After looking into ways to find Julia’s shade in last week’s episode, Julia and Q take a journey to the Underworld to find it. Meanwhile, Penny meets someone new in the Library who might be able to lend him a hand and Eliot and Margo deal with even more difficulties over in Fillory during “The Rattening.”
Julia and Q head to the Underworld
Other than Julia and Q not spending nearly enough time with the hilarious dragon that gives them passage to the Underworld, their journey to find Julia’s shade is a lot of fun. The Underworld entrance is a waiting room where they’re sent to a new destination to wait before they can move on, which seems a little redundant, but it’s important for those stuck waiting to be comfortable and complacent.
One way to make sure of that? Bowling.
In the bowling alley, Julia runs into friends from her old circle that were trying to summon the goddess that Reynard pretended to be - including Richard, the person whose face Reynard has been wearing. Julia’s old friends have about as much love for Q as the audience does, telling him, “She’s tough as granite and you’re afraid to bowl,” which might be the best line of the night. It’s Richard who gives Julia a chance to search for her shade, providing a distraction.
Julia’s reunion with her shade is the most emotion we’ve seen from Julia recently. It’s a relief to see tears in her eyes when she comes face to face with her own soul, knowing that Julia can still feel.
Her choice to take Alice’s shade with them? Even more evidence that Julia still has some good underneath.
Our Lady Underground
Julia sees a familiar portrait while searching for her shade. It turns out that Persephone, who has been missing from her home in the Underworld, was the goddess Reynard was impersonating. Based on Reynard’s yelling about her to his son, he knew Persephone pretty well once upon a time.
The senator thinks Reynard was in love with her, but the question still remains: what prompted her disappearance? Will Julia get to meet Persephone one day?
Fillory’s rattening
Over in Fillory, Eliot is supposed to be getting to know his future husband, but he doesn’t get the chance as most of the castle’s inhabitants are suddenly turned into rats.
Margo assumes it’s a result of the fairies she made a deal with, but not so.
When Eliot uses truth serum in the wine to find out who might be behind the rattening, he gets more than he bargained for. One employee is embezzling from the treasury, another is running an escort service through the guards, but it’s Margo who reveals the deal she made with the fairies. Eliot can’t handle the news of this particular problem and has Margo thrown in the dungeons, which seems pretty harsh for his best friend, but then again, his pregnant wife was kidnapped by fairies...
Margo does have one person in the castle willing to help her clean up her mess though. One subject brings her an elixir to take her to the fairy realm.
Who else can’t wait to see what kind of craziness goes down there?
Penny and the Poison Room
Penny tries his best to get access to the Poison Room, but it involves reading the Head Librarian’s book, which doesn’t work out so well for him. He stays in contact with Kady through her dreams, and one of the other inhabitants of the library - the daughter of a magical mob boss - follows him. She decides she wants to give them a hand.
A teenager might not be the best ally for Kady and Penny, but they’ve also got the senator on their side, who is sufficiently creeped out by the mind control his father has passed on to him, that he wants to help them take him down as well. It looks like there might be more human in this demigod than his father thought.
The verdict and what’s next
There wasn’t quite enough Margo or Kady in this episode for me, but I did love the creativity the writers used for the version of the Underworld we see on “The Magicians.”
3.5 out of 5 stars
Next week’s, Eliot’s problems in Fillory get even more intense, if that’s possible.
