape treated as traumatic and horrific with Julia rising up
and through it without it ever being diminished or the evil done to her
downplayed
This is not how that story can end.
Y’know what – if you need to do this it needs to be spun.
Had Julia spare him not because it was the right thing to do but because it
wasn’t – but she didn’t have a Shade and therefore was afraid she was about to
be a monster. Spin this – had a now en-shaded Julia and Kady be righteously
pissed at Persephone for exploiting Julia’s vulnerability, her fear she was
becoming a monster, her fear she would turn into the Beast, her fear over what
she nearly did to Quentin – have them furious that Persephone saw that and
played on that. Have them be pissed that the gods use humans this way while
clearly not giving a shit about them. Have them be outraged that Persephone and
Renard consider the rape of children akin to fingerpainting on the walls.
Have this decision
be the wrong one. Don’t let it stand like this
