S02.E12: Ramifications

[ElectricBoogaloo]

PENULTIMATE EPISODE FOR S2!

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Julia, Kady and Penny each make sacrifices to finally face Reynard; Quentin and Eliot learn a disturbing truth about Fillory.

Promo:

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I'm really hoping that the episode title (ramifications) means we'll be seeing Ember again! I can never remember which one is still alive and shat in the wellspring. That was Ember, right?

Sneak peek:

[Poltargyst]

WOW, what a great episode.  What a rollercoaster ride.  Too much happened to comment on.

Kind of ironic that Elliot wanted to do what the Beast was trying to do.  I guess the Beast was trying to save magic/Fillory in his own way.

Loved Elliot's face when he saw Alice.

I was so angry about Reynard killing John's wife, I really wanted a horrible end for him.  Almost seems anticlimactic that Mommy just comes and takes him away.  Is that really all we're going to see of him?

So John died in vain?  Come to think of it, we now have this bullet that can kill a god, and we have this annoying god wreaking havoc in Fillory...

Alice brought back from the dead by her friends but not happy about it gives me a Buffy vibe.

I liked Q's passion when talking to...Ember?  And Elliot's.  He really does care about Fillory.

Great episode.

[ketose]

On 4/6/2017 at 0:52 PM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I'm really hoping that the episode title (ramifications) means we'll be seeing Ember again! I can never remember which one is still alive and shat in the wellspring. That was Ember, right?

Well, we did see Ember.

 

32 minutes ago, Poltargyst said:

WOW, what a great episode.  What a rollercoaster ride.  Too much happened to comment on.

Kind of ironic that Elliot wanted to do what the Beast was trying to do.  I guess the Beast was trying to save magic/Fillory in his own way.

Loved Elliot's face when he saw Alice.

I was so angry about Reynard killing John's wife, I really wanted a horrible end for him.  Almost seems anticlimactic that Mommy just comes and takes him away.  Is that really all we're going to see of him?

So John died in vain?  Come to think of it, we now have this bullet that can kill a god, and we have this annoying god wreaking havoc in Fillory...

Alice brought back from the dead by her friends but not happy about it gives me a Buffy vibe.

I liked Q's passion when talking to...Ember?  And Elliot's.  He really does care about Fillory.

Great episode.

I think the Beast wanted to control the Wellspring. Umber thought it would be fun to watch, not realizing Martin would get the better of him. Elliot seems to see this as redeeming himself. Plus, apparently magic on Earth depends on Fillory.

In a sense, it was necessary for John to die so that Persephone would get off her lazy ass and take care of her son. Julia got her shade back in the deal and Alice is alive. The god killing bullet seems like it will be super handy. I'm also angry about Reynard killing John's wife because I have a mad crush on Alexie Gilmore.

I'm glad Alice is back. I also think Q did the right thing because 1.) Given the chance, Alice would have done the same thing to her brother. 2.) Little shade Alice really liked Quinn and I think she wanted to come back. I also think Alice is going to get out of niffin mindset pretty soon, especially given the preview.

[KaleyFirefly]

So Reynard brutally rapes, tortures, and murders numerous people, because he's mad at his mommy? And all she says to him is "I'm disappointed in you?" That's totally lame. I'm disappointed in you, show.

I like that Alice is back but is still not quite Alice.

That house in Vancouver is beautiful, can I go live there?

Quentin is becoming a lot stronger as a character. He doesn't take any sh*t from anybody in this episode. He tells off Mayakowsky for being a drunk who's not using magic to help the world, plus reminds him that Alice's fate was indirectly his fault. He also tells off Umber for abandoning Fillory to the Beast and letting chaos take over. He basically guilts both of them into helping out. Go Q!

[mirrorrim]

Don't kill my son. I know he's been raping and murdering people for...decades, all because of me abandoning him, and I'm only appearing now because he might die, but I'll totally take care of it, ok? *eye roll* Julia getting her shade back felt more like paying off a bribe than a thank you. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Sorry, Persephone, but "I'm disappointed in you" is too little, too late. She didn't intervene with any of the decades of Reynard raping and murdering innocent people because eh, they're just humans. But once the raping murderer might actually be punished for all the raping and murdering, suddenly she's a concerned mother? I was totally with Kady. I wish Julia had killed Reynard. Despite Persephone's warning that there are consequences for murdering a god, well tough shit - there should be consequences for murdering and raping multiple humans.

