$\"\"$ <\/a>
“You could have just snuck up and yelled out, ‘haha!’ like Jane Chatwin did with the questing pig, but nooooo”<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
When Q requests that she bring Alice back to life, she points out that wish is beyond her capabilities – she can however, grow back Penny\u2019s hands.\u00a0 Since the White Lady can do nothing to soothe Quentin\u2019s Shade, and because she can\u2019t nap until she fulfills his wish (because that\u2019s the most important reason for fulfilling her obligation\u2026), she offers to take away his memories of Alice, but he refuses.\u00a0 Instead, Quentin asks to go home to New York, so that he doesn\u2019t end up like Martin Chatwin, always running from sadness and trying to stay there in Fillory forever.\u00a0 Within the blink of an eye, the White Lady sends Quentin back to Earth, where he throws away his bow and arrow and heads home.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
And again, no one in New York notices anything out of the ordinary<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
Best Bitches Experience the High of Friendship, as Opposed to, You Know\u2026Meth\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n
Regrouping from last week, Julia acts on rumors she has heard about a woman fulfilling miracles among addicts, or \u201cturning tricks,\u201d by visiting a meth house to find Kady (Penny\u2019s old girlfriend and the one who escaped Reynard\u2019s clutches from Julia\u2019s sacrifice) passed out with a needle still in her arm.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
“The shit I have to go through for magic…”<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
Julia takes Kady back to her apartment, and after a hot shower, a nap and some methadone, Kady is feeling up to talking.\u00a0 Kady regrets just running when Reynard attacked, rather than running for help, but Julia shares\u00a0that she can help her now.<\/p>\n
Julia pulls out an enchanted preserved Marina from the freezer, much to Kady\u2019s dismay, to show the other woman a code or message carved into Marina\u2019s forearm.\u00a0 Kady recognizes the number as a locator code for a book in the Brakebills Library.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
Worst…penmanship…ever<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
The girls make a plan to obtain the book using Richard\u2019s alumni key to get into Brakebills, but because Kady was expelled, she can\u2019t even step foot onto campus without setting off alarms.\u00a0 While Julia can use the key, she has no idea where to go to even find the book, since she doesn\u2019t know Brakebills’ layout.\u00a0 The women enchant a \u201cbest bitches\u201d broken heart charm necklace so that Kady can follow Julia in a mirror off site and guide her towards the book they need.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
They need to start selling these at Claire’s<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
They find the book, but it is charmed with a magical library lo jack, which will cause it to set off alarms if they try to remove it from Brakebills.\u00a0 Since Julia will need to hand copy the book, Kady suggests that she hide in the Physical Kids cottage, sneaking in under the cover of the constant parties that are always happening there.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Julia has snuck into the cottage on the night Margo and the Eliot golem visit.\u00a0 The next morning, Julia is still copying the book when Margo stumbles upon her and confronts her about her traveling to Fillory with Martin, since it caused Penny to lose his hands, for Alice to die, and for Quentin, her childhood friend, to be almost ripped in half and die.\u00a0 Defensively, Julia points out that had they let her follow through with her plan, both the Beast and Reynard would be dead.\u00a0 The two women continue to fling insults at each other, with Margo belittling her for being a hedge witch, and Julia pointing out that a dozen more women have died at Reynard\u2019s hands because Margo was probably too concerned about her hair or social life to care.\u00a0 Margo retaliates by noting that at least she didn\u2019t get her friends killed, and Julia cuts deep, telling her she doesn\u2019t have friends, just people who are so afraid of her that they would rather be on her side.\u00a0 Clearly having struck a nerve about Margo\u2019s loyalty to her friends, Margo offers a blank book and a mating box without further insults, which will produce a baby book that is a copy of the one Julia has spent all night trying to hand copy.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
“Stop being right and copy your damn book”<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
When Julia returns to her apartment, she and Kady realize it\u2019s a necromancy book, which will bring Marina back for a short amount of time to elaborate on what she was trying to tell them.\u00a0 After they cast the spell, the final item of which is to burn the book, Marina wakes up in one of the most horrific scenes ever.\u00a0 She has been somewhere horrible in the great beyond and cries that she doesn\u2019t want to go back, that she can\u2019t go back.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
There’s no spin to put on this-it was just awful<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
She tells Julia before dying AGAIN (bravo for that, Julia) that there was a girl 40 years ago who banished Reynard from Earth, and he was trapped in the other world until Julia called him forth again.\u00a0 She needs to banish him back to that world in order to defeat him.<\/p>\n
With both Kady and Julia shaken up by, you know, bringing back a clearly tortured woman who died in an unspeakable way just to get a few bits of information from her, they make a vow to work together to take out Reynard – after all, they are best bitches.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Q & A & Thoughts about Q & A & Everyone Else<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
