The Magicians: The Wrath of the Time Bees Show Only
January 23, 2020 1:09 PM - Season 5, Episode 2 - Subscribe
Alice didn't buy enough tacos. Fen's got 3 bars.
Messy? Sure. But I liked it. And I cried a bit (I'm a softie). 12 year old Q was weird at first, but made sense later on.
I liked the nod/ wink to Permanence, a perfume for men and women, to "protect us from timey-wimey-whatever," which felt like an effort to brush over the lack of logic with time travel elements.
I'm glad High King Fen (what happened to her toes?) and Josh the Fresh Prince are back, along with rest of the court of High King Margo in Exile.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:50 AM on January 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
I liked the nod/ wink to Permanence, a perfume for men and women, to "protect us from timey-wimey-whatever," which felt like an effort to brush over the lack of logic with time travel elements.
I'm glad High King Fen (what happened to her toes?) and Josh the Fresh Prince are back, along with rest of the court of High King Margo in Exile.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:50 AM on January 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
It was a little messy but if it gets us Josh and Fen back I'll take it.
Plus I appreciated this show recognizing that time-travel is always gonna stand a good chance of making things worse; it's always seemed likely to me that, while any given timeline where you can afford to sit around contemplating time travel may not be the best of all possible worlds, just statistically speaking the fact that you can sit around contemplating time travel means it's gotta be an above-average possible world.
(what happened to her toes?)
She sacrificed them (back in...Season 3 I guess?) as part of yet-another-sketchy-deal with the Fairy Queen, much like Margo's eye.
posted by mstokes650 at 8:19 AM on January 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
Plus I appreciated this show recognizing that time-travel is always gonna stand a good chance of making things worse; it's always seemed likely to me that, while any given timeline where you can afford to sit around contemplating time travel may not be the best of all possible worlds, just statistically speaking the fact that you can sit around contemplating time travel means it's gotta be an above-average possible world.
(what happened to her toes?)
She sacrificed them (back in...Season 3 I guess?) as part of yet-another-sketchy-deal with the Fairy Queen, much like Margo's eye.
posted by mstokes650 at 8:19 AM on January 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
I liked the way the Alice and living clay storyline went in this episode. It was sweet and I cried too. I'm glad they're taking time to explore the characters' grief.
So glad Josh and Fen are back, and I enjoyed the arc of that story too. I was pretty sure they would eventually be fine, because the show was definitely not treating their deaths anything like Quentin's. I enjoyed watching Margo's process of trying to solve the problem. It was a little ridiculous, sure, but the show has been letting characters try to solve problems with time travel since the first season.
Looking forward, with some trepidation, to learning what Eliot put in that letter.
Some questions I had:
- I thought Jane Chatwin had died in this timeline?
- Why didn't Shinjiro blab about his profession when Kady gave him the truth serum? Even if he doesn't remember the details of that particular evening, he has to remember that he routinely wipes his own memory after taking morally questionable jobs.
posted by esker at 8:47 AM on January 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
So glad Josh and Fen are back, and I enjoyed the arc of that story too. I was pretty sure they would eventually be fine, because the show was definitely not treating their deaths anything like Quentin's. I enjoyed watching Margo's process of trying to solve the problem. It was a little ridiculous, sure, but the show has been letting characters try to solve problems with time travel since the first season.
Looking forward, with some trepidation, to learning what Eliot put in that letter.
Some questions I had:
- I thought Jane Chatwin had died in this timeline?
- Why didn't Shinjiro blab about his profession when Kady gave him the truth serum? Even if he doesn't remember the details of that particular evening, he has to remember that he routinely wipes his own memory after taking morally questionable jobs.
posted by esker at 8:47 AM on January 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Kady's plotline was a fun mystery, although I don't really buy that dude as willing to kill himself that quickly. But I guess that depends on how scary whoever his employer turns out to be is.
I think it's a good idea to dislodge the Margo et al from being the rulers of Fillory. We've explored that space for a while now, and this is a good setback for them. I also thought this was a pretty clever way to go about dislodging them from that position.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:10 AM on January 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
I think it's a good idea to dislodge the Margo et al from being the rulers of Fillory. We've explored that space for a while now, and this is a good setback for them. I also thought this was a pretty clever way to go about dislodging them from that position.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:10 AM on January 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
I thought Jane Chatwin was dead too, but my wife says "It's complicated" re: her death. Time magic!
I think that might be her from a different timeline, camping out in a weird time bubble.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:12 AM on January 29, 2020
I think that might be her from a different timeline, camping out in a weird time bubble.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:12 AM on January 29, 2020
Also my favorite moment from Alice's plotline was her doing a small bit of magic to complete baby-Q's coin trick, as the golum is winding down. It was a sweet moment, and appropriately elegiac.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:16 AM on January 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:16 AM on January 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
yeah the messiness didn't overshadow the emotional impact and the episode's endpoints of the arcs. I enjoyed it.
posted by numaner at 2:09 PM on January 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by numaner at 2:09 PM on January 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
That being said I don't care about any of it because it's the lovable mess of the show I know and love. I loved the Alice + Q thing, glad that Josh & co is back even if it's through questionable timey-wimey ways and I hope our ragtag group of misfits gets to work together more in this season.
I have a hunch that the next episode's gonna deal with Elliot's grief.
posted by KTamas at 1:12 PM on January 23, 2020 [1 favorite]