Season 2, Episode 11
The Rattening
Eliot receives a visit from King Idri, his future husband, only for half the castle to turn into rats. Quentin and Julia meet a dragon and gain passage to the Underworld looking for Julia's shade, while Kady and Penny try to get into the Poison Room.
Tropes That Appear In This Episode:
- Astral Projection: The dragon sends Quentin and Julia's souls to the Underworld, and tells them she'll eat their bodies if they don't return within twenty-four hours.Dragon: Fucking millennials.
- Call-Back: The time loop is brought up again; the Underworld concierge is a bit confused when the computer insists that Julia and Quentin have died thirty-nine times, before he realizes the time loop is responsible. It's likely that this is what keeps him from realizing that they're not dead this time.
- Celestial Bureaucracy: The Underworld entrance looks like a nice hotel, with bellhops and a friendly staff who want to help new souls get settled in as quickly as possible.
- The Corrupter: Having found Gaines, Reynard is trying to be this, educating his son about the powers he spent decades unaware of by revealing his inadvertent lifelong low-level Mind Rape-ing of everyone around him and teaching him how to make it a conscious act. Gaines is disgusted.
- Everybody Hates Hades: Subverted. Hades and his wife Persephone built the Underworld, which is a pleasant waiting area while the souls develop enough to move on to their true afterlife. There are even brochures assuring newcomers that they're (probably) not going to Hell.
- Forced Transformation: Most of the castle staff are turned into rats by the random chaos growing in Fillory.
- Foreshadowing: The Fairy Ambassador denies their culpability in turning people into rats, warning Margo that there's another power at work. Turns out it's a divine power.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Julia willingly gives up her chance to retrieve her shade so she can transport Alice's shade back to Earth.
- Mundane Afterlife:
- The inital afterlife resembles a hotel lobby with bellhops and a helpdesk.
- Julia's hedge witch friends are all hanging out in an Underworld bowling alley when they meet again.
- Nature Versus Nurture: Between Reynard's parentage and forty years of being raised to be a good person, "nurture" ultimately wins out for Gaines.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Eliot and Josh stumble upon introducing democracy to Fillory. This immediately gets Eliot banished back to Earth.
- Our Dragons Are Different: They are the gatekeepers of the Underworld, but are still intelligent and like to hoard things. The one Quentin and Julia meet calls herself a Queen of the Great Wyrms and demands the button to Fillory as payment for their passage.
- Power Incontinence: Senator Gaines can't help controlling people. Reynard claims that Gaines's wife has been under his control since the day they met.
- Scenery Censor: Josh's naughty bits are conveniently hidden behind Eliot's head.
- We Need a Distraction: Richard distracts the Underworld concierge so Quentin and Julia can sneak into the office and search the records for her shade.
- World Gone Mad: A mysterious power is in the process of turning Fillory into one. Symptoms so far include the titular Rattening, rain falling upside down, anthills becoming volcanoes, the Balmy Sea turning into acid, all blonds in Crickety Cove Province disappearing (including palomino horses), and all chickens in Fillory developing laryngitis.
