The Magicians Season 1, Episode 11
Several recent episodes of The Magicians have somehow managed to cram in a ton of plot without bogging down the overall story. “Remedial Battle Magic” gave viewers a seemingly impossible quest for a blade, a reunion of sorts with Kady, a new connection for Julia, a painful intrusion into Penny’s mind, more evidence of Eliot’s deterioration, and the beginnings of some really cool offensive spell training. The episode could easily have gotten confusing with its alternately disturbing and humorous explorations of what’s in store, but instead it nailed all the salient points of the story so far and skillfully moved them forward. And this is on top of the problem he already has learning battle magic along with the other Brakebills students. It was interesting that only Penny and Quentin originally wanted to pursue the blade talked about in the documents Penny brought home from the Neitherlands library, but the necessity of learning battle magic and making an assault became clear through the wonderfully terrifying probability scenarios which left them all dead in any attempt to bargain with the Beast. Perfectly executed motivation! Not so perfectly executed (and understandably so) were the offensive magic spells themselves, which required total emotional detachment. In one of the most humorous scenes of the series so far, Quentin likens the removal of their troublesome feelings as akin to the Vulcan ritual of Kolinahr, followed immediately by Penny dispassionately complimenting his sweater. Eliot is the only one who doesn’t seem significantly affected by the re-introduction of the bottled emotions, but he’s clearly had practice hiding some real problems. His well-being becomes more worrisome each week. The tie between the two plotlines was Kady, who apparently has learned a lot about battle magic and shares what she knows with the Brakebills contingent. Penny is notably absent, but Quentin’s advice was admirably sage as he counseled Kady to allow for forgiveness from the man who loves her. Perhaps she could help Penny shield his mind from the Beast! Thankfully, Penny and Alice appear to be trying a less artificial way to detach their emotions to cast their offensive spells, which allows Penny to concentrate on his bigger problem. Speaking of bigger problems, Quentin has got a lot of explaining to do with his drunken stupor bringing him into an unexpected amorous encounter with BFFs, Eliot and Margo! Granted, they were hopped up on reintegrated emotions but obviously this will not sit well with Alice. It is a bit fishy, though – how much of it was calculated? Margo is certainly capable of entrapment of this sort! And yet they still do…
