The Magicians

Season 1, Episode 11

Episode Title: Remedial Battle Magic

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar

This week’s episode of the Magicians, starts with Penny telling Quentin, Alice, Eliot, and Margo about what he learned in the Netherlands and its hunters, and showing the pages from Martin Chatwin’s book. While Quentin and Penny believed in going to Filory to strike the Beast before he attacks again, the other three want to give the magic button to the Beast as a payment to leave them alone.

Because Plover was learning magic and was able to alter his form, they believe that he is the Beast and wants to rule Filory. From the pages of Martin’s book, they learn that there is a special blade that can kill the beast, but it’s hidden in Filory and might be the only way to kill the Beast.

With the help of a probability spell they experience eight different scenarios of their decisions. In seven of them the Beast betrays and attacks them, but it’s unclear what happens in the one where they go to Filory. In all the scenarios the beast arrives in a week, and kills them, to be prepare they decide to start to learn battle magic, even though it’s against the rules of Brakebills.

Deciding that he doesn’t want to have nothing to do with them anymore, Penny leaves only have the Beast speak to him in his mind. It tells him to bring him the button, but when Penny refuses, the beast starts to amplify Penny’s psychic power and bombard his mind with the screams of the girl he has in the dungeon. In an effort to stop hearing the voices, Penny starts to over medicate.

In Julia’s apartment, the members of the Free Trade Beowulf (FTB) listen as Richard tells them about how a long time ago the gods listened to humans when they prayed to them, but in now not so much. To find a god, they come up with the idea of first find a servant that can guide them to the gods, and to do so they have to talk with the magical creatures that live in the city.  Richard tells them that of all of them the prayer that Julia used only work with her, and that with her on the team they might have luck been heard.

Alice receives a call from her mother telling her that Joe (the traveler) killed himself. She asks Penny what could have made him to kill himself and Penny tells her that it’s the Beast, and it might be affecting all travelers. Penny goes to see his mentor Stanley, but he also is hearing the voice and kills himself in front of Penny.

Deciding to learn battle magic, Quentin, Alice, Eliot, and Margo try to learn from a magic book. After all attempts fail, they come to the conclusion that they need to ask for help from the only person they have seen do battle magic, Kady. Quentin and Alice, ask Penny to search for Kady with a mirror spell, the mirror shows Julia’s apartment. The psychical kids go to Julia’s apartment to talk with Kady and ask her to teach them battle magic while she is alone; she tells them that she study years to get where she is, but there is a trick that hedge witches use to bottle their emotions. When they leave, Quentin asks how Julia is and Kady replies that she is okay and doing better. She asks him about Penny and he replies the same.

Not wanting to hear the voice, Penny accidentally overdoses. He wakes up in the infirmary, where professor Sunderland, tells him that Alice found him and ask for help. He tells the professor about the beast attacking him in his mind and she gives him acupuncture to block his psychic channels. He decides to learn battle magic with the others and the five of them bottle their emotion. As a cautionary part of the spell, their emotions shouldn’t be bottle for more than three hours. In their first attempt, they are able to do all the spells that they are learning, but once the time’s up and they drink their emotions they start to cry and have panic attacks.

After getting some information from a vampire, Kady and Julia find the hideout of a lamia. It said that Lamias used to work for the gods. They find one that lives in a tunnel, when it turns around it looks like Hannah (Kody’s mother), it seems that lamias can read people’s mind and project and illusion to torment them. Not falling in its trap, they are able to learned that many magical creatures believe that the old gods are dead. The members of the FTB feel depressed because they hit a dead-end, but Richard does want to stop, and gets the other to also want to still look for the gods, as they want to help their members. Julia takes an image of the virgin Mary and prays to her, telling her that she believes that the gods still exist.

Alice and Penny decide to not use the emotion spell anymore and learn at their own pace, but Quentin, Eliot, and Margo use the spell again. Quentin tells Alice that he is not like her and that he is trying his best, but without the spell he doesn’t have a chance of learning. After meditating and practicing the spells, Alice and Penny are able to use some spells, while the other three emotionless simply practice all the spells. The three of them go over the limit time and their emotions come back even stronger, causing them to start to drink until they get drunk.

“You can read my mind, you know that we both have knives in our pockets, dipped in gold and silver, and coated in shark’s blood.” “Jesus that’s over kill.” “We weren’t sure which legends were true.”  – Julian and the Lamia.

Julia wakes up to the voice of a woman calling her. A light shine over the window of her kitchen; when she places her hands inside of it, water starts to pour down, she takes her hands out and they are dry; she does it again and this time coins start to appear. A woman dressed in white appears in front of her, the woman calls Julia her daughter, and tells her to find her. To do that she shows Julia a map and tells her to find a man that had served her for a thousand years and give him three presents. Julia wakes and knows that it wasn’t a normal dream.

The episode ends with Quentin and Margo taking a drunk Eliot to bed. They stay with him and Margo tells her that she is scared for Eliot, as killing Mike really affected him. They hug and kiss. Quentin wakes naked next to Margo and Eliot both naked. He starts to remember that the three of them had sex. The view starts to move down and it shows Alice in the bottom of the bed looking at them with an expressionless face.

 

This episode was a real roller coaster of emotions. I loved the last scene, it was the best part. Alice was great and Olivia Taylor Dudley, the actor that plays Alice, did a great job in the scene, her face and her eyes look great with the light of the morning sun. I liked the battle magic and that they ask Kady for help. Again, I feel that the story ark of the gods is going too fast.  It seems that we are not going to see Paris. The god that appears to Julia is called in the books as Our Lady Underground, how the FTB thinks a same female god only known by different names over the history of the world. That scene with the lamia was so funny.We are getting close to see Filory and to the end of the first season, and I’m starting to wonder if we are going to see it this season at all. What did you think of this week’s episode? What do you want to see on the next episode? Tells us in the comments.

 

 

Correction: in my last review I called the traveler that has a relationship with Alice parents, Bob. His actual name is Joe, for some reason I kept hearing Bob. Sorry 🙂