It’s difficult to convey sincerity in a manner that feels rich and honest. With modern television (a lot of it at least), an earnest moment will often be cut down by a biting remark mere moments after. Sincerity is a token of cheese – it makes for schmaltzy and broad storytelling when crafted by an inept or lazy storyteller. But in the hands of a writer who understands how to utilize that sincerity as a weapon – to catch the audience off guard and further pull them into the show’s orbit, well, then the outcome can be purely magical.

Such has been the case with so much of season three of The Magicians, which, even amid the chaotic mess these characters have found themselves in, has stopped to take the time and appreciate the heart at the center of the series. Said heart is unabashedly present, and while the show can still take time to explore the supernatural, the enslavement of fairies, trauma and the pains of growing up and realizing adulthood doesn’t arrive with the ease childhood may promise, they never fail to realize that at its core, it’s a show about those who feel lost and what ultimately tethers them to reality.

It’s the people they surround themselves with and the makeshift family that’s come from it. They’re splintered and broken and without hope, but when they have a moment to come together – in song no less – it allows them a moment of reprieve,. It all centers on Josh, the character they’ve left behind, who’s found himself in a purgatory of his own making. There’s a moment where Quentin, Alice and Kady are given an exit – one quite literally lit up in neon lights – and they realize their quest here isn’t just to escape a 24-hour party house. It’s also to remain, fight the musical zombies through song, and rescue their friend from once again being left behind as they move forward in their adventure. A character who at times is allotted for little more than pot jokes, he is still critical to the overall quest.

As we’ve learned in the past, all of these characters’ actions have consequences. This ranges from the obvious one where the group’s apathy for Josh leads them to a challenge they need to overcome to Margot’s treatment of the sentient boat a few episodes ago ultimately being what saves her and Eliot from an eternity of painful death. Julia’s slow recognition (and mild acceptance) of her powers is what turns back time to save the fairy from dying from the inside out for using magic, and Frey’s distrust of them is very clearly born from the loss of her daughter. No character is acting on any sort of convoluted or makeshift motivation tailored specifically to the episode at hand. They’re so wondrously constructed that each decision they make is built off a specific moment in their past.

It’s what makes their rendition of “Under Pressure” so affirming and delightful to watch play out. All of them are caught up in dire circumstances, and in this momentary blip of time, united, they have a nudge of hope. Even the way the the lyrics are delegated from Alice and Quentin’s “give love” refrain to Eliot’s line about a family being torn apart to Julia’s build on “it’s the power in knowing” is purposeful and fitting with the characters.

It may not have been the full-out musical episode we might have anticipated (and who knows, maybe season four will deliver wall-to-wall musical numbers), but with a climatic moment as satisfying as “Under Pressure,” it’s hard to ask for more.

As season three of “The Magicians” backs it ascent to its final few episodes of the year, their achievements glow ever brighter in how they’ve continuously fractured storytelling, rebuilt it and surprised us once again. It’s always a pleasure to anticipate just what they’ll catch us off guard with next.

Television is so rarely everything you want it to be. Sure, there are great series and ones that on a technical level stand leagues about this little SyFy show that could, but few have the ability to target the heart of television fans so acutely and with the effervescent wisdom of knowing exactly which aspects of storytelling are universal. Dressed in the trappings of magic, mystical beings and mayhem, The Magicians is a show which is much more about the friendships made in young adulthood, demons faced in an uncertain and increasingly unsteady world and the volatile emotional arena that is the inexplicable unknown. Sure, there may be cursing rabbits, loving relationships between humans and sloths, a sentient boat and worlds inside worlds of alternate universes, but all of these otherworldly aspects and details are cut straight through by the power of unbridled compassion, companionship and loss.

Being an adult is hard and The Magicians understands this and exploits it and both we and the show are the beneficiaries of its acute wisdom. The series had some growing pains until the deep bench of richly drawn characters began to share screen time in perfect balance and the leading hero, Quentin, was established firmly as a player who understood he was far from the series’ main protagonist.  By the time the end of season one rolled over into season two, the series truly began to understand what makes it stand out in a very crowded field.

It’s a vividly told story, one that continually outpaces itself in major occurrences and shakeups, lapping one plot point with the next twist until the story is so rapidly developed that it’s difficult to keep everything in place. That confidence in the audience to keep the hell up and its reliance on the fabulous actors portraying the characters means that The Magicians is able to take risks where other shows would be too timid.

Season three dedicated an entire episode to short vignettes that followed a number of peripheral characters, had a musical episode that culminated in a soaring and unifying sing-along to Queen’s “Under Pressure”, followed by an episode where two of the leading characters lived out a life in a small plot of land, fell in love, raised a family and passed away peacefully just to be ripped back into their proper timeline. It was daring and hauntingly melancholic in some moments and undeniably absurd, poignant and hilarious in others, combining genres and tones that rather than causing an unpleasant dissonance instead resonated in perfect harmony.

Beyond the structure and risk taking there are the characters who so assuredly ground the series wilder moments. The version of Quentin, Julia and co. are unfathomably different than the versions we first met, to the point where the season three cliff-hanger is all the more crushing when the worry about how they’ll find their way back to themselves sets in. Julia, following all of her continued trauma, finds power in healing, offered the position of a god before sacrificing it all to save her friends. Margo and Eliot, the two vain and detached sidekicks of season one, became High King’s (yes, both of them) and care deeply about Filory and their friends – with Eliot risking everything to save Quentin from his self-sacrifice at the end of season three (to possibly devastating results). And Quentin has grown on the micro scale, coming to a place of self-acceptance where he knows what he can do and when to do it, with a moral compass that will push himself through his fears and concerns of the impossible unknown of the future.

Season three ends on a fantastic and frustrating cliffhanger, as we watch the versions of these characters, with their minds wiped, going through life unaffected by magic and torn apart. The kicker comes in the form of Eliot, who has been inhabited by the beast, coming to Quentin to help him enact revenge on those who have done him wrong. It’s unsettling – not only because we’re given a moment of optimism when we believe that, against all odds, Eliot has found Quentin through the fog – but also because it’s such a deconstruction of characters we’ve come to love that there’s a sense of no return that accompanies it.

And while I’d like to think the real Eliot is still possible to save, I’m proactively arming myself for anything but.

The heart of this series is this group of unsuspecting people who found one another when the world turned dark and dire on them. It’s the makeshift bonds of those dealt tough hands in life who recognize the masked pain and tight smiles and the joy that comes when there’s a shared triumph. There’s little doubt this group will find one another again – without that core there is no show – but it will be a journey greatly touched by tension and want as we will them to reunite, save Eliot and continue their paths to better adjusted adults who can both save the day from a monster who presents a threat when bored and unloved.

Maybe I’m  at a point in my life where shows like this mean something more. Where a friend is willing to fire a bullet straight into a monsters heart rather than lose you, or where a young woman who’s endure such trauma is still willing to sacrifice literal parts of herself in order to honor the bravery of her friends – maybe those are moments that touch me so deeply as a twenty something floundering.

Maybe, more than anything, there’s something about Quentin ready to give his life to save magic and his friends not because he wants to, but because through his struggling he’s learned that he can handle it. That at the end of trauma there’s an inner strength that might just compel you save the world after accomplishing saving yourself. It’s that slimmer of hope that against all odds you persevere and you life another day no matter the mounting odds against you, no matter how big or small but in spite of that. The Magicians, in season three and beyond, is a belligerent and defiant rallying of damage and heartache and want, viscerally emotive in its naked, open armed appeal to those in need of relatable escape.

“My entire life, ever since I first read Fillory and Further, I’ve been waiting for some powerful being to come down and say ‘Quentin Coldwater, you are The One.’ Every book, every movie, it’s about one special guy. Chosen. In real life, for every one guy, there are a billion people who aren’t. Almost none of us are The One.”

I am Quentin Coldwater. If you waited for your Hogwarts letter on your eleventh birthday or secretly wished your closet led to a magical world, you’re probably Quentin Coldwater too. If you’re familiar with Lev Grossman’s The Magicians book series or Syfy’s show of the same name, you might be slightly offended at being compared to Quentin. You shouldn’t be, though, because Quentin, sometimes called Q, is the representation of a generation that grew up with Harry Potter. He’s all of us, because he chose to see himself as the hero.

Season one of The Magicians follows Quentin’s discovery of magic. Unlike Harry Potter, whose discovery of magic came at eleven years old, and therefore reveals itself as pure wonderment, Quentin learns of magic as a grad student. There’s still wonderment and awe, but it’s quickly undermined by reality. Q may be attending a magical school, but it’s still school. The disillusionment of magic throughout The Magicians works as a metaphor for the real world. As we become adults, the magic of childhood drifts away from our conscious, or rather, the stress and anxiety of adulthood takes over. This whole idea is so front and center in Grossman’s book that I could barely make it past 50 pages. But the Syfy series lets magic and the realities of adulthood knock against each other, sometimes allowing one to overpower the other, not unlike how we often experience high and low moments in our own lives.

When we first meet Quentin, he’s finishing a stay in a psychiatric hospital. His depression is only occasionally referred to throughout the series, but it’s a clever introduction to a character whose motivations are always tied to his favorite fantasy series, “Fillory and Further,” The Magicians version of The Chronicles of Narnia, with a bit of Harry Potter thrown in. Once he’s accepted into Brakebills, a Hogwarts stand-in (though it looks more like a Division 1 university campus), Q is convinced he’s on his path to destiny. He knows he’s the hero of this story, even before there’s really a story. When his best friend, Julia, doesn’t get accepted into Brakebills, his reaction is to basically tell her she’s not good enough to be a part of the magical world he’s suddenly found himself in. And as soon as the school comes under attack by The Beast, he’s even more convinced he’s the one that can stop him. The Chosen One, so to speak.

It’s not totally his fault. Throughout all of season one, people keep telling him he’s the one that needs to go up against The Beast. Jane Chatwin, the central character of “Fillory and Further” tells him that, Dean Fogg mentions it a time or two, and even his friends begrudgingly admit it. It’s mentioned often enough that Q begins to believe it himself. And it makes sense Q is that person. As Margo puts it:

“There’s this thing about you, Q. You actually believe in magic.”

“So does everyone.”

“No. We all know it’s real, but you believe in it. And you just love it, pure and simple.”

The reason Q is so identifiable is that he hasn’t let go of his belief in magic, or in stories. Q is us if we suddenly stepped in to our favorite fantasy story. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be the hero. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the magic in our lives. But what makes someone stand apart from those brash and daring heroes of legends is when to know this isn’t just your story, and maybe it’s someone else’s turn for glory.

Q’s moment of heroism isn’t when he stands up to The Beast. He’d already done that several times before, in timelines that were being reset because Q was never successful. So he changes it. To Alice, he explains it’s the adult part of him that’s telling him Alice is The One, because she’s the stronger magician. Quentin was never the Chosen One. Rather, his part in the 39 time loops of season one was to die. His part in the last timeline, however, was to grow up. His maturity throughout season one ends with the restoration of his friendship with Julia. Before, when it was made clear to Q Julia didn’t belong at Brakebills, he figured he was meant to be apart of this magical world, while Julia wasn’t. To him, it was destiny. Of course, Julia was supposed to be at Brakebills all along, and in the 39 other timelines, she was. As Q unfolds the mystery of The Beast, he comes to terms with the parts other people, his friends, play in the larger narrative. It’s not just about him. When Julia and Q enter Fillory together for the first time, they’re transported back to their childhood, and all of a sudden, they’re the best friends they were before magic ever happened.

