The Magicians/Syfy

Season finale was tonight. To summarize: Fucking shit.

The goddess was a fake, it was all a trick by Renard the Fox. He killed everyone but Kady and Julia, then raped Julia, and Julia called Marina to help clean up and fix her memories. Which she did, with no strings attached, proving that even Marina has a moral compass.

Quentin finally realizes he is not The Chosen One despite what the tropes say, and passes the duty of killing the Beast to Alice. And the Beast is actually Martin, not Christopher. I'm a little unclear if Jane knew, in the end.

As the Beast is curb-stomping the team, Julia uses the knife that can only be wielded if you've been touched by a god (turns out rape counts) to threaten the Beast... to strike a deal to kill Renard. And then it ends.

So, yeah. Fucking shit. Did the books diverge on any points here?

edited 11th Apr '16 8:12:33 PM by Discar

Oh my gosh, that finale, I didn't see ANY of it coming. At all.

According to the books wiki, the identity of the Beast overlaps

I've read the books so I can tell you that things we changed a lot. Like...hardly anything was the same. In the books, Alice sacrifices herself (becoming a niffin like her brother) to kill Martin. No knife (well, at least not this early). Then there are the centaurs...(why cut out the centaurs?)

Julia's part really comes into play with the ending of the second book. Bringing Julia's story alongside the others has morphed things considerably.

And Elliot...poor Elliot. I'm not sure an arranged marriage was thrown in but okay...

I loved the bigger focus on the other characters besides Quentin. While I'm more of a fan of showQuentin than bookQuentin, Penny's personality alone makes the show for me.

I gotta say, showQuentin is a great portrayal of someone with a mental illness. Finally seeing Josh was a big deal for me too.

Something that bothered me was Ember becoming an anthropomorphic ram. I mean, I get why they did it but still...

Overall though, I loved it! I enjoy this adaption much more than Game of Thrones at this point.

Centaurs are probably pretty hard on the budget. I'm guessing the part where Quentin wondered why centaurs aren't in charge of Fillory is a reference to the lack.

Do we know when the next season is coming out? I'm looking forward to this almost as much as The Expanse.

Apparently sometime next year, which makes sense I guess.

How is the Expanse? It looks cool but I never wanted to get invested

It's the best hard science show I've seen in a long time. Both narratively and scientifically, it's very well put together. Characters are also excellent. Only problem I have is that the tone is darker than what I prefer, but a lot of people like darker stuff. And besides, it's not like it's grimdark.

I just binge-watched this show with my siblings and I have to say, as someone who read the first book and disliked a good 75% of it ^note it had some cool scenes and ideas, but I didn't particularly like the author's apparent views on children's fantasy or the people of my generation, and I'm not really a fan of books where most of the characters are just plain unlikable, I really enjoyed this show. The smug narrative tone is gone, and the lack of Quentin's internal monologue (barring the final episode, but I think it was used well there) makes him a lot less annoying. With the exception of his "friendzoning" speech to Julia, but I thought he got a lot better as the season went on - and a lot of the characters don't hesitate to call him out when he's being an ass.

I do think the story moved a little too fast at times, but I liked the expanded Myth Arc, and the narrative never felt like it was spinning its wheels. And I think moving up the telling of Julia's story helps the show more than it hurts it. I also really liked what they did with Penny and Alice (Alice doesn't turn into a nifflin here, but I really think the foreshadowing is setting it up to happen later on) Can't wait to see season 2!

Season 2 trailer.

Wow far more magical battles. I understand the first season was learning how to do magic but with this one they can finally unleash that knowledge. hell yeah!

edited 27th Nov '16 5:40:07 AM by WolyniaBookSeries

And we're back! Strong opening, love the balance with Fillory's whimsy with its "Holy crap magic is freaking dangerous." Liking Julia working with the Beast. He seems to be genuinely trying to help her, albeit in a creepy-ass way. And an explanation for why he's so inhuman: He didn't just modify his hands. He did surgery on his soul so he could get over the pain of being raped.

For some reason, I expected something to go wrong when Quentin was crowned. Glad it didn't.

