S05.E08: Garden Variety Homicide

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Josh returns from his nephew's bar mitzvah. Margo and Eliot share a mojito.

Promo:

Clip:

Original air date: 2/26/20

Edited February 23, 2020 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Poltargyst]

Aw, Margo's not going to make Eliot kill the King.  She's a pal.

The messenger bunnies kill me every time.  It's the voice they use.  Freakin' hilarious.

Hale and Summer do a good job playing each other's characters.  Funny.

Whoa, I feel bad for the King now that they've killed him.  And for Eliot and Margo.  I was hoping they wouldn't. 

Damn, that was quite an effective solution Alice and the botanist came up with.

Yep, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop on killing the King.  Like this King was actually good, and NOW they've released the Dark King.  It always pays to find out why the King is raising Takers with gold before you kill him I always say.

 

[ProudMary]

Hale Appleman playing Eliot playing Margo was astonishingly good.  He's amazing.

Also, an honorable mention goes to Arjun Gupta as infected Penny. He's had to play several different versions of Penny over the years and I think the depth of the differences in his performances tend to fall under the radar a bit. 

[iMonrey]

Man, Hale Appleman and Summer Bishil must have had a blast playing each other. I can't wait until "Making the Magic" is available for this episode. I can easily picture each of them acting out those parts and studying each other then copying each other. It was so much fun to watch. Especially Hale playing Margo. Boy he nailed it.

Those fun scenes aside, this season still feels very disconnected and unfocused. Kady's story with the hedges has fallen off the radar and the other characters are scattered all over the place. I suppose they can still pull it all together somehow but there's currently no connected thread or overall theme, and I'm not confident they're working towards any kind of closure should the show get cancelled, which is looking fairly likely. 

[GaT]

Has no one at Brakebills ever heard of a copy machine, or a scanner, or a camera, or any other way with which you can copy a piece of paper?

[AudienceofOne]

I don't remember who said last week or the week before that the relationship between Elliot and Fen was off and she was being used for comic relief without any reference to her previous arc, her relationship with her husband (ex), or her daughter?

I agree 100% and it's starting to annoy me too. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Making magic:

 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Julia and the entire writing staff get demerits for "between you and I." UGH.

Oh, Penny. If you're going to test someone to see if they have communicable diseases, shouldn't you do that off campus? I mean, what good is knowing that they've tested positive if they're already on campus infecting people? I know the spore situation isn't something they tested for anyway, but what good is taking a precaution if you do it in  stupid way?

I couldn't believe that Alice has had this Very Important Piece of Paper for so long and she never bothered to make a copy. Make a hard copy and hide it somewhere. Then take a picture and store it in the cloud. Always have a backup if it's important!

I didn't understand why they had to let Raylan on campus in order to help them with the drawing anyway. Just skype him or facetime him and hold up the drawing. Voila, problem solved. No need to let a person with potentially contagious diseases on campus!

As someone who has watched a lot of tv shows and movies about supernatural creatures, I could not believe when the camera cut back to the king's bedroom and Sebastian was still lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. Anyone from earth who has ever watched even one movie about vampires or zombies or whatever knows you never just leave the body. Cut the head off, burn the body, separate the ashes into at least four different piles, and bury them in separate locations thousands of miles apart.

I loved Hale and Summer getting to play Eliot as Margo and Margo as Eliot. It definitely helps that they've had four full seasons to really get each other's cadences and quirks but they both did an amazing job (as opposed to when Faith and Buffy switched bodies and Sarah and Eliza had only been working together for a short time). Loved the assistance from Charlton!

[The Companion]

On 2/26/2020 at 10:15 PM, Poltargyst said:

Yep, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop on killing the King.  Like this King was actually good, and NOW they've released the Dark King.  It always pays to find out why the King is raising Takers with gold before you kill him I always say.

 

Honestly, the Dark King was providing information slowly to Eliot and Margeliot. It seems like they could have tried to dig just a smidge before jumping to killing him. He keeps talking about a deal and how he has to be king. It seems like something other than ego might be at play here. In fact, I don't see how it could be interpreted any other way. These guys are familiar with deals and magic coming at a price, etc. 

21 hours ago, iMonrey said:

 

Those fun scenes aside, this season still feels very disconnected and unfocused. Kady's story with the hedges has fallen off the radar and the other characters are scattered all over the place. I suppose they can still pull it all together somehow but there's currently no connected thread or overall theme, and I'm not confident they're working towards any kind of closure should the show get cancelled, which is looking fairly likely. 