It’s a strong, quiet moment of full character realization. In the following two seasons, Quentin still manages to hold on to his innocent view of magic, sometimes to the detriment of the others around him. When the group is presented a quest in season three, Q’s adamant he’s the one to take on the quest and return magic to the world, forgetting the fact he’s the one who inadvertently lost all the world’s magic. It’s these contradictions, though, that make Q the most human out of everyone. Because sometimes heroes are just regular people, and their intentions may not always be pure, but they can be heroic all the same. That need to be someone important lies in all of us. From our perspective, we are the heroes of our own story. It’s other people, though, that help that story along. Keeping in mind that, to them, they’re on their own quest to discover magic or a dragon or two.

When The Magicians first began to air the intrigue was natural for those who hadn’t read the books the series was loosely based on; it was an attractive cast in a fantasy setting described as “sexy Harry Potter”. Who on earth wouldn’t be attracted to such a descriptor? As the debut season progressed there were bumps along the way as the writers dealt with how to make Quentin a likable protagonist even if he was also, often, a gigantic tool, how to keep the narrative from slipping entirely out of their grasp as storylines dragged, and how to get Eliot into more screen time to work off of Hale Appleman’s obvious charm.

For the most part however, the show was enjoyable, if rocky, ride that won points based on the natural chemistry in the cast and that no matter how contrived a plot development could be, we had grown to care immensely for these characters and the adventures they went on. This was so much so that by the end of the season one finale when nearly all of the characters were left for dead, we worried about their fates.

Early on in season two we were given a reprieve from that worry as they were all brought back from the brink of death and with that the show was given a greater, more confident sense of light. Every aspect of the show from the performances to the set design to the ability to hold onto a single narrative of recovery for the entirety of the season was stronger than it had been and all of the worries that lingered from season one were squashed. Far unlike any fantasy television show you’ve seen, it was able to create something beautiful out of mangled emotions, surreal musical numbers and 20 somethings who are realizing that life is sometimes unbearable tough. The Magicians in its sophomore efforts became one of the best and most entertaining series on television and what made it even more thrilling was that the tonal balancing act was so tremendous that it was always a surprise when something didn’t manage to break apart.

One of the best things the show was able to do for itself was to bring Eliot’s character further into focus as he had to push his addictions and death wishes (somewhat) into the background in order to rule Filory as High King along with his bambi, High Queen Margo. Appleman for his part was seemingly born to don the elegant costumes he wore as King and his journey is fully one of becoming an adult with consequences to his actions and rules that define his leadership, for better or worse. Every tic, every sardonic line is given a sense of off beat charisma due to his understated performance and if the show is smart they’ll keep him in the focus in season three as well.

Stella Maeve as Julia was always one of the most intriguing aspects of the show, starting back from day one where we couldn’t quite get over the sense that she, not Quentin, was supposed to be the real hero of the show. Instead, due to some tricky time magic, she was instead rejected from Brakebills and found herself on the fringes of the magical society, playing out some of the heaviest themes on the show such as addiction and recovery and revenge following a sexual assault. She gives us our over arching narrative in season two as she actively tries to avoid becoming like the Beast, so wrapped up in his need to defend himself as a child that he in turn becomes something corrupt and loathsome. Her story was trying at times due to the difficult nature but Maeve imbued Julia with just the right amount of steely resolve and vulnerability to make her a character worth rooting for.

However, despite the wonderful characters on the show who are naturally more intriguing, it was the development of the lead that made all the difference in the world. Quentin’s slow and often times painful realization that just because magic exists doesn’t mean that magic is able to save the day and that this place of magical escapism that he so often wandered as a anxiety ridden child was in fact soiled was some of the best storytelling the show has done.

You can’t have a great show if you don’t have an engaging leading character, no matter how much leg work the supporting characters provide. Jason Ralph was excellent this year in portraying Quentin’s grief over loosing Alice as he wears that loss as a (sometimes literal) physical burden. Perhaps the strongest episode the series has done to date, “Cheat Day”, an intimate and heartbreaking look at the scars the dead leave behind, was almost solely focused on Quentin and his journey. An episode just focused on him in season one might’ve been a bore where this year, in par due to Ralph’s performance but also due to how beautifully meditative the scenes were shot, it was an absolute highlight.

The nature of this show is ridiculous and that’s a significant aspect of the show. Even the characters themselves become increasingly exasperated by the scenarios they find themselves in but what makes it work is that it all at the very least feels honest; the characters and their motivations are never shoehorned in for plot convenience but because they feel like real actions these people would take. This means we can watch as Eliot complains about his betrothed turning into a rat, a foul mouthed sloth giving government council and a cursing, embittered dragon knocking Quentin and Julia out without batting an eye. The absurdist nature is key to the success of the show and its that juxtaposed with the gritty reality of the characters emotions and their personal journeys into becoming adults that makes it such a constant delight.

The Magicians, despite it’s naysayers, rose in the ranks in season two to become one of the most addicting shows on air and with the magic cut off for our characters entering next season, all of whom are splintered off in separate realms, there’s so much more we’re ready to explore.

Season Grade: 9/10

Finale Grade: 9/10

Best Episode: “Cheat Day”

[To read my entire season two coverage of The Magicians, go here.]

What does a show which follows 20 something magicians going to a secret school for magical learning do when the big plot development of the season is the loss – or rather – removal, of magic? It launches itself headfirst into doubling down on the fantastical. More so than ever before, SyFy’s The Magicians  feels strictly fantasy and that’s the best decision the show could’ve made for this season. It’s always been a show that has deserved more love than it has received, and the excellent premiere that spans both earth and Fillory, bridging characters plot points without ever actually bringing the characters all together.

We pick up a few months after the season two premiere with everything essentially the same. Julia and Quentin are working on trying to find the source of the formers magic, to little avail. Quentin is pushing the fact however, because he needs the hope and the idea of magic as a lifeline. Meanwhile, Margo and Eliot are dealing with trying to rule in a land that has essentially had the power turned off.  That, with the threat of the ominous Fairy Queen looming, with her spies everywhere, makes it an increasingly hostile place to live. Penny is still battling cancer and serving his sentence in the library while Kady holds out hope and Alice runs for her life as a mysterious force hunts her, enraged by something she did while she was still a niffin.

In the premiere of season three we cover a lot of territory and no one character feels short changed. Instead, it feels like after all of this time, we understand these people more than ever, as stubborn, petty and damaged as they are. Part of that reason is how they’ve delegated time to each cast member, making sure not one is more in focus than the other, striking up pairing with lived in chemistry, even if they don’t entirely touch the chemistry of the entire group working together.

Margo and Eliot is an obvious duo, as they’ve long been established as old friends and confidants, but what is different this time around is how both are dealing with the same situation but with very different threats hovering overhead. Sure, Eliot has the weight of an entire world on his shoulders, but Margo has to deal with the Fairy Queen being able to spy on her at all times, through who own eye that was stole from her as common pencea last year, and having to be more capable than Eliot even when he is the one that acquires the most credit. He’s even the one who wins the chance to set forth on an “epic” quest.

Kady and Penny are similarly complementary to one another, the one romantic pairing yet on the show that felt earned and compatible (unlike Quentin and Alice – though I definitely thought the show was pushing towards a Kady and Julia hook up for a while there). However, their main storyline is trying to figure out a way to save Penny from his fate, one that Penny seems much more at peace at than Kady does.

It’s the team up, both expected and not, of Julia and Quentin, that wins the most points. The two have long been the two, opposing “leads” of the series, as Quentin was allowed to go on grand adventures and see wonderful things due to chance and despite his mediocrity while Julia, also due to luck of the draw, found herself addicted to magic, raped by a conniving, trickster God, separated from her soul and forced to allow the God who assaulted her to escape, free of retribution. She suffers from PTSD, he from depression, making for what could be read as a somber pair. However, they are the liveliest aspect of the episode because they’re in the position of having nothing left to lose. They have hope, and that’s enough to charge them forward and push them to meet a partying God who may be able to introduce them to another God who may be able to turn the power back on.

It helps that Jason Ralph and Stella Maeve have such an easy chemistry shared between them that it makes the more laid back scenes between the two, the ones where they’re screwing with gods and trying to piss them off all the more charming. The fact that they’re being depicted solely as friends doesn’t hurt either.

One of the most integral aspects to the shows continued success has been its purposeful switch of introducing Quentin as our “hero” before stripping that all away. Quentin, as he puts it himself, in the premier, is the sidekick. He may anchor the narratives and introduce key elements but he isn’t the smartest character or the strongest or bravest. He is our emotional tether and him being the heart to Julia’s sheer power, Alice’s brilliance, Penny’s dalliances with death and Margot and Eliot’s rulership grounds the show in a way he as the hero didn’t. He offers perspective and it’s a significant one. It’s a significant point of view that allows the premiere to elevate itself, as good as it already is.

There’s so much to love about the premier and it all boils down to how confident the series and showrunners have become. There’s some beautiful imagery here – the scene where Julia and Quentin’s faces are illuminated by neon lights a highlight – and an embrace of the more “genre” elements of the story. This is especially true when Eliot, trying to save his kingdom, comes across a creature named, ahem, “The Cock” (it will be a high point of your viewing experience I swear it). It’s a demonstration of how the show managed to meld genres so seamlessly together. It’s outrageous, shockingly funny and also moves the plot forward in one singular scene.

And it’s that last point that makes the series, and especially this episode, such a special one to follow. It understands the complexities of genre and that a story that’s engaging and interesting and constantly keeping its viewers on their toes needs to be more than just one thing and, it needs a deep well of understanding of characters: their motives, their want and their wishes. The Magicians understands this without faltering at this point and while no one thread is resolved by episode end, we’re primed and ready for a grandiose adventure which will bring with it absurdist mayhem, thrilling action, poignant drama and swooning romance. It’s as entertaining as any “prestige” show currently airing, and it seems to be having more fun.

Welcome back to our weekly coverage of The Magicians. To read prior reviews, click here.

“Heroes and Morons” may not match the wit and wonder of the season three premiere, but it’s another dedicated hour of television that highlights a series that has learned to reinvent itself season to season and has come out this year as one of the most exciting series airing. Committed to its fantastical elements without forgoing the human nature that charges each and every decision (for good or bad) that these characters make, The Magicians is hellbent on carving out it’s own genre is the current television zeitgeist.

Here were the three strongest parts of the episode.

Adventure is looming (and the world building is pretty great too)

Before setting off on his trip, Eliot is presented with the (plot) twist that his daughter is alive and well and a preteen working for the Fairy Queen. He and Margo contemplate how suspicious this all is, especially when they reference all of the pop culture they’ve consumed that has done similar things (there’s a nice Buffy the Vampire Dawn reference thrown in there). However, for the time being they allow it to happen because there’s no real changing their situation when the Fairy Queen is involved.

It does allow for him to set off on his official quest with Frey and their new daughter in tow for the keys which brings him to After Island where a cruel and power mad man rules by keeping the townspeople afraid of what amounts to a parlor trick. Eliot and Frey are both allowed moments of heroics with Eliot being presented as they king that he is. Heeding Margo’s advice on how to stay alive by relying on his survival instinct rather than playing the hero, Eliot walks away more confident in his position and with a key to aid him on his travels.