Oh, and those tests. Beautiful. Better than Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

And episode 2! Continues to be awesome. The team (except for Eliot) try to find the powerful battle magic left behind by a pixie who loves riddles, Eliot grows closer to his wife and delves into horrible childhood memories, and Julia tries to set a trap for Reynard.

And the Beast sings. Constantly.

Whoever had the singing idea is a mad, evil genius.

Shit. The first half of this episode was hilarious, and then the confrontation was... yow. Penny grabs the Beast seconds before Julia is going to kill Reynard, Alice only gets a glancing hit on him (though she does take out one arm, drastically reducing his spellcasting ability), and he teleports away. He returns to the Wellspring to find that Ember has befouled it (really hope that doesn't have permanent side effects for magic, but knowing Ember's lack of forward thinking, maybe it will), and Alice's power runs out before she can cast the spell again. She goes full niffin trying to kill the Beast and disappears before she can end him... then comes back and kills him with contemptuous ease. As she's about to kill everyone else, Quentin releases his cacodemon and it kills her.

As I understand it, that's roughly how things went in the books? According to the trailer, Quentin will try and resurrect Alice. Hopefully that works. Alice might be my favorite character, but either way the group dynamic works better with her around.

The show is trying to strike a balance between the book's more....weird story choices, and being a faithful adaption. As I understand it, the whole Reynard thing is being played differently, as is Julia's involvement in Fillory, which I am actually enjoying. I feel like they could have dropped the whole Rape plot entirely, but I understand why they felt they had to keep it. I kind of hope this isn't the end of Martin, I like him as a villain much better then Renyard, who is almost comically over the top in his evil, or would be if the actor wasn't playing him as good as he is.

There is a big discussion of the what the blue moth flying out of Martin's mouth at the end might mean, and if it's just symbolism of his death or a sign that the Beast may be working a plan from beyond the grave.

Also Ember's 'befaulment' I think was just meant to stop Martin from being able to drink from the Wellspring and recover his power. Given that episode 2 spent a weird amount of time on the whole Fertilizer thing, it may actually be an improvement for Fillory and magic as a whole. Ember is smarter then he seems, enough to call Alice's Niffin transformation before it happened, so he may be playing his own longer game.

edited 15th Feb '17 8:47:40 AM by LMage

Good episode. Eliot's having trouble growing into his role as High King, but he's managing it. Still love Fen. Very sad that Quentin wasn't able to resurrect Alice, but to be expected. If there's some way to bring her back, it's going to take more than one episode.

Another good episode, but lower-key than some of the others. Interesting to see Fillorian rebels, though it would have been nice to hear what they actually wanted to happen, other than the general "children of Earth make shitty rulers." It was apparently persuasive enough for Eliot to decide not to kill the guy, so...

Quentin's subplot was, as he said, kind of sad but probably what he needed. And then Alice showed up. As a ghost? The remnant of her niffin power? I'm still hoping this gets spun into a resurrection for her, but we'll see.

The Julia/Kady was a nicely realistic look at rape abortions until it suddenly so totally wasn't. I was actually under the impression that Julia had already given birth due to a super-accelerated god pregnancy, and assumed Marina had helped her with the baby. I guess not.

Oh, and one thing I didn't like was Fen deciding not to tell Eliot she was with the FU-fighters. He's not that mercurial. I guess it depends on what exactly her secret is. I got the impression she had been sleeping with the prisoner guy (before she was married, obviously), which Eliot wouldn't give two shits about. He might care a bit if the whole marriage was a con to get him killed, but honestly I feel like he'd forgive her for that. He's just so blase about everything (even if a lot of it is laziness and depression) that I'm having trouble thinking of something that would permanently turn him off her.

These last two episodes I feel like had a good deal of morbid humor, meshed with general drama. I didn't really sign up for Narina-eque stories of earthlings empty to rule fantasy realms (I signed up for magical school shenanigans) but it's fun to see. I love that their responses are pretty reasonable all in all (though I wonder how many real-world situations are applicable to the magical logic of Fillory), and I feel like Margo joining Elliot's adventures in ruling has worked out much better then him soloing it.

