grandemocha

To me, that would be incredibly boring. By having Julia's struggles and Quentin's adventures at Brakebill's occurring simultaneously, it gives the story variety. I do think Julia is a bit of an asshole right now, but she's not irredeemable. She's just struggling and needs help. If it was all one story at Brakebills, that would be akin to the usual tripe I see on the CW with hot magical people at college. Julia sort of grounds it a bit more for me by being in the city and (for example) having her sister show concern for Julia's state of mind, and the disheveled nature of her apartment because it does look like to a regular person that Julia needs help/rehab, that is reality. Both Quentin and Julia are learning and growing while the lurking threat of Marina and The Beast still awaits them and will need to be dealt with or at least confronted by the end of the season. I'm fairly certain their stories will converge (perhaps permanently) by the end of the first season and then the storytelling will be a bit more streamlined, but right now I am enjoying the hell out of it.

Well then, I guess I eat my words from my slightly asshole-ish comment. He's clearly talented and I found him amusing by the end of the episode, but I just didn't like the way the accent sounded.

Was the actor who played Mayakovsky actually Russian or was that just a piss poor attempt at an accent? Julia's sister looks nothing like her. How is Julia paying for that giant apartment? Is she a trust fund baby? Quentin spelling out "DICK" with the nails got a chuckle out of me I must admit. Penny does not believe in sleeves and I am okay with that ;) Yasss Quentin and Alice got together, I must admit I am naturally inclined to root for certain relationships (all the way back to The WB Buffy & Angel) so I like this little occurrence. I am firmly aboard the Quentin/Alice train! Penny would have been screaming bloody murder when Mayakovsky carved the tattoo off of his arm so I thought that was pretty unbelievable but I did like him testing his ability since I'm certain it will be needed later. Maybe I was just unaware, but have SYFY shows always allowed use of the word "fuck"? What was with that choppy editing after Quentin and Alice were kicked out into the freezing/snowy outside with no clothes on? I feel like that could have been filmed a bit differently or better for that scene. Uh oh, is Elliot's new man possessed by The Beast now or something? His eyes glowing purple made it seem like it. I really really overall enjoyed this episode, and I think I made the right choice sticking it out with the show.

I love Stefan and Klaus together. I just do. I wish PW had moved to The Originals about a season ago. When he and JoMo work together, I don't know why but I just love their scenes together. What's the deal with Bonnie not healing? Even if Enzo gave her something to get rid of her magic, vampire blood still heals humans?

"I'm not done with you. Consider it a warning" ...damn, Julia is acting like a seriously shitty person right now. Threatening and harassing people all over the place is certainly not the way to make friends or have people want to help you out, why doesn't she get that? Pete was spot on with his comments toward her last episode. Well, this was finally the episode where I gained a bit of sympathy for Kady and I no longer want her dead by the end of the season, so that was an improvement in my book hah ;)

I know this totally won't happen on this hot mess of a show, but if the series decides to end with Caroline as a human again (through some magical whatever...) and raising the twins with Alaric, then I'd be fine with that. Especially seeing as how Stefan got marked by Rayna because he yet again saved Damon's ass from her sword. That poor fucker will never ever get to be happy, no matter what year, what town, what reality. He is doomed to misery because he keeps choosing to save Damon. Now he's on the run for good and can't be with Caroline because Bonnie essentially guilted him into going to save Damon's ass. For once, I am actually fairly curious to see how this is resolved. After this episode, it's only two more (until 7x15) until Candice Accola went on maternity leave, so Caroline will be away for an episode or two. Alaric naming one of the twin girls Elizabeth was a really sweet gesture. ...Crossing my fingers that those adorable little girls aren't killed off once the time jump occurs to three years later.

No, it's not a Canadian show. It is filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia but it was initially created for the U.S. Another SYFY show (Bitten) is an actual Canadian show that is filmed in Toronto, Ontario and produced as an original series for Space channel then transferred to SYFY.

So..Julia = junkie?

The jokey gag with Lucas always being older than his friends with the pictures of him in elementary school looking exactly like he does now was hilarious.

So the babies are siphoning Caroline's magic vampire blood..I get the show is trying to set this up like we should be concerned about it, but Caroline is clearly still a vampire in the flash forward, so I don't really care all that much. She got stabbed through the chest with a big wooden pike/stake, then she collapsed, but she clearly healed since she was fine when Matt let her out of that box. A normal human would've been dead instantly.