I like angry Quentin a lot more than I like emo Quentin. Telling off Mayakovsky and Umber made me want to high five him! I love that whenever Mayakovsky's former students come back to him, they always need something from him but they always manage to work in telling him to fuck off while they're there.

Damn it, why did the Lorians have to murder Benedict? I'd much rather have him around than Tick. Although I knew Josh's hakuna matata logic wouldn't end well for Fillory, I had to laugh that he chose The Lion King as his inspiration. When Josh got everyone high and they were roasting an animal I was really afraid it was Abigail! Rafe couldn't get high enough to let that happen, right?

Are we ever going to find out who Sylvia's father is? I was going to guess Reynard just because he was powerful and scary (even though it didn't exactly fit her story about why she had been hidden in the library for the past year). Hopefully her family doesn't blame Penny for her death. So the poison room has all these wards and locks and magical ways to keep people out but Penny and Sylvia can just open the back door and there's no alarm or anything to notify the other librarians of a major security breach?

I really like that Eliot now sees Fillory as his home, not a place that he's stuck in. And now that he's been banished from Fillory and he can stay on earth having sex with guys and drinking real champagne, all he wants to do is go back to Fillory and save it. Awwwwww!

I'm glad that the senator refused to give in to Reynard's plan and become evil. Even though it was kind of fucked up that he forced Kady to kill him, I appreciate that he was willing to sacrifice himself in order to let them take down his father. Part of me understands why he didn't want to make Kady be the one to kill him, the other part of me was like dude, she has no shade and she's already REALLY fucked up so just let her do it instead of making someone with a conscience do it!

Interesting that Umber said the reason Fillory worked before was because he and Ember were opposites. Are there two people in the court that could serve that purpose? Or do we need Umber to return to Fillory? The fact that Umber loved Law and Order ("the best tv series ever made") totally cracked me up.

[FiveByFive]

2 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

So the poison room has all these wards and locks and magical ways to keep people out but Penny and Sylvia can just open the back door and there's no alarm or anything to notify the other librarians of a major security breach?

Well, who needs alarms when the air is full of magical radiation? Sealed with a magical lock. In a fountain in another dimension which would normally take people months to locate .... unless you're a Traveler and can pop around to each! And there are so few Travelers thanks to the Beast! Besides it doesn't matter anyway because you wouldn't even know any of this unless you worked at the library!

And here comes Penny and Sylvia to satisfy all of these things.

Also, I'm of the party that does not think Sylvia is gone for good. She was hell bent on reading her book for a purpose. For her to say, "Penny this is where my book ends!" is one thing but her saying "Oh, BTW you can't save me or else you gonna' die too! Go! Go! Shu! Let me die now ... alone where you can't see!" How would she know the second thing?

3 hours ago, mirrorrim said:

Don't kill my son. I know he's been raping and murdering people for...decades, all because of me abandoning him, and I'm only appearing now because he might die, but I'll totally take care of it, ok? *eye roll* Julia getting her shade back felt more like paying off a bribe than a thank you. 

This part bugged me but it's not completely uncommon in stories about Gods and Goddesses 'n such. They could care less about humans but they're super into protecting each other. "Yeah, ... he did some really bad stuff to you humans! Oh well! Me and the kid are going home! Bye gurl! Oh and here's your shade just because you didn't murder him when I asked you to! Have a nice life! Peace!"

I was shocked Julia didn't turn around and shoot Persephone. After all, she's not supposed to have a "shade" but she has been acting pretty darn normal since she set those trees on fire in Fillory. Also none of this would have happened had Persephone just taken care of her son. 

Edited April 13, 2017 by FiveByFive

[Hanahope]

I kept yelling at the TV, Julia, shoot him!! I couldn't understand why she would hesitate yet again.  And wtf didn't Persephone not appear when they nearly had Reynard dead at Marina's apartment?  But for the shear luck of timing coincidence, Julia would have gutten Reynard.  Did Persephone realize that the timing coincidence would occur?  And yeah, f-you Persephone.  Giving Julia back her shade is the absolute least you could do.

Umber is being a little dick.  Even if he had some agreement with the Beast to leave Fillory, the Beast is dead, so go on back and help put Fillory to rights instead of leaving it to your chaos brother Ember.  Otherwise, I know a good use for that god-killing bullet.

Mad Quentin is great.

