One day, my job will be just this \u2013 overanalyzing brilliant shows like The Magicians<\/em> full time, so that I can actually write a recap\/review in a reasonable time frame.\u00a0 Or I\u2019ll get screeners prior to the season start.\u00a0 In any case, until I do, these will always be a bit late \u2013 damn you, full time job, what with your public health agenda and whatnot!<\/p>\n

In any case, this week\u2019s episode, The Losses of Magic,<\/em> helped me recognize several things:<\/p>\n

\n
1. I\u2019m not the only one who had a mother like Stephanie Quinn – someone (or someone(s)) on this writing team had one as well.<\/li>\n
2. Saran wrap is an effective method of preventing creatures from violating your bodily orifices.<\/li>\n
3. Demons like chocolate.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

   There were several losses tonight, two involving the extraction of something eating away at the body.\u00a0 But there were other losses as well \u2013 freedom, fashion sense, inhibitions, body parts, lives.\u00a0 So, a typical episode of The Magicians<\/em>.<\/p>\n

   Let\u2019s get into the shortest recap\/review ever because it\u2019s Wednesday and the new episode is tonight at 9 PM EST. No pictures for now, or recognizing Elie Solomkin\u2019s amazing cinematography, but that shall return for next week.<\/p>\n

   As always, spoilers.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

   Alice and the Lamprey<\/strong><\/p>\n

   Alice takes refuge with her parents in her attempt to flee from the Lamprey, and has to deal with her narcissistic, crazy family again (seriously, it might have been less emotionally taxing just to deal with the magical creature than her mother). Stephanie Quinn is her usual self, and Judith Hoag does quite an amazing job with this character \u2013 because I loathe Alice\u2019s mother.\u00a0 Like to the point where I hate recapping anything she says or does, so kudos to you, Judith Hoag, on your ability to embody Stephanie Quinn, you have created a supremely unlikeable character.<\/p>\n

   When Alice tells her parents about being pursued by a Lamprey, Daniel, her father goes on high alert, and is immediately suspicious when Quentin shows up to the house out of the blue and something weird slithers under the skin on his neck.\u00a0 Knowing he\u2019s been spotted, Quentin disappears, and Alice grows increasingly hysterical as she begins to suspect everyone in the house that could be taken over by the Lamprey.\u00a0 She wraps herself in Saran wrap in order to block every orifice it could enter through, as well as taping up the windows and doors.\u00a0 Her father discovers that it is sensitive to lightening, so he and Alice rig up an impossibly dangerous electrocution stick to shock anyone they suspect is possessed by the Lamprey.<\/p>\n

   Which means Quentin comes very close to getting electrocuted when Alice encounters him in her garage.\u00a0 But the Lamprey has left him, and is now looking for a new host in the Quinn household.\u00a0 Will it be Alice? Stephanie? Daniel? Or Quentin again?<\/p>\n

   When Stephanie starts acting drunker\/weirder than usual, of course they suspect she\u2019s carrying the Lamprey.\u00a0 Why Alice thought it was abnormal, though, when Stephanie started hitting on Quentin, and may be indicative of a Lamprey, and not just her mother’s personality, is beyond me.\u00a0 In any case, Alice seizes the opportunity to electrocute her mother, but no Lamprey comes crawling out.\u00a0 She turns the weapon on Quentin, only to have Q shock himself to prove to her that the Lamprey isn\u2019t in him.<\/p>\n

   So that means\u2026Daniel! Her dad has the Lamprey!\u00a0 After a biting remark about how Alice killed all of his children (the Lamprey\u2019s, not Daniel\u2019s), which is why it’s after her, it taunts her into shocking it, knowing it might kill her dad in the process.\u00a0 Earlier, she and Daniel had discussed the terrible things she did as a niffin, all for the sake of knowledge.\u00a0 When, in actually, she was telling the Lamprey in Daniel how she killed the Lamprey children to gain knowledge.\u00a0 However \u2013 also a lie.\u00a0 She killed them because they made pretty lights when they died (because, unfortunately, being a niffin turns you into a magical sociopath).<\/p>\n

