Despite her death, “The Magicians” hasn’t forgotten Alice as she appears to be haunting Quentin. He sets out to do what he can to help her while Margo and Eliot continue negotiations with the residents of Fillory, though the meetings take a surprising turn. Meanwhile, Julia and Kady find what they think is the key to stopping Reynard.
Alice haunts Quentin
Considering Quentin’s history of mental instability, it’s not entirely clear from last week’s episode if Q is hallucinating Alice or if she’s really trying to communicate with him. With Alice giving him a code to get into a locked room from beyond the grave though, it looks very much like Alice’s ghost has something to say.
Q goes to Alice’s father for help, but the convoluted spell needed to contact her hampers him since he has to get up on a ladder and he’s afraid of heights. Really. The chance to help his daughter’s soul rest is felled by a ladder. Her mother isn’t much better at first, constantly making the spell about herself instead of about Alice. Her grief finally gets the better of her so that she’s able to tell the truth, but the spell isn’t entirely needed because Alice, or what’s left of Alice from the spell burning her out, is actually tied to the tattoo on Q’s back.
This Alice is one of pure magic, not the Alice that Q knows. This particular brand of haunting should be interesting since she’s not really gone.
There’s definitely a better chance of finding a way to save her, but how?
Julia can’t trust anyone
It’s a pattern in Julia’s life, really. Every time she finds someone she thinks she can trust, things go sideways. In this case, as she and Kady track the person who banished Reynard decades earlier, Kady makes a trip to visit a contact of her mother’s while Julia heads out to meet the woman in question.
Unfortunately for Julia, things don’t exactly go as planned as not only does the woman inform her that she’ll have to harness the magic of the baby as she gives birth, but she also kidnaps Julia. Julia has the worst luck.
Luckily for Julia, she still has Kady, who gets worried when she can’t get ahold of her. Kady continually proves herself to be the best person Julia has ever had in her life, and I love seeing the two of them constantly there for one another.
In this case, it involves knocking out the woman who kidnapped Julia and taking the creature that cloaks her, leaving her to the mercy of Reynard. Julia and Kady live to fight another day. There’s no way Julia is going to take the advice of the woman who kidnapped her though, so what are they going to do?
Fillory’s moving castle
As Eliot and Margo are preparing to chat with citizens of Fillory, they get a visitor from a neighboring kingdom whose people also rely on the magic of the Wellspring. With the Wellspring damaged from some divine elimination, the prince’s kingdom is suffering just as much as theirs. He offers a treaty -- they split the Wellspring 50/50 and he marries Margo to cement the alliance.
Margo, needless to say, isn’t too keen on the offer, though Eliot points out he married a total stranger, which is how they ended up ruling Fillory in the first place. The prince has his people “move” the entire castle to get the better of him.
During this time, the prince and Margo argue, flirt, and spend some quality time in bed. It almost looks like Margo is ready to considering marrying him, until, that is, she discovers the lie. The castle being moved is nothing more than an illusion. Prince Ess doesn’t yet know the fury of Margo, but he will. She declares war on his kingdom, much to Eliot’s surprise. A war can’t be good for the kingdom they’re trying to save, right?
The verdict and what’s next
With the focus shifted to Margo in Fillory this week and the continuing adventures of Julia in the real world, this might be my favorite episode of the season so far.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
In next week’s “Plan B,” Julia and Kady will need a little help from the Brakebills gang for a heist.