Ok, so wtf was the point of Sylvia for her to show up, and die after reading her book?  Seriously? THere has to be something more to her, at least I hope so.

[Chris24601]

Julia couldn't shoot him, because plotwise they're going to need the magic bullet to kill Ember (Umber having already moved on from the place) and thereby save Fillory (and with it all magic), but in so doing set off whatever it is that is so bad that the books of everyone's lives have the same 22 blank pages in the near future (probably the conflict for season three).

I'm also wondering if there wasn't more to the poison room than we saw... the first thing I noticed were the "statues" and my first thought was "So that's where all the gods went" and then the long missing Persephone just happens to show up after Penny and Sylvia breach the Poison Room?

My hunch is that the uncoming twist is that, for some reason, the gods want to destroy their creation (like Ember writ large) and the Library has been locking them away to keep that from happening (which in a crazy predestination paradox is probably WHY the gods want to destroy creation in the first place).

I also can't help but think that the time loop thing which keeps getting brought up heavily as we near the end of the season (two episodes ago it was getting info from another timeline, last episode was the confusion with the Underword's system due to the 39 deaths, this episode was Sylvia seeing them re-shelve Penny's book 39 times) will come into play again; perhaps in relation to the 22 blank pages... like things go completely FUBAR and someone (Q most likely) will have to reset things back to '22 pages' earlier and do something completely different to keep the universe intact.

[Jynnan tonnix]

1 hour ago, Chris24601 said:

Julia couldn't shoot him, because plotwise they're going to need the magic bullet to kill Ember (Umber having already moved on from the place) and thereby save Fillory (and with it all magic), but in so doing set off whatever it is that is so bad that the books of everyone's lives have the same 22 blank pages in the near future (probably the conflict for season three).

I'm also wondering if there wasn't more to the poison room than we saw... the first thing I noticed were the "statues" and my first thought was "So that's where all the gods went" and then the long missing Persephone just happens to show up after Penny and Sylvia breach the Poison Room?

My hunch is that the uncoming twist is that, for some reason, the gods want to destroy their creation (like Ember writ large) and the Library has been locking them away to keep that from happening (which in a crazy predestination paradox is probably WHY the gods want to destroy creation in the first place).

I also can't help but think that the time loop thing which keeps getting brought up heavily as we near the end of the season (two episodes ago it was getting info from another timeline, last episode was the confusion with the Underword's system due to the 39 deaths, this episode was Sylvia seeing them re-shelve Penny's book 39 times) will come into play again; perhaps in relation to the 22 blank pages... like things go completely FUBAR and someone (Q most likely) will have to reset things back to '22 pages' earlier and do something completely different to keep the universe intact.

Some really perceptive speculation here!

[grandemocha]

What the hell Julia? I guess she can't really be blamed in this situation though..but if I had that chance to kill Reynard, he would've been dead. Screw OLU. Yes, it was nice that Julia got her shade back but Persephone/OLU fucked the humans over yet again. Richard & the other FTB, even John & especially Julia deserved revenge by killing Reynard. He deserves nothing but death. I feel like Persephone was lying when she said there were consequences to killing a god. Maybe a big one, but Reynard is just a trickster.

Quentin was kind of a badass in this episode (for him anyway..) and I LOVE that Alice is back :) :) little shade Alice was still adorable. I can understand why Alice would be mad about being back as human after having the endless knowledge and freedom as a niffin but to be fair, if she had a chance to bring her brother back w/ his shade then she would've 100% done it without a doubt.

I might just be blanking right now. but did the show ever explain why exactly Mayakovsky is the most powerful magician on Earth? Family lineage or just because? I'm also confused about Sylvia. I feel like there has to be more to her story but since the season finale is next week, then maybe not. Is her dad someone we might meet next season? Was she always destined to die and she wanted her book to fix her fate? Poor Penny. I wonder if he's going to be in next week's episode?

[iMonrey]

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I kept yelling at the TV, Julia, shoot him!!

This irritated the hell out of me. It's such a TV and movie cliche, like all the villains in the Bond movies. It's not enough to just kill your opponent, you have to stand there and relish the moment long enough for them to be saved. They know damn well Reynard can just zap himself away in a flash or slit their throats before they even have a chance to blink with his super-speed. You cannot just stand there and point a gun at him. The only way to kill him is to take him by surprise, but no. Julia had to confront him face to face because . . . plot. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I'm not really following the Fillory story. Umber and Ember were . . . brothers? Lovers? What kind of creatures are they? Which one is which? Why did one of them leave Fillory and why does the other want to destroy Fillory?