Out of the season so far it’s been this introduction of After Island that its inhabitants that has further aided in building the world beyond Fillory.

That SHIP! (No really, an actual ship)

The Magicians enjoys adding details to its world that are bizarre and eccentric and completely absurd to the characters as well as the audience and the addition of a sentient ship (that’s kind of a dick) is just one of those delightful developments. It’s a small thing but it allows the show to continue to build context into the world beyond Earth. In Fillory, sloths hold council positions in court, rabbits can be used as carrier pigeons between worlds, Kings can have a husband and a wife and any and all rules are bound to be broken at some point. So of course that had to be a sentient ship as well.

(Must be noted that the production design is gorgeous with this set and the location breathtaking).

Character Context EVERYWHERE 

One of the most achingly raw moments of the episode comes in the form of an aside. Quentin, in their search to seek out Professor Lipson, to both prevent her from committing suicide and retrieve what essentially is a magical battery, brings up the likely building she’ll choose, commenting on its pretty view and vacancy. When asked just why he would know this, he remarks that he used to research this “sort of thing”, a call back (or acknowledgement) of his depression. It’s not a highlight of the episode, perse, but further reinforces just how well this show understands its characters. Not one character makes a decision that feels out of place with who they are.

Along with the return (kind of) of Mayakovsky (as a bear) and Emily who we last saw in the sobering “Cheat Day”, this episode is presenting call backs that harken more to character building than plot development, to good and bad effect. All of these characters and how they add to the plot is a reminder that no matter the fantasy world that they live in, it’s hardly a utopia where real world struggle ceases to exist. With magic gone for the time being this idea is doubled down on as that one blip of hope that kept these people going is extinguished.

We see as Mayakovsky’s battery puts Central Park into a trance of sorts with a giant orgy taking place and if this is the peak of happiness that this small battery can offer, that it isn’t quite something to chase after because it isn’t the real thing, but a substitute. It’s a distraction from the real pain and confusion they’re all feeling. It’s why Julia’s ability is being so latched onto, because she possesses the hope that these bad feelings they’re having or being reminded on may not be here for the long term. Magic, in every sense of the word in this universe, is a hell of a drug.

Elsewhere in the episode Alice is reunited with the group after running away from the mysterious entity chasing her which, in an unsettling and gory detail, can be tipped off by an exploding cat (this show hates cute and innocent animals). Trying to accomplish too many storylines at once and not delivering on some of the more exciting moments as the group moves onward on their quest, the episode is far from a let down but just can’t manage to sustain the enthusiastic energy of its premiere.

Apologies for missing out on recounting the misadventures the characters went on in last weeks episode “The Losses of Magic”, for it was a delightful installment of the series. The big takeaway however, was Penny’s believed (pretty real) death that left in the inbetween world after he’s as astral projected his soul from his body.

As the rare episode that focuses on Arjun Gupta’s traveler Penny, “Be the Penny” is a remarkably clever hour of television with a last minute sucker punch that is unfathomably satisfying. Not a show that has relied heavily on shock value and flipping the script of what we’ve come expect from fantasy series, this is a highly intelligent series because it understands when to give and take.

Finding himself in an in between world with his only company being that of a Brakebills pervert who died while trying to peep on girls in the showers, he’s caught in an astronomically tricky position, being able to watch his friends grieve (or not) over his death while being unable to do anything to get their attention. He can’t even die properly as he’s been separated from his body. It’s a demonstration of The Magicians playing on both its strengths as a series in its ability to shake up its own basic structure while also adding refreshingly new elements with a confidence that can only be found in a series that truly understands what it is trying to accomplish and elicit from its audience.

Here are three reasons why “Be The Penny” succeeded to such a degree. ,

The unusual reliance on the titular character 

Penny has always behaved as a foil to the rest of the characters, a true blue support system to a lot of different leads and as such, the show hasn’t always known what to do with him. In most cases that opposites attract basic nature of the character works marvelously against the likes of Quentin, Kady or Eliot since despite the fact that he is quite literally the most untethered from reality, he is the ground presence. He brings a sense of nonchalant humanity and humor to proceedings to make the characters as a whole feel enriching and relateable, no matter how otherworldly the hijinks. In “Be The Penny” he finally gets the chance to take center stage with a storyline deserving of Gupta’s considerable amount of charisma. There are a lot of winning lines here, from his dissatisfaction regarding his friends lack of response to his “same girl, same” to Margo’s teary eyed response to his death being that she thought one day they’d “bang” (and what a ship that would be) but his undercurrent of melancholy is what sells the humor. He’s determined to reach his friends, to end Kady’s spiralling of self-destruction and his increasing level of frustration makes his desperation feel real while also being hilarious.

That cut to him being in the actual penny was pure joy.

There are real stakes 

We spend the entirety of the episode thinking that no matter the situation he’s found himself in he no doubt will end the episode safe and returned to his body but the characters odds continue to worsen as the hour goes on. And rather than feeling as if we’re simply being toyed with before optimism kicks back in, we actually buy into the hopelessness of the situation. And it pays off. By the end of the episode, Penny isn’t saved, his soul hasn’t even been condemned to the library for an eternity – instead, he’s as aimless as ever, stuck in a hellish purgatory of his own making where he can’t interact with anyone he cares about ever again, no matter his determination.

It surprises you

Of course, all seems lost until just the last second, that final kicker that is the perfect ending and lead into next week’s episode. Eliot, having been on his own journey for the majority of the episode, facing down cannibals with his wife and daughter and then feeding an apparition of his father to said cannibals (Hale Appleman’s delivery of it being a cathartic moment is one of the best one liners of the series), he finally makes it back to Brakebills intact. After a lovely reunion he grabs ahold of the truth key, believes it doesn’t work, turns, see’s Penny and off handedly acknowledges him. In a delayed response Penny realizes what has happened and leaps to his feet, shouting for Eliot to wait before putting the key down, and the episode ends just like that. It’s a miracle of a punchline, one that had been built upon since the very few moments as every character and every decision is purposefully and effortlessly brought to this point. It is the perfect ending to one of the best episodes the series has done to date.

Few genres and themes have been left unturned on The Magicians. From broad humor to tragic romance, musical numbers, bloody murder and epic duels and a general sense of ennui, we’ve seemingly seen it all within the confines of this little show that could. That being said, have we ever seen them languish so completely in melancholy as we did in tonight’s beautifully peculiar and achingly earnest “A Life in The Day”?

Picking up where we last left off, the series once again subverts expectations by refusing to let us linger on last week’s massive cliffhanger. Instead, we make a small jump in time where Alice has decided to bring the truth key to Kady (who’s in a psychiatric ward following her overdose) so that she can find some relief that her boyfriend isn’t totally dead. Instead, having been so wracked with guilt over losing him and blaming herself for not at least condemning his soul to the underworld, she lashes out and in doing so convinces her doctors that she’s more ill than they once believed after seeing video footage of her shouting at thin air. Easily the least developed character despite some heavy subject matter to deal with, this both gives Kady a reason to be separated from the group while also giving her a storyline that is directly her own.

What is so great though is how it takes away the normal beat for beat ask of forgiveness storyline from Penny and the suspected joy we’d see from Kady. Instead she’s pissed and scare – terribly human- all playing well into the shows determination in showcasing these characters as wrecked with trauma and relatable fallible.

The same can be said for the Julia and Alice portion of the episode. Alice finally is given a character to play off of who brings out the best in her (sorry Alice) with Julia who, while going through her own continued PTSD, is convinced that she is needed to help Alice with her own. What they learn over a drink is startling, as Julia, with the help of the truth key learns that there’s more of Reynard left on her than she might’ve imagined, much to her horror. She learns that his power is now hers and it’s a way to double down on Julians righteous sense of agency that she’s developed and pairing the two female characters who have been so stripped of it and inhabited by other beings is an inspired choice. This is especially true when you remember both, at certain times, were fated to be the main romantic interest to who we believed would be our main hero in Quentin. 

The female characters on the show have always been more than the sum of their parts , moving quickly from romantic interests and walking one liners into fully developed and three dimensional characters who arguably (definitely) are the most powerful on the series. Margo (a standout this year) is doing everything in her might to keep her kingdom together and poison the fairy queen (what a sentence). This is, yet again, derailed, as the fairy queen orders Margo be married to another clan who possess a large army. Upon meeting her betrothed she’s delighted until the weasel of a younger brother kills the eldest, at the wedding no less, all in order to enact the lands tradition of the younger familial member picking up the torch in such proceedings. Watching as Margo grapples with these piling catastrophes while simultaneously dealing with the later realization of the mess Eliot and Quentin have gotten themselves into is reminder of how strong of a presence Summer Bishil is, convincing us of both of the characters stubborn nature and near impenetrable force of will while also hinting at the vulnerability just barely being contained underneath.

The true crux of the hour however lies at the heels of Eliot and Quentin. Having been reunites they’re barely given a moments peace before the next chapter in their epic quest is upon them and they must travel back to Fillory to create the mosaic, a beacon of the utmost beauty reflected on them. Upon their return they are momentarily caught up in euphoria at the magic in the air before realizing they’ve traveled deep into the past. Believing they’ll have a decade to solve the puzzle to lead them to the next key, Eliot and Quentin instead go through a lifetime of happy moments together before they’re able to complete their task.

It’s this thread of a storyline, a mere blip on the narrative thread we’ve crossed thus far, that  resonates with the viewer so above and beyond the inherent absurdity of it all and leads to the tremendously moving payoff in the final moments if the episode. It’s the build up to that sun soaked climatic moment which allows it to soar with such a clear, devastating note. We watch Q and El in the early days of their seemingly fruitless task as they grow both increasingly consumed and frustrated with their riddle. We see their highs and lows as they learn to deal with just one another. All of this is backdropped by “Evolve” by Phoria in an inspired musical choice. 

In a quietly lovely moment, on their one year anniversary working on the mosaic where they sleep together again (if you’ve forgotten their threesome with Margo in season one). The Magicians has always treated sexuality with a reassuring fluidity and Quentin and Eliot having sex is hardly a blip on on another’s radar though it does compliment the electrifying chemistry that Jason Ralph and Hale Appleman share. 

As the montage continues, we watch as further developments take place. Quentin is married to a local village girl and they, along with Eliot, form a family and raise a son (until the wife passes away) and they’re content with their lives. Their son eventually leaves, promising to return, and the proceed with their task, working tirelessly work tirelessly until they’re old men who can only recall their friends in dreams.

Eliot passes away and Jane Chatwin arrives, in need of the very key Quentin has just found after a lifetime of searching in order to defeat her brother, otherwise known as the Beast. Despite his efforts, Quentin sees the need for the greater good and also notes the life he’s built for himself. He’s content and he gives it up, having grown wise enough to realize that his quest isn’t the priority in a world full of conflict. 

He passes away and we cut to Margo, on her wedding night, receiving a note from a long passed Quentin, telling her she is the one to continued on the quest and she does leading her back to Brakebills mere seconds before Quentin and Eliot were about to take their fateful journey.

