The Magicians series finale was the best goodbye fans could hope for

On Wednesday night, after five seasons, SyFy’s The Magicians said goodbye forever with its series finale, “Fillory and Further.” Based on the trilogy of novels from author Lev Grossman, The Magicians follows a group of people who attend a magical college called Brakebills University and explore the enchanted world of Fillory.

I’m a huge fan of the books, and came to really appreciate the show even though it strayed pretty far from the source material. A lot of the characters were given different roles on the show than they had in the books, with some given new names. When the show killed off the main hero of the story, Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) in the season 4 finale, I was skeptical that season 5 could match the excellence of the show’s first four seasons.

And for a while, it looked like I was right; the first few episodes of season 5 were a huge swing-and-a-miss for me. But oddly enough, around the same time SyFy announced it was canceling The Magicians, the season started to get better; it had much more pop, and I was suddenly very interested in how everyone’s storyline would be wrapped up.

Now to get to “Fillory and Further”: Fans of the book will recognize that as the title of the in-universe book series from imaginary author Christopher Plover. The series finale deals with our favorite band of magicians trying to save the people of Fillory by destroying the land where they live.

Why do they have to destroy the land to save its people? It has to do with the Dark King of Fillory (Sean Maguire), who is immortal so long as Fillory exists. The only way to save the people is to destroy Fillory, end the Dark King, and make the people a new land where they can prosper.

The episode somehow managed to bring a satisfying conclusion to every character on the show, beginning with Margo (Summer Bishil), who decided to sacrifice herself for the people of Fillory, and who forced Josh (Trevor Einhorn) and Eliot (Hale Appleman) to promise to save themselves and allow her to do the rest.

This tracks with how Margo’s story arc progressed throughout the show. She started out as a vapid dilettante only interested in partying as hard as her magical powers would allow. But then she became the High Queen of Fillory and eventually the High King, earning the title of Margo the Destroyer. She evolved into a complex and caring character, and the one who arguably grew the most over the course of the show.

Over the past couple of seasons, Margo fell in love with the lovable goofball Josh, who had his own great arc. If you’d have told me way back in season 1, when Josh was just a guest star, that he’d be a King of Fillory and a powerful magician by the end of the series who also got the girl of his dreams, I would have laughed in your face. But here we are.

THE MAGICIANS — “Fillory and Further” Episode 513 — Pictured: Hale Appleman as Eliot Waugh — (Photo by: James Dittiger/SYFY)

Eliot, on the other hand, had a bittersweet ending. Before he could go through the portal from Fillory to Earth, he was magically summoned by the Dark King, who was trying to open Death’s Door and allow his long-dead lover to come through and inhabit Eliot’s body. (The problem is that untold numbers of other dead people would come through, too, dooming the living.) All through season 5, Eliot has had a tumultuous relationship with the Dark King, who was revealed to actually be Rupert Chatwin, one of three powerfully magical siblings who were the first people from Earth to explore Fillory.

Rupert — as the Dark King — was painted as a bad guy for most of the season, but in reality, he just wanted to reconnected with his lover and was willing to do whatever it took to bring him back to life. Learning of his plan, Eliot — despite having fallen in love with Rupert — decided he needed to kill the Dark King, and thus the magicians hatched their plan.

In the end, Rupert succeeds in opening Death’s Door, and the dead come pouring back into the world. Rupert’s lover is among them, but it actually ends up being Rupert’s brother Martin in disguise. If you’ll recall, Martin was a former High King of Fillory who eventually became the Beast who terrorized the magicians throughout seasons 1 and 2.

THE MAGICIANS — “Garden Variety Homicide” Episode 508 — Pictured: Sean Maguire as the Dark King — (Photo by: Eric Milner/SYFY)

Eliot, who recognizes the Beast, tries to seal Death’s Door, but the Beast breaks his fingers, meaning Eliot can’t use magic. However, Rupert realizes he’s made a horrible mistake. He grabs Eliot and teleports him to the Earth portal in White Spire castle, the ancient seat of the high kings and queens of Fillory. Rupert forces Eliot to take the portal to safety, promising to hold off the dead and his brother both while the magicians try to destroy Fillory.

In the end, Rupert is teleported to a time-loop within Fillory where his sister Jane Chatwin (Game of Thrones veteran Esmé Bianco, who played Ros) awaits him. The siblings enjoy tea forever, raptured within their loop. And Martin finally gets what he deserved by dying in the collapse of White Spire castle.