I didn't get why Elliot was exiled either. I believe he asked Quentin if it was because he was a "faggot" which they bleeped for some odd reason. The random bleeping on this show never fails to astound me. 

I did kind of crack up that Ember or Umber (whichever one they met in this episode) was planning to create a new world called Cuba and Elliot had to tell him that's already a place.

[Hanahope]

15 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

I'm not really following the Fillory story. Umber and Ember were . . . brothers? Lovers? What kind of creatures are they? Which one is which? Why did one of them leave Fillory and why does the other want to destroy Fillory?

I didn't get why Elliot was exiled either. I believe he asked Quentin if it was because he was a "faggot" which they bleeped for some odd reason. The random bleeping on this show never fails to astound me. 

So Umber and Ember are the two "gods of Fillory", I think brothers, but who knows.  Ember is the one we saw first last season, that gave Julia back of her bad memories, and gave Q (who gave to Alice) the cup of his "essence" to drink in order to kill the beast. Ember is apparently a 'chaotic god' who just likes to do random chaotic things (like soil the wellspring), he doesn't necessarily want to 'destroy' Fillory, he's just getting bored (and apparently Elliot was beginning to 'bore him' which is why Elliot got booted.

Apparently, Martin/beast met up with Umber (the law and order one) when Martin was human and somehow convinced Umber to leave Fillory so Martin could drink from the wellspring and become powerful.  If there was a more specific explanation, I missed it.

[bookrat]

I expected Julia to shoot mom god because, damn, your son has been murdering and raping people who are trying to summon you, and you don't seem to care. AT. ALL.  I was hoping she would shoot both of them.

[ketose]

4 hours ago, grandemocha said:

What the hell Julia? I guess she can't really be blamed in this situation though..but if I had that chance to kill Reynard, he would've been dead. Screw OLU. Yes, it was nice that Julia got her shade back but Persephone/OLU fucked the humans over yet again. Richard & the other FTB, even John & especially Julia deserved revenge by killing Reynard. He deserves nothing but death. I feel like Persephone was lying when she said there were consequences to killing a god. Maybe a big one, but Reynard is just a trickster.

Quentin was kind of a badass in this episode (for him anyway..) and I LOVE that Alice is back :) :) little shade Alice was still adorable. I can understand why Alice would be mad about being back as human after having the endless knowledge and freedom as a niffin but to be fair, if she had a chance to bring her brother back w/ his shade then she would've 100% done it without a doubt.

I might just be blanking right now. but did the show ever explain why exactly Mayakovsky is the most powerful magician on Earth? Family lineage or just because? I'm also confused about Sylvia. I feel like there has to be more to her story but since the season finale is next week, then maybe not. Is her dad someone we might meet next season? Was she always destined to die and she wanted her book to fix her fate? Poor Penny. I wonder if he's going to be in next week's episode?

I can totally believe there are consequences to killing a god. Every single action on The Magicians has had consequences.

Mayakovsky seems to be a magician who studied magic but didn't want to go so far as to turn niffin. Anyone else who became powerful enough went niffin. Maybe Mayakovsky wants to learn the hard way because niffins are all assholes.

[call me ishmael]

What i don't understand is how Julia could NOT shoot Reynard when she didn'5 have her shade?  Why would she care?  Isn't a shadeless person supposed to be beyond on the silly moral notions of the world?

[Thii-XD]

Feel like i'm the only one who hated the episode.
It was so predictable... Alice is back, Julia is back and OLU is a Random goddes who knew about hers spoiled kid raping hers followers, and did NOTHING about it; WTF she even protected reynar. 
I'm not even gonna start about the "musical".
Imao worst episode made by them... Fell so far from the original tree it was painful to watch.
Love the show but hated the ep, hope they don't stay in this path. 

[Thii-XD]

21 hours ago, KaleyFirefly said:

So Reynard brutally rapes, tortures, and murders numerous people, because he's mad at his mommy? And all she says to him is "I'm disappointed in you?" That's totally lame. I'm disappointed in you, show.

I like that Alice is back but is still not quite Alice.

That house in Vancouver is beautiful, can I go live there?

