The Magicians – The Girl Who Told Time

By: Sharon Kurack

Entitled as an homage to Jane Chatwin, the 10th episode of Season Two offers us perhaps three different scenarios that are all a result from the previous episode’s “lesser evils.” The first involves an alternate reality, while another centers around Margo’s (Summer Bishil) “secret” deal and finally the third has us wondering about the Library and its Poison Room.

Let’s start with how the episode opens with a flashback of Dean Fogg (Rick Worthy) and Julia (Stella Maeve) in the classroom at Brakebills. (Wait, wasn’t Jules rejected from Brakebills?) While they’re talking magic and specialties, it turns out that Julia is considered a Knowledge student, like Fogg, which is part psychic, part physical and drawn to the discovery of magic itself. (Methinks Jules may be way more powerful than everyone, and this fact may come up later.) How Fogg knows this is because Jules is able to perform a Second Year spell as a first year. Said spell will come in handy later. Flash to the present where Fogg releases Julia based on the fact that in this reality, she is not a Brakebills student and cannot be detained. However, Fogg seems to have confidence that if anyone can save Julia, it is Julia herself.

After being cut off from alcohol by Margo because “Emo Quentin” is no fun, Quentin (Jason Ralph) returns to Brakebills to retrieve Josh Hoberman (Trevor Einhorn) and his culinary skills in an attempt to satisfy High King “Groomzilla” Eliot (Hale Appleman). He wants a big wedding to increase his popularity with the people (according to advice from Bayler (Rhys Ward) and enlists Josh’s help in the kitchens. Josh, currently running a “baked sale” back at the university, agrees and gives Q a “brownie” that has the “ability to see other worlds.” When Q ingests said brownie, that is exactly what happens; he gets transported to “another world” where he comes across Julia’s shade that is not only alive, but in the form of a 12-year-old girl. She pleads with him to find her before “it’s too late.”

Leaving Fillory after dropping Josh off in the kitchens, Q seeks out Julia who actually seems ashamed despite not having a shade. The exchange is emotional despite Julia technically having no emotion and they decide to work together to find her shade, where ever it is. Good ol’ Todd shows up, revealing that he used to type up Dean Fogg’s memoirs and that Fogg knew someone who was obsessed with shades. As it so happens…Out of the forty alternate timelines Alice from the 23rd, sole-survivor of the encounter with the Beast, was the person obsessed with shades and heavily researched them.

How could they talk to someone from an alternate timeline who technically did not exist? Jules, being the student of Knowledge, suggests a Teslaflection – a type of spell that can create a fold between two realities. It had only been used once and resulted in all three people dying; NBD. Rules? While Fogg and Julia hold the spell, Q talks to Alt-Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley) without touching (or else big-ba-da-BOOM Fifth Element Style) and for only two minutes to get any information.

What do they have to lose? Fogg and Julia perform the Teslaflection, causing Alt-Alice to appear. In that reality she is much more broken, but agrees to help Q stating that she searched for Q’s shade, which had been torn from him because of the Beast. People cannot rest in peace without their shade, she continues, and shades go to the Underworld when they are separated. Although it can only be accessed by the dead, the living can get to the Underworld with the help of an “ancient one,” which Jules later finds out is a dragon. (Dracarys, anyone?) Before the two minutes are up, Q and Alice share a tender moment in which 1) Q expresses his feelings and 2) said feelings make us ugly cry.

Round Two leaves us in Fillory where El is being a bit of a Groomzilla, preparing for his second wedding and preoccupied with his popularity. According to Bayler (the Nacho-loving Fillorian who tried to kill El) a big wedding would help, which explains why El sends Q to fetch Josh. One would wonder how food plays a role until it’s revealed from Josh that a “likeability potion” would be a hell of a lot easier to feed the kingdom to get them to love King Eliot.