Life is a beautiful, complex and sometimes even simplistic journey. It’s one where we spend so much of our time seeking magic in places it doesn’t exist or beauty in the mundane. “A Life in the Day” argues both that that beauty, that happiness, is all relative, and also, even when your life’s journey doesn’t take you where you expected it to go, the outcome can be just as fulfilling and life affirming as the adventure you thought you’d be setting forth on. There’s humor no doubt and the banter between Quentin and Eliot is as top notch as ever (even Quentin’s “it took us a while” to Jane’s request for the key is golden) but the real soul lies in the empathy it shows for its character and the earnest approach to the passage of time. Director John Scott does marvelous work throughout the episode (the moment Julia learns about Reynard is superb) but the montage is the utmost highlight, a perfect marriage of tone, visuals and expert pacing.

All of this is well and good and lovely but it’s those last moments that strike such a chord. With the music playing in the background as the sun illuminates the throne room, Eliot eats a peach and all of a sudden a wave of deja vu washes over them and they’re able to remember a life that wasn’t ever really truly theirs but another timelines. It’s beautiful, because they can commiserate on a life well spent but equally devastating as they have to deal with what they learned, who they loved and the losses they’ve endured without being able to tangibly hold onto that knowledge, grief or passion. The Magicians, by its nature, has always been a show happy to demonstrate its tongue and cheek humor, and with this weeks episode it pulled off its greatest trick yet in showing its heart.

Over the course of its three seasons, The Magicians have acquired a number of characters – both in leads and in small, yet crucial roles. As the show has evolved from knock off Harry Potter into its own, miraculously delightful and incomprehensibly absurd beast, those characters on the periphery have aided tremendously in the world building. In “Six Short Stories About Magic”, the series once again demonstrates its fearless ability to rewrite expectations, violently shoves the plot in a direction we couldn’t have seen coming, while also shining a light on those supporting players who have so long lived in the shadows of these “heroes”. Not only does it shine a light on their own plights and struggle for heroics, but also, they’re the example made of consequences in this world.

The Magicians, as I’ve gushed endlessly over, is one of the best shows currently airing in large part due to its tenacity for well earned surprises and left turns. They’re fearless in their unpredictability (much like The Good Place,one of my other favorites of the year so far) and they don’t worry about breaking convention; they embrace it for the potential it awards them. What better way to tell another heist story in a manner that introduces the magical (Alice lookalike) being who writes the books in the library than with characters we don’t get the chance to spend as much time with?

It means we get to explore Poppy’s motivations (she’s an asshole who values her life in a manner that’s destructive to others) and Penny’s singular adventure which proves to be a nice reminder of how much of a joy the character is (and how hilarious Arjun Gupta is). We see characters we don’t often view working together, a reminder that a strength in the series lies in the natural chemistry between the cast, meaning a pairing of Fen and Julia or Quentin and Kady works because every character is so meticulously built. Fen and Julia in particular are an inspired pairing, both characters who have been left behind by those they consider friends and/or loved ones, both subjected to trauma by creations made by others. Julia, due to these traumas, is increasingly empathetic while Fen has turned icy, which makes the reveal of a fairy on earth all the more fascinating. The tragedy mounts when we learn that the powder Julia inhaled last week was made out of fairy bones, a chilling revelation that spins the entire perspective on the season. This entire time we’ve grown to believe that the fairies are going to be the “big bad” of the season but, as most things are on The Magicians, it all may be more complex than we’ve imagined.

The big stand out however, is Harriet’s story, told in a manner that films from her point of view with a hearing disability. The actress who plays her, Marlee Matlin (who won an Oscar for her role in Children of a Lesser God), lives with a hearing disability as well and the way in which the show crafts an entire sequence around her grounds the impossible nature of the actions they’re taking in a real sense of reality. The showrunners’ goal was to mirror Matlin/Harriet’s experience and they mightily accomplish this with some inventive sound design.

The emotional impact is lasting as well when we realize she’s the daughter of Zelda, the head librarian of the underworld library where they’re trying to steal magical batteries from (the fairy dust mentioned above). As Harriet tries to escape, she’s stopped in a brutal sequence as she and the traveler they recruited get caught between the mirrors they were traveling through as they’re shattered, pieces of glass whipping past them in violent, soundless fury. It’s a tremendous and daring sequence, and one that more series should try and replicate.

Harriet was essentially a bystander, the traveler a product of necessity for our questers. Penny is trapped once again in the underworld, the group is further splintered and dealing with a huge blow to their journey. It’s a daunting place to be in as they scramble to pick up the pieces and a large reminder that the price for magic is high and that the people caught in the crossfire are mere casualties to a larger quest. The difference with The Magicians is that rather than treat them as just throwaway casualties (red shirts even) they’re fully defined characters who made the mistake of throwing their lot in with a group of self-destructive narcissists who are doing their best to solve an impossible problem. We feel the loss of them because they’re substantial additions to the world we’re exploring.

It’s difficult to convey sincerity in a manner that feels rich and honest. With modern television (a lot of it at least), an earnest moment will often be cut down by a biting remark mere moments after. Sincerity is a token of cheese – it makes for schmaltzy and broad storytelling when crafted by an inept or lazy storyteller. But in the hands of a writer who understands how to utilize that sincerity as a weapon – to catch the audience off guard and further pull them into the show’s orbit, well, then the outcome can be purely magical.

Such has been the case with so much of season three of The Magicians, which, even amid the chaotic mess these characters have found themselves in, has stopped to take the time and appreciate the heart at the center of the series. Said heart is unabashedly present, and while the show can still take time to explore the supernatural, the enslavement of fairies, trauma and the pains of growing up and realizing adulthood doesn’t arrive with the ease childhood may promise, they never fail to realize that at its core, it’s a show about those who feel lost and what ultimately tethers them to reality.

It’s the people they surround themselves with and the makeshift family that’s come from it. They’re splintered and broken and without hope, but when they have a moment to come together – in song no less – it allows them a moment of reprieve,. It all centers on Josh, the character they’ve left behind, who’s found himself in a purgatory of his own making. There’s a moment where Quentin, Alice and Kady are given an exit – one quite literally lit up in neon lights – and they realize their quest here isn’t just to escape a 24-hour party house. It’s also to remain, fight the musical zombies through song, and rescue their friend from once again being left behind as they move forward in their adventure. A character who at times is allotted for little more than pot jokes, he is still critical to the overall quest.

As we’ve learned in the past, all of these characters’ actions have consequences. This ranges from the obvious one where the group’s apathy for Josh leads them to a challenge they need to overcome to Margot’s treatment of the sentient boat a few episodes ago ultimately being what saves her and Eliot from an eternity of painful death. Julia’s slow recognition (and mild acceptance) of her powers is what turns back time to save the fairy from dying from the inside out for using magic, and Frey’s distrust of them is very clearly born from the loss of her daughter. No character is acting on any sort of convoluted or makeshift motivation tailored specifically to the episode at hand. They’re so wondrously constructed that each decision they make is built off a specific moment in their past.

It’s what makes their rendition of “Under Pressure” so affirming and delightful to watch play out. All of them are caught up in dire circumstances, and in this momentary blip of time, united, they have a nudge of hope. Even the way the the lyrics are delegated from Alice and Quentin’s “give love” refrain to Eliot’s line about a family being torn apart to Julia’s build on “it’s the power in knowing” is purposeful and fitting with the characters.

It may not have been the full-out musical episode we might have anticipated (and who knows, maybe season four will deliver wall-to-wall musical numbers), but with a climatic moment as satisfying as “Under Pressure,” it’s hard to ask for more.

As season three of “The Magicians” backs it ascent to its final few episodes of the year, their achievements glow ever brighter in how they’ve continuously fractured storytelling, rebuilt it and surprised us once again. It’s always a pleasure to anticipate just what they’ll catch us off guard with next.

Television is so rarely everything you want it to be. Sure, there are great series and ones that on a technical level stand leagues about this little SyFy show that could, but few have the ability to target the heart of television fans so acutely and with the effervescent wisdom of knowing exactly which aspects of storytelling are universal. Dressed in the trappings of magic, mystical beings and mayhem, The Magicians is a show which is much more about the friendships made in young adulthood, demons faced in an uncertain and increasingly unsteady world and the volatile emotional arena that is the inexplicable unknown. Sure, there may be cursing rabbits, loving relationships between humans and sloths, a sentient boat and worlds inside worlds of alternate universes, but all of these otherworldly aspects and details are cut straight through by the power of unbridled compassion, companionship and loss.

Being an adult is hard and The Magicians understands this and exploits it and both we and the show are the beneficiaries of its acute wisdom. The series had some growing pains until the deep bench of richly drawn characters began to share screen time in perfect balance and the leading hero, Quentin, was established firmly as a player who understood he was far from the series’ main protagonist.  By the time the end of season one rolled over into season two, the series truly began to understand what makes it stand out in a very crowded field.

It’s a vividly told story, one that continually outpaces itself in major occurrences and shakeups, lapping one plot point with the next twist until the story is so rapidly developed that it’s difficult to keep everything in place. That confidence in the audience to keep the hell up and its reliance on the fabulous actors portraying the characters means that The Magicians is able to take risks where other shows would be too timid.

Season three dedicated an entire episode to short vignettes that followed a number of peripheral characters, had a musical episode that culminated in a soaring and unifying sing-along to Queen’s “Under Pressure”, followed by an episode where two of the leading characters lived out a life in a small plot of land, fell in love, raised a family and passed away peacefully just to be ripped back into their proper timeline. It was daring and hauntingly melancholic in some moments and undeniably absurd, poignant and hilarious in others, combining genres and tones that rather than causing an unpleasant dissonance instead resonated in perfect harmony.

Beyond the structure and risk taking there are the characters who so assuredly ground the series wilder moments. The version of Quentin, Julia and co. are unfathomably different than the versions we first met, to the point where the season three cliff-hanger is all the more crushing when the worry about how they’ll find their way back to themselves sets in. Julia, following all of her continued trauma, finds power in healing, offered the position of a god before sacrificing it all to save her friends. Margo and Eliot, the two vain and detached sidekicks of season one, became High King’s (yes, both of them) and care deeply about Filory and their friends – with Eliot risking everything to save Quentin from his self-sacrifice at the end of season three (to possibly devastating results). And Quentin has grown on the micro scale, coming to a place of self-acceptance where he knows what he can do and when to do it, with a moral compass that will push himself through his fears and concerns of the impossible unknown of the future.

Season three ends on a fantastic and frustrating cliffhanger, as we watch the versions of these characters, with their minds wiped, going through life unaffected by magic and torn apart. The kicker comes in the form of Eliot, who has been inhabited by the beast, coming to Quentin to help him enact revenge on those who have done him wrong. It’s unsettling – not only because we’re given a moment of optimism when we believe that, against all odds, Eliot has found Quentin through the fog – but also because it’s such a deconstruction of characters we’ve come to love that there’s a sense of no return that accompanies it.

And while I’d like to think the real Eliot is still possible to save, I’m proactively arming myself for anything but.

The heart of this series is this group of unsuspecting people who found one another when the world turned dark and dire on them. It’s the makeshift bonds of those dealt tough hands in life who recognize the masked pain and tight smiles and the joy that comes when there’s a shared triumph. There’s little doubt this group will find one another again – without that core there is no show – but it will be a journey greatly touched by tension and want as we will them to reunite, save Eliot and continue their paths to better adjusted adults who can both save the day from a monster who presents a threat when bored and unloved.