Quentin is becoming a lot stronger as a character. He doesn't take any sh*t from anybody in this episode. He tells off Mayakowsky for being a drunk who's not using magic to help the world, plus reminds him that Alice's fate was indirectly his fault. He also tells off Umber for abandoning Fillory to the Beast and letting chaos take over. He basically guilts both of them into helping out. Go Q!

Thought I was the only one who saw how disturbing OLU behavior was.
She knew all about the murder, rapping and just watched. Even saved Reynard, Sooooo messed up ...
I can not balive they wanted to "save" both Alice and Julia so hard that they made up a rape complying Goddes.
just toooo messed up.

[Teitr Styrr]

I've liked a bunch of episodes of this show, but this one was right up there with the best. Josh was awesome. Poor John got broken, and since I've always kinda been on Julia's side, I was real happy had that went. Chekov's magic bullet has Umber's name on it, I bet.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Teitr Styrr

[ElectricBoogaloo]

13 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I'm not really following the Fillory story. Umber and Ember were . . . brothers? Lovers? What kind of creatures are they? Which one is which? Why did one of them leave Fillory and why does the other want to destroy Fillory?

 

13 hours ago, Hanahope said:

So Umber and Ember are the two "gods of Fillory", I think brothers, but who knows.  Ember is the one we saw first last season, that gave Julia back of her bad memories, and gave Q (who gave to Alice) the cup of his "essence" to drink in order to kill the beast. Ember is apparently a 'chaotic god' who just likes to do random chaotic things (like soil the wellspring), he doesn't necessarily want to 'destroy' Fillory, he's just getting bored (and apparently Elliot was beginning to 'bore him' which is why Elliot got booted.

Apparently, Martin/beast met up with Umber (the law and order one) when Martin was human and somehow convinced Umber to leave Fillory so Martin could drink from the wellspring and become powerful.  If there was a more specific explanation, I missed it.

Just wanted to add that in the books, Ember and Umber are definitely brothers. If I recall correctly, they are twins. I can't remember if they mentioned that during S1. They are gods, which is why Alice was temporarily powerful enough to defeat the Beast. I thought it was interesting that once Eliot figured out the "collector" was actually Umber, Umber did not at any time use his powers to hurt Eliot or Quentin. I think he misses Fillory so much that he just wanted someone to talk to about Fillory. Even though he's given up on Fillory and won't do anything to save it, he still loves it. Do his powers work on earth? I want to know how he would create a new realm. Like would he have to go to the Neitherlands and create an entirely new space? Or is he waiting until Fillory dies and then making something new there?

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I did kind of crack up that Ember or Umber (whichever one they met in this episode) was planning to create a new world called Cuba and Elliot had to tell him that's already a place.

And it was cube shaped!

5 hours ago, Thii-XD said:

Thought I was the only one who saw how disturbing OLU behavior was.
She knew all about the murder, rapping and just watched. Even saved Reynard, Sooooo messed up ...

If you read the previous posts in this thread, you will see that several people thought she was terrible.

But I'd really like to see Garcelle Beauvais and Mackenzie Astin do some rapping together! Still hard to believe that little Andy from the Facts of Life = Reynard (well, Reynard in Richard's body, but still).

Edited April 14, 2017 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Spaceman Spiff]

On ‎4‎/‎13‎/‎2017 at 1:40 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I'm glad that the senator refused to give in to Reynard's plan and become evil. Even though it was kind of fucked up that he forced Kady to kill him, I appreciate that he was willing to sacrifice himself in order to let them take down his father. Part of me understands why he didn't want to make Kady be the one to kill him, the other part of me was like dude, she has no shade and she's already REALLY fucked up so just let her do it instead of making someone with a conscience do it!

I think you meant Julia here...

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Making magic:

[ketose]

The producers definitely called it by saying people wouldn't like the conclusion of the Reynard story. I just don't like the possibility that he could come back.

Edited April 15, 2017 by ketose
I meant I *don't* like that Reynard could come back.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I wasn't angry about it because I wanted Julia to get her revenge on. I was annoyed because when all of this started (ahem, with Julia betraying everyone at the end of S1), she claimed it was not for personal revenge but to stop Reynard from killing and raping other witches. She had the means to stop him with the magical blood bullet but she let him go based on the assumption that Mommy is going to somehow discipline him. But there is no guarantee of that. Reynard could kill his own mother or escape from her or pretend to be a good boy so that Persephone lets him go and then he starts killing and raping again. If there's anything I have learned from watching sci fi stuff, it's never let a bad guy get away when you can end him or he WILL come back and hurt you again.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

On 4/13/2017 at 2:20 PM, Hanahope said:

If there was a more specific explanation, I missed it.