A good choice by the actress playing Marina IMO was that last bit before she burned the progress stars off of Julia's arm, the way she delivered that line "You think Brakebills cut you off from magic? You don't know cut off" was brilliant. To me it was like she was saying to Julia "You think you felt like your life was empty and nothing was important anymore after you didn't get admitted into the school, well imagine almost graduating, getting a shoddy memory wipe done, and losing those years of magical instruction from the best of the best AND then you'll know what I went through". I still think Marina had to have done something especially heinous to get expelled and to have her memory poorly altered, probably with a few other students involved in her year since #1 I saw other boxes of memories in that room #2 I think there was talk about the previous graduating classes being small? I absolutely got the intensity of emotion in that moment, almost as though Marina experienced what Julia did but 10x worse. The underlying tone of desperation, anger, you can really get a sense or almost reach the conclusion that Marina had to claw her way up the ladder of hedge witches after she was thrown out of Brakebills 3 months before graduation. Great line delivery on the part of Kacey Rohl! I don't think the staff at Brakebills are awful, I like the actress playing Marina and I'm curious to learn more about the character, but I think she must've done something awful to get kicked out. If anything, I think the staff have mostly shown that they care about the welfare of the students..in a way? Also, the way Dean Fogg reacted when he told Quentin that Q should've told him Julia wasn't properly memory wiped, does that mean it was an unusual occurrence and hasn't happened often?

Oh, this is a great idea!! I have a question! Is the relationship between Alice and Quentin believable? As in is it built up well and regarded as a solid relationship, or is it rushed? Does she just act as a replacement for Julia? I'm curious as to how it'll be tackled in the show.

I really enjoyed this episode, and the ending was great. Marina is a very interesting character to me. I wouldn't outright characterize her as a EVIL nonredeemable person right now but man did she go darker this episode. She, along with Julia and Kady set Quentin up to be trapped in his own mind and eventually just succumb to the insanity of the fake mental institute. First off, Brakebills seems to suck hard at wiping student's memories. Marina was 3 months from graduation when she was cast out, so she had to have done something so horrible that the staff saw no choice but to remove her access to Brakebills and magic. She seems to know the inner workings of Brakebills and how the Dean would behave in the situation she set up, so I am incredibly interested to learn more about her and how she changed. Marina doesn't even seem to have anything against Quentin specifically, she just considers him collateral damage and doesn't give a shit if he dies..which doesn't make her nice exactly. What Julia did or participated in against Quentin was pretty fucked up. She clearly knows his history with mental issues and I kind of agree with Elliot that she did it to get even with Q for what he said to her last episode. She's not a teenager so she really should've known better, it seems as though her quest for magic is leading her to ignore every other aspect of her life, she has tunnel vision right now and anyone who gets in her way can go to hell. It was clear or it should have been clear to Julia from the moment she met Pete and Marina that she shouldn't trust them at all, and she paid the price at the end by getting her hedge witch progress burned off her arm and being banished. I'm liking Penny more and more, and I am loving his traveler ability. It's almost like astral projection except I think he's able to affect the other environments he travels to at will? He really is a decent person seeing as how he immediately tried to help Q out once he woke up and called Julia out on her fucked up behavior. I did crack the hell up when he called Quentin a "racist motherfucker" for giving illusion Penny such a stereotypical accent and behavior. I'm curious as to why Marina specifically said Kady "can't talk" after Julia and Kady backed out on her at the last minute about leaving Quentin trapped. Why exactly can't she talk? Is Marina using magic to keep Kady silent or is it just good old fashioned blackmail?

This episode doesn't appear to be show out of order though? They referenced things that happened last week, specifically Elliot and Q going back to retrieve the second book.

Already renewed for Season 2! Yay!! :) I'm so glad that now I don't have to get seriously invested in the characters, setting, and story only to worry that it'll be cancelled by the end. http://deadline.com/2016/02/the-magicians-renewed-season-2-syfy-1201698411/

Yeah, I kinda totally agree with you on this. I'm thinking that Penny will stop being such an asshole over the course of the season, but right now he's just a bit too prickly to like. He had the right to defend himself in 1x02 during that fight with Quentin, but telling him what to think or how loud to think it isn't okay. I hope to see him interact more with the Dean and Quentin's group of friends and honestly a little less Kady/Katie, because he needs a circle of friends and right now he has none. I am so so glad that Dean Fogg is still around and wasn't permanently killed off in the first episode because he brings a little more maturity to the Brakebills scenes, just an aura of experience and a demeanor that says "I don't have time for your immature bullshit whining [insert character here]".

Hmm..I finally have respect for Alaric. Deciding to leave that hell hole of a town and move far far away is the best thing he could ever do for his daughters. If he was really smart he wouldn't tell anyone where he was moving to though, and since Damon finds him at home in the future, it seems that someone in the group knows his location.

Yay! Happy to hear the Logan returns news! It was ridiculous the way they ended and I'm hoping there's some sort of resolution here, or at least closure.