Ellie Solkin\u2019s cinematography is still amazing, from the incredibly lit sweeping shots he does to demonstrate how utterly alone and small the gang is in this world of Fillory, to the reverse shots that display a level of intimacy among the characters.\u00a0 It continues to be a great contrast that parallels the story lines of the show, which is what good cinematography should do.\u00a0 Here are some examples from this week\u2019s episode (and yes, I realize they are small here, but there were too many good examples):<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
\n
Welcome back Jade Tailor \u2013 we missed you! Hopefully Kady will be a part of the gang (well, at least on Julia\u2019s side of the story) for the rest of the season.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
Yay for Kady and her broodiness!<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
\n
Kudos once again to Kacey Rohl for her phenomenal work as Marina \u2013 her desperation about not wanting to go back to whatever hell she had been sent to was palpable and disturbing.\u00a0 I am hoping that she will make another appearance if the show follows the books and we make a trip to the Underworld at some point.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
Again, this was just messed up<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
\n
I wonder who the girl is who banished Reynard in the first place \u2013 maybe it was Kady\u2019s mother? The nurse in the centaur hospital? Or someone else we haven\u2019t met yet?<\/li>\n
Why do Q and Penny have so many of their breakthrough, raw moments in an infirmary of some type?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
This shouldn’t be where you have most of your guy bonding time<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
\n
I like how by the end, Margo and Eliot\u2019s roles were reversed a bit \u2013 she was the one insisting on the statue while Eliot was reminding her that they needed to do the adult thing.\u00a0 They continue to complement each other beautifully, and I am eager to see them continue to \u201cgrow up\u201d together.<\/li>\n
When Dean Fogg offers to help Eliot in saving Fillory, he says it\u2019s his \u201cthesis project.\u201d But isn\u2019t that kind of like enabling Eliot to not take full responsibility for his position as High King? Like if you can see it just as a school project, what true stake does he have in saving it?<\/li>\n
So, if there is an Eliot golem out there still, how long until it starts sapping his life force similar to what happened to Margo in season 1? Or does it only sap your life force if it was produced against your will?<\/li>\n
While I usually love all of the work the actors do on this show, I do have one criticism this week, and perhaps I\u2019m missing something subtle. When Penny and Quentin managed to exit the Flying Forest, Q was supposed to be holding back tears as he thought of Alice.\u00a0 However, his expressions just reminded me of those moments in Tropic Thunder<\/em> where Tug Speedman was trying to be emotional, and it wasn\u2019t working. \u00a0Now, it\u2019s not like we\u2019ve never seen Quentin wear his heart on his sleeve, or freak out up till this point (i.e. moths in the psychiatrist\u2019s office, or the video of him telling the psychiatrist he had to stop the beast, or almost getting a lobotomy).\u00a0 But his expressions in this episode, particularly this scene, just didn\u2019t work for me for being consistent with his character \u2013 it seemed so over the top that the sincerity wasn\u2019t there and I expected a sweeping emotional track to play in the background like we were in a Hallmark Original Classic.\u00a0 So unless this was a supposed to be a commentary on how Quentin lacks the maturity to have real control over his feelings, that he hasn\u2019t learned the \u201cadult\u201d way to deal with grief, I have to say this was not Jason Ralph\u2019s best work \u2013 I wasn\u2019t convinced he was really trying to hold back tears for Alice.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
\n
It also didn\u2019t work for me, unfortunately, when Ralph did a woobly gesture when they are first getting high in the Flying Forest.\u00a0 While Ralph has incredible use of his body as an actor, that was the problem here – because Quentin is usually slouchy and concave to a certain point, and Ralph really embodies that, the fact that the tiniest bit of contact high, when we\u2019ve seen him drinking like a fish before at parties, caused him to make that kind of movement took me out of the moment – I could see Ralph there, rather than Quentin.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/a>
He seemed way too easily under the influence<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
\n
So why is it ok for Professor Lipson to take Xanax when Fogg made Quentin throw away his anti-anxiety medications in Season 1?<\/li>\n
Fen is probably not going to be thrilled the first time she witnesses Margo kissing Eliot, like she did when she went back to Earth to try to find something to help him, even though it’s pretty platonic.\u00a0 She certainly doesn\u2019t look happy when Margo interrupted their potential sexy time, and when they are meeting with the advisors at the beginning of the episode, Fen makes a point to move to stand next to Eliot to assert herself.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
\n
Summer Bishil\u2019s hair is gorgeous in these scenes – that is all, just a hair observation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
We need more of this<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
\n
When Fogg and Eliot were talking, he asked Eliot what he thought would happen when he jumped into Fillory.\u00a0 Eliot hesitantly admitted that he thought he would die.\u00a0 So I still stick with my theory from last season that El was utterly suicidal in those last couple of episodes. \u00a0This\u00a0is what I see as consistency in a character. And this isn\u2019t one of my usual \u201cOMG, I love Hale Appleman\u201d moments.\u00a0 OK, it is to a certain extent, because I love Appleman\u2019s portrayal of this character, but Stella Maeve and Arjun Gupta were also really consistent with their characters in this episode.\u00a0 It took a lot for Eliot to say out loud to Fogg that he thought he would die when he went to Fillory, and apparently didn\u2019t have a problem with dying, and you can clearly see the struggle etched on Eliot\u2019s face even now thinking back on that moment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
