SomethingClever

Yeah, I thought this might have been the weakest episode of the show so far. Patrick had the best trick of the show by far. It's a really clever presentation and an elegant method. I didn't think I was going to like him when he came out, but it's a really good trick. It's really cool that Emily fooled them, particularly as an amateur, but it's not a particularly compelling trick to watch. It's very straightforward mentalism, which is not a genre of magic I have much affection for. The concept for Migz's trick is cool, but I thought the execution was poor. The force was weak (and there are SO MANY forces he could've used), and the other little bits of sleight of hand were pretty poor as well. Ugh, Seth Grabel. It's not just that it was a bad trick (it was), but it felt like a betrayal of all the things that the show is. Part of what makes the show great, to me, is that everything is done for a live audience and right in front of Penn and Teller. Even if I'm watching on camera, I know that they're seeing it with their own eyes, there's no fooling them with camera tricks. Here, that's not the case. It's also just so boring, there's nothing new or inventive added to it. As other people have mentioned, it lacked any kind of convincer that he was actually in there. It's just this cocky, showboating guy doing a boring trick. Felt like the opposite of Penn and Teller's whole ethos to me.

Yeah, it was a really strange performance, the tone was a bit all over the place. The technical skill is really excellent, though certainly this was one of those acts where P&T could've gone either way based on what they felt. There are so many moves that I'm sure P&T missed some of them, but I'm also sure that they saw plenty of them as well, so it just came down to them saying "yeah, he was awesome, we'll give him the win." He's super good, but I was less impressed than I would've been otherwise because I got to see Shoot Ogawa do a similar routine live at a convention I went to last year, and this guy is good, but he's no Shoot Ogawa. I would bet that she wasn't acting. I mean, he didn't just do that for this show, it's part of the regular floating table routine that you have a spectator hold the other side of it while its levitating, and they never see a thing. Losander is a legend and the Floating Table has become a classic for a reason. It's a beautiful trick, and the fact that you can do it in a spectator's hands makes it so powerful.

Nah, he legit fooled them. There's an "add-on" of sorts, but it's not what you would typically mean as a magician when you say "add-on". If they'd spotted his method, they would've been much more specific. The timing that they guess (adding on the royal flush while his back is turned) doesn't really explain the twist at the end of the trick. He very clearly shows the card that he is placing on the bottom of the piles when he says "this isn't your card, right?" and he very clearly puts that card down without switching it. The explanation has to explain how those cards change to the royal flush, and guessing that he added them on while his back was turned doesn't do that. I love Paul Gertner. I didn't think this was as strong as his previous two, but it's still an excellent trick. He's got such a great, warm personality, and he does such a great job of being super clear in his presentations. Even though they didn't fool P&T, I thought Morgan and West's trick was much better this time.

I've posted a few clips of Eric Mead on here before, he's one of my favorite magicians. His sleight of hand is exquisite, his routines are thought-out down to the tiniest detail, and his presentations are intelligent and thoughtful. So I was prepared to love this, and I did. I kind of wonder if magicians and non-magicians are going to react differently to that intro. I loved it. I thought it was a fun bit of challenging P&T, and it was very much of a piece with other stuff I've seen Mead do. I can see how it may come off as cocky, or an attempt to game the system, but I just thought it was fun, and I never care who actually fools them or not, so I don't care if he deserved it or not. As for the trick itself, it's gorgeous. Ramsay's Cylinder and Coins is one of my absolute favorite magic tricks. It's the only coin trick that's ever really made me want to learn and practice coin magic (I haven't done it yet, but it I ever do, it'll be for the purpose of being able to do this trick). Mead's version of it is exquisite. Every movement is motivated, the vanishes are gorgeous, his solution to the last coin problem is excellent, and the vanish of the cork is a great kicker (particularly for other magicians).

Super excited to hear that Kyle Littleton is gonna be on the show. I saw him at a convention a couple years ago giving his first ever lecture, and he was awesome. He's got some great tricks with some really terrific and clever methods.

Loved this episode. Liberty was okay, but everyone else was exceptional. Blass's trick was great, and the frog load was genuinely shocking. The way it just appeared from the deck just looked incredible and magical. Loved it. Gertner was fantastic, just like last time he was on the show. His routines are so clever and well-constructed. Sergio Starman legitimately blew me away. That's a classic style routine done absolutely flawlessly. I know what I'm looking for, and while I caught some of the steals and loads, there were a ton that I didn't see. A master class in misdirection, and one of the best acts they've had on the show to date.

Yeah, the McBride trick is certainly a respect fooler. Everything Penn described says he knows how it's done, but they gave him the fooler anyway. It's a very nice piece of magic, cleverly choreographed to create a convincing illusion, but I don't believe for a second that it fooled P&T. Watkins' trick was very good, but Eric Mead's is my favorite presentation of the trick. I think dice stacking is fascinating, and Steve Marshall was awesome at it. What a great, great act.

