Season 4, Episode 13
The Seam
The Physical Kids attempt to banish the Monster and his sister once and for all, but Everett has other plans.Tropes That Appear In This Episode:
- Achievements in Ignorance: By complete accident, Josh's juiced-up magic activates a mysterious scroll, sidesteps an extremely complex quest, and transports him and Quentin to the realm of the old gods where no human has gone before. The receptionist is confused as to how they got there if they didn't have to jump through all those hoops; Josh and Quentin didn't even know there were hoops.
- Bad Future: When Margo and Eliot return to Fillory, 300 years have passed and Fillory is now ruled by a "Dark King" who overthrew Fen and Josh.
- Bittersweet Ending: On the plus side, the Monster and his sister are sealed away, Everett is dead, the Library's stranglehold on Magic is broken, there's no universal-scale threat to worry about, Zelda is reforming the Library, and magic seems to have gotten a whole lot stronger. On the bad side, Quentin is dead, Fillory has jumped 300 years into the future and is ruled by a dark king, and said time jump means Fen and Josh are long dead.
- Brought Down to Normal: To save Julia, Penny 23 has the Binder turn her into a mortal. Julia can't do magic at first, but her grief from Quentin's death restores her power (magic comes from pain, after all).
- Call-Back: Penny 23 recalls the vague advice Penny 40 gave him when they met. It turns out he was advising him to save Alice when Quentin decided to sacrifice himself.
- Chekhov's Gun: Quentin's skill at minor mending comes in handy when the mirror to the Seam is broken.
- Continuity Cavalcade: The objects Quentin's friends burn are all things from past episodes:
- Alice burns the cup he repaired in "The 4-1-1".
- Kady burns the first edition Fillory novel that Plover signed in "The Secret Sea".
- Penny 23 burns one of the eggs they used to get over dragon pheromone addiction in "Home Improvement".
- Margo burns Quentin's crown, first seen in "Knight of Crowns".
- Dean Fogg burns Quentin's Brakebills application, which he signed in the pilot.
- Eliot burns a peach, from their adventure in "A Life in the Day".
- Finally, Julia tries to burn Quentin's deck of cards, which was his first use of magic.
- The Cover Changes the Meaning: a-ha's "Take on Me" is about a couple whose relationship is currently in flux. This episode uses the song as a dirge.
- Crowd Song: Kady uses the crowd song spell to lead the Physical Kids and Dean Fogg in a rendition of "Take on Me".
- Flechette Storm: When Quentin uses magic in the Mirror World, it manifests thousands of tiny but deadly magic orbs which bounce around the room and shred whatever they hit.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: When Quentin and Josh travel to the realm of the old gods, they end up in a waiting room and are met by a secretary of sorts who is dressed like a golfer.
- Grief Song: After Quentin's death the remaining main characters sing a Softer and Slower Cover of a-ha's "Take On Me" around a campfire. Their singing is interspersed with flashbacks of specific moments with him, and they throw said mementos into the fire as a Due to the Dead.
- The Hero Dies: Quentin dies a heroic death. Interviews from the producers and actor Jason Ralph have confirmed that it's for real.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: The Monster. While Dean Fogg says that the Monster will hate him for the confusion spell cast on him, being banished to an illusionary forest makes him contemplative instead; for a moment, he finally seems at peace, and his final scene has him telling his (absent and genocidal) sister that he's realized that the world has good things in it and that he wants to protect them. Then the heroes force him out of Eliot and banish him forever.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Quentin uses his skill at minor mending to fix the mirror containing the Seam, even though the blowback will kill him.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: After dying and ending up in the Underworld with Penny 40, Quentin wonders if he truly performed a heroic act, or if he just finally managed to kill himself after a number of botched attempts when he was younger. Penny 40 takes him to see his friends one last time to show him what he gave his life for, and that he wouldn't have given it up unless they meant that much to him.