Maybe I’m  at a point in my life where shows like this mean something more. Where a friend is willing to fire a bullet straight into a monsters heart rather than lose you, or where a young woman who’s endure such trauma is still willing to sacrifice literal parts of herself in order to honor the bravery of her friends – maybe those are moments that touch me so deeply as a twenty something floundering.

Maybe, more than anything, there’s something about Quentin ready to give his life to save magic and his friends not because he wants to, but because through his struggling he’s learned that he can handle it. That at the end of trauma there’s an inner strength that might just compel you save the world after accomplishing saving yourself. It’s that slimmer of hope that against all odds you persevere and you life another day no matter the mounting odds against you, no matter how big or small but in spite of that. The Magicians, in season three and beyond, is a belligerent and defiant rallying of damage and heartache and want, viscerally emotive in its naked, open armed appeal to those in need of relatable escape.

“My entire life, ever since I first read Fillory and Further, I’ve been waiting for some powerful being to come down and say ‘Quentin Coldwater, you are The One.’ Every book, every movie, it’s about one special guy. Chosen. In real life, for every one guy, there are a billion people who aren’t. Almost none of us are The One.”

I am Quentin Coldwater. If you waited for your Hogwarts letter on your eleventh birthday or secretly wished your closet led to a magical world, you’re probably Quentin Coldwater too. If you’re familiar with Lev Grossman’s The Magicians book series or Syfy’s show of the same name, you might be slightly offended at being compared to Quentin. You shouldn’t be, though, because Quentin, sometimes called Q, is the representation of a generation that grew up with Harry Potter. He’s all of us, because he chose to see himself as the hero.

Season one of The Magicians follows Quentin’s discovery of magic. Unlike Harry Potter, whose discovery of magic came at eleven years old, and therefore reveals itself as pure wonderment, Quentin learns of magic as a grad student. There’s still wonderment and awe, but it’s quickly undermined by reality. Q may be attending a magical school, but it’s still school. The disillusionment of magic throughout The Magicians works as a metaphor for the real world. As we become adults, the magic of childhood drifts away from our conscious, or rather, the stress and anxiety of adulthood takes over. This whole idea is so front and center in Grossman’s book that I could barely make it past 50 pages. But the Syfy series lets magic and the realities of adulthood knock against each other, sometimes allowing one to overpower the other, not unlike how we often experience high and low moments in our own lives.

When we first meet Quentin, he’s finishing a stay in a psychiatric hospital. His depression is only occasionally referred to throughout the series, but it’s a clever introduction to a character whose motivations are always tied to his favorite fantasy series, “Fillory and Further,” The Magicians version of The Chronicles of Narnia, with a bit of Harry Potter thrown in. Once he’s accepted into Brakebills, a Hogwarts stand-in (though it looks more like a Division 1 university campus), Q is convinced he’s on his path to destiny. He knows he’s the hero of this story, even before there’s really a story. When his best friend, Julia, doesn’t get accepted into Brakebills, his reaction is to basically tell her she’s not good enough to be a part of the magical world he’s suddenly found himself in. And as soon as the school comes under attack by The Beast, he’s even more convinced he’s the one that can stop him. The Chosen One, so to speak.

It’s not totally his fault. Throughout all of season one, people keep telling him he’s the one that needs to go up against The Beast. Jane Chatwin, the central character of “Fillory and Further” tells him that, Dean Fogg mentions it a time or two, and even his friends begrudgingly admit it. It’s mentioned often enough that Q begins to believe it himself. And it makes sense Q is that person. As Margo puts it:

“There’s this thing about you, Q. You actually believe in magic.”

“So does everyone.”

“No. We all know it’s real, but you believe in it. And you just love it, pure and simple.”

The reason Q is so identifiable is that he hasn’t let go of his belief in magic, or in stories. Q is us if we suddenly stepped in to our favorite fantasy story. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be the hero. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the magic in our lives. But what makes someone stand apart from those brash and daring heroes of legends is when to know this isn’t just your story, and maybe it’s someone else’s turn for glory.

Q’s moment of heroism isn’t when he stands up to The Beast. He’d already done that several times before, in timelines that were being reset because Q was never successful. So he changes it. To Alice, he explains it’s the adult part of him that’s telling him Alice is The One, because she’s the stronger magician. Quentin was never the Chosen One. Rather, his part in the 39 time loops of season one was to die. His part in the last timeline, however, was to grow up. His maturity throughout season one ends with the restoration of his friendship with Julia. Before, when it was made clear to Q Julia didn’t belong at Brakebills, he figured he was meant to be apart of this magical world, while Julia wasn’t. To him, it was destiny. Of course, Julia was supposed to be at Brakebills all along, and in the 39 other timelines, she was. As Q unfolds the mystery of The Beast, he comes to terms with the parts other people, his friends, play in the larger narrative. It’s not just about him. When Julia and Q enter Fillory together for the first time, they’re transported back to their childhood, and all of a sudden, they’re the best friends they were before magic ever happened.

It’s a strong, quiet moment of full character realization. In the following two seasons, Quentin still manages to hold on to his innocent view of magic, sometimes to the detriment of the others around him. When the group is presented a quest in season three, Q’s adamant he’s the one to take on the quest and return magic to the world, forgetting the fact he’s the one who inadvertently lost all the world’s magic. It’s these contradictions, though, that make Q the most human out of everyone. Because sometimes heroes are just regular people, and their intentions may not always be pure, but they can be heroic all the same. That need to be someone important lies in all of us. From our perspective, we are the heroes of our own story. It’s other people, though, that help that story along. Keeping in mind that, to them, they’re on their own quest to discover magic or a dragon or two.

Great series that dabble in the fantasy genre are few and far in-between and when they manage to succeed (such as HBO juggernaut Game of Thrones) they tend to need to straddle the line between the fantastical (dragons!) and deep realism (sexism!swearing!political discord!). When a series manages to soar within those guidelines to be unabashedly soaked in science fiction or magical realism that don’t so much wave off naysayers with a “we’re not like those other shows” shrug but more a flirtatious wink to the audience it’s because they’ve embraced the innate silliness that comes along with a story. What’s more, they take that absurdity and bridge with it allegorical modernity – giving it a time stamp for the why’s and when’s that made it such a cultural touchstone for viewers.

The Magicians, based on the novels by Lev Grossman which premiered it’s fourth season last night is still amounting that audience due to a loyal word of mouth but it’s managed to accrue that viewership because of it’s fantastical roots. It doesn’t shy away from the gutsier storytelling elements that defy logic, nor does it undersell the trauma and mental illnesses that trail many of these characters. It also has a character named “The Great Cock,” a jailed Santa Clause, rabbits that hop between worlds like embittered carrier pigeons and sing-a-longs to Les Miserables and David Bowie. Their narrative steps are confidently boundless, shaking the status quo with every new season in a way that is fresh and focused on creating a engaging journey that allows us to both be swept away while simultaneously identifying aspects of their lives that reflect our own : Julia’s self-discovery, Margo’s reliant but reluctant step in taking on more responsibility and Quentin’s battle with self-worth all resonate because they’re issues most twenty somethings grapple with while still trying to make memories for a lifetime.

Season three was the best version of the show to date with episodes that created alternate lifetimes and storytelling structures that broke the typical mode and ended on not just one, but two egregious cliff hangers. The first was Dean Fogg’s partnership with the library to stop Quentin and co. from returning magic to their world, wiping their memories in the process after they’d spend the majority of the season risking life and limb to do so – Julia even sacrificing her status as Goddess to do so. While the pushing them apart diversion was enough to leave us anticipating the shows return, desperate to see how this ragtag group of friends would somehow make it back together, they once more shocked us with a devastating stinger as we realized Eliot in full never made it out of the castle, possessed by the monster he’d tried to kill to save Quentin’s life. They teased us with hope as he walked up to Quentin before very abruptly tearing it away.

The show has never been shy about upending expectations.

As one of the shows indisputable favorites who has two of the best dynamics in the series with Margo and Quentin, it’s not at a point yet where we should be totally fearful for Eliot’s safety and there’s so many ways to ensure drama without killing characters off but it’s difficult not to worry some that we won’t be seeing Eliot again for a very long time, if at all.

The premiere of season four picks up where we left off as all the characters are living life in their new persona’s aside from Alice who’s imprisoned by the library. It’s a fun way for the show to deviate and allow the performers to embody characters foreign from their own but it isn’t long before they’re already beginning to come together, filling in the gaps left in their memory. The problems aren’t resolved – far from it – and Quentin is still stuck with the Eliot impersonator but it’s moving at a clip that fits the shows format of never resting too long on one note. It’s energized and exciting and characters such as Kady get to take on more dominant roles while Margo’s ties to Filory are greater strengthened, even if she isn’t able to believe what she’s seeing.

The Magicians has managed to take the mind-wipe trope and invigorate it with a refreshing spin with a playfulness that is the backbone of the series. What’s hilarious is that they’re all (pointedly as you learn) playing archetypes as their alter-egos, versions of characters such as the bad ass cop and no nonsense business woman we might see in any other, lesser, series and what makes them so endlessly entertaining is our knowledge of how non-conforming these characters and their countless quirks are.

We’re only an episode on and already season four is delivering on it’s name’s promise to bring us something delectably magical. Our characters are in peril and the show always seems on the precipice of taking one too many accelerated steps as it eagerly tries to outpace itself, but where’s the adventure without the risk?

Following last weeks episode where watched as Margo allowed the monster to kill a God for the sake of possibly saving her friend and Quentin learned that his father had passed away when he’d had his memory wiped, “Marry…Kill” isn’t so much a reprieve from the sadder tone the show had struck as it is a stepping stone for where the series will be going next

It’s refreshing to see the characters granted a moment to take a knee and process the repressed grief they’ve been burying and the fear they’ve been running from as it chases to catch up. Margo and Quentin take center stage as they’re deal with the fallout of watching Eliot be totally possessed by a horrendous monster. Summer Bishil in particular impresses as she gets to play both her dry comedic support while also carrying the weight of one of the most devastating moments of the episode.

For a show that runs at lightning fast speed through storylines it always knows when we need a second to breathe. From season’s twos “Skip Day” to last years “A Day in a Life” when The Magicians chooses to slow down it does so with a grace that demonstrates a series that has an innate understanding of the emotional foundation is works on. We couldn’t just charge through material that required a moment of contemplation so we took two routes to grieving: we watched as Quentin directly worked with it in a manner he thought was appropriate while Margo chose avoidance and deflection. Both in the end are, as to be expected, derailed. In Margo’s case she’s got a grievous situation to deal with as Josh is about to undergo the turning where he’ll have to kill or have sex with someone in order to stave off his more uncontrollable urges, much to his chagrin as he has no desire to do either.

Josh has gone from being a mere blip on the radar to an integral portion of the cast because despite the fact that he at this point is the least human (Julia aside) he possesses the most humanity. He is the audience insert but rarely shows cowardice when it’s important, standing up to those around him who try and belittle or dismiss his concerns. Pairing him with Margo is a genius choice as it forces him to raise his hackles and her to offer moments of vulnerability. The latter’s motivations to help him without second thought and to do so with little thought of her own safety all makes more sense when we realize she believes Eliot to be dead. So when she seemingly has a death wish and locks herself in a cage with Josh, only after to tell him the two can have sex because while she can’t take away his disease, she can at least consent, the moment is punctuated by a sense of desperation. Yes, the moment between the two after is sweet and her comment about not living long enough for the time the turning would make her find a sacrificial lamb darkly humorous considering the lives of this group, but there’s an underlying thread of despair that cuts straight through the laughter and afterglow and straight to her pained eyes as she comes to the Eliot realization.