Right? Where is Kady? Why didn't they just kill of Kady and keep Quentin if they didn't want to include her in the show anymore? 

I sadly agree that this show has almost 0 chance of renewal. You don't lose almost half of your target audience (down 44%) and get to continue. They took a risk and even if they thought it might get eyes on their show it should have been clear from the fallout that things were not going to go well. The entire thing was mishandled. They better stick a landing this season, because they had time to prepare for the very real possibility that the show was done.

If they actually want a chance at at least ensuring longevity on Netflix, they may consider re-shooting the ending to bring back Quentin, because it is absolutely clear that the fans are not happy with his death. I actually don't remember another fan response this clear. 

9 hours ago, AudienceofOne said:

I don't remember who said last week or the week before that the relationship between Elliot and Fen was off and she was being used for comic relief without any reference to her previous arc, her relationship with her husband (ex), or her daughter?

I agree 100% and it's starting to annoy me too. 

I actually thought she got some good lines in there about being a parent and having a baby. The loss she suffered when the fairies took her daughter has been glossed over for awhile, but they did give her a bit of meat here. I was glad for that because I agree that they have dropped a lot of pretty critical pieces of character development for her.

 

I admit that I am not thrilled about a baby storyline, but what can you do? It is better than trying to hide an obvious baby bump or essentially writing Julia out because of her pregnancy. Frankly, my biggest fear is that they use this as an excuse to have Julia land back with Penny 23. I still despise everything about that relationship. I don't feel like Penny cares about Julia. What she wants, who she is, what she needs. It all takes a back seat to his own feelings. As far as the episode itself, I thought it was handled well so I guess I will just have to wait and see.

I enjoyed Eliargo and Marliot. Agreed that they definitely had fun being each other. There is something really special about how they have written this friendship. The way that Margo recognizes when Eliot is feeling self-destructive. The way she validates his feelings. Also the way that Eliot can often get Margo to pull back. Honestly, they are what is keeping me in this show right now. 

I am a little bummed about the Josh/Margo breakup because I just think it is boring to constantly have couples breaking up. It tells me that the writers don't think they can write a compelling story with a relationship. Margo showed a lot of personal growth in the way she handled her feelings last year. She had to marry her self-image as a badass independent woman with actually opening herself up and being vulnerable. I loved the point she got to, which is why I find the current state of affairs so frustrating to watch. Don't get me wrong, it is on brand for her to avoid her feelings. It just sucks that we had to have a Freaky Friday to break them up and that Margo feels like she is backsliding a bit. I also really like Josh. The way he is supportive of Margo. The way he doesn't let his feelings get in the way of helping stop apocalypses. The stress baking. I am not a big shipper in general (Queliot being a very large exception), but I thought they were interesting together and I don't feel like the breakup is a particularly interesting narrative for either of them. So I am not mad about the couple so much as I am bored by the choice. 

Does anyone know who played the visiting botanist?

I liked the Brakebills zombie spore story but it felt so removed from the other storyline. It was a bit jarring. The weird choice to allow a potentially contagious magician on campus and the failure to make a copy of a critical document aside, there were some interesting and watchable parts there. I continue to like the new botanist whose name I really need to commit to memory (sorry, I am being lazy). I thought the discussion of grief was actually pretty well handled. I don't know how I feel about the solution of infecting a bunch of people with the spores on the theory that the consciousness will be trapped. It seems fairly risky. That being said, I liked it overall. 

I do find it interesting that they still can't write Alice with any of the other members of the group. She was really only held to the group by Quentin and while they have had her bond with others since his death, a lot of her scenes in the last two episodes have been with a new character. The internal cohesion of the group is falling apart. It's also my objection with having Kady off on an entirely unrelated storyline. When your ensemble show splits up the ensemble this much, it doesn't hold together as well and it makes for episodes where you feel like you have whiplash because the storylines feel entirely unconnected. The show generally does a good job of bringing it all back together, but this year it feels particularly disconnected for me. 

[iMonrey]

Quote

Has no one at Brakebills ever heard of a copy machine, or a scanner, or a camera, or any other way with which you can copy a piece of paper?

Yeah I kept wondering the same thing. In fact I can't ever remember seeing anyone with a cell phone either. 

Quote

I sadly agree that this show has almost 0 chance of renewal. You don't lose almost half of your target audience (down 44%) and get to continue. 

