In Fillory things are
still all kind of falling apart - the Floaters seem to think that marriage to
the Fillorians means they can now loot and pillage as they choose. Something
Margot and Elliot have to tell Tick to handle while they focus on their main mission
- get rid of the fairies. Once they’re done then they can address the other
problems addressing the kingdom.
They return to
Brakebills with Quentin and Poppy to find Alice passed out and Penny
desperately using the very annoying fish to try and call for help
Thankfully Alice
isn’t dead but she isn’t well. There are a few theories as to why: Alice
downplays it all as magical surges. While Henry thinks it’s more likely the
magical equivalent of organ rejection. He’s dissing everything and the gang is
all down on him for being negative but he just asks why should he lie to them,
they’ll do what they do regardless
Since Brakebills was
sold, Henry has reached new epic levels of not giving a fuck.
While Quentin wants
to hover, his unresolved issues with Alice aren’t helping and Julia sends him
and the rest back to questing for the keys. We also have Fen and Fray return
after their little trip round New York and the Square of Time with Todd. Fray
still hates everything and is terrible
Margot recruits Todd
to guard the fairy eggs. Which he instantly fails at since Fray finds them ans
is all fairy loyalist and thinks it’s a terrible evil thing humans do
(completely ignoring that the fairies used sneaky means to steal her as well).
They try to convince Fray that the fairies will never see them as one of them -
they did name her “Fragile Human” after all. They try to impress her the values
of family and loyalty. This will backfire exactly as badly as you think it
will.
In Fillory, and
around a whole lot of feathers due to Tick’s convoluted plan to convince
everyone they had plague, Elliot and Margot find bodies of floaters have been
impaled by the side of the road. Things are getting… fraught.
But it’s time to
confront the fairy queen and make a deal - she gets her babies back and in
exchange she gives Fillory her bathtub. She thinks this is odd but Margot
archly points out the fae collect toes and eyeballs and think this is weird?
Honestly negotiating with Margot when she’s Fucking Done is never going to end
well. Oh and the deal is with all of Fillory. Which means everyone in Fillory
will be able to see the fae and see what bullshit they’re trying to pull.
She has a day to
decide to Margot’s going to “boil and dye them like it’s motherfucking Easter”
Because Margot is
everything.
Elliot is still
fretting over all of this, the stakes, what can go wrong and considers just
abandoning Fillory. Margot is not accepting this. Elliot got his crown simply
by blood, but Margot fought for hers and has done way more to keep that throne
-including sacrificing her eye. With respect, Elliot has no idea what she has
done for the kingdom and has no understanding of how much she’s fought. She has
earned this crown and it’s her’s
Predictably, when
they go for the big confrontation, Fray has betrayed them. Of course she didn’t
really have much useful to reveal to the fairy queen, but what she does is take
Fray captive - she’s captured Elliot and Fen’s child in exchange for her
children. Fray is shocked that, yes, she is viewed as a disposable human by the
fae (and the fairy queen is equally unimpressed that she will betray her
parents) and Elliot wavers. Margot does not -one child vs the entire kingdom.
There’s no choice
But the betrayed Fray
reacts and reveals that she isn’t actually Elliot and Fen’s child (because they
believed that one waaay too easily), their real child died in childbirth. As
Margot puts it “that is the sound of your leverage dying”.
This leaves Elliot to
comfort Fenn as she is utterly devastated that she isn’t a mother and he
confesses he hasn’t been the greatest father or husband - while she says she
needs time out of Fillory
Of course, with the
fairies, there’s a catch. First she says something ominous about having deeper
plans, but then she reveals, no exposed to all Fillorians, the fae are leaving.
And they’re leaving the king and queen exposed to the wrath of their people -
because with all the chaos the fairies wrought coupled with magic failing, the
kings and queens are NOT popular
Elliot and Margot are
dragged from their carriage by an enraged mob. Damn it, they can never win
this. I wanted this to be a victory, especially for Margot
Back on Earth the
quest for the key continues and they need to go to the Underworld. Which
involves Penny on account of him being sort of dead. Penny objects, Quentin
points out his body is actually ash at the moment so the denial is looking a
little strong here. Of course they still need a portal - which means using the
dragon (dragons are portals) which the Library has
This needs a long
convoluted plan which needs another traveller - Victoria, who Penny rescued.