Fen (Brittany Curran), the lovely pregnant wife of El, seems to be going a bit baby brain crazy, mind always elsewhere, which creates a bit of concern. Although she is “ok” with the 3-person-wedding, her head is literally with the faeries. Margo, also seeing the faeries, assures El that she will take care of Fen and talk with her. Meanwhile, we find out (from Josh’s accidental roofying) that the royal dishwasher is in kahoots with Bayler’s Foo Fighters (*cough* ThePretender *cough*) to “Red the wedding.” Always planning, Margo is five steps ahead and places a tracking spell on one of the messages, thus securing the location of the “rebel base.” New plan: make Love Potion #9, have Josh dump it into the camp’s food rations and nullify the rebellion. Sneaky Josh is sneaky and does so, rewarded awkwardly with being able to “shave any nymph in the kingdom.” (Whatever floats your boat, dude.)

Margo then goes to talk with Fen, sees a fairy and tries (fails) to reason with it. Fen also sees the same fairy at the same moment and realizes that she is not going crazy. At this point, Margo has no choice but to own up to the deal she had made with Fen’s baby and the faeries. Understandably, Fen doesn’t take the news well and runs off to find Eliot, only to find the stalking fairy waiting for her. It then spirits her and the baby away, citing “a deal is a deal.” Magic always comes with a price, kids. Even for magicians.

Back on Earth, Team “Stuff Touchers” is still together, trying to figure out a solution to the Reynard problem. At least the Library hasn’t accepted Penny’s (Arjun Gupta) application yet, right? That would be terrible timing. (At least they’ve “allowed” Kady to help Penny “adjust.”) Both Penny and Kady (Jade Tailor) are transported (quite easily, mind you) to the massive stacks of books where Penny starts his first day and Kady starts her research.

Libraries hold all knowledge, right? Kady tests that theory with inquiring on how to kill a god, but comes up with nothing. Even the librarian seems apt to push her to give up, citing that maybe it cannot be done. But Kady, being ever practical and perceptive, knows her mythology and stories and that it has been done. (Remember the Beast and Umber?) Meanwhile, Penny’s hands are not “automatically fixed” as he thought they would be; he has to research the cure when he’s not doing his job, which is to track down and retrieve overdue books. Thankfully, Kady (like always) makes his life (and job) easier by casting a locator spell on the current task.

Which brings us to Fuzzbeat, the headquarters of what seems to be a clickbait site that is really a website of encoded spells for magicians. Kady and Penny come across Harriet (Marlee Matlin), the patron in question, who starts out as though she’s casting as soon as they greet her. Nope! She’s signing, explaining how the library is a great place of knowledge, but not known for its accessibility. Kady understands that all too well and Harriet returns the Principles of Conjuring Elementals, also noting that there is no kind of knowledge the library doesn’t have. Everyone has secrets, including the Library, which may end up being more like Pandora’s Box than a Panacea to rid the world of a Trickster god.

Book in hand, the duo returns to the library, handing the book back to the librarian who attempted to convince Kady to give up earlier. As he takes the card from the book, the librarian then loses all control of his actions and walks zombie-like to a padlocked door, attempting to open it. Instead of opening it, he abruptly turns, breaks a glass case and hits a “kill switch,” dying instantly. Our clickbait magician Harriet had hexed the card before returning the book, maybe, to help Kady and Penny find their information. What’s behind that door that the librarian would die to hide? Penny’s familiar librarian (Mageina Tova) tells us of the “Poison Room” where books too dangerous to open to the public reside. (Is Fahrenheit 451 in there?) We’ve heard that knowledge is power, but is there enough knowledge to destroy worlds as this librarian claims? Or at least a Fox god?

Upon their trip back to an abandoned Fuzzbeat office, Kady and Penny find a card that confirms what we’ve known since Kady brought up the Beast killing Umber: there is a way to kill a god and it’s in the “Poison Room.”

The aftermath of the previous episode’s choices is only starting to unravel. Margo will have a lot more guilt on her heart if she can’t talk her way out of the baby/fairy deal. Will Kady and Penny be able to access and use the knowledge from the “Poison Room?” And what about Julia? What is her part in all of this? There is absolutely more to her role and we may find out sooner than later, good or no, depending on if her shade is recovered and reunited with her. Until then, perhaps Q might want to learn how to train a dragon.

“Dracarys.”