We usually have an announcement of renewal at this point in the season, too. So far, nothing.

Quote

Does anyone know who played the visiting botanist?

Daniel Graziadei. He used to be on The Young & The Restless, and was also in the very first season of American Horror Story. 

[AudienceofOne]

3 hours ago, The Companion said:

I do find it interesting that they still can't write Alice with any of the other members of the group. She was really only held to the group by Quentin and while they have had her bond with others since his death, a lot of her scenes in the last two episodes have been with a new character. The internal cohesion of the group is falling apart. 

Because... and I feel like a broken record at this point... Quentin was the heart of the show. And if you stake your own heart, you die. They are trying to do this thing where they move Julia to the heart of the group but that doesn't work because (a) Julie is the fucking worst* and (b) see a.

*My dislike of Julia in no way stops me from agreeing with everything you say about her relationship with Penny. He doesn't actually know or like her as a person and she deserves somebody who does. 

[The Companion]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

Daniel Graziadei. He used to be on The Young & The Restless, and was also in the very first season of American Horror Story. 

Thank you. I don't watch Young and The Restless, so it must have been AHS. My face blindness does sometimes work against me so that people I don't know feel familiar (as opposed to the more common way it affects me where people out of context are unrecognizable to me), but I watched the first season obsessively, so it's a likely candidate.

1 hour ago, AudienceofOne said:

Because... and I feel like a broken record at this point... Quentin was the heart of the show. And if you stake your own heart, you die. They are trying to do this thing where they move Julia to the heart of the group but that doesn't work because (a) Julie is the fucking worst* and (b) see a.

*My dislike of Julia in no way stops me from agreeing with everything you say about her relationship with Penny. He doesn't actually know or like her as a person and she deserves somebody who does. 

I disliked Julia for a long time, but she has grown on me. Totally get why she would be unlikable, though, given that I didn't warm up to her for several seasons.

I think the Penny relationship reminds me if my ex. He liked being my boyfriend. He liked showing off how great of a boyfriend he was. He talked a huge game about loving me. But one day I realized he didn't actually like me. He was constantly putting down my interests and the things I did. He wasn't particularly proud of my accomplishments. Our relationship was about what he wanted. 

I mean, Julia is going through some heavy stuff right now and Penny barely asks her how she is doing. He is so focused on his own vision of the future, that he doesn't really care about what Julia wants. 

I feel like they want us to think end game for these two, and I really don't want that. 

ETA: To your point about Julia as heart, I agree. They have her interacting with everyone but it is due to circumstance. You can't just retcon close relationships for Julia and the others so that she ties them together. She and Alice mourned together. She and Kady had mutual respect in times of crisis. She is interacting with the Fillory group because she is there to save Fillory. But none of that replaces the deep and meaningful relationships Q had with the other characters. You don't get the feeling that Julia would be talking to Fen if she wasn't in Fillory. It just leaves the audience wondering what big thing they thought was so important that they had to make room for it by taking away Quentin. Sigh. 

Edited February 28, 2020 by The Companion

[iMonrey]

15 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Making magic:

 

Every time I watch one of these things I think Brittany Curran is in costume for the show. And then I wonder why none of the other actors are. This is the first time I realized that these are her own clothes! She has . . . an eclectic wardrobe, I must say.

[generate789]

Can't recall the exact wording, but the prophecy was about Fillory being destroyed by a group of outsiders. So that's definitely going to be the Brakebills crew, no? I get the feeling (as others said upthread) that the Dark King was actually good and they should not have been messing with whatever he was doing with the Reapers before they figured out what. And for the love of all get-out, YES to everything everyone was saying about making a copy of the paper. How are we supposed to buy that Alice is some rare genius if that thought had not crossed her mind???

Spoiler

At any rate, the world-growing plant seems like what happens in the very end of the last book in the trilogy, so I think if this is going to be the last season, that's where they're going with it. 

 

[MeloraH]

If you're going to kill an immortal magician called the dark king who essentially has a tree horcrux then you at least double tap, if not decapitate, dismember, and separate.

Oh, and I was thinking the same thing too re: the book spoiler in the above post. But 

Spoiler

Plum played such a big role in the last book and I don't think there's enough time left for that to happen in the show.

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by MeloraH
adding stuff

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Opening scenes:

Eliot and Margo's Freaky Friday:

The Dark King dies: