Penny23 has now
joined the cast which means he now has to be brought up to speed on what is
happening in this timeline.
Josh was, perhaps,
not the best person for this as he is overly interested in who is having sex
with whom. Unfortunately Kady also arrives and is pretty heart broken to
realise this Penny is not her Penny and doesn’t even know her. She helps with
the recap though - including Julia, herself and Renard. So he’s up to speed
Everyone else is
rather worried about this whole monster at the end of the world thing they’ve
been warned about. Bringing magic back while unleashing another terrible threat
doesn’t strike anyone as being a good idea, especially since their last
ill-thought out plan led to losing magic in the first place. So who to speak to
about hidden knowledged?
Why that would be the
Library - so off Alice goes (followed by astrally projecting Penny because
no-one trusts her or the Library) to ask the Librarian. Who knows nothing
beyond the fact that the Castle at the End of the World is full of things that
Man Was Not Meant to know. She suggests asking an actual god since they’ve done
that a few times and the god should know.
More ominously she
also hands Alice a syphon which she needs to charge up with magic (clearly the
plan was to harvest the Mcallister’s fairies) - and she suggests using Julia.
It’s clear Julia won’t be a fan of this and the Librarian expects Alice to use
force. Uh-huh everyone is suspicious of this
But they do take the
advice of finding a god: but Bacchus has been banned from Instagram and
Persephone isn’t picking up Julia’s calls
Julia is getting a
lot of her own prayers - her power is growing massively, she’s now hearing
people’s feelings and even their prayers. Including Henry’s utter desperation.
We’re reminded his eyes cannot be magically healed because they were magically
damaged - magic could fundamentally change him. But Julia isn’t a magician any
more - she’s a god. And she has a special get out clause and is able to heal
Henry’s eyes
Penny23 and Kady have
reluctantly come to an idea of a god to speak to - Renard. He’s not dead, he’s
running around without his powers but presumably with the knowledge of the
Castle at the End of the World. Obviously going after Renard is a hugely
sensitive topic for Julia and Kady. Julia’s worried not about his power - but
because he’s a trickster and can’t be trusted. But she absolutely cannot let
Kady go alone. But they don’t need to search for Renard - because Julia is a
god
Which also means when
they arrive on Renard’s doorstep there’s little he can do about her. Even when
he tries to belittle her and demean her, she’s not having it for a second. She
even says that she’s taken his spark and grown it - she’s more powerful than he
was. And it’s glorious to see her put him in his place.
He does tell them
that the Castle At The End of the World is full of “mistakes,” abominations the
gods never meant to create. He also tries to shoot them with the bullet he took
from them - the god killing bullet they created. Julia is far too awesome for
this and happily freezes him and steals his bullet: she and Kady agree this
will be perfect for killing whatever monster is in the Castle and call that a
good one
They also, much to
Penny’s shock, don’t kill him. Him being miserable and powerless is punishment
in their eyes. I think they could have done something creative with fingernails
I also quite like
that they point out Renard has a shelf full of feminist literature - just
because a man has a carefully crafted reading list doesn’t mean he’s not a
rapist arsehole.
This settles the
dilemma of the monster at the end of the world, technically.
While in Fillory we
have more drama.
Fen returns to Elliot
who admits that he’s not king any more so she can skip the whole arranged
marriage if she wants but she points out she can’t exactly return to her old
life now - especially since it wasn’t that great anyway. So she’s hanging
around
They need the 6th key
which is keeping the fairy realm going. Communication bunnies to the fairy
queen have come back with… less than diplomatic responses
So it’s time to catch
up with Fray and see if she has any fairy knowledge. There we learn that the
only children in the fairy realm are human: there are no fairy children. They
realise that the whole reason for the fairy invasions was that fairies can’t
breed in the fairy realm so will inevitably go extinct
Fray is also having
sex with a talking bear and said bear would really like Elliot’s approval as
her sort-of-but-not-father especially since bestiality is frowned upon in
Fillory. So Elliot decides to give her the same speech for acceptance he wishes
his dad would have given him
Because we’re
definitely drawing a comparison between gay men and bestiality and, Magicians,
one cute lifetime scene with Quentin and Elliot which you then pretend never
happens does not
balance the monumental amount of homophobic fuckery you’ve already pulled enough for you to do a gay
relationships = bestiality moment.
Margot is also super
accepting of Fray and spends time talking to said bear.
So they call the
fairy queen back and make her a deal - a nice moist spot of Fillory to raise
her kiddies in exchange for the key. The fairy queen tries to claim they can
just wait for Fillory to be conquered by Loria and the Western hordes but
Margot’s wise to that - how much time do the fairies have without kiddies?
Of course they can’t
actually fulfill this offer until they become monarchs
Which means lots of
debate on killing everyone (Margot), until Josh points out before all this
chaos happened they were going to introduce democracy to Fillory which would be
nice without all the nasty murdering and mass death etc.
There’s a fly in the
ointment that Elliot condescends to Margot that he should be the face on the
posters - because Fillory is patriarchal and won’t accept a female ruler.
Margot is NOT FUCKING AMUSED
Which sounds like a
great idea. But how do they force Tick to have an election? With Margot’s
craftiness and the power of Kinkos and their flying boat to rain the whole
kingdom with fliers announce the election
Tick orders them
burned except there are a gazillion posters out there and everyone’s expecting
an election and if he says there isn’t now the already quite annoyed people may
have him beheaded. So he starts campaigning
But Tick is a
democracy lightweight. He makes detailed, sensible election promises. He lays
out excellent civil plans and possible, reasonable reforms. Oh you sweet summer
child
While Elliot, child
of Earth that he is, is experienced in democracy. In particular, grandiose
promises he has no intention of keeping and are impossible anyway. Lots and
lots of silly promises while Tick gets ever more frustrated.
It helps that Julia
is going around with her god power performing miracles while Josh follows with
fliers (after all the whole reason Children of Earth rule Fillory is that they
have magic).
Tick finally realises
one key of democracy - smearing the opponent. He publishes a transcript of
Elliot’s testimony at the trial in which he basically said Fillory was a
backward shithole… which… is not wrong?
So when they go into
the polls it’s all tense aaaand…
Margot wins. As a
write in candidate
Turns out her
pro-bestiality stance is actually a really popular one with the talking
animals. They feel that humans generally look down on them and don’t treat them
as equals and if they could intermarry they feel they’d be much more respected
and treated as equals. The first person to declare his loyalty is a lover of
chief wise sloth, but Elliot is quick to be the second - and it’s kind of
beautiful because Margot is clearly worried he’s going to be upset but he’s
quick to declare his allegiance to her.
Oh, it also turns out
that no-one actually did a census of Fillory - there’s only like 50,000 people
but upward of 1,000,000 talking animals. Someone should have paid attention to
this
I think the message
here is supposed to be compassion and acceptance wins more than dirty tricks
and fakery. But the real message is that you really really need to check your
demographics before an election. There’s a reason politicans looooove drawing
their own election maps. But hey Margot one and she deserved it - she deserved
it so much. How much has she suffered? How much has she fought for Fillory?
No-one deserved this more than she! All hail High King Margot, long may she
reign!
They pardon Tick and
even bring him into the council despite him expecting a horrible death - because
no matter what else, his policy decisions were truly excellent. This man is a
brilliant civil servant (and, in a world where silly promises etc weren’t the
deciding factors in a democracy, would be a great ruler as well).
They make a deal with
the fairy queen - the fairies get land, legal protections, full citizenship
(all the legal safeguards to prevent them being preyed upon a gain) and a seat
in government which is everything the fairy queen has always wanted. As a reward
she restore’s Margot’s eye - with a fairy eye. She now has super sight and it’s
all so touching and emotional and just perfect because Margot has EARNED THIS.
And now they have the key - the full set.
While we celebrate in
Fillory there’s still a couple of more storylines to catch
Quentin confronts
Alice about the siphon - apparently if used when magic is restored it will put
all magic in the control of the Library so they pick who has it. They talk and
Alice makes a valid point about how Brakebills was already a gatekeeper for
magic but Quentin is not impressed by Alice playing god: that she’s acting like
this because she’s afraid. She’s afraid of magic, she’s afraid of the terrible
things she did as a niffin and like many scared people she’s seeking more and
more controls and limits.
I don’t think he
convinces her but he does have a threat - they don’t need her to continue the
quest and he will kick her out if she doesn’t. But Alice has one nasty reminder
- Quentin’s dad was dying before magic disappears. If magic comes back, he dies
again.
Quentin has a whole
agonising moment. Because this season started with a quest and Quentin has
always been clear about what a quest means: a quest changes the questor. A
quest makes the questor a different person by the end (which is what
differentiates it from a mission). And Quentin doesn’t think he has changed,
doesn’t think he is ready for the conclusion, he doesn’t have the resolve and
strength for it and certainly not the certainty.
I’m going to say a)
hell no, Quentin has changed a lot this season and b) maybe because it wasn’t
his quest? It was more Elliot/Margots and they have changed a LOT
Julia reassures him,
adding as well that it hasn’t made him cold to sacrifice his father. But she
also says when magic is back everything changes - she can’t guarantee she’ll be
able to god-power away his dad’s illness
Quentin goes to his
dad to explain everything and his dad asks him if he’s asking permission.
Quentin isn’t - they’ve done so much, he’s lived an entire life, married, had a
kid, done so much. They are bringing magic back - but he wanted to speak to his
father in person to explain it first, face to face. His father seems pretty
impressed by this super mature Quentin
And Kady picks up the
Unity key and hears everyone - she quickly seizes on Penny’s voice. Only to
realise it’s Penny23 answering
Hmmmm… Penny. I’m
glad we have a Penny back in the main cast - but this way of doing it, basically
resetting the character is not how I wanted to see it. Especially since, Kady’s
right, they have completely forgotten Penny!40 and resigned to leaving him to
his fate in the underworld. I also can’t help but feel that this character
reboot is less story driven and more because the writers have done such a poor
job of developing Penny (beyond a ball of hostility) that they felt they needed
to reboot him to make him an integral part of the group.
Julia - her being a
god is super creepy and powerful and interesting. I predict the downside to all
this is it’s overwhelming. Sure she hears prayers - but there are a lot of
people in the world and only one Julia. But aside from that and besides loving
Julia’s power… I can’t help but being somewhat concerned by the idea that Julia
has basically achieved god status by being raped. And her facing down Renard
was glorious, and they’ve certainly not downplayed Julia’s trauma, not
slightly. But underlying? She has super powers because she was raped.
Deamn Fogg - I like
Henry, I want to see more of him AND I want him to preserve his glorious aura
of not giving a fuck. That would be awesome. But I need him sober and I’m
really not happy with a disabled character having his disability literally
magically fixed. Henry could have been an excellently snarky
not-giving-a-fuck-guy without
I’m happy to see
Quentin referring to the whole life he and Elliot lived and he has definitely
matured as a character - but it rather glaring points to him not really
mentioning Elliot in that which seems to be being rapidly removed from the
plot.
Alice and her
conflict - I do really like that she raised Brakebills was already a gatekeeper
for magic as we saw with the treatment of Hedgewitches. There is a debate to be
had here on the control and danger of magic - not just because of Alice and her
niffin-ness, but really everything the characters have done on the way which is
generally one long comedy of errors.
