WiC Watches: The Magicians season 4

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Episode 405: “Escape from the Happy Place”

Eliot is alive and has to travel through his memories to find a way to escape the monster’s possession, Julia’s worshiper makes the ultimate sacrifice, there’s something amiss in Fillory, and Alice finally deals with Christopher Plover once and for all. This was probably the best episode of The Magicians this season, so let’s get right into it.

We open with Eliot hanging out at Brakebills when there’s a knock at the door. He answers it to find Charlton, the person the monster was possessing last season when the gang found him in Castle Blackspire.

Charlton tells Eliot that the monster is now inhabiting him, and that he has to find a dark repressed memory so he can open a secret door that will let him retake control of his body, if just for a moment, so he can let his friends know he’s still alive somewhere in there. Eliot takes a walk down memory lane and reveals his most depressing and dark memory came last season when he and Quentin were on the quest to retrieve one of the seven keys.

During this part of the quest, Quentin and Eliot were trapped in an alternate timeline where they had to solve a mosaic puzzle. It literally took them their entire lives, and through the years, the best friends fell in love with each other, but as Quentin bared his soul, Eliot flippantly dismissed him and they were driven apart. Eliot realizes this and corrects his mistake, kissing Quentin. That does the trick, and he’s bale to come to the surface.

In the real world, Eliot reveals himself to Quentin and mentions “peaches and plums,” something from their shared past that lets Quentin know he’s really in there. Now all the gang needs to do is get rid of the monster.

Speaking of, Julia and her maenad follower Shoshana are working with Quentin to draw blood from a living stone in order to trap the monster. Until Eliot revealed he was still in there, their plan was to kill him altogether, believing their friend was dead. The goddess Iris shows up, pissed off at Julia for abandoning her goddess powers last season, and tries to kill her, but Shoshana jumps in the way and sacrifices herself for Julia.

When Evil Eliot takes back control of Eliot’s body, he appears behind Iris and kills her by pulling a living stone from her body. Apparently, the stones can provide the monster with a way to build a permanent body.

Elsewhere, Alice and Christopher Plover escape the library. Alice leads him to a fountain that opens up to the poison room where the library keeps dangerous books, but lies about what’s in there. He jumps in with a rope tied around his waist, and Alice throws the rope in after him and closes the fountain. Plover is dead.

She then appears in the real world to her former friends, but they don’t trust her because she betrayed them last season. She’s the reason Julia lost her goddess powers and why the gang was able to have their identities wiped by Dean Fogg. Her road to redemption will be a long one.

Finally, in Fillory, Margo opens the enchanted box that contains her birthright as the High King of Fillory. Inside is a talking lizard, only it isn’t talking. Apparently, none of the animals in FIllory can talk anymore, so Margo is going to have to solve that particular problem now. A High King’s work is never done.

This was a great episode of The Magicians that circled back around to one of last season’s best episodes with Eliot and Quentin. It also clarified some things about Quentin’s sexuality. Since the show began, he’s been uptight and anxious about his love life, and we see here that it may take some time for him to realize his sexual fluidity and to be comfortable loving who he wants to love.

This episode also made great strides in the gang’s struggle to regain their powers and defeat the monster inhabiting Eliot. The storylines are moving along at a rapid pace this season, and I can appreciate that.

Grade: A+