Similarly, Quentin must come to this understanding as he cleans out his fathers old storage of model airplanes that he’s never going to live up to the standards those in his past life held for him. In a sweetly marcbe moment, the monster even gives Quentin a moment of catharsis as he mossies in, munching on frozen peas, and asks him why he’s following the rules of his mother, who expects him to fail at every turn. So, with the Eliot Monster’s help, he tears into the room, throwing model airplanes against the wall and smashing them to pieces as he tries and break free of the grief that has him in a vice grip. As he tells the monster, he’s not over his sadness, but over time it will lessen. To which, he’s given the bombshell that Eliot is dead, that the monster felt his soul go out like a flame but that he didn’t suffer. He figures the sooner Quentin knows the sooner he’ll be able to be happy and help him on his continued quest to kill gods. It’s a staggering moment for both the audience and Quentin but it only keeps the breath locked in your chest for a moment before flinging us into the where Eliot is trapped inside the monster alone but very much alive.

Elsewhere in the story there’s a side story where Julia and 23 Penny venture to Fillory to learn more about her powers. More than anything it’s a chance to show off Stella Maeve and Arjun Gupta’s excellent chemistry as he must reconcile his feelings for 23 Julia and the would be goddess standing in front of him. It’s sweet and tender and, like the moments aforementioned, allow the characters time to both discover more about themselves while moving along the plot at a steadier pace.

It’s a solid episode of the series that hints more at what’s to come than packs itself to the brim, something that’s necessary for the show every once in a while. Underneath all the battles and plotting there are still damaged individuals in dire need of healing and little time do so, something that “Marry…Kill” goes out of its way to express. 2

How much more can you ask for in a television series than the ability to elicit such high strung reactions of joy with the simple words “peaches and plums motherfucker?” Since its inception The Magicians has dared to go bolder than any of its predecessors, but only once they shook off the familiar trappings of over familiar genre setups; season one was mere table dressing compared to the places it’s since gone with such gleeful abandonment you can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t planned all along. Disguised as a show about a straight, white twenty-something selected as the chosen one before upending everything, the lead became canonically bisexual (or pan – though it’s never truly noted) and the fiercest combatants on the series are women, and primarily women of color at that. It’s not a bar clearing that should feel as monumental as it does and on its own is revelatory enough to warrant a watch, but it’s what is done with the characters who burn down tropes at every corner that make it so uniquely peculiar and expectation shattering. To be a fan of The Magicians is to work in hyperbole simply because nothing else quite does it justice. In the fifth episode of season four, quite like it did in last season’s tremendous fifth episode, Sera Gamble and the rest of the showrunners have once again created something that truly lives up to the hype, doled out with equal measures trepidation and whimsy, filled with as much grief as there is hope. Further breaking down barriers of where we’ve expected it to swerve next, and it’s possibly the most romantic thing the show has done to date.

“Q – I’m sorry. I was afraid and when I’m afraid I run away.”

There’s plenty more that happens in this episode, all of it equally fascinating in terms of what we continue to learn about the characters we’ve come to so deeply care about. Margo, after being given such standout moments last week, takes something of a backseat here yet her resolute nature is on display throughout as she channels her natural ferocity into getting Fillory back into working order. This consists of placing her emotions on the backburner, telling Fen that she can’t allow herself to feel because if she does she might never stop and that’s no way to get started on accomplishing anything.

Penny and Julia (who shared electric chemistry in their moments in the last episode) aren’t given nearly enough to do, though we do see Penny kidnapped (or at least knocked out by a strange assailant) and Julia learning the hard way (again) about the unbeknownst collateral consequences of being a Goddess. People who follow her will die – and do so needlessly. As she’s told rather bluntly, she’s got the worst bits of human and gods in her right now, rendering her powerless and immortal and forcing her learning how to balance immense knowledge and passion without any actual power to save lives. Julia has always been the true golden-hearted heroine of this story, good even after seeing the worst the world has to offer, selfless even after being brutally hurt. She’s always going to face challenges, making for such an enthralling hero through her simple perseverance of heart and intellect and not due to any gift she was bestowed or born with.

On the other end of that spectrum, Alice has always been the show’s most naturally gifted character, though she’s rarely the most enjoyable one to spend time with. This hasn’t dramatically changed, but seeing her in control of her own narrative and actively searching for a sense of redemption is a smart way to take a character who too often has been separated from the main drama. We care so much for Quentin, Margo, Eliot, Penny and Julia (even Josh to a degree) not just because of their own defining personalities and quirks, but because of the relationships they share. Julia and Quentin’s friendship, Margo and Eliot’s soulmate attraction, even Penny’s sardonic foil to the rest all make for dynamics that are rich in thematic weight and unfortunately, Alice has only ever shared that level of narrative substance with Quentin, who works much better with the others.

“If I ever get out of here Q – know that when I’m braver it’s because I learned it from you.”

From the start Eliot has been one of the shows most well-rounded characters, in large part due to Hale Appleman’s lethargic, elfish charm that makes him a perfect fit for this world. Quentin was on shakier ground when he was first introduced but from season two on there was a clever subversion through committed work by Jason Ralph and the writers that made sure we saw through all of the cracks in Q’s persona in a manner that flirted with steely vulnerability rather than any of the nice guy fragility that made him previously so hard to like. Together, as we saw with last year’s “A Day in the Life” and with this weeks “Escape From the Happy Place” these two are a duo that do their best work together, and they might be the most romantically suitable pairing on the show to date.

It’s a thrill to realize this hasn’t all been wishful thinking. After spending a lifetime together and having slept together at least twice, in this episode we realize that Eliot’s most shameful moment in a lifetime full of embarrassments, regrets and trauma is the moment where he brushed aside Quentin’s very sincere suggestion that they try and make an honest attempt at a relationship. Blocking this moment out and in attempting to reach his friends through a door in a memory scarred with the severity of ill-conceived abandonment –  all excellently juxtaposed with the “happy place” where he’s safe from the beasts locked with him inside the monster – Eliot is for the first time able to look at himself truthfully. Not liking what he sees, he promises Quentin that if he manages to get out and if they can save him, then he’ll be better, braver and maybe, just maybe, give him a different answer than before.

“50 years! Who gets proof of concept like that. Peaches and plums motherfucker. I’m alive in here.”

Eliot breaks through, if only for a moment, but the shift is remarkably dramatic as Quentin goes from being ready to say goodbye to one of his best friends forever to brashly ruining their plans by saving him. Eliot gets through because of a memory only the two of them have, one of concrete evidence that they work together. Alice and Julia might’ve been the ones seemingly poised as Quentin’s main love interests from the start, but maybe he’s been meant to get the boy all along.

Perhaps this isn’t how the show will go down, though if that’s the case it will quite the shame because so few (if any) shows are as self-assured in their storytelling and audience to take what is considered such a turn from most typical, heteronormative storytelling beats.

What matters now, however, is the idea of two lost souls barrelling at one another when all seems lost. Eliot was the first person Quentin met at Brakebills and it’s Quentin who jettisons Eliot into the brief moment of agency over his body to let his friends know that he’s alive. Maybe they aren’t the main couple of the series, if there’s even meant to be one, but their stories keep finding ways to weave themselves into a tangled knot that is getting tighter the longer the tales get, the to-be continued that keeps anchoring the strongest and most climatic moments of the show. There’s a draw to these two characters who battled with deep loneliness and senses of purpose, who have been written as being depressed and hopeless but have laid it all on the line in the past to protect their loved ones who have started to fill in their missing pieces.

If anything, “Escape From the Happy Place” celebrates these lost and buried traumas because they remind us of not just who we are, but what we can manage to overcome. There have been so many monsters on the show who turned down that path because of past horrors suffered through, further inflicting pain on others because it’s all they know and remember. What makes the characters of The Magicians so special and so deeply flawed is that they too have endured and suffered, but have managed to redefine their pain into a purpose greater than the sum of its parts. In Eliot’s case, after what he’s gone through and after seeing what there is to live for, it finally makes the fight against the monster trapping him in his own body no longer hopeless.

So many spoilers ahead!

Season four of The Magicians was always going to struggle in its ability to live up to its predecessor, one of the best seasons of television in recent memory. For the most part it found success with episode to episode moments of greatness that couldn’t conceal a messier over-arching plot that revealed itself fully in the last few episodes. And now, following the decision to kill Quentin off the show, the showrunners are going to need to deal with clunky plotting that resulted in memorable sequences but narratives which were often frustratingly inconsequential.

Julia goes the entire season grappling with what it means to be part human and part God only to have the decision to choose one or the other taken from her while she’s unconscious, relegated to a romantic subplot that didn’t offer a similar impact. Julia has always been disserviced by the show, despite arguably being the most interesting part of since in season one, a potential that was all but forgotten. Similarly, Eliot being possessed by a monster lead to a staggeringly tremendous episode that again, only led to annoyance with the promise of declarative love wasn’t ever to be acted on as real Eliot and Quentin never were given a moment to share together by the time Quentin had made his sacrifice. It’s made all the more damning when we realize how secondary the monster was when, once again, it’s the Library acting as the big bad at the season’s conclusion. Even Alice and Q’s romance was shoehorned in at the end despite the show taking great strides in finally making her a viable and interesting character outside of that dynamic.

It was a frustrating season, but one that sparkled with momentary beauty of character insight, most often when it came to Margo. Even the finale has moments of greatness and in particular it last 20 minutes, which were stunningly shot and created a greater sense of universality as we see Hedge Witches all over the globe working in tandem to stop the monsters (both literal and potential) and gain back magic. Unfortunately, any strengths of the season will always be injected with a sense of bitter sweetness of “what if’s” regarding a character who’s grown from being the least interesting on the show to the one who contained the series heart.

The Magicians has always worn the identity of a mid-to-late twenty something grappling with themselves with depth and complexity. The characters possess such power at their fingertips and the hope of endless possibilities (like so many blissed out early 20 somethings naively feel) but are completely lost in what to do with it. Over the seasons they’ve gone through real life events such as addiction and assault, new career paths and sexual identities, relationships that come and go just to return again and triumphs that quickly turn to more challenges. All of this has been filtered through the magical lens and, ultimately, we were always destined to arrive at a point where death was their latest hurdle.

The pain and frustration that comes with losing a believed character often is twofold: it’s both about the loss and how it’s handled and, at the very least, Q’s death was handled relatively well. There’s a real sense of mourning that comes along with Quentin’s split second decision, one that even in the underworld we give witness to as he grieves having only one last chance to look at the friends and loved ones he’s about to leave behind. It’s palpable as Q weeps at the notion that this was an irreversible act and that the next step forward is an unknowable one, even if Penny’s is a comforting, familiar face to give him his final rights before stepping further into potential oblivion.

