Magic – The Magicians S5 E2 The Wrath of the Time Bees

Jason and Cristina give you a in-depth review and discussion of The Magicians Season 5 episode 2! Missing Memories, Getting Closure, Changing Time.

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Podcast Notes –

NEW FACES/ PLACES/ MAGIC:

FACES:

• Golem Quentin 12-year-old Quentin, played by Luca Padovan
• Yu-Jin          memory assassin
• Professor Ex ex-lover of Dean Fogg & meta-math genius
• Daniella Markus author of “Circumstantial Prognostication”

MAGIC:

• Circumstances *Closer Look
• Psychic Amplifier VR like machine that helps consolidate memories
• Time Bees          royal Whitespire bees that carry messages anywhere
• Time Stamps can send a letter across time and space

SYNOPSIS:

ALICE – A QUENTIN GOLEM

Picking up where we left off, Alice is creating a Quentin Golem casting a spell over the living clay; when the figure rises, it’s revealed to be a young boy version of Quentin.  He wonders if this is a lucid dream (and Alice goes with this), feeling he’s supposed to help her with something.  But she is disappointed to discover he can’t decipher the page she wanted help with, he doesn’t even know the language yet.

Julia solicits Dean Fogg’s help with the surges.  He’s wishes Effingham had told her something about the nature of the impending apocalyptic event.  She informs him that magicians are blowing themselves up so much, civilians have caught on.  There’s too much magic; and while some surges are unnoticeable, others are big – why the patterns? Fogg explains it’s because of Circumstances – a magician must factor them all into casting but some make them easier and some make them harder.  Some surges must be lining up with particularly favorable circumstances.  Fogg thinks they need help from Professor Ex – an ex-lover and genius at meta-math, whose classroom then blows up.

JULIA – DISCOVERS GOLEM QUENTIN

Alice is trying to buy time with Quentin (who’s thinking this is a long dream) when Julia shows up and discovers what she’s done.  Alice confesses she used the book of Q’s life to fill the Golem with his memories, then animated it with a tiny grain of his soul that she pulled from underground.   She found a page in Q’s things at Brakebills but was unsure of it’s meaning because she couldn’t’ read it, so tried to bring him back to decipher it.  When Julia demands Alice get rid of the Golem, she explains that the spell keeps it alive until he completes the task he was sent to do.  Furious, Julia wonders how Alice could do something so insanely selfish – they need to figure out a way to fix this. 

Julia goes to talk to Q, saying she had a friend who used to do the same thing – as soon as he finished a book, he would go back to the beginning.  Q says he hates endings and his therapist says he has transition anxiety. 

Julia returns to confirm for Alice this is the Q she remembers at that age.  Also, she’s been reading about Circumstances and not all of them are astrological; some are inside you.  She thinks Alice performed the spell perfectly – while her brain may have asked for a version of Quentin that could read the page, her emotions were looking for something different – so perhaps she needs to ask the boy a different question. 

ALICE – SAYS GOODBYE

Quentin tells Alice he realizes this is too long to be a dream.  She confesses she had a friend she loved and he died; she didn’t get to say goodbye.  He gave her a gift she can never repay – his life – so she wanted to fix or finish something for him, to get closure.  He can’t help because she doesn’t want him to, because then her friend’s story is over.  The gift he gave wasn’t his life, it was hers, and that story just started.  He says he’s feeling tired and as he falls asleep, she finally says goodbye.

Alice tells Julia that Q is gone, but thinks she might still be able to help with Julia’s problem.  Her dad had a friend, Daniella Markus, with a rare discipline – predicting circumstances.  Giving Julia her book, Alice thinks that if anyone can find the pattern in the surges, it will be her. 

KADY – MISSING MEMORIES

Kady meets Pete at a bar to say she’s had no luck asking around about the stolen depository.  He thinks that someone should have seen a job this big.  He soon leaves with a woman and Kady meets Yu-jin, and goes home with him (though he quickly runs out next morning).    Catching up with Penny, he tells her about the signal he received and the traveling (he doesn’t know where or why).  But she’s badly hungover, thinking it’s been a year sober and she doesn’t even remember drinking.  In fact, Penny realizes she doesn’t remember anything from the previous day looking for the depository – this is something other than alcohol.

She goes to find Yu-jin and gives him truth serum to find out if he drugged her.  Angry at the accusation, he denies it and admits he is also experiencing memory gaps. 

KADY – PSYCHIC AMPLIFIER

So they return to Penny who helps them using a homemade psychic amplifier to connect both their memories into a cohesive story – they watch the previous night play out like VR.  Finally, Kady sees Yu-jin get up in the middle of the night, seemingly possessed, and performing a spell.  She springs up to stop him, rebounds the curse, and they’re both knocked out.  Yu-jin tells her he remembers he was at the bar to meet a friend (the girl Pete left with), a hedge he knew from his first safe house.    