Which is nice but she’s working for Harriet (the Deaf lady who opposes the
Library) and they need to make her co-operate even though she hates Penny
Yes, it’s
complicated, very very very complicated
So to get Harriet to
co-operate they need Kady who is locked in a mental institution. Thankfully
both Poppy and Quentin, due to their own experiences, have considerable
knowledge about how the law works around involuntary detention for mental
health reasons. They come up with a plan
It’s not a bad plan. But it still all falls apart and they end up fighting their way out, using fire alarms and general less smooth shenanigans. Kady and Penny’s relationship continues to be fraught with Kady annoyed at Penny for again sacrificing himself with little regard. And no-one really calls out that they’ve only really turned to Kady because they need her.
But they are a
couple.
But now to get
Harriet on side they have to agree to steal a book from the Library, which
Penny opposes especially since it puts Kady at risk - but as she puts it, she
has to watch him do it quite regularly
So now we have a whole convoluted plan which has lots of people travelling to the library with a whole lot risk involved. So to deal with the stress, Poppy decides to have sex with Quentin.
Time to go back to
Julia and Alice - and Henry is extremely scathing of Julia giving her magic
away when, previously, she was willing to break a memory spell to get magic. He
calls this “Entitled Millennial bullshit”. Which I’ll agree with because that
phrase usually means “old people dismissing important and complex issues they
don’t understand because they don’t have the respect or the awareness to
actually try”. He emphasises again that the magic is killing Alice because it
doesn’t fit her -it fits Julia. They need to take it back but Alice won’t agree
and she’s the only one with magic
Which means Julia
making a deal with the new owner of Brakebills for some of her stored magic -
which you have to snort because of course you do - to find Alice and make the
transfer. This also means owing this woman an ill-defined future favour which
will be bad.
Alice is not making
good choices. She tries to raid the Brakebills supply of medications and runs
into Professor Lipson. She’s now “the sanest woman in America” with all her
pills which make her feel nothing - which is better for her. Again we’re
reminded of just how much despair there is in a magicless worlds - and
basically says Alice’s cures aren’t going to work but she perfectly understands
the desperation of clinging to any solution
Alice’s solution is a vampire - magical creatures hold on to their magic so she pays to get turned. The vampire is actually a little wary about it since she’s clearly not that interested in becoming a vampire but is using vampirisim as a means to an end
Which is when Julia
arrives, with magic - and the vampire leaves because he’s totally not paid
enough to deal with hedgewitch Buffy. Alice and Julia argue, Alice tries to
leave and Julia uses magic to stop her…. And then Alice lashes out and knocks
Julia out
When Julia wakes up
she has her magic back and Alice is super super contrite. They talk and they
both make the revelation that they’ve been using magic to try and solve their
own traumatised issues
Alice is fighting a
desperate identity crisis from having magic then becoming a niffin then
becoming human - it’s all messy. She thought magic was a quick fix. It isn’t
Julia is obviously
trying to deal with her trauma at the hands of Renard by trying to get rid of
magic and anything connected to him - which obviously isn’t working. Alice
reassures her that the magic may have been Renard’s once but now feels like
Julia’s
I like this and
wondered how they were going to navigate it. I like that we both respected
Julia’s agency and revulsion in not wanting the magic while at the same time
not depowering her (again) and making that magic truly her’s. Alice’s word
makes that magic Julia’s and allows it to be more than just the aftereffects of
her abuse. Similarly I like that the clear traumatised issues both Alice and
Julia are dealing with do not magically disappear . What they’re dealing with
is just too complex for a quick fix. It’s nice the layers are examined here.
While I like Henry’s
supreme levels of Not Giving a Fuck, I also feel this character and his vast
experience and knowledge are being supremely underutilised
I’m… disquieted by
Quentin and Poppy along with Elliot and Fen getting close again. Not so much
because of Magicians per se, but because of this trope in media in
general: take a character (especially a male character) and have them have a
same-sex experience. Then quickly plunge into lots of opposite sex scenes,
partnerings etc and you can almost hear them desperately sending messages to
the straight audience “we’re not doing this! It was a one offer! We promise!”. Da
Vinci’s Demons did it, Lucifer did it, Librarians did it -
the only thing more common is to establish a same-sex relationship then kill
one or both. So I’m not all thrilled to see Elliot and Quentin apparently live
a whole life as a loving, deeply connected couple - and then quickly split up
and reinforce or build relationships with women elsewhere. Especially when
their reunion was decidedly unmarked.
Kady and Penny - I’m
glad they’re both here after being absent for so much of the series - but
they’re still very much in utility roles. Did anyone even remember Kady before
they needed her? Are we going to address her pain beyond relationship issues?
We need to build these characters more
And Margot really
needs a win.
