The Magicians Season 5, Episode 1: Do something crazy

What is going on fellow Magician lovers, Season 5 is officially here after waiting for what feels like forever. I have to say going into this season i was utterly confused much like everyone else about this story, but we finally get some context about what has happened in Fillory over the last 300 years and how everyone is reeling after the events of season 4. So lets jump right in.

The episode starts of with Julia pulling out a bunch of dresses and outfits getting ready for what seems to be like a fancy date with Penny 23. When she finally does get ready she's confused cause she thought that they were going to do something local, but Penny 23 had a special surprise planned for her. He gives her his jacket cause where they're going its about to get cold. Penny travels them to the other end of the planet where they look up at the sky and see a meteor shower happening. Penny knows a guy that specializes in this type of magic. As they're watching the show something starts going wrong and some of the meteors either start flying rapidly or explode. One of which almost crashes into Julia and Penny 23 before he travels them out of there. Now back at home Julia and Penny 23 are discussing what just happened and realize that getting magic back is the problem. They thought getting it back would fix everything, but it ended up just making things a whole lot worse. Magic is now out of control and there's too much of it now.

While at the apartment, Julia and Penny 23 get a visit from Dean Fogg who is having problems of his own right now at Brakebills. Also on the shocking side, hes completely given up drinking. At first the did it to save his liver or because he had a standard to uphold now, but really he just stopped because he couldn't find a reason to drink anymore. More to the point of his visit, Julia thought that Fogg was there for her to try and enroll her back into Brakebills, but no. Fogg was actually there for Penny. With the whole spike in magic that happened more people started to unlock their potential and discover their gifts, this in turn created a problem for Brakebills as the student capacity was at maximum and they were one of the few schools that was willing to teach magic. There were a lot of things happening within the school that he could hardly keep track of, even the schools whole supply of living clay was stolen just last week. With all new people discovering their magical disciplines it opened the door to new ones and expanded those that we've seen so far, that's where Penny 23 comes in. Dean Fogg wants Penny to teach the new psychic kids class at Brakebills and makes him sign into a contract that has more repercussions than what it first seems. Knowing full well that he is responsible for these kids and what could happen to them if they start traveling without knowing where they're going, he respectfully declines, but Fogg is desperate for his help as there is no one better equipped to teach them at the moment than Penny.

Now comes in Alice who is at an all time low of depression. She hasn't left her house let alone her room ever since Quentin died. She looks like a complete and total mess wearing some of Q's old clothes and had litter and books all over the floor. Stephanie tries to get her out of her depressive mood by asking her for a small favor. She is a part of a gardening club and is judging for a flower competition, but cant decide on a winner. She needs Alice's help to use magic to help her make a decision by performing some kind of casting on the flowers. She also has been taking care of her mail as well as Alice has been receiving several requests to join the library from Zelda after the mess that Everett left behind, to which she declines because she wants nothing to do with the people that killed the love of her life. Alice and Stephanie were about to get into another mother daughter argument when the door rang and who showed up on her door step, Julia. She wanted to check in on Alice to see how she was doing, clearly not great. She could tell Alice was struggling the hardest to try and move on without Quentin and gives her a little something to remember him by, Fillory and Further: A World in the Walls with all his little notes in the margins. Julia also discusses the idea of trying to hold a seance to try and talk to Quentin again so Alice can be at peace with his death and Julia to try and figure out what it is that she's supposed to do with her magic because the only person that can give her some kind of idea as to what to do with it was Quentin.

Back on Fillory Margo and Elliot are enjoying their mid-afternoon drinking time and raveling in the new land of Fillory ruled by the Dark King. Margo also asks how Elliot is doing because of Quentin's death. He puts on a brave face and says that he is doing fine and would rather not talk about it, but deep down I think we all know what he's feeling.They've apparently been trying to get into Castle Whitespire for the past couple of weeks now, but there's more heightened security around the castle walls and many of the Fillorians are either afraid of him or admire him. As they enjoy their little picnic they are passed by a traveling troupe of Fillorians who appear to be in costume pretending to be Margo, Elliot, Fen, and Josh. One of the girls, Pree, wishes them a fine unshackling, whatever that is, and tells them that there is a party happening at Castle Whitespire to celebrate the unshackling to which Elliot and Margo follow them to try and get some answers from this so called Dark King. They soon learn not only about the Unshackling, but also what happened to Fen and Josh as well. A short play goes on telling the story of Fillory from when it was first created, to the Chatwins arrival, to the death of Ember and Umber, to the Unshackling. Sometime during the aftermath of defeating the monsters and mourning the death of Quentin, something happened to Fillory that caused it to jump foward about 300 years into the future. Fen and Josh were taken by these things called 'The Takers' who scarred them out of Castle Whitespire as it was being overtaken, until this Dark King who possessed the Dark Arts used his magic to rid 'The Takers' from Whitespire, hence why he is called the Dark King. The people spoke and there was an uprising, the people of Fillory now bowed down to the Dark King and declared that Fen and Josh were to be executed. In denial that this is what happened to Fillory Margo takes Elliot to the only place where something like this could have happened to Fillory, right to its very heart. There they meet a clock maker who designs and builds clocks for Fillory, he even helped the dwarves build the same pocket watch that Jane Chatwin has. He has been down there for quite some time and ask Elliot and Margo for some specific items like bread, turkey, lettuce, and some dressing. To which Elliot points out that it sounds like hes describing a sandwich, which they did not bring for him. He tells Margo that when magic had come back it had created a spike in the heart of Fillory and sprang forth the World Clock of Fillory which governs time over the world and jumped it forward 300 years into the future. Margo suggested that they just rewind the clock backwards so that they can go back home and let the time line play out like it is doing right now, but the clock maker tells them that its impossible. If they do rewind the clock backwards the result could be apocalyptic. Margo then tries to figure out how to fix this mess and get back Josh and Fen from the past while still being concerned about Elliot seeing how hes trying to hide his pain about Quentin from her.

