Time for a Little Song and Dance on ‘The Magicians’

The last episode of The Magicians ended with a few horrifying realizations. The librarians are hoarding vials of magical dust made from the leg of an enslaved fairy, Victoria and Harriet were lost after the mirror bridge was destroyed, and Penny has been captured by the librarians. Our group may have the next key, but it was gained at the sacrifice of some. And the enslaved fairy story is very horrific, but unfortunately not new.

When Kady, Alice, and Quentin find themselves back at Brakebills, they stumble across a book with some medieval musical notes on it. Kady plays the notes and they’re transported to an alternate dimension where everyone is partying and magic is back. The partygoers quickly turn into pod people when the group doesn’t stay in the festive spirit. The dancing crowd immediately stops dancing around and begins to attack the party pooper. In the absence of a door, they have to find a way out of the party parallel universe.

Now that Julia and Fen know about the fairy abuse, they decide to swoop in and save the fairy they met last episode. This storyline definitely feels like a gross oversimplification of a story about a group of people taken from their home and forced into slave labor through lies and intimidation. The symbolism feels a bit too on the nose, especially with white women saviors.

Eliot and Margo have been sentenced to the death of their choosing. They decide to go with death by waterfall, which puts them on the MuntJac heading towards a cliff. It turns out that their “friend” Tick really hates them and wants them dead. It looks like their status as the “golden ones” is no longer going to work in their favor.

The story of how Josh ended up in the party house is kind of annoying. Yes, Kady, Quentin, Penny, Julia, and Alice are self-absorbed, but Josh is kind of whiny. Because he feels ignored by people, he’s ok with holding a group of people hostage in a “party house” designed to keep him happy. That’s not cool either.

In an interesting and tragic turn of events, Julia convincing the fairy to do magic only makes things worse. As the poor fairy starts to die, Julia’s magic kicks in and freezes her in a suspended state. At the same time, Kady, Quentin, and Alice find the next key that mentally unites them all. They realize that working together is important to get them out of their sticky situations. As a fan of a random musical number and David Bowie, I couldn’t help but be tickled that they chose to sing “Under Pressure.”

In the midst of a group singalong, everyone managed to improve their situation, except Penny. I do find it interesting that Penny continues to show up to help everyone else but no one is ever quite able to really help him.

I do hope that Penny can get out of his predicament, but I also want to see what happens with Julia and her magic. We have four more episodes before the season finale. There’s still plenty of time for things to get worse before they get better. Maybe we can get another musical number in before the season ends. Fingers crossed.

‘The Magicians’ airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on SYFY.

Ashia R. Sims is a Digital Strategist by trade, storyteller, and technology enthusiast by design. She combined her experience in television/film production, public relations and copywriting into a career in digital strategy/content marketing consulting. Now she spends her days consulting with clients on how to monetize their content and teaching digital marketing courses online and in person. She represents one of the early generations of kids to grow up sitting in front of a computer and enjoys tech talk about the newest smartphone, the coolest app, the latest in data analytics and other digital news.