I really hated Berdini's trick. The presentation of it was so boring, and the reveal was so disjointed, it had no punch. Just really poorly constructed. 100th Monkey is an absolutely terrific effect, and his framing was really garbage. I liked Markson and Psenicka a lot, their personality and enthusiasm really made for good performances. I loved that moment where Psenicka went and sat down in Penn's seat with that huge grin on his face. Morphew's trick was easily the most difficult trick of the night to pull off, and he did it incredibly well. Palming cards when everyone knows you're going to palm cards is so tough to do, and it requires great routining and precise card handling. Really nice piece of card magic.

Alright, here's the method. There's a lot more going on under the surface with this trick than it first appears, and it's really cleverly constructed. Originally, I thought it was a peek, that he looks at the 6S when he gestures to Alison. If he's using a memdeck, the rest is trivial. But then there's a lot of process afterwards that would seem unnecessary, it actually doesn't really look like he peeked the card, and when he spreads the deck at the beginning, it's not in the order of any of the standard memdeck stacks. So I thought he might be marking or crimping the 6S as an indicator, but that doesn't really work either if you follow it through to the rest of the trick. It clicked when I watched again and saw the part where he spreads half the deck. That half of the deck IS in memorized deck order. It's the first 26 cards in Mnemonica, a popular memorized deck stack. So, the way the deck is set up at the beginning is that every other card is one of the first 26 cards in Mnemonica, and they're in reverse order. That way, when they're dealt out, those 26 cards are together and in order (as Amarsir noted, the cuts do nothing to change order, they just change where in the cycle you start). You can see this illustrated here, how the circle every other cards end up in order in the second picture: So now all he has to do is look for the one card in those 26 cards (the order of which he has memorized) is out of place. It's out of place because Penn took his card first, but then replaced it first, thereby reversing the order of the two cards. The card which does not belong in the 26 is Penn's card. The card which should be there instead is Teller's.

I'm still working out the exact mechanics, but I'm 100% sure he didn't use an assistant (magicians, particularly close-up magicians, don't use assistants nearly as often as laypeople think they do. It's impractical). Also, if I'm right, he does not peek at the 6S (which is what I originally thought he did), and he does not mark the card at all.

I'm just really surprised because with the first routine, it genuinely did feel like a fooler to me. Like, there were a few moves you could pick out, but even as an educated observer, I had to watch it 3-4 times before I had a real grasp of what was going on. Here, I just can't fathom that they wouldn't have been able to say That covers 80% of what he's doing.

I don't know quite how I feel about Shin Lim. He's a massively talented sleight of hand artist, but there's something very self-serious about his magic that I find a bit off-putting. Also, I really can't believe Penn and Teller got fooled by this one. There are some individual moves that they probably didn't catch, but the core techniques of many of those vanishes and transformations are pretty transparent if you know what you're looking for. This is a good performance, and very magical, but I didn't think it was as good as his first one.

I really liked Ichihana and Burns. I thought Burns was really funny. There were times when I knew the joke that was coming, but I laughed anyway because of the way he delivered it or the little twist he put on it (throwing the glitter out of the egg is a terrific little bit). The trick is a fun play on a classic, but it worked for me because his personality worked for me. Ichihana did a great trick, and he made it look effortless and came off as totally charming and personable in the process. Just really excellent card magic. I didn't love the chicken trick, but damned if it didn't fool the pants off me.

Really solid episode I don't really like Mike Super's whole vibe, and lottery prediction tricks are so boring to me. You know exactly where it's going from the very start, so you have to get creative with building tension or the reveal just seems so anticlimactic. Young and Strange are a really good act, I'd absolutely go see them do a show. They weren't ever going to fool P&T with that trick, but they're funny and energetic, and they put their own spin on classic tricks. I was blown away by Kayla Drescher. That's a great magic trick. I'm always jealous of a great wordless trick because I can never pull them off, myself. It was entertaining throughout, is infused with meaning, has a killer payoff, and happens in the spectator's hands. Awesome, awesome trick. If I had less scruples, I'd steal it and do it myself. Richard Turner is a marvel. I've seen videos of him before, but every time is a pleasure. His second deal is unbelievable. Even as he's telling you exactly what he's doing and the camera is zoomed in on the deck, you can't believe that it's really happening. I have guesses on how he does that last trick, but only because that's the only way I can figure it would be done, not because I can see anything.

It'll be interesting to see what he does, and if he actually does try to fool them. I think there are things he does that would be possible foolers (not necessarily because they don't know the technique, but because nobody can do it as precisely as he can). More likely though, I think it'll be like when Michael Vincent came on, where they talk about how they know what he's doing because it's classic stuff, but they gush about how unbelievably he does it.