   And Alice maintains some of those sociopathic tendencies, as she shocks her father, finally causing the Lamprey to come squiggling out of his mouth.\u00a0 She electrocutes the actual Lamprey then, enjoying how it makes pretty lights as it dies.<\/p>\n

   Her father is ok, though! Or is he? Despite initially responding to Alice after the Lamprey left, he dies on the floor, where Stephanie finds him after she wakes up from her electrocution. Q hangs about awkwardly, not quite sure what to do.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

   Demon Medicine<\/strong><\/p>\n

   Julia finds Kady at the Physical Kids cottage, caring for an extremely ill Penny, and trying to figure out how she\u2019s going to obtain the ingredients for a cure, as well as take care of her dying boyfriend.\u00a0 Luckily, Julia shows up, and offers to secure the items Kady needs to summon a demon, who will serve as the \u201csurgeon\u201d to remove Penny\u2019s magical cancer.<\/p>\n

   When Julia obtains the items from a bedraggled woman in the street, the woman does that whole \u201cpowerful being speak through a human\u201d thing, telling Julia that she\u2019s missing the signs.\u00a0 Whoever is speaking to her (I\u2019m going to go with Our Lady Underground) tells her that she thought that she would have been further along by now (I\u2019m going to go with restoring magic), and that she\u2019ll need a push.\u00a0 Julia is mildly confused but returns to the cottage with the items needed to summon the demon.<\/p>\n

   Kady, meanwhile, has been comforting Penny and leaving out chocolate for the demon they\u2019ll be summoning \u2013 apparently, it makes demons less likely to eat people.\u00a0 Ah, if only that worked as well on our inner demons as well, eh?\u00a0 Speaking of inner demons, one good thing from the magical cancer is that the voices in Penny\u2019s head have finally stopped.<\/p>\n

   Before they get much further in their conversation, though, Julia arrives with the ingredients and they summon the demon Asteroth, played by the super awesome Julian Richings.\u00a0 Richings previously played Death on Supernatural<\/em>, among other roles, but this is the one that he would probably be most recognized for by fans of The Magicians<\/em>.<\/p>\n

   Asteroth performs weird, anesthetic free, demon surgery, where he extracts a gross bit of flesh that is the cancer.\u00a0 However, the girls contacted him too late \u2013 Penny starts to look better for a moment, but then passes right in front of Julia and Kady.\u00a0 Astral projecting behind them, Penny is rather distraught to be looking at his dead body.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

   Pirates on the Muntjac<\/strong><\/p>\n

   Eliot is contemplating what the key does that they retrieved from the island last week, only to find a new keyhole in his royal chambers after fleeing there with Fen and Fray after pirates take over the Muntjac.\u00a0 Using the key, the three escape to\u2026somewhere? And sadly, that\u2019s all we get of Hale Appleman this week and King Eliot. But we did get to see Brittany Curran\u2019s Fen go into full on Mommy mode when the pirates boarded the Muntjac to try to protect Fray, so that was awesome.<\/p>\n

   Margo, meanwhile, is dealing with the fact that Fillory\u2019s farmers don\u2019t want to plant mushrooms for the Fairy Queen \u2013 it\u2019s their tiny act of rebellion.\u00a0 However, our High Queen has bigger things to deal with when she finds out that the Muntjac has been taken hostage.\u00a0 Since their fastest ship wouldn\u2019t reach Eliot and the gang for at least a week, Margo convinces the Fairy Queen to fly her, Tick, Gillen and herself on a Pegasus to the ship to parlay for the royal family\u2019s release.\u00a0 The Fairy Queen is swayed by the fact that the farmers won\u2019t help her now, and they definitely won\u2019t if their High King dies.<\/p>\n