Umber mentioned that Martin/the Beast was on the verge of killing him.

On 4/13/2017 at 9:27 AM, Hanahope said:

I kept yelling at the TV, Julia, shoot him!! I couldn't understand why she would hesitate yet again.  And wtf didn't Persephone not appear when they nearly had Reynard dead at Marina's apartment?  But for the shear luck of timing coincidence, Julia would have gutten Reynard.  Did Persephone realize that the timing coincidence would occur?  And yeah, f-you Persephone.  Giving Julia back her shade is the absolute least you could do.

Because Martin/the Beast was there?

[WildPlum]

I do sort of like the theme that the last thing you want to do is attract the attention of the gods because they truly don't give a damn about you or what happens to you and your world and regard you as a mere talking annoyance to be screwed over as they please. Umber, Ember, Our Lady of the Underground - none of them particularly care about humans other than as occasionally amusing playthings.

If that is really the last we see of OLOTU and Reynard, then that has been a really unsatisfying story arc - which is why fans would be annoyed, not necessarily just because Julia/Kady don't actually kill Reynard. Sort of like Sylvia - if she showed up for a couple episodes just to give Penny some critical info and then dies and is never heard of or thought of again, that is a waste of a character. Although I can't stand frat boy/chef Josh, could he be the next to pointlessly die, please?

[tennisgurl]

Shoot him Julia! Shoot his nasty ass! If that seriously the end of his character and this whole arc, I will be seriously pissed off. He murders, tortures, and rapes countless people, John DIED to get rid of him, and Julia has him dead to rights, and he just gets to go home with his mommy? That's just a stupid, lame way to end his character. It did work out for Julia at least, and hopefully he wont be on the lose to keep causing havoc and hurting people at least.

Poor John. I wish he didn't have to die, especially considering it ended up being for nothing. Hopefully they can still use that god killing bullet to go asshole deity hunting at least, so his death wont be completely in vain. And his poor wife! Serious, Reynard is the worst. I hope at least mom makes him stay in his room for about 100 million years.

I might be pissed off about Reynard, but I still liked the episode a lot. I'm glad Alice is back, even if she's pretty off right now. And Q being pissed off and calling people out is awesome to see. He has really grown on me a lot this season, now that he has gotten more proactive and less emo, despite having even more to angst about this season than last season.

Always good to see Mayakovsky, even when he's being a dick, as usual. I do wonder, does he always have to stay in his little shack on some frozen tundra? I know he's exiled from the main campus and has to teach his classes in the middle of nowhere, but can he not even go to the store in whatever town in close to him? Go to a movie, take a vacation? Is it just because he's bitter and doesn't want to? Because if I was stuck in a frozen little shack in the middle of nowhere with only my annoying students and one dorky hat, I would drink too.

For a second, I thought that Umber was about to invent the Discworld, with all that talk about making a world on the back of a turtle. Laughed really hard at him wanting to name his new world Cuba, and his disappointment when Elliot told him it was already a place.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I wonder how they're going to cover up the murder of the senator and his wife. I know they can just get rid of his body, but he's not some random guy. People are going to look for him. I don't want there to be a big storyline about Julia, Kady, et al being on the run/under investigation/on trial for his murder but I feel like it still needs to be addressed with at least one sentence.

I think Mayakovsky being stuck at Brakebills South was part of his punishment, so I imagine that Dean Fogg uses the portal we saw between the main campus and Antarctica to bring food and other supplies so that Mayakovsky has no excuse to leave.

[ketose]

Mayakovsky seems to be prepping for the end of magic. Hanging around a bunch of other magicians might not be much use to him. I assume that's what's going to happen in season 3, especially now that we know about the 20 missing pages in every library book.

[Jynnan tonnix]

Maybe there's some way for Reynard's mother to rehabilitate him. I suppose if the two of them showed back up at some  point determined to right some wrongs I might feel better about the arc. Because, I agree...the way it stands, it's supremely unsatisfying. Julia seemed to have come to almost be a more likeable character without her shade, so what's the real advantage, story-wise, to her having one? Hopefully at least John's seemingly meaningless death might, as some have suggested, at least prove useful in dispatching Umber or Ember, otherwise that's a real waste of a character. 

