S02.E09: Lesser Evils

[Jynnan tonnix]

Bit late to be adding to this thread, but I just happened upon this article on the episode (and musical numbers in general ) which I really enjoyed, particularly as they gave some background on the various experience some of the cast had (in this episode or others, such as the Taylor Swift song and the bits sung by the Beast). As I suspected, Hale and the girl who plays Fen have training, Summer had never  sung before, and the comments on Jason's voice (although it was not featured in his episode) made me smile. Also, I look forward to hearing Jade Tailor at some point as she apparently has some training as well, and I admit to a little bit of a girl-crush on her.

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/03/the-magicians-musical-les-miserables-syfy-john-mcnamara-sera-gamble-1201796162/

[wayne67]

I finally got around to watching this episode. Julia & Margo are both terrible, Julia as a strategist and friend and Margo as a queen who doesn't know when to be quiet and simply listen before making a snarky comment that backfires terribly.

Why did Penny break out Julia, she didn't provide anything of value and she was relatively safe in Fillory.  

[Camera One]

Just like the rest of this season, I found this one to be a bit of a hit and miss. 

It's hard to like the characters sometimes like at the beginning when Penny and Kady didn't seem to care that Quentin was dying and joked around like it was no big deal.  I suppose maybe they were just frustrated he wasn't willing to box Niffin Alice, but still, it just seemed callous.  

I find No-Shade Julia even more self-satisfied so she's almost intolerable now.  I did think it was stupid Quentin didn't free Alice when he was ultimately faced with Renauld.  It seems that every episode has a frustrating situation like that one.  I'm sick of Renauld and want him dead.

I thought the reason for the war in Fillory was stupid, and it completely disengages me in this plotline.  It's good for Eliot that he has a husband, but as said above, these rules seem like they're made up on the spot.  I was interested to see how they would handle fairies on this show, but it seemed like a cheap way to create some contrive drama now that the well water is clean again.

The musical part was hilarious, though, and Fen has a beautiful singing voice.  So this episode did have that one big plus.

[CigarDoug]

On 3/22/2017 at 10:42 PM, Hanahope said:

Oh it's going to fly when Elliott and wife find out about Margo's deal.  But that's what happens when all  the rules are not provided.  M is right, she's a "c", but she did believe E's life was at stake.  I still wonder why E couldn't stab the other king when he had him unarmed? That doesn't take much skill.

This episode could have been called, "Missed Opportunities". All Elliot had to do was run his sword through DrumLine!King. It doesn't take skill, just strength at that point. Also, it seemed a waste for Q to not use Alice to kill Reynard, but lets her go twenty minutes later? Seriously?

 

Maybe we will learn that Reynard has an enchantment where anyone who is in a position to kill him gets a twinge of doubt, long enough for him to gain control again. We've seen it with Julia and Quentin now. Come to think of it, that's a handy spell to have...

On 3/23/2017 at 9:32 AM, Hanahope said:

She pushed Q outside the 'new/back-up wards' (which apparently work without the magic wellspring?) right into Reynard thinking that Q would "self preserve" and release Aliciffin to attack/kill Reynard (or at least the host body).  But instead Q just sat there, ready to be killed by Reynard, and nearly was except for the appearance of Senator-son.  

Remember when our favorite Russian professor went all Mr. Miyagi on Penny? He was building a battery of magic. Maybe he got it working. Fogg mentioned a generator of sorts for that lab. If magic is energy, it stands to reason you can store it, or generate enough for a small area. I guess.

On 3/23/2017 at 1:40 PM, iMonrey said:

Crazy #2: this show bleeps out the f-word but not the c-word. Seriously? IMO the c-word is ten times more offensive than the f-word. I don't get it. It's like the show gets run through some kind of automatic censoring app that only screens out the f-word and everything else gets through. Even weirder, when someone says "fucking" they often only bleep the "ing" and you still hear the "fuck." Talk about random and pointless.

Their anti-dirty word wards are failing. The wellspring, don't you know.

[CigarDoug]

On 3/25/2017 at 10:44 AM, ketose said:

Who knew about the husband thing? Elliot has already explained his situation to Fen and there was that attempt to have a bunch of naked guys in the bedroom. You would think someone in Fillory would have mentioned it.

It's a crutch the writers are using, the royal court keeps a lot of secrets from their new monarchs (intentionally or otherwise). It's kind of like the particle accelerator on Flash for the first few seasons: Oh, look, another metahuman we created four years ago! But this one is slightly different so it allows us to tell a different story! You can only go to the well(spring) so often...