He really was ready to let that magician kill him.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
\n
Maeve also did a lovely job showing Julia\u2019s pain in having to constantly try to go after Reynard, and the steps she has to go through to get there.\u00a0 You could see that it hurt her deeply to see Marina so frightened, and she regretted having to bring her back, only to send her back to whatever terrible place she had been in.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
\n
Gupta continues to let out Penny\u2019s vulnerability slowly but surely, and continued to do a phenomenal job demonstrating the frustration of not being able to control his hands. \u00a0It is an interesting parallel between\u00a0the curse of uncontrollable hands, and seizures, which like the curse, are stigmatized in certain cultures. \u00a0I’m actually a little sad that he’s regrowing new hands, because Gupta really showed that delicate balance between frustration\u00a0and shame that people with seizures sometimes experience. I was also a\u00a0little surprised as to how much the forest affected him, seeing that he used a pretty significant amount of heroin last season before it finally made any sort of difference to his body.\u00a0 I feel like the contact high wouldn\u2019t have been quite as debilitating to him as it was; maybe because his body had been through a large amount of trauma recently, he was more susceptible to it?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
\n
What the hell is the deal with this River Watcher dude? It was obvious from the first episode that he was going to be a problem for the gang \u2013 I do wonder if perhaps he is Umber, Ember\u2019s brother in disguise.\u00a0 \u00a0Probably not, but there\u2019s something more to him than meets the eye. Plus I also wanted an excuse to throw in another Tropic Thunder<\/em> moment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n $\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
\n
So the Children of Earth all have cell phones, even though they move in and out of a magical world – if Kady could see the text from the book in the mirror, why didn\u2019t she just take a picture of each page with her phone or Julia\u2019s and save Julia a lot of effort?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
Like, screenshot that shit.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n
\n
So the White Lady or Winter\u2019s Doe, can be found in the Darkling Woods, just past the Flying Forest.\u00a0 I was waiting for Quentin to finish that with a bunch of other weird places, like \u201caround the bend from Squishy Holes, across the Peckish Meadows, and a little bit east of Blossoming Pickles.\u201d<\/li>\n
When the White Lady first granted Penny\u2019s wish, and Penny specifically requested \u201cI want my hands back,\u201d I was expecting her to just throw a pair of hands onto the forest floor, rather than actually grow them back.\u00a0 Because magical creatures are usually so literal, and because this show has conditioned me to believe that story lines that are hopeful usually go horribly wrong.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/p>\n
Magical Moments for Memorization<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
“Since when are you Fillory Clinton?” – Eliot to Margo when she was trying to make him take responsibility as High King<\/li>\n
“My crown is just as heavy as yours.” – Margo to Eliot when trying to make him understand that being High Queen isn’t any easier than being High King<\/li>\n
“Fucking Todd.” – Margo upon seeing the new king of the Physical Kids cottage<\/li>\n
“Do you know how much it takes to get a horse drunk? I can\u2019t feel my face, much less my face.” – Penny to Q when getting ready for a handectomy by drinking centaur wine<\/li>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s go hunt the White Lady? People like me get shot for saying shit like that.\u201d – Penny to Q after Quentin suggests they go after the Questing Creature the White Lady<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/p>\n
Next Week<\/strong><\/p>\n
Next week\u2019s episode, Cheat Day<\/em>, gives us Attempted Murder! Intrigue! Coups! and\u2026Corporate America! The real question is \u2013 will the attempted murder happen at Quentin\u2019s new accounting job? We can only hope.\u00a0 Make sure to take a break from getting those figures to your High King (or boss) on Wednesday to watch and find out.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Photos from Syfy.com other than those credited below:<\/em><\/p>\n
I Adulted Today<\/em> t-shirt:\u00a0http:\/\/amzn.to\/2kFV4Uh<\/p>\n
Tropic Thunder<\/em> on Pinterest: http:\/\/bit.ly\/2lnVnAc<\/p>\n
Tropic Thunder<\/em> on Giphy: http:\/\/gph.is\/2m1pRey; http:\/\/gph.is\/2l0MCLv<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Flying Forest lived up to its name this week \u2013 we were flying through all sorts of emotions and activities, some more convincingly than others.\u00a0 I do love this show\u2019s proclivity for taking you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,12],"tags":[102,230,218,223,294,224,291,213,225,231,211,238],"class_list":["post-1742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ardent-eccentric","category-television","tag-ardent-eccentric","tag-arjun-gupta","tag-brakebills","tag-hale-appleman","tag-jade-tailor","tag-jason-ralph","tag-kacey-rohl","tag-magicians","tag-stella-maeve","tag-summer-bishil","tag-syfy","tag-the-magicians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/docpalindrome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/docpalindrome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/docpalindrome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docpalindrome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docpalindrome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/docpalindrome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1800,"href":"http:\/\/docpalindrome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1742\/revisions\/1800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docpalindrome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/docpalindrome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docpalindrome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docpalindrome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}