At Brakebills Penny tells the new kids who have the psychic discipline about the dangers of traveling and hearing other peoples thoughts. In a 'Dead Poets Society' kind of way he tells everyone to throw their books off the desk because nothing in them will be able to prepare them for whats really out there. They could end up dreaming about a volcano and the next thing they know they're actually in one. He storms off realizing that this was a waste of his time, but Dean Fogg tells him that there is no one else that can teach him and even if he wanted to quit he couldn't, he was under contract. With his instruction they may have a chance to survive, but without it one of them would absolutely die. Penny spent the first few minutes telling them about the bad things that happen because of traveling that he thought he should at least show them the good side of it too. He takes them to another world that he discovered while traveling where he comes to, to have some clarity. During that time one of his students approaches him, Mary who tells him that she's been hearing something in her head. It's not so much a voice as normal travelers experience, but more like a signal. He drops his wards so that she can allow him to hear whatever is going on in her head, but finds that it's worse than he expects. There's this loud ringing sound and Penny tries to put up his wards again but something is blocking him, so he travels away for a moment and comes back only now there's something wrong with his traveling, this signal whatever it is, is affecting him.

Its a few brief moments but we do get to see some Kady action during this episode. As new leader of the Hedge witches she and Pete are trying to clean up the mess that the rouge hedges from last season started with the whole Reed's mark. With the corrupt library now gone she thought that they would be doing something to help fix it but its not one of their top priorities at the moment. Pete says that he knows a guy who might be able to help them which turns out to be the traveler that worked with the library. He never cared for them in the first place, it was just a job for him really, but he did say where they could get what they're after. There's an old library depository that no ones hit yet that may have what they're looking for, but he hasn't hit it yet because first chance he would get to try and grab whatever is in there he'd most likely get decapitated. When Pete and Kady go to check out the lead they got, they find out its a dead end, but there some serious magical residue around the area, so either it is there or it was and somebody moved it, but it would take a serious amount of magic just to move an entire building according to Kady.

Back at the apartment Julia hears someone in the kitchen and sees a pig tail in the fridge. A questing creature had come from Fillory to bestow upon a quest to which Julia was eager to help out in any way that she could. The questing creature has a very long and confusing name but goes by Sir Effingham and came to Earth in the hopes of locating Quentin Coldwater. Julia regrets to inform him that Quentin is dead to which he bends over crying as he was the only one who could complete this quest at hand which seems to be apocalyptic in nature and absolutely needs Quentin to help prevent it. Quentin may be gone but that doesn't stop Julia from trying to take on the quest for herself. She tries to volunteer to complete the quest herself. Sir Effingham tells her that this cannot be so because the quest at hand requires a certain kind of hero and she cannot compete it because she lacks a certain something, 'a porkloin' as he calls it. Julia gets rilled up because of this saying that the universe is at stake and that she now has magic and can do something with it, but when the time comes for someone to save them she can't be the one because she's a woman? Yea, hell no. This is Julia were talking here, shes not just gonna lie down and take that crap, she knows what her quest is now. Shes gonna find out whats going on with magic and stop the apocalypse.

Finally, we come back to Alice who is still feeling utterly depressed about Quentin. While looking at his Fillory and Further book she has a sudden realization, but she needs help for what needs to be done. She reaches out to the library who are having a few problems of their own being completely understaffed and with Zelda away the whole place was a mess. She uses this simple favor towards her real goal of why she wanted to come to the library, to get a book. Not just any book though, the book of Quentin Coldwater. Back at her home shes contemplating this big choice that is running around in her head and picks up one of Q's habits, smoking. Her mom decides to join her and tells her that she went through the exact same thing that she was going through now when Daniel, her husband, died. She was not in a very good place either and did some pretty messed up things to try and move on, but no one really ever does move on. Sometimes it takes something completely crazy to be able to move on from something as hard as that. So she tells her that if she needs to do something crazy to be able to move on with her life, do something crazy. So Alice does exactly that. She goes down to the basement and lights a candle and we see Quentin's book along with what looks like a rock at first but then is later revealed as a homunculs. Alice stole the living clay from Brakebills and was seen performing some king of ritual to do the one thing that people should never attempt to do on account of its repercussions. Raise the dead! Alice's crazy idea is to try and resurrect Q as a golem so she can move on and still have him in her life and thats where the episode ends.

Will Alice's ritual to resurrect Q work and will we see the return of Quentin Coldwater, or will this one small mistake to try and make herself happy again cause the apocalypse that everyone is so worried about in Fillory. I guess we'll find out in the next episode.