KADY – YU-JIN’S SECRET

Replaying that memory, Kady sees the woman hand him a card and Yu-jin’s eyes flash again (like he was programmed).  Realizing what’s happening, she demands to know his true identity and Yu-jin starts fighting her.  He finally admits someone sent him to erase her memory – this is what he does; he gest a job, completes it, and then wipes his own memory of it.  Threatening to simply have Penny probe his mind with his psychic powers, Yu-jin thinks he has no choice and casts the spell “Mort”, killing himself. 

Penny reflects that if someone is paranoid enough to send mind-wiping assassins after them; this must be important.  Kady admits that when she thought she had relapsed, she was relieved (rather than upset) as it would give her permission to continue.  Her mission is only going to get harder and she doesn’t know how she’ll do it without a crutch. Penny reaches out but she rejects him.

FILLORY – CHANGING THE PAST

Eliot is drinking in the forest when he gets a vision of Fen hanging from a noose.  She tells him when she was King, the people screamed at her she was a bad ruler and then hanged her.  She knew he wouldn’t come to help her (being busy with the monster – or off drinking); she knows her husband.  But she was counting on Margo to save her.  But she thinks if he knows a spell that can turn back time…and then she starts deteriorating, yelling and pleading for his help.

Eliot then goes to see Jane, asking for her to travel and change the past.  But she says changing Q’s fate could undo everything.  She’s learned it almost always makes things worse.  When Q came to Fillory the first time, he was running from his grief; his best friend had died tragically (Eliot – a victim of his own vices).  The first change she made was to save Eliot, but then Q died 39 times.  She’d hoped this time would be different.  The last time, Quentin won; if Eliot took away his sacrifice, it could undo everything and everyone he saved.  Eliot needs to let go of the past.  However, when she returns with tea, Jane finds he has fled and stolen all the items from her shelves. 

Meanwhile, Margo is busy trying to break out of her prison cell – creating a magical key and trying forceful spells, but the wards are thwarting her attempts.  She knocks a brick loose in the efforts, revealing a letter Josh left before his execution.  He begins narrating as we see flashbacks – they knew something had gone right on Earthy when magic came back stronger than ever, but months passed with no word from the group and no way for them to return.  The connection between Fillory and Earth was somehow destroyed.  Hearing the news around Fillory, Abigail suggested the rulers send spies to the Northern Marshes to investigate the creatures called the “Takers”, but Fen and Josh never did.  Josh finishes by saying he hopes Margo finds the letter because he did it all for her. 

Eliot returns to Margo, revealing his stolen items – she sprays them both with a bottle said to protect the wearer from the effects of time magic.  They find a bee smoker and Margo tells him about Time Bees – the Royal Bees of Whitespire can deliver messages anywhere.  So they send a message to Josh in the past and wait for the results.  Margo now finds Fen’s cell phone behind the brick, divulging a video of her and Josh being attacked by the bees (he was allergic).

FILLORY – THE LETTER PLAN

Finding a book called History of Fillory from the Royal Library, Margo learns that after Josh was stung to death, Fen sent the Bees to hunt down the Dark King, after which, she was overthrown and executed.  Eliot is frustrated the plans aren’t working, and ready to give up, confused why Margo’s fighting so hard for a guy she didn’t really care about – you are Margo the destroyer, not Margo the pining girlfriend.  Furious, she plans to continue searching for an answer and finding a paper inside the book she recognizes – Time Stamps.  A homesick Jane new to Fillory came across a Forest King who gave her stamps to write to her brother – if you put it on a letter, they can be sent to anyone, anywhere.

She writes a letter, warning Josh to pay attention to the Takers.  They listen and perform a Banishment Spell but they return to kill everyone in Whitespire.  With only one stamp left (as Eliot admits to sending a letter of his own), Margo thinks they need a new plan.  Eliot – “Why bother, you try to save your friends and they die anyway.  You can’t stop the Dark King. Fillory is fucked because it always is.  Why do you keep trying to fix something that wants to be broken?”

FILLORY – JOSH RETURNS

While completely unhelpful, Margo thinks he’s right she can’t get both Josh and her kingdom back.  So she uses the last letter telling him how to stay alive and escape (she thinks this means she won’t see him again and also says goodbye). 

Yet, Josh appears, thanking Margo.  He did exactly what she said – “go to the Clockwork Dwarf, give him a ham sandwich, and ask him to send you forward 300 years.”  He takes her to see the people he was able to bring back with him.  And Margo is going to rule them in exile.  As they start walking off, we see Eliot mailing a letter with the last stamp –

 “To Quentin Coldwater: Before He Went to the Seam”. 

QUESTIONS

• Is there something between Kady and Penny still – will they explore it?
• Will Kady be able to continue her quest to help the hedges?
• Will the page from Q’s book come back into play?
• Will Alice be able to move on now? And if so, what will she do?
• Will Julia find help about the Circumstances from Alice’s contact?
• What’s next for Margo and the group of exiles?
• Did Eliot send the letter??