Season 5, Episode 13
Fillory and Further
With Seb on the cusp of opening the door to the afterlife, the crew rushes to destroy Fillory and create a new world.Tropes That Appear In This Episode:
- Accidental Misnaming: Margo keeps calling Plum "Peach".
- All for Nothing: Lance moved on to his eternal reward centuries ago and Martin's been impersonating him, so ruling Fillory for the last 300 years, summoning Takers who kidnapped and dragged innocent people to the Underworld so he could empty their protective realm little by little, and basically every horrible thing Seb's done in an attempt to summon his lost lover was always pointless.
- Amulet of Dependency:
- Fogg's insanity is cured by giving him an enchanted cat that stores his craziness while leaving his rational mind intact. Unfortunately, it only works so long as he holds the cat. Fogg finds this annoying because the cat gets hair all over his suits.
- To save Julia's life, Penny has their child's magical umbilical bound to himself. This allows him to use his psychic powers once more, but only when holding his child.
- Apocalypse Wow: Fillory being torn apart by its clock running backwards, lava bursting from fissures as the entire continent cracks apart before finally letting out a burst of energy as its dying breath.
- Back for the Finale: The whole underworld escape scheme is orchestrated by dead Martin Chatwin. He succeeds, briefly, only to get caught in the destruction of Fillory and have his ambitions quickly cut short.
- Be Yourself: Zelda explains to Alice that so long as a caster's internal Circumstances are appropriate, even one hand is plenty to cast any spell they want. Alice therefore accepts every part of herself and encourages the others to do the same while casting the World Seed spell. It works.
- Bittersweet Ending: Fillory is destroyed and the door to the underworld is sealed again with it, but a new Fillory is created in its place. However, the world seed takes Josh, Alice, Margo, and Fen with it, since they participated in the spell, and everyone else has no clue where they went. While the four release Fillory's inhabitants to their new world, Penny, Julia, and their child go looking for them. The Moon is still angry and making things difficult, but people have adapted by hiring Lunatics to monitor her. Eliot is teaching at Brakebills to cope, but he starts up a relationship with Charlton who, in his words, plans to stick around and is emotionally available. Fogg 40 is kicked out of the Etheric Realm, crazy from his time there, but gets an enchanted cat to shunt his insanity into. Even Seb gets a relatively happy end, as Jane Chatwin saves him by taking him to the Clock Barrens.
- Call-Back: Fen's still keeping the Seed in her, uh, "ladies' hiding place" as of the opening.
- Christmas in July: Santa sets up a tree and presents for everyone. Alice briefly questions it, but who's the expert here?
- Continuity Nod: Zelda describes her death as simply moving to another Library branch. As a Librarian, her contract presumably extends for a billion years, just like Penny 40's.
- Cruel to Be Kind: Fogg's vicious severing of Julia's umbilical cord and theft of the World Seed were necessary actions to save the day.
- Dead Person Impersonation: The Beast continues impersonating Lance for just long enough to fool Seb.
- Equivalent Exchange: Because Kady tricked Fogg 17 into the Etheric Realm last episode, Fogg 40 is given the boot.
- Fingore: Martin stops Eliot from sealing the door to the underworld by magically breaking his fingers.
- Glamour: After gaining Hyman's body, Charlton with help from Pete figures out Santa's gift to Elliot is a transfigurative charm that makes Hyman's body look and feel like Charlton's original form.
- Grand Finale: The final episode of the series.
- Grows on Trees: One feature of the new world built by Josh, Alice, Margo, and Fen is that pizza ovens literally grow on trees and dispense pizza. Various other plants growing cooked food, like bacon, are also mentioned.
- Healing Hands: Seb heals Eliot's broken hands as well as he can before encouraging him to go on with his plan. It still takes a while for them to recover.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- Zelda stays behind in the Neitherlands to seal all the portals so the dead will be unable to go anywhere else, reasoning that even if she's killed, it's just a transfer to another Library branch.
- Margo stays behind on Fillory to wind the clock in reverse even though she has no way to escape, but thankfully Penny, his powers restored, pops in to save her at the last second.