THE MAGICIANS — “Cello Squirrel Daffodil” Episode 509 — Pictured: Mageina Tovah as Zelda — (Photo by: James Dittinger/SYFY)

However, before the Beast meets his end, he kills a beloved character named Zelda (Mageina Tovah), the former Head Librarian. Zelda accompanied Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley), Kady (Jade Tailor) and Fen (Brittany Curran) to the burned-out husk of the Library and tried to cast the right spells to open the Worldseed that would create a new land where the inhabitants of Fillory could live once their own land was destroyed. Zelda may not have started the series as a fan favorite, but after years of development, it hurt to watch her go.

As for Penny (Arjun Gupta) and Julia (Stella Maeve), they became parents. Penny is a rare magical creature called a traveler, someone who can instantly teleport anywhere in the known universe just by thinking of where they want to go. His baby with Julia inherits that ability. They’re born a powerful telepathic traveler tethered to Julia. But after the child’s birth, Dean Fogg (Rick Worthy) shows up acting crazy. He severs the magical tie between Julia and the baby, causing Julia to slip into a coma.

Just when it seems like Julia will die, Penny asks his time-traveling traveler friend Plum — a descendant of Jane Chatwin — to travel back in time and save the love of his life. Only — and here’s where the big twist of the episode and season comes in — Plum reveals that Penny had already asked her to reverse time, and they were on their second try, with no ability to go back again.

Now this is how a series finale should work. Instead of having a straightforward happy ending to Julia and Penny’s story, “Fillory and Further” turns everything on its head and throws out the characters’ carefully laid plans. Allow me to break it down:

In the first timeline, Alice and Kady fail to open the Worldseed, dooming all the inhabitants of Fillory to nothingness. Margo goes through with her self-sacrifice to destroy the planet, but no one seems to know what happened to Eliot and Julia was still in a coma. So what changed in the second timeline?

Two words: Dean Fogg. You see, Fogg had been forced out of the ethereal realm, where he enjoyed every second of every day tripping balls on LSD. But in the second timeline, he comes back and acts like a lunatic, severing the connection between Julia and her baby. As he eventually revealed, he could see different timelines, and he knew that if the baby stayed connected to her, Julia would eventually die.

This is a nice connection back to season 1, where it’s revealed Fogg had been working with Jane Chatwin in dozens of different timelines, training the young magicians on how to kill the Beast. So he knew everyone would fail in their attempt to save Fillory, and he interrupted them as quickly as he could.

THE MAGICIANS — “Magicians Anonymous” Episode 504 — Pictured: Stella Maeve as Julia Wicker — (Photo by: Eric Milner/SYFY)

Anyway, after the connection between Julia and the baby is severed, she ends up connected to Penny and comes out of the coma. At this point, Penny realizes he can once again travel wherever he wants (he’d previously lost that ability). He teleports to the heart of Fillory and rescues Margo.

Penny then warps around — holding the baby the entire time, because that’s why his powers are back — saving everyone he can, righting the wrongs of the previous timeline, making sure the magicians are able to see their plans to create a new Fillory come to fruition.

THE MAGICIANS — “Fillory and Further” Episode 513 — Pictured: Olivia Taylor Dudley as Alice Quinn — (Photo by: James Dittiger/SYFY)

Here’s how everyone’s story ended:

• Alice, Fen, Josh and Margo are magically whisked away to the new land of Fillory, where they spent months by themselves exploring and preparing to set the inhabitants of the old Fillory free.
• Eliot isn’t able to help cast the spell that creates the new land on account of his broken fingers, so he’s left behind. He becomes a sad and lonely professor at Brakebills…well, mostly. He’s left waiting for someone to find a portal to the new Fillory.
• Dean Fogg resumes his duties as Dean of Brakebills, and is able to come down from his 10-year LSD trip, but only if he permanently holds a cat who siphons off all his crazy.
• Kady becomes a leader of a vast Hedge Witch (magicians who didn’t learn magic at a university) network.
• Penny and Julia — and baby Hope Quentin — teleports around the universe, looking for the portal to the new Fillory, hoping to reconnect with their friends.

In the final moments of The Magicians, Margo is made High King of Fillory, and she clicks the button on the seahorse snowglobe that allows its inhabitants to come into the new world. Snap to black.

Having been burned with the series finale of Game of Thrones, I’ve been quietly dreading the series finale of The Magicians. SyFy is not HBO, after all. But in the end, The Magicians proved that you don’t need a trophy case full of awards and a huge budget to write an ending that truly wraps up each character’s storyline in a satisfyingly bittersweet way.

I’ll miss The Magicians next year, but I’m glad the show ended on such a perfect note.

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