   Upon arriving on the Mutjac, the Fairy Queen suns herself while reminding Margo she still has her eye on her\u2026literally.\u00a0 Tick, meanwhile, offers to use his family\u2019s famous pick pocketing skills to get back her eye while Margo is talking to the pirates, and then blame it on the pirates. That can\u2019t possibly turn out poorly at all\u2026<\/p>\n

   Margo goes below deck to parlay, only to find, to her surprise, that the Pirate King is an attractive woman who has a thing for one-eyed girls.\u00a0 Margo says if she frees the High King and the Muntjac, nothing is off the table.\u00a0 While the Pirate King is open to this, she does need one more thing \u2013 their boat is also a Deerwood living boat, like the Muntjac, and as such\u2026needs to mate before they can leave.\u00a0 So, in essence, she\u2019s offering them their freedom if their boat gets to rape the Muntjac.\u00a0 #Awkward<\/p>\n

   Margo, being a rational, compassionate human being, balks at this, but her need to save Eliot leads her to ask the Muntjac what she wants to do.\u00a0 So, not forcing the boat to mate, but explaining the situation that shows she respects the ship\u2019s decision either way.\u00a0 For once, the Fairy Queen having her eye on Margo pays off, as she is moved by Margo\u2019s handling of the situation.<\/p>\n

   And, of course, what is a good thing also turns into a bad thing for everyone involved \u2013 the Fairy Queen slaughters the pirates, which is great for the Muntjac \u2013 not so much for Tick the Pick Pocket, since now there\u2019s no pirates to blame the theft of Margo\u2019s eye on.<\/p>\n

   The Fairy Queen demands back the eye, and when Margo refuses, she forces Margo\u2019s adviser, Gillen, to come forward.\u00a0 She whispers the name of a song to play in his head forever until he goes mad and dies.\u00a0 Furious, Margo hands back the eye, but only after crushing it so it can\u2019t be used to spy on her anymore.\u00a0 Unfortunately, that also means she can\u2019t get that eye back later on down the road. But small victories, right?<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

   Q & A About Q & A and Everything Else<\/strong><\/p>\n

   \n
   • So, Penny\u2019s death may be the push Julia needs to re-spark her magic \u2013 but since magic is derived from pain, will the loss of Penny be painful enough to Julia to be able to bring it back? Or will the pain of seeing Kady grieving be what pushes her to move forward?<\/li>\n
   • Since magic is derived from pain, maybe Alice will have a little spark from her niffin-dom that will wake up \u2013 losing her dad and now having to deal with her mother, alone, as the only living child, is certainly enough pain to get started.<\/li>\n
   • I realize for the practicality of the scene, Alice couldn\u2019t cover her own mouth, but wouldn\u2019t her mouth and nose be open then for the Lamprey?\u00a0 We see near the end that the Lamprey is this huge slug like creature, so I guess it\u2019s reasonable it could have crawled up the construction worker\u2019s butt in the last episode? But, really, none of them would have noticed if a giant sluggity creature tried to crawl in their ears?<\/li>\n
   • Is it bad that my first thought when Daniel died wasn\u2019t \u201coh how sad, Daniel\u2019s dead,\u201d but \u201choly shit, now Alice is alone and having to deal with this bitch\u2026alone\u2026forever\u201d? It probably is bad.\u00a0 I have issues.<\/li>\n
   • I hope we get to see the Underworld journey again \u2013 this time a little more aligned with the books.\u00a0 It\u2019s here where Julia learns she\u2019s more than just a magician, and we might get Penny back too in the process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      <\/p>\n

     Next Week (or This Week\u2026Whatever, Episode 4)<\/strong><\/p>\n

     Tonight\u2019s upcoming episode, \u201cBe the Penny,\u201d may take us back to Eliot, Fen, and Fray, as well as how we might bring back Penny.\u00a0 But we shall see tonight at 9 PM EST on Syfy!<\/p>\n

      <\/p>\n

     Photo courtesy of Syfy.com<\/em><\/p>\n

      <\/p>\n

      <\/p>\n

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