Read along as we recap this week’s episode of The Magicians with quotes from the episode.
This week’s Magicians mainly focused on tying plot lines back together. Quentin learns about what Julia and Alice have been up to, Kady is rescued so she can help with the quest, the Fairy Queen finally throws Margo and Eliot to the wolves…
All in all, it was an episode dedicated to building bridges up and tearing others down.
The Magicians never disappoints when it comes to snarky one-liners or sass. So to recap this week’s episode, we thought we’d pick some of the best quotes from episode 7 that highlighted everything that went down this week.
‘I think I might grow to despise you less… with time.’
The second Eliot and Fray begin to make some progress, it turns sour almost immediately. Once Fray realizes that Eliot kidnapped the fairy children last week, she’s horrified. Rightly so, to be frank. But it’s her following action that really puts a pin in their budding family dynamic.
Fray returns to the Fairy Queen and informs her about all of the hijinx that has been going on behind her back. However, to everyone’s surprise, instead of rewarding her loyalty the Fairy Queen is actually disappointed that Fray would choose to turn on her parents.
After being scolded, Fray realizes that she may have made a mistake in trusting the Fairy Queen so completely. This realization sparks her into blurting out that they aren’t actually her parents to begin with and that their real daughter died in childbirth.
It’s a big, heartbreaking shock for Eliot and Fen to process, but for Margo it’s the sound of victory. “You hear that? That’s the sound of your leverage dying,” Margo says. Is it, my queen? Maybe you shouldn’t get too far ahead of yourself…
‘You’re doing it again aren’t you? You’re throwing your life at a problem to solve it.’
You know who’s been put through a lot of bullshit? Kady has. This woman is fire, vinegar, and steel but no one should have to put up with all the shit she’s been subjected to. Maybe it’s time for her to come at Penny a little bit. At this point his self sacrificing is getting out of control.
If he loves Kady as much as he says he does, he needs to start considering her when he’s ready to throw himself on some sort of magical grenade.
But it doesn’t look like that time is coming anytime soon. In fact, this episode ends with Penny heading straight into the Underworld to fetch another key for the quest to restore magic.
This time however, he won’t be the only one making stupid decisions. Kady, Quentin, and Poppy will be joining him. He’s not the only magician capable of engaging in some risky business.
‘Lets just have some fun. Seems like the chances of everyone surviving go up if we do that.’
Mark my words, I don’t think we’ve really figured out who this Poppy character is or what her motivations are. Last week she showed up for the first time, introducing herself as another member of the lost Fillory class.
But what, exactly, she’s intending to do now that she’s back on earth is unknown. And this week the only thing she seemed interested in was getting the chance to look at an Albanian pygmy dragon for the first time.
To put it nicely, she seems very focused on her own self interest. She’s not completely lacking in moral composition, that’s clear enough, but she’s often pretty flippant about how her actions affect others.
In this episode she helps devise a plan to retrieve the key from the Underworld. Next week we’ll see how that all plays out. But the fact that she chooses right now to hook up with Quentin? Seems suspicious to me.
‘When things happen, they leave a mark. Figuring out how to deal with it takes time.’
The stakes are high for Alice during this week’s Magicians. The spark of magic that Julia entrusted to her didn’t exactly take, so her body starts to go through a ‘rejection process.’ If she doesn’t dispose of the magic or find a solution quickly, she’s not going to survive.
Of course, Alice isn’t willing to just give the magic back to Julia. She’s far too stubborn for that to be her first instinct. And they confront that issue head on in the episode. Unlike anyone else, Julia understands Alice’s desperation. She’s been in a very similar mental place herself, so she knows exactly what Alice would be willing to do if the roles were reversed.
Which is why Julia makes a deal with the Dean’s ‘friend,’ Irene McAllistair, to obtain just enough magic to retrieve her own back from Alice. Luckily, Alice realizes this spark of magic isn’t worth the cost that it would take to keep it, and the two become closer than ever after the ordeal.
Eventually, however, Julia is going to have to make good on her promise to Irene. Which may have unintended consequences in the future.
‘I’m the queen you mother f***ers.’
Everything regarding Fillory and its escapades with the fairies comes to a head this week. The Fairy Queen has been pulling the strings behind the Fillory throne for some time now. But we’ve never really known what their motivations were in the first place. We still don’t honestly.
What does seem pretty clear, however, is that this isn’t a straightforward ploy for world domination like Eliot suggested. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never thought the Fairy Queen was yanking Margo around just because she could. It sincerely seemed like she was trying to train her and teach her something valuable about what it means to rule a country.
Maybe those lessons were vicious but they weren’t exactly without mercy. When Margo consulted the Muntjac before throwing her/it into some sort of sexually aggressive situation, the Fairy Queen commended her action. Showing that she values an honest attempt at brave leadership. Something evil villains aren’t known for displaying.
Her actions this week suggest a similar disposition. Before vanishing into thin air, the Fairy Queen declares that the children of earth have been making a mess of things for too long and that she can no longer protect them. Immediately after, Margo and Eliot are carried away by a Fillorian lynch mob.
Again, this seems like a cruel consequence to a larger lesson the Queen is trying to teach. But what exactly is this lesson, and what set it all in motion? There’s a big piece of the puzzle we’re missing here, and I think once it becomes known, many things are going to snap into place.
‘I’ll title it under entitled millennial bullshit.’
BONUS QUOTE. Listen. Dean Fogg is having like the worst year ever. Let him have his boozy angry rants. It’s the one thing he has to live for.
Which… you know what? Relatable.