OT: Thanks for the response :) Overall I am enjoying the show too, but I kind of specifically meant book series to TV show adaptations. Those seem to struggle more often and aren't regarded as well as most book to movie adaptations or comic to movie. I do like how adaptations can often bring characters to life in a way that I didn't think of when i first read the book. Thanks! I haven't see the Expanse, perhaps I should check it out! I don't watch Game of Thrones although I know it's well constructed but I did notice a bunch of articles with people expressing dissatisfaction at the most recent season because of the use of rape/assault against female characters and then like a boycott or something and the creators of the show responded? Also, the author is behind on releasing the new books, right? So the show is moving faster than he's writing which is upsetting some fans?

OT: I see some dissatisfaction with how the characters are being handled on The Magicians, and I'm just curious, has there been any book series to TV adaptation in the last 10-15 years that people were generally satisfied with and enjoyed? Wayward Pines was skewered, Vampire Diaries became a hot mess and those are the only two I can think of off the top of my head. Unless The Magicians takes a sharp turn into awful village and becomes horrible, I think (maybe?) they're doing an okay job so far? JMO though!

Unpopular opinion time ;) - I loved Normal Again. In the overall flow of the season, yeah, it was probably a pointless episode since it didn't lead to anything, but Normal Again was one of my favorite Season 6 episodes. In this case though, unlike Buffy who seemingly had 7 years of her life in Sunnydale turn out to be a hallucination, Quentin has only been at Brakebills 3-4 months, wouldn't he just think "Okay, let me act completely normal so they stop thinking I believe in magic and then I can get out of here and investigate"?

Just 13 episodes? Darn! I don't know, I am still holding out hope that an episode or two from now Alice and Quentin will have a bit more chemistry together which would help me root for them. I admittedly have only read the first book and I know we're supposed to enjoy the show without having to have read the books, but I think Quentin matures throughout the series and maybe a big part of that could come from letting go of any residual feelings toward Julia, any petty jealousy or bitterness that she didn't pick him or whatever, and doing something selfless. I liked what the woman from the last episode told him, that he wasn't a genius, wasn't particularly remarkable and it didn't make much sense that The Beast came to him. I understand Quentin is supposed to be depressed (I think?) but I also think he needed to hear someone say that to him. Yeah, me too. I mean Alice's emotions were clouding her judgment (understandably so) but Quentin realized that it was going bad very quickly and used the box. Are you sure it's supposed to be 10 years? In the books, weren't they 18-19 at the beginning? That would make the characters 29-30 right now..I thought they were supposed to be the age of graduate school students, like 23-25.

I think she was 4th in their summoning spell..otherwise she was just tagging along with Penny and yet again had no purpose. Her specialty is with the physical kids, right? Near the end of the episode she had a scene where she gets into the cottage and Q and Elliot are there talking. That's my problem too, she brings nothing unique and we don't know much about her, which leads to people not caring. Yeah, I'm kind of having this same problem too. I don't see any real sparks between Quentin and Alice currently and that concerns me. Right now Alice is just 120% focused on what happened to Charlie and Quentin is adjusting to his new life and making friends, but I don't feel anything romantic between them currently. It's fairly easy to deduce that she's supposed to be his love interest since there's too much bad blood with Julia and there's really no other options, so I'm wondering if the romance angle is just gradually being introduced or if it's going to be rushed near the end of the season. How many episodes are in Season 1 anyway?

Katie or Kady.

Just finished the 3rd episode. I am in for the season, I really liked last night's episode even though some of the characters were frustrating. First off, I really see no use for Katie/Kady. She feels shoehorned into the Brakebills and she's incredibly annoying. I feel like Penny has enough going for him as a character and when she's in scenes with him, she doesn't really bring anything to the table. I read other posters saying she's not a book character so maybe that explains why her character is kind of pointless? She's probably going to be important later since she's being blackmailed by the top hedge witch, but for now she just bores me. The actress playing Julia is beautiful and doing a good job, but does she look incredibly tired to anybody else? Is it specific makeup to give her that tired look (which would make sense seeing as how she's currently living a double life) or something else? It was pretty damn stupid of her to use magic to rip off an ATM right in public, and I get the feeling things are going to get worse for her unfortunately. I don't see James sticking around for too much longer. I couldn't believe it, but I actually liked Quentin last night. He kept trying to take some sense into Alice, tried to save her, got his ass thrown back and injured while trying to help Alice with the niffin. But then again, I can sort of understand Alice's grief and her lashing out at everyone who potentially wants to help her. Her parents seem to be absent, emotionally and in every way that matters, and so she feels incredibly alone. I'm so glad that Dean Fogg is okay and still around! The staff at Brakebills are all characters/actors that I want to stick around. Elliot was still fun this week, I like his character! What's the deal with Margot though? I'm hoping there's something more to her than just shallow party girl who likes to gossip and loves fashion. I feel like Julia's group of hedge witches won't make it past Season 1 though, almost like they're going to get in over their heads with magic, summon something dangerous and then some of them will be killed.