Ready to Go Back to Fillory? Where We Left Off on ‘The Magicians’
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Season 4 finale of The Magicians, “The Seam.”]
Ready to go back to Fillory?
The Magicians is entering its fifth season after the devastating Season 4 finale saw our heroes making a huge sacrifice to vanquish the twin Monster spirits. Before the Season 5 premiere on Wednesday, January 15, study up on what went down in that season-ender with the recap below.
In “No Better to Be Safe Than Sorry,” Quentin (Jason Ralph), Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley), and Penny 23 (Arjun Gupta) manage to sever one Monster’s spirit from Julia (Stella Maeve) with a trusty ax, though Julia is wounded in the process. Penny 23 decides that the unconscious Julia should heal as a non-magic human instead of a god, much to Julia’s frustration. Julia reveals that while she was possessed, she discovered the Monsters’ plan: The Monsters wish to kill their parents, the old gods, at the expense of any human that stands in their way. She also still has a scroll that serves as a roadmap to the gods.
Josh (Trevor Einhorn) is cured of his fishy transfiguration, and he uses his reservoir magic to open a portal to the realm of the old gods. He and Quentin step through the portal and into that realm, where a guy named Golf (Adam Bartley) advise them to drop the Monsters into the “seam” in the Mirror World.
Quentin, Penny 23, and Margo (Summer Bishil) find Evil Eliot (Hale Appleman) in a Fillory forest, and Margo hits him with an ax. Magicians and hedge witches around the world contribute magic to the group’s incorporate bond, and the group is able to bottle the second Monster’s spirit. Normal Eliot returns, though he’s badly wounded, and he recognizes Margo. He’s rushed into surgery.
Alice has a hunch where the seam is: She saw a foreboding door in the Mirror World during her time as a niffin. Quentin, Penny, and Alice travel there—reminding themselves that magic tends to go awry in the Mirror World—and find a room resembling a Brakebills lab. The seam is actually a liquified mirror, and Quentin throws in a bottle containing one of the Monster spirits. But before he can throw in the second, head librarian Everett (Brian Markinson) appears, wanting the bottle so he can become a god. He breaks the mirror and demands that Quentin give him the bottle. Quentin feigns cooperation but signals for Penny and Alice to back toward the door. Then he uses his minor mending skills to fix the mirror and toss the second bottle into it. Quentin’s magic ricochets, however, killing both himself and Everett as Penny and Alice escape.
As magic returns to the world, Penny 40 welcomes Quentin to the Underworld, from which Quentin observes his friends—including a recuperating Eliot—eulogizing him.
In the epilogue of the episode, the Library requests Alice’s help in rebuilding the Order, Julia regains her magical abilities, and Margo and Eliot find themselves in a Fillory 300 years into the future with a Dark King on the throne. Quentin, meanwhile, gets an Underworld Metrocard and disappears.
So what’s in store for Season 5? For one, Quentin’s death will still weigh heavily on the core group of characters. “They’re all in really, really different places in their grief, and that sets up an interesting dynamic,” Gupta told TV Insider at Comic-Con in August. Plus, new threats are coming to the fore. “There’s a new king in town and we don’t know anything about him,” Appleman teased.
The Magicians, Season 5 Premiere, Wednesday, January 15, 10/9c, Syfy