- How Dare You Die on Me!: After freeing Eliot from the Monster by stabbing him in the gut, Margo repeatedly yells at him not to die.Margo: Eliot, if there's a tunnel with grandma, you tell her to piss off and come back to me, you selfish fuck — get back here. Eliot. Eliot, please. Eliot!
Eliot: Well, when you put it so sweetly, Bambi. - Humans Are Insects: When Quentin and Josh ask to see the old gods, their secretary colorfully describes their request as "a chihuahua just demanded a blowjob from an archangel."
- Impossibly Delicious Food: The cake given to Josh and Quentin for completing Task 764 is literally perfect, to the point that Josh says he may be ruined for other cake.
- The Magic Comes Back: At the end of the episode, magic seems to dramatically surge all over the world.
- Mushroom Samba: Dean Fogg hits the Monster with a spell that sends him off to a forest and messes with his perception.
- Never My Fault: Julia put off the decision to either become a god or a human for weeks, but blames Penny when something comes up that forces him to make the decision for her.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Margo talks to Eliot about grief-banging Josh. Eliot, who was in love with Quentin and never got to tell him. She immediately realizes what she said and apologizes.
- Outside-Context Problem:
- Lipson points out that there's not a lot the infirmary can do for Julia since both her body and the weapon that wounded it are outside known experience.
- Golf guy wasn't prepared for what would happen if humans show up in the realm of the old gods by completing task 764 outside of a quest.
- Psychopomp: Penny 40 personally receives his old friend Quentin, helps him adjust to his death, and sends him off to the afterlife.
- The Reveal: Quentin is the person Penny saw in the elevator in "The Side Effect".
- Sex for Solace: When Margo and Eliot return to Fillory, Margo announces her intention to "grief-bang" Josh.
- Shout-Out: Josh dubbed himself "the Fresh Prince".
- Spanner in the Works: Everett drains the reservoir before Eliot can be saved, necessitating a much more convoluted plan to rescue him.
- Super Serum: Josh has a boost to his magic from his exposure to the reservoir.
- Taking You with Me:
- Everett threatens this when he shows up to take the Monster's essence, knowing any magic use would kill the lot of them and betting that they'll give into his demands if they have no other option.
- In order to stop Everett and banish the Monster, Quentin mends the mirror to the Seam using magic while warning Penny to save Alice. When the spell is complete, the ricochet vaporizes both him and Everett.
- This Is the Part Where...: During their chat in the "Secrets Taken to the Grave" room, Quentin asks Penny, "This is the part where I can't lie, right?" Penny tells him that it only means something if he tells himself the truth.
- Time Skip: In-Universe: Eliot and Margo return to Fillory to learn that 300 years have passed.
- Took a Level in Kindness: As Penny 40 himself notes, he's gotten a lot nicer since his time among the living.
- Viking Funeral: Since Quentin leaves no body behind, his friends hold a funeral by burning objects that remind them of him.
- Void Between the Worlds: Within the Mirror World is the Seam, a tear in reality from which nothing can escape. The Monster and his sister are cast into it after having their essence removed from their physical forms.
- Wham Line:
- Zelda says that she can't run the Library, so she needs Sheila to get someone who can: Alice Quinn.
- Eliot asks who's currently ruling Fillory:Peasant: The Dark King reigns. Glory to his rule. High King Fen and Josh the Fresh Prince were overthrown 300 years ago. May the gods curse them both.
- Wham Shot: When Margo and Eliot see Castle Whitespire, it's been seriously renovated, now featuring dozens of towers.
- Wound That Will Not Heal: When Julia is stabbed with the exorcism axe, she can't heal because the enchantment on the axe causes the wound to reopen every time her body tries to heal it. To save her, the Binder has to complete her transformation into a mortal.
- You Will Be Spared: Everett promises not to kill Quentin, Penny, and Alice so long as they give him the Monster's essence. Quentin instead sacrifices himself to both trap the Monster and kill Everett.