On one hand it was a remarkably evocative goodbye, one where we see how one life can both touch and change so many for the better. Quentin didn’t just enter Eliot, Alice and Julia’s life to be a friend forgotten with time but a crucial individual who would help shape their worlds and make them stronger by association. His, like so many others, was a life of staggeringly rich connections and it’s a vacancy in both the character’s and show’s world that won’t go unnoticed, even as they venture forward into new adventures in season five. Quentin was more than a deck of cards, a forgotten crown, an acceptance letter or bitten peach. He was a source of love, compassion and determination that made those totems so crucially representative of the man he became over the shows run, transforming from a timid would-be leading man to a hero accepting his fate as someone destined to mend small objects. The smallest cracks can cause great foundations to crumble, so where there was room to perceive his focus as uninspired or weak, perhaps instead we were always meant to see him as the glue.

Despite all this some of that beautiful, metamorphic tragedy is lost when it’s further contextualized and we remember all of the character beats that lead us to this point, specifically his mental health. As recently as the penultimate episode, Quentin spoke of his depression and how the magical land Filory (which in his adulthood would turn out to be more real and bleak than he could ever imagine) helped keep him alive, lifting his spirits when nothing else could keep the monsters from under the bed or the dark clouds at bay. How many of us have looked to works of transfixing fantasy as a means to spread an escapist balm on mental wounds that have festered overtime? We immerse ourselves in fiction to transport ourselves elsewhere and it was just one small part of Q that was easy to relate to, that made him impossibly human in a world overflowing with magic.

Characters die. And, in the case of Quentin, he got as fitting and superbly performed send off as any character could these days when deaths are intended more to shock than move. The mourning for fans of the show is a collective one because so many of us saw ourselves in Quentin’s ordinary nature striving to guard his heart while simultaneously risking it all to be better – larger than even the heroes of his childhood fables. His pain was rooted in a reality so many of us understand and it meant that his triumphs and losses felt greater than they were. There was a clear delicacy in how the showrunners orchestrated his departure, even allowing his death scene itself some form of transcendent beauty as he seemingly transforms into sparkling matter, rather than simply perishing before us. Regardless, the initial response is one where it feels like after the season he had it was a misstep.

Quentin confesses to Penny that he’s worried that his act in the mirror world wasn’t one of quick thinking courage to save his friends, but a moment where he could commit suicide and none would be the wiser. Penny’s answer to this is to show him how his life touched that of his friends as they tearfully sing “Take On Me” and asks him if he really thinks it could have been a choice to leave all of that behind?

While it’s perfectly acceptable to have a character dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts die by acts that aren’t based on their mental illness, it seems a greater shame to dismiss a character (recently affirmed to have non-heteronormative leanings at that) and his entire arc with such questionable logic. The character has grown leaps and bounds since the start and has been largely aided by a steely but vulnerable performance by Jason Ralph, but even though his demise came at the time of a self-reflecting realization it also came after a season where he was detached, angry and defiant in the face of real danger. A greater and more fulfilling ending would have been to allow Quentin reprieve – of unburdened happiness. Instead, we were left to flounder as relationships were either left in open ended status such as his and Alice’s, or never allowed the time to flourish like they’d been promised such as his and Eliot’s (a particular cheat fans are feeling burned by.)

There was such an intuitive beauty in Quentin’s ability to see light even in his darkest days, a cog in a bigger picture whose want for a just world and capacity for love was able to transform those around him. A mender of small things, Q’s reach was far and wide, encompassing those he touched like a smattering of golden flakes – undoubtedly fragile but magically transformative as it catches the light.

Heroism has always been at the heart of The Magicians. But that’s only because heroism plays a role in our regular lives and exists in many different forms. There are many types of heroes out there and The Magicians was always good at subverting what that term actually means for regular people.

Quentin Coldwater spends much of season one believing he’s the Chosen One. A common literary trope, the “chosen one” is at the heart of all heroic journeys: a seemingly normal person learns they’re something special and/or they have a big role to play in some larger world-ending threat. In fantasy, this is more explicit, but the “chosen one” narrative can take shape in any form. Typically, this person refuses the call initially and then through some obstacles (usually involving the loss of loved ones) finds their way to fulfilling their destiny. What’s so profound about someone like Quentin – who, yes, does exist in a fantasy world and occupies the role of the “chosen one” – is that he ultimately learns he isn’t living the narrative of the heroes he’s read about in other stories. He is not, in fact, the chosen one.

Season one culminates in this realization. To Alice, Quentin sums up the first season in a short bit of dialogue:

“My entire life, ever since I first read Fillory and Further, I’ve been waiting for some powerful being to come down and say ‘Quentin Coldwater, you are The One.’ Every book, every movie, it’s about one special guy. Chosen. In real life, for every one guy, there are a billion people who aren’t. Almost none of us are The One.”

Quentin’s statement is further exemplified when it’s Alice who takes on The Beast. Quentin’s moment of heroism then comes from him letting go of this fantasy he built up in his head that to sacrifice himself meant his life was worth something. Or, more simply put, that “destiny is bullshit,” as he says to Eliot during their crowning ceremony in the season two premiere.

If we’re talking about subverting the typical white male heroic journey, The Magicians accomplished that way back in season one when their white male protagonist realized that maybe this story isn’t really his, at least when it comes to the big characters-stepping-into-their-heroic-roles moment. A female is the more powerful magician and takes on the Big Bad of the season and an out queer character becomes the prophesied High King of Fillory (almost in the same way the Pevensie children become the Kings and Queens of Narnia). There’s even a trial here, one that Quentin was sure he was going to pass.

Looking at this early arc for Quentin on the heels of the season four finale, “No Better to be Safe Than Sorry,” in which Quentin does take on the more typical hero death, the missteps from this season are even more apparent. Suddenly, the heroic death becomes the pivotal moment for another subversion, according to showrunners Sera Gamble and John McNamara. Namely, that the character who was supposed to be safe, isn’t. In doing so, The Magicians goes back on their original idea that the white male protagonist isn’t the hero.

Pop culturally, we’re living in a time when sacrificial deaths no longer are the epitome of a character’s potential. In season seven of Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen speaks of heroes as people “who do stupid things and then die.” It’s important to note that in this conversation with Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys distinguishes bravery from heroism. While Game of Thrones is populated with mythic stories and legends of brave knights and Azor Ahai, those identities are so clouded in mystery they become a mere afterthought, at least to the characters who, from a bird’s eye view, occupy those roles. Not to mention, Jon Snow, heroic in his morality, dies at the end of season five by the hands of his brothers and is resurrected in the early episodes of season six. (Interesting to note that in the interviews following his character’s death, Kit Harrington also said he wasn’t coming back to the show.)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi also questions the traditional idea of heroism. Poe believes he’s not doing all he can if he’s not going in guns blazing, something he argues is the only way to take on their enemies. General Leia has a different approach, however, a more calculated plan of action. The more smart one, too. The idea that heroism has to be sexy or that being a martyr is the only way to prove you’ve done everything you can is long past.

Killing off your white male protagonist isn’t revolutionary. Not only because it’s been done before, but also because by calling this a subversion of the white male hero, it ignores all the other facets that make up Quentin Coldwater: his queerness, his depression, and his history with dealing with his mental illness. There’s also his capacity for love, not just for his friends but also for the stories he grew up reading. If The Magicians takes its roots from The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter, then Quentin is the embodiment of the generation who grew up reading those stories and wishing they could walk right into a field of natural light and be asked to take an exam for a magical university.

In season one, the chosen one myth is taken down a peg. So maybe it’s more about bravery than heroism. Afterall, what makes us brave are the people who go on these journeys with us and how we choose to tackle the challenges we’re faced with. There’s no need for martyrdom. In the season three finale, “Will You Play With Me?”, Quentin attempts to take on the sacrifice by being the one to stay in Blackspire for an eternity as babysitter to a powerful god. Eliot and Alice both attempt to stop him, but it’s Eliot’s words that are the most important: “I didn’t actually agree on anything. But I did decide that one of my best friends wouldn’t spend the rest of his life locked in a prison guarding what turns out to be not a really scary monster.” Again, The Magicians says this destiny thing is kind of bullshit.

So what happened in season four? Quentin’s journey comes full circle. In a time when he wasn’t vying to be the Chosen One, he sacrifices himself. He asks Penny40 whether he died saving his friends or did he just find a way to kill himself. The show seems to say that because his friends will forever be changed for knowing him, of course his depression didn’t play into his final act. By saying this, it forgets everything that happened to Quentin during the rest of season four. The death of his father, his drive to save Eliot, his disillusionment with Fillory, his incredibly terrifying moments of self destruction. They all play into “No Better to Be Safe Than Sorry,” but why is this the send off for a character that represented so much of its audience?

He’s not okay and he hasn’t been okay for a whole season. And not being okay is okay. But in the stories we watch, it’s better to see someone fight to have the strength to be okay. Ending his story while he’s still disillusioned with everything he once believed doesn’t feel revolutionary because, well, it’s a major bummer. When thinking of the The Magicians as a metaphor for adult life, especially adults in their twenties, when life can feel like a roller coaster of highs and lows, when the disillusionment of childhood informs the first moments of adulthood, Quentin’s end feels even more like a blow. In season four’s 12th episode, “The Secret Sea,” Quentin asks the Drowned Garden, “Shouldn’t loving the idea of Fillory be enough?” For accessing the secret sea, it seemed to be. So, why isn’t it enough to save his life in the end?

How incredibly more moving Quentin’s journey would have been if it had culminated in hearing Eliot’s words in real life: “When I get out of here, know that when I’m brave it’s because of you.” It doesn’t take a hero to be brave, but it does take bravery to change people’s lives, not through sacrifice, but through the seemingly small actions taken in their everyday lives. Perhaps it’s in taking a risk with a relationship or rekindling one. Or maybe it’s in admitting you’re not okay. How wonderful it would have been if it was words that had saved the day, rather than a noble sacrifice?

Few genres and themes have been left unturned on The Magicians. From broad humor to tragic romance, musical numbers, bloody murder and epic duels and a general sense of ennui, we’ve seemingly seen it all within the confines of this little show that could. That being said, have we ever seen them languish so completely in melancholy as we did in tonight’s beautifully peculiar and achingly earnest “A Life in The Day”?

Picking up where we last left off, the series once again subverts expectations by refusing to let us linger on last week’s massive cliffhanger. Instead, we make a small jump in time where Alice has decided to bring the truth key to Kady (who’s in a psychiatric ward following her overdose) so that she can find some relief that her boyfriend isn’t totally dead. Instead, having been so wracked with guilt over losing him and blaming herself for not at least condemning his soul to the underworld, she lashes out and in doing so convinces her doctors that she’s more ill than they once believed after seeing video footage of her shouting at thin air. Easily the least developed character despite some heavy subject matter to deal with, this both gives Kady a reason to be separated from the group while also giving her a storyline that is directly her own.

What is so great though is how it takes away the normal beat for beat ask of forgiveness storyline from Penny and the suspected joy we’d see from Kady. Instead she’s pissed and scare – terribly human- all playing well into the shows determination in showcasing these characters as wrecked with trauma and relatable fallible.