(I also like the Margo/Julia interactions, suprisingly, they both are very astute at measureing the other).

I'm sad to see Marina go I was relatively sure someone as paranoid and power as her would have a reserve plan for sudden death, and her message on her arm was intentionally setting that off. The necromancy spell on lasting a few minutes makes sense I guess, but I feel like Julia and Kady having Marina to bounce off of would be more intersting.

I also am really starting to miss Martin as an antagonist Reynard is just so....over the top, (and can't always be present, given the nature of his threat), Martin was much more interesting, and generally fun compared to Renyard's super gory/rape-y methods of villainy.

Low-key episode, but good. Fen and Eliot talk it out, and even if he's a little bit snippier than is healthy, he deserves a bit of snippiness. I was wondering how Loria had enough magic power to transport the entire castle when everyone is having trouble with the Wellspring. An illusion is clever.

Interesting resolution to the Alice plot. So she's still a niffin, and stuck in Quentin's tattoo. That's cool. I'm sure it's going to be absolutely horrible, but at least she gets to stay on the show.

So for some reason my DVR didn't record the episode, and I assumed the show had just skipped a week. Took me a while to realize what had happened, and I had to go hunting for it online. Sigh.

Anyway, awesome episode. BANK HEIST! Complicated by the fact that most security companies are magically-aware. Love seeing the whole band back together, hope that keeps on even during the Fillory scenes. Niffin!Alice is kind of terribly wonderful, I love her. I wonder if she's technically still the fourth queen of Fillory.

That would probably solve the whole War issue?

I loved this episode a lot, and I love that Julia and the main group are mending bridges. I like that Niffin!Alice is still pissed at her though, in that irrational dead person way.

I feel like things are about to get crazy with Niffin Alice getting crazy in Quentin's body. The Beast already showed us that Word as Bond isn't as absolute as it's seems, and Alice will be bound to find loopholes in it to exploit.

Thank goodness the baby has finally been aborted I don't know how they plan to tackle Reynard without it though or what 'complication' arose from the abortion, but it's bound to get ugly. Reynard probably isn't to happy about the abortion either but that should be it's own fun to handle. My best guess right now is they plan to find Reynard's kid by that other lady, and harness his demi-god power to banish Renyard.

Pretty good episode all around. Not the best, but far from bad. I think my biggest problem is how things keep getting worse in Fillory. It's clear Margo's advisers were trying to tell her about the misogyny of the forest, but she refused to listen. Of course, they've proven themselves idiots in other ways, so I guess she's just tired of listening to them. And then she underestimated Julia and, well.

At least Eliot is awake and the others know about Alice now. Oh, and Penny has his magic back or is about to get it back, so there's that.

Good episode.  Probably too much focus on the Fillory side.  I mean, I like it, it was unique and everything, I just would have preferred more focus on Quentin's situation.  Eliot here was an excellent king, but not the greatest person.  His decision to marry the king of Loria was a good one in pretty much every way except for the personal ones.  He should have discussed things with Margo and especially Fen first.  On the other hand, Fen will probably forgive him after the first threesome.

As for Margo... best of a bad situation.  She's right, the advisers should have told her about the fairies earlier.  Not to mention that they should have briefed her on fairy diplomatic protocol; "Are you fucking me?" is practically her Catchphrase, they should have known it would cause problems.  I'm still a little unclear if Eliot and Margo keep ignoring their advisers because their advisers are useless, or if Eliot and Margo are just annoyed at some of their elitism and whatnot and try to avoid talking to them.  Maybe they are useless; Margo mentions that the sloth is the only one who's not an ass-covering Yes-Man.

Episode was... I don't want to call it filler. It had some wonderful moments all around. But I dunno, it just didn't grab me like some of them do. The Fillory plot is progressing, both with the fairy and FU-fighter subplots. Quentin and Julia are figuring out Julia's shade problem, Kady and Penny are figuring out the Renard problem. Just... it didn't make me sit up and focus like most of the episodes do. Maybe it's just because I'm having a bad day.

But next episode has a fucking dragon, so that's something to look forward to.