I really hope that Eliot gets back to Fillory, and Fen & the baby are somehow brought back from the fairy realm. I just really liked the dynamic that was building there, and adore Eliot even more when he has a purpose other than hedonism.

[Machiabelly]

When is the next episode?

[call me ishmael]

2 hours ago, Jynnan tonnix said:

Maybe there's some way for Reynard's mother to rehabilitate him. I suppose if the two of them showed back up at some  point determined to right some wrongs I might feel better about the arc. Because, I agree...the way it stands, it's supremely unsatisfying. Julia seemed to have come to almost be a more likeable character without her shade, so what's the real advantage, story-wise, to her having one? Hopefully at least John's seemingly meaningless death might, as some have suggested, at least prove useful in dispatching Umber or Ember, otherwise that's a real waste of a character. 

I think the only way they can salvage this plot line's ending is if the bullet ends up killing Ember and then they have to deal with the effects of killing a god.  Otherwise it is truly a mess.

[MorganSte]

Where's the gun with the god killing bullet?  After OLU leaves with her son, Julia doesn't have it.  Did Kady grab it and walk off?

[ketose]

18 hours ago, call me ishmael said:

I think the only way they can salvage this plot line's ending is if the bullet ends up killing Ember and then they have to deal with the effects of killing a god.  Otherwise it is truly a mess.

Wouldn't his brother get kind of pissed?

[call me ishmael]

3 hours ago, ketose said:

Wouldn't his brother get kind of pissed?

Maybe.  But clearly there is no love lost there....

[theatremouse]

On 4/13/2017 at 6:27 AM, Hanahope said:

I kept yelling at the TV, Julia, shoot him!! I couldn't understand why she would hesitate yet again.

I don't think she did hesitate. It was supposed to look like it at first but then once Persephone was there it was clear they were all frozen except Julia could talk to her. Reynard kept doing the shifty-eye thing because they literally could not move from their current positions. So basically, before Julia could shoot, Persephone froze them all and tried to talk her out of it, and ultimately did let her make the decision based on Persephone's speechifying, but I don't think Julia could physically pull the trigger while Persephone was talking. That's how it looked to me.

Julia's ultimately deciding not to is a whole other kettle of fish...but her not pulling the trigger the second she had the shot, I believe was Our Lady of the Interference.

[AlleC17]

On 4/17/2017 at 1:31 PM, theatremouse said:

I don't think she did hesitate. It was supposed to look like it at first but then once Persephone was there it was clear they were all frozen except Julia could talk to her. Reynard kept doing the shifty-eye thing because they literally could not move from their current positions. So basically, before Julia could shoot, Persephone froze them all and tried to talk her out of it, and ultimately did let her make the decision based on Persephone's speechifying, but I don't think Julia could physically pull the trigger while Persephone was talking. That's how it looked to me.

Julia's ultimately deciding not to is a whole other kettle of fish...but her not pulling the trigger the second she had the shot, I believe was Our Lady of the Interference.

At first I was yelling at her too, but concluded she was frozen.  The darting eyes of Reynard was creepy but hilarious at the same time.  I think Ember has a magic bullet heading his way.

[WildPlum]

I bet the actor playing Reynard is SO glad to be done with those contacts. Maybe not the paying role, but definitely the contacts.

[AudienceofOne]

Wow, that episode was fantastic. I take it back, they're totally bringing everything together at the end and I'm genuinely interested in the finale.

Also, hallelujah on finally writing Julia properly. I felt so terrible for her this episode. She's spent so much time trying to pull herself back from her selfishness and narcissism, put so much energy into actively doing the right thing and Persephone comes and tells her that killing Reynard is another act of selfishness and that she needs to let the murderous rapist go. I wanted her to shoot the asshole but could totally understand why she didn't. In doing so she screwed over Kady and John but for once this was not due to selfishness or myopia.

Someone in the writer's room has finally nailed it with the character and it makes me doubly convinced this is the person they always thought they were writing.

I actually like the idea that Ember has just been fucking with everybody for fun. Such a God thing to do.

Onward to episode 13...

[Hanahope]

9 hours ago, AudienceofOne said:

Also, hallelujah on finally writing Julia properly. I felt so terrible for her this episode. She's spent so much time trying to pull herself back from her selfishness and narcissism, put so much energy into actively doing the right thing and Persephone comes and tells her that killing Reynard is another act of selfishness and that she needs to let the murderous rapist go. I wanted her to shoot the asshole but could totally understand why she didn't. In doing so she screwed over Kady and John but for once this was not due to selfishness or myopia.