The same can be said for the Julia and Alice portion of the episode. Alice finally is given a character to play off of who brings out the best in her (sorry Alice) with Julia who, while going through her own continued PTSD, is convinced that she is needed to help Alice with her own. What they learn over a drink is startling, as Julia, with the help of the truth key learns that there’s more of Reynard left on her than she might’ve imagined, much to her horror. She learns that his power is now hers and it’s a way to double down on Julians righteous sense of agency that she’s developed and pairing the two female characters who have been so stripped of it and inhabited by other beings is an inspired choice. This is especially true when you remember both, at certain times, were fated to be the main romantic interest to who we believed would be our main hero in Quentin. 

The female characters on the show have always been more than the sum of their parts , moving quickly from romantic interests and walking one liners into fully developed and three dimensional characters who arguably (definitely) are the most powerful on the series. Margo (a standout this year) is doing everything in her might to keep her kingdom together and poison the fairy queen (what a sentence). This is, yet again, derailed, as the fairy queen orders Margo be married to another clan who possess a large army. Upon meeting her betrothed she’s delighted until the weasel of a younger brother kills the eldest, at the wedding no less, all in order to enact the lands tradition of the younger familial member picking up the torch in such proceedings. Watching as Margo grapples with these piling catastrophes while simultaneously dealing with the later realization of the mess Eliot and Quentin have gotten themselves into is reminder of how strong of a presence Summer Bishil is, convincing us of both of the characters stubborn nature and near impenetrable force of will while also hinting at the vulnerability just barely being contained underneath.

The true crux of the hour however lies at the heels of Eliot and Quentin. Having been reunites they’re barely given a moments peace before the next chapter in their epic quest is upon them and they must travel back to Fillory to create the mosaic, a beacon of the utmost beauty reflected on them. Upon their return they are momentarily caught up in euphoria at the magic in the air before realizing they’ve traveled deep into the past. Believing they’ll have a decade to solve the puzzle to lead them to the next key, Eliot and Quentin instead go through a lifetime of happy moments together before they’re able to complete their task.

It’s this thread of a storyline, a mere blip on the narrative thread we’ve crossed thus far, that  resonates with the viewer so above and beyond the inherent absurdity of it all and leads to the tremendously moving payoff in the final moments if the episode. It’s the build up to that sun soaked climatic moment which allows it to soar with such a clear, devastating note. We watch Q and El in the early days of their seemingly fruitless task as they grow both increasingly consumed and frustrated with their riddle. We see their highs and lows as they learn to deal with just one another. All of this is backdropped by “Evolve” by Phoria in an inspired musical choice. 

In a quietly lovely moment, on their one year anniversary working on the mosaic where they sleep together again (if you’ve forgotten their threesome with Margo in season one). The Magicians has always treated sexuality with a reassuring fluidity and Quentin and Eliot having sex is hardly a blip on on another’s radar though it does compliment the electrifying chemistry that Jason Ralph and Hale Appleman share. 

As the montage continues, we watch as further developments take place. Quentin is married to a local village girl and they, along with Eliot, form a family and raise a son (until the wife passes away) and they’re content with their lives. Their son eventually leaves, promising to return, and the proceed with their task, working tirelessly work tirelessly until they’re old men who can only recall their friends in dreams.

Eliot passes away and Jane Chatwin arrives, in need of the very key Quentin has just found after a lifetime of searching in order to defeat her brother, otherwise known as the Beast. Despite his efforts, Quentin sees the need for the greater good and also notes the life he’s built for himself. He’s content and he gives it up, having grown wise enough to realize that his quest isn’t the priority in a world full of conflict. 

He passes away and we cut to Margo, on her wedding night, receiving a note from a long passed Quentin, telling her she is the one to continued on the quest and she does leading her back to Brakebills mere seconds before Quentin and Eliot were about to take their fateful journey.

Life is a beautiful, complex and sometimes even simplistic journey. It’s one where we spend so much of our time seeking magic in places it doesn’t exist or beauty in the mundane. “A Life in the Day” argues both that that beauty, that happiness, is all relative, and also, even when your life’s journey doesn’t take you where you expected it to go, the outcome can be just as fulfilling and life affirming as the adventure you thought you’d be setting forth on. There’s humor no doubt and the banter between Quentin and Eliot is as top notch as ever (even Quentin’s “it took us a while” to Jane’s request for the key is golden) but the real soul lies in the empathy it shows for its character and the earnest approach to the passage of time. Director John Scott does marvelous work throughout the episode (the moment Julia learns about Reynard is superb) but the montage is the utmost highlight, a perfect marriage of tone, visuals and expert pacing.

All of this is well and good and lovely but it’s those last moments that strike such a chord. With the music playing in the background as the sun illuminates the throne room, Eliot eats a peach and all of a sudden a wave of deja vu washes over them and they’re able to remember a life that wasn’t ever really truly theirs but another timelines. It’s beautiful, because they can commiserate on a life well spent but equally devastating as they have to deal with what they learned, who they loved and the losses they’ve endured without being able to tangibly hold onto that knowledge, grief or passion. The Magicians, by its nature, has always been a show happy to demonstrate its tongue and cheek humor, and with this weeks episode it pulled off its greatest trick yet in showing its heart.

Over the course of its three seasons, The Magicians have acquired a number of characters – both in leads and in small, yet crucial roles. As the show has evolved from knock off Harry Potter into its own, miraculously delightful and incomprehensibly absurd beast, those characters on the periphery have aided tremendously in the world building. In “Six Short Stories About Magic”, the series once again demonstrates its fearless ability to rewrite expectations, violently shoves the plot in a direction we couldn’t have seen coming, while also shining a light on those supporting players who have so long lived in the shadows of these “heroes”. Not only does it shine a light on their own plights and struggle for heroics, but also, they’re the example made of consequences in this world.

The Magicians, as I’ve gushed endlessly over, is one of the best shows currently airing in large part due to its tenacity for well earned surprises and left turns. They’re fearless in their unpredictability (much like The Good Place,one of my other favorites of the year so far) and they don’t worry about breaking convention; they embrace it for the potential it awards them. What better way to tell another heist story in a manner that introduces the magical (Alice lookalike) being who writes the books in the library than with characters we don’t get the chance to spend as much time with?

It means we get to explore Poppy’s motivations (she’s an asshole who values her life in a manner that’s destructive to others) and Penny’s singular adventure which proves to be a nice reminder of how much of a joy the character is (and how hilarious Arjun Gupta is). We see characters we don’t often view working together, a reminder that a strength in the series lies in the natural chemistry between the cast, meaning a pairing of Fen and Julia or Quentin and Kady works because every character is so meticulously built. Fen and Julia in particular are an inspired pairing, both characters who have been left behind by those they consider friends and/or loved ones, both subjected to trauma by creations made by others. Julia, due to these traumas, is increasingly empathetic while Fen has turned icy, which makes the reveal of a fairy on earth all the more fascinating. The tragedy mounts when we learn that the powder Julia inhaled last week was made out of fairy bones, a chilling revelation that spins the entire perspective on the season. This entire time we’ve grown to believe that the fairies are going to be the “big bad” of the season but, as most things are on The Magicians, it all may be more complex than we’ve imagined.

The big stand out however, is Harriet’s story, told in a manner that films from her point of view with a hearing disability. The actress who plays her, Marlee Matlin (who won an Oscar for her role in Children of a Lesser God), lives with a hearing disability as well and the way in which the show crafts an entire sequence around her grounds the impossible nature of the actions they’re taking in a real sense of reality. The showrunners’ goal was to mirror Matlin/Harriet’s experience and they mightily accomplish this with some inventive sound design.

The emotional impact is lasting as well when we realize she’s the daughter of Zelda, the head librarian of the underworld library where they’re trying to steal magical batteries from (the fairy dust mentioned above). As Harriet tries to escape, she’s stopped in a brutal sequence as she and the traveler they recruited get caught between the mirrors they were traveling through as they’re shattered, pieces of glass whipping past them in violent, soundless fury. It’s a tremendous and daring sequence, and one that more series should try and replicate.

Harriet was essentially a bystander, the traveler a product of necessity for our questers. Penny is trapped once again in the underworld, the group is further splintered and dealing with a huge blow to their journey. It’s a daunting place to be in as they scramble to pick up the pieces and a large reminder that the price for magic is high and that the people caught in the crossfire are mere casualties to a larger quest. The difference with The Magicians is that rather than treat them as just throwaway casualties (red shirts even) they’re fully defined characters who made the mistake of throwing their lot in with a group of self-destructive narcissists who are doing their best to solve an impossible problem. We feel the loss of them because they’re substantial additions to the world we’re exploring.

It’s difficult to convey sincerity in a manner that feels rich and honest. With modern television (a lot of it at least), an earnest moment will often be cut down by a biting remark mere moments after. Sincerity is a token of cheese – it makes for schmaltzy and broad storytelling when crafted by an inept or lazy storyteller. But in the hands of a writer who understands how to utilize that sincerity as a weapon – to catch the audience off guard and further pull them into the show’s orbit, well, then the outcome can be purely magical.

Such has been the case with so much of season three of The Magicians, which, even amid the chaotic mess these characters have found themselves in, has stopped to take the time and appreciate the heart at the center of the series. Said heart is unabashedly present, and while the show can still take time to explore the supernatural, the enslavement of fairies, trauma and the pains of growing up and realizing adulthood doesn’t arrive with the ease childhood may promise, they never fail to realize that at its core, it’s a show about those who feel lost and what ultimately tethers them to reality.

It’s the people they surround themselves with and the makeshift family that’s come from it. They’re splintered and broken and without hope, but when they have a moment to come together – in song no less – it allows them a moment of reprieve,. It all centers on Josh, the character they’ve left behind, who’s found himself in a purgatory of his own making. There’s a moment where Quentin, Alice and Kady are given an exit – one quite literally lit up in neon lights – and they realize their quest here isn’t just to escape a 24-hour party house. It’s also to remain, fight the musical zombies through song, and rescue their friend from once again being left behind as they move forward in their adventure. A character who at times is allotted for little more than pot jokes, he is still critical to the overall quest.

As we’ve learned in the past, all of these characters’ actions have consequences. This ranges from the obvious one where the group’s apathy for Josh leads them to a challenge they need to overcome to Margot’s treatment of the sentient boat a few episodes ago ultimately being what saves her and Eliot from an eternity of painful death. Julia’s slow recognition (and mild acceptance) of her powers is what turns back time to save the fairy from dying from the inside out for using magic, and Frey’s distrust of them is very clearly born from the loss of her daughter. No character is acting on any sort of convoluted or makeshift motivation tailored specifically to the episode at hand. They’re so wondrously constructed that each decision they make is built off a specific moment in their past.

It’s what makes their rendition of “Under Pressure” so affirming and delightful to watch play out. All of them are caught up in dire circumstances, and in this momentary blip of time, united, they have a nudge of hope. Even the way the the lyrics are delegated from Alice and Quentin’s “give love” refrain to Eliot’s line about a family being torn apart to Julia’s build on “it’s the power in knowing” is purposeful and fitting with the characters.

It may not have been the full-out musical episode we might have anticipated (and who knows, maybe season four will deliver wall-to-wall musical numbers), but with a climatic moment as satisfying as “Under Pressure,” it’s hard to ask for more.

As season three of “The Magicians” backs it ascent to its final few episodes of the year, their achievements glow ever brighter in how they’ve continuously fractured storytelling, rebuilt it and surprised us once again. It’s always a pleasure to anticipate just what they’ll catch us off guard with next.