WiC Watches: The Magicians season 4
Episode 409: “The Serpent”
Margo faces her toughest challenge yet as High King of Fillory, Penny takes not-Eliot on a trip down memory lane, Alice and Kady help Zelda the Head Librarian, and someone’s killing Hedge Witches. “The Serpent” was a fun ride, so let’s get right into the action.
We open with Kady and Pete watching a video of a masked individual implanting a blood worm into the ear of a Hedge Witch. The masked man calls his group “Serpent” and says they will abduct and plant blood worms in every Hedge Witch in the world if Hedges don’t stop using magic. What does a blood worm do, you ask? It burrows into the brain of its victim and kills them if they attempt to cast spells.
Pete tells Kady the Library is offering to tattoo a spell on all Hedge Witches that blocks them from casting magic; that way the blood worm won’t kill them and Serpent won’t even bother trying to attack them. Kady rightfully doesn’t trust the Library and almost shuts Pete down when Alice knocks on the door.
Apparently, Alice knows about the magical terrorist group and wants to help. Kady isn’t optimistic about trusting Alice again, since it was Alice who destroyed the keys in season 7 and betrayed the gang to the Library in the first place, but after some aggressive negotiations (Kady punches Alice in the nose) they clear the air and decide to work together…
…only there’s a problem. Since season 7, Harriet — the daughter of Zelda the Head Librarian — has been trapped in the mirror dimension. Zelda tried to save her in last week’s episode, only to be attacked by terrifying demons that sort of looked like her daughter. Alice has been helping Zelda find a spell to retrieve the real Harriet from mirror limbo, and when she arrives at Kady’s apartment to help with the Hedge Witch situation, Harriet appears in a mirror and begins signing to them (Harriet is deaf) that she needs help getting out ASAP.
So Kady tells Pete he’s in charge of helping the Hedge Witches, while she and Alice go to Brakebills to get Dean Fogg to allow them to use the Magical Lab to cast a three-way mirror spell that will allow the three fractured pieces of Harriet to come together and escape the mirror dimension. It’s a whole complicated thing.
Anyway, after several attempts at fracturing herself into two pieces, Alice finally frees Harriet from the mirror world, and she is reunited with her mother. Also, Alice’s other half was a real dick, and I didn’t know she had that side to her…but I kinda liked it. But in order to finish the spell, she had to rejoin her nice self to her dick self and there you have it: a complete Alice.
When Harriet and Zelda reunite, Harriet tells her mother that during her time in the mirror dimension she could see anyone that had a mirror. She spent her time spying on the Library’s inner circle, and she found out Zelda’s boss has been the one backing Serpent, meaning he’s going to try and get rid of Hedge Witches because they use the ambient magic out in the world. Now Dean Fogg, Kady, Alice, and Head Librarian Zelda know the nefarious plans of the Library and are going to start a resistance movement. War is coming.
Elsewhere, Quentin, Julia and Penny are desperately trying to find a way to get the monster out of Eliot, but every time they try something sneaky, not-Eliot shows up and foils their plans. I’m starting to really like not-Eliot; he’s fun, yet you know that at any moment he could rip someone’s spine out of their body and clink it around as they bleed out.
So not-Eliot wants to find the very last stone he needs to rebuild his body, but he can’t remember which god has it. Penny, being a classically trained psychic, offers to take not-Eliot through his memories to find answers.
Penny takes him to a point in his memory where several gods are standing in an open field with a woman strapped down to a stone table. Not-Eliot says his original body is there somewhere but he can’t remember where he is; also the final god he needs to kill shows up and his name is Enyalius.
As not-Eliot is talking about how much he hates Enyalius, a door appears behind Penny and he sneaks off and goes through, where he finds the real Eliot! Eliot has a message for Penny and Quentin: not-Eliot is not collecting god rocks to help rebuild his body, but is instead planning something way worse. What that is…will have to wait until next week, apparently. I do so love a cliffhanger.
But wait, there’s more: In Fillory, the Queen of Loria, Rue, shows up and tells Fen she needs to overthrow High King Margo, even if it means killing her. Josh overhears them talking and tells Margo about it. But he also tells Margo that Quentin has sent a message to him that Eliot is still alive and they’re trying to save him.
Margo is overjoyed, and she and Josh have make-up sex. I totally ship these two.
Margo knows she can’t be High King and help Quentin save Eliot both, and she’s just learned there’s a nomadic tribe of people in the desert outside of Fillory that knows how to get rid of a demon or monster that has possessed someone. So she tells Fen she has to overthrow her, and she forgives her. Fen does so and banishes Margo from Fillory forever (yeah right, let’s see how long that lasts).
Before she leaves, Josh offers to go with her, but Margo tells him he has to stay and help Fen rule Filliory. They kiss, he gives her an ’80s playlist to listen to as she travels to the desert, and she leaves.
This was a great set up episode for the final push of the season. There are only four episodes left in season 4, and the monster inside Eliot has to be dealt with, as well as the Library’s bid to control all magic and eradicate Hedge Witches. Buckle up.