I'm not convinced that killing Reynard would have been selfish on Julia's part.  Yes, she wanted him dead, she wanted revenge for what he did to her.  But, she also wanted revenge for what he did to Kady (and threatens to do - as long as he's out and about in the world).  She wanted revenge for what he did to Marina (who had her good parts, in addition to her bad ones).  She wanted John's life and sacrifice not to go to waste.  She wanted to protect all other hedge witches like her who stupidly prayed to OLU (and were ignored), that ended up getting slaughtered by Reynard instead.

If Julia knew without a doubt that Reynard would suffer some punishment and would never hurt anyone again, then maybe, maybe you could say that her killing him, instead of letting OLU take him away, would be selfish.  But she doesn't.  She has no reason to believe that OLU, Reynard's mother, would do any punishment, or prevent Reynard from coming back if another group like her's tried to summon OLU again.  Certainly, OLU didn't give a damn that Reynard was out and about slaughtering her worshippers.  It was only when his life was really threatened, that she made an appearance.  

As far as I'm concerned, Julia still had every right to kill Reynard and I wouldn't blame her, or call her selfish for doing so.  IMO, she stopped because she was told that there would be consequences, which is selfish (as such would mostly fall on her, I presume, though its possible some would befall Kady as well).  Now the show suggested that a part of Julia decided to have faith in OLU again, despite having no reason to trust her.  ANd I guess we have to accept that, since we're supposed to believe that OLU's giving Julia back her shade was a 'thank you' (though now Julia has to handle all the feelings from everything that has happened - so blessing/thank you is somewhat questionable).

[AudienceofOne]

9 hours ago, Hanahope said:

I'm not convinced that killing Reynard would have been selfish on Julia's part. 

I don't think I expressed myself well enough. I wasn't saying the act would have been selfish (I don't think it would have been). I'm saying she was told it was selfish and myopic when those two traits are the ones she was trying to work on. From her perspective, she was in the same position she was in with Reynard when the gang were trying to kill the Beast. She has two choices in that moment:  continue with her revenge on Reynard or bow to the bigger picture. A God told her she was exhibiting all the traits she wanted to change about herself, that she was repeating her past mistakes - mistakes that got Alice killed. We know she wasn't. But she doesn't because she knows her judgement was and is flawed.

It's frustrating but it's not frustrating in the way her previous actions have been. It was a Hobson's Choice. It could have gone either way and either would have had consequences. At least in this instance she tried to make the decision she believed was untainted by her own feelings. That's real progress.

[wayne67]

I wish they had invested all that demi god death power into something more reusable like a dagger or an arrow tip or something. 

It was nice seeing Ember fanboying over his former creation. 

[Camera One]

I wanted to see Renauld die, but I didn't mind that Julia was willing to disregard her anger for once and think about the consequences.  Gods are vengeful and I would not be surprised if Persephone had done bad things to the world if her son had died.

Overall, I really liked this episode since there was actual movement on a lot of fronts.  Quentin stood his ground several times, and I'm glad Alice is back, though I hope the Niffin-ness fades soon.  Ember was amusing.  The Poison Room was sort of neat.  

I didn't like the needless bloodshed in Fillory, but that subplot was weak all season so it wasn't a surprise.

[CigarDoug]

Wait... Charlie (Alice's Brother) was trying to help Greenstreet? That's how he disappeared? When did Quentin learn this, because it didn't come up in the RecoveredMagicians.com episode.

[CigarDoug]

On 4/13/2017 at 2:40 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Damn it, why did the Lorians have to murder Benedict? I'd much rather have him around than Tick. Although I knew Josh's hakuna matata logic wouldn't end well for Fillory, I had to laugh that he chose The Lion King as his inspiration. When Josh got everyone high and they were roasting an animal I was really afraid it was Abigail! Rafe couldn't get high enough to let that happen, right?

When Benedict shows up again in Season 3, I had to go find this scene again because of your comment. Josh, Tick, and Rafe are standing in the hallway with two red shirts... um, er, PALACE GUARDS behind them. Prince Ess has his men kill the two red shirts. No speaking characters died in this scene. Damn, EB, your comment had me thinking Benedict was dead all this time...