- Hijacked by Ganon: It turns out that the spirit of Lance calling to Seb was never Lance, but always Martin Chatwin, who impersonated him to entice Seb into opening the door to the afterlife.
- I Always Wanted to Say That: Variation. Josh asked Penny to say "Come with Me If You Want to Live" before Penny went to save Margo.Penny: Yeah, sorry, Josh wanted me to say it. It seemed real important to him. C’mon.
- Maternity Crisis: Okay, now Julia's water breaks, for real.
- Not What It Looks Like: Fogg, still insane from coming back from the Etheric Realm, steals the world seed and roughly severs Julia's connection to her child, nearly killing Julia. When they find a way to restore his sanity, he reveals that he did both these things to save them, as he is aware of a previous loop where Julia died from the connection being severed cleanly and the world seed was lost.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Charlton's shocked at Hyman's proviso for donating his body.
- Alice recognizes The Beast's voice, and Zelda realizes the dead are back.
- Pair the Spares: Charlton, in Hyman's body but with a charm to look like himself, comes out to Eliot, who's feeling depressed in the end after all his exes' deaths and Margo's disappearance. Eliot decides to see where it goes.
- Place Beyond Time: The Clock Barrens' nature as a timeless place allows it and Jane to survive the destruction of Fillory. It'll just be harder to get access to her. Oh, and Seb ends up there, too.
- Possession Implies Mastery: Averted. Charlton being in Hyman's body doesn't mean he automatically knows how to travel.
- Refusal of the Call: Hyman refuses to teleport around Fillory, since it's falling apart. He is okay with Charlton taking his body and doing it, though.
- Right-Hand Cat: Discussed. After Fogg's sanity is tied to a cat that he always has to carry around, he complains about the fur ruining his suits. Lipson compares him to a James Bond villain.Lipson: No wonder all those Bond villains were so pissy.
- The Reveal:
- Quentin wasn't the one who found the world seed page. Santa placed it in his desk, knowing Alice would find it and be driven to figure it out, getting her out of her rut.
- Martin Chatwin was impersonating Lance to get Seb to open the door to the afterlife.
- Shout-Out: Penny, at Josh's request, tells Margo "Come with me if you want to live!" while rescuing her.
- Single-Target Sexuality: In the entirety of his time on the show, Charlton hasn't shown any sexual or romantic inclination whatsoever, until he confesses his feelings for Eliot. Of course, they have had quite some time to get to know each other.
- Teleportation:
- Seb teleports Eliot to the Taker Realm before he opens the door to the Underworld, so he can shut it as soon as Lance comes out.
- Penny (now able to safely teleport) zooms into Fillory to rescue Margo at the last minute.
- Touch of Death:
- The dead who come back to the living world have this ability.
- In particular, Martin kills Zelda by touching her cheek, causing her to desiccate in seconds.
- Unwanted Rescue: Side effects of leaving the Etheric Realm may include unstable behavior, inability to communicate with others, and catatonia punctuated with sobs of despair. Consult your doctor before leaving the Etheric Realm. Do not leave the Etheric Realm if you are allergic to cats.
- Willing Channeler: Hyman is so sick of being mortal that he jumps at the chance to willingly vacate his own body so Charlton can inhabit it, his only condition being that Charlton engage in debauchery with his body which Hyman plans to watch.
- You Already Changed the Past: When Fogg severs the magical umbilical between Julia and her child, causing the former to start dying, Penny tries to get Plum to change the past. However, Plum reveals that he already asked her this once before, and she burnt out her remaining time travel juice performing a time loop with Jane Chatwin's help. From this, Penny realizes that Fogg's seemingly irrational attacks are because he is also trying to change things.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Zelda explains to Alice that as long as she understands and accepts herself, only being able to cast with one hand won't hold her back.
- You Are Too Late: Seb brings Eliot to Purgatory, where he plans to open the door to the Underworld. Eliot thinks Seb, subconsciously or otherwise, is giving Eliot a chance to talk him out of it. Seb then reveals he already cast a spell to open the door that will kick in shortly, and brought Eliot in so he could seal the door as soon as Seb drags Lance out.
