The Magicians 1.07 “The Mayakovsky Circumstance”

After watching episode 7, I can’t help but feel disappointed because the time spent at Brakebills South in Antarctica was so short and felt so rushed. The pilot’s main problem, condensing too much plot and character development into a short span of time, reared its ugly head again in this episode, and the whole series suffers when the creators don’t let their settings and characters just breathe for a little bit. I get that people today apparently have short attention spans, but I would have gladly watched a couple of episodes based in Antarctica, or at least one full episode entirely taking place in that setting instead of the rushed half episode that has to share space with the side stories of Margo and Eliot and their spring break sexcapades. It’s no wonder that Julia only gets about five minutes of screen time this week, and that time really does nothing to develop her character or story. I want to know what Marina has in store for her!

After the promising ending of last week when they all transform into birds to migrate south, we don’t get any screen time of the characters actually interacting as the geese. We just get a silly description from Alice and Quentin about how at one with the air they felt. We’re then introduced to Mayakovsky, one of the most interesting characters in the book, who gets reduced to a silly Russian stereotype with an accent so thick I was tempted to turn on my closed captioning just so I could understand him. As the Brakebills South instructor, he dishes out some tough love to push the students to their magical limits, and through the stress and isolation of his instruction, Alice and Quentin’s sexual tension grows, causing their relationship to fast forward from friends to possible relationship? At the very least sex buddies- we’ll see where their relationship goes next week.

And for those of you who read the books and wondered if the show would go there, yes, yes they did. There was fox sex in this episode, though the editing was so confusing that it wasn’t obviously apparent that fox sex is what happened. As I said before, the goings on at Brakebills South were pretty confusing- why did they even go there? Why are Quentin and Alice shoved outside together in the cold? As some type of punishment? To push Quentin to get in touch with his animal instincts? I’m tempted to go more towards the latter, since it is only after their time as foxes that Quentin and Alice are able to fully seal the deal.

In this episode we see Kady and Penny getting back together, which is another thing that makes no sense to me, along with the fact that Penny is strutting around in sleeveless sweaters in sub-zero temperatures. I thought Kady confessed that she didn’t care about him in the last episode? Anyway, it all leads up to more heartbreak for Penny as Kady is forced to leave Brakebills forever after learning through Mayakovsky that her mother has died, Brakebills knows she’s been stealing, and because of that she’s not welcome there anymore. Does this mean a joining of forces between Kady and Julia in the future? It definitely looks that way since they connected through her mother in the last episode, Kady has nowhere to turn just like Julia, and they both have a vendetta now against Marina. Here’s to hoping, because I’ve actually started to like the character of Kady as the series goes on and would like to see her continue on the show.

While everyone else is freezing in Antarctica, Margo and Eliot are giddily preparing for a spring break trip to Ibiza. Their story revolves around a plot to create a present of “gin” for their hosts that actually turns out to be a “djinn”- a genie in a bottle. A genie that Margo has complete control over could be very interesting in the future, and I’ll be watching to see if they continue with that storyline or just drop it in future episodes. A genie could possibly be helpful in a later showdown with The Beast. And speaking of The Beast, Eliot starts a new relationship with a newcomer he meets in the library who possibly, most definitely, has some connection with The Beast. He is able to separate Margo and Eliot’s strong friendship already with Eliot choosing him over Margo and staying home from the spring break trip—very out of character for Eliot, so we’ll see in the future just how much influence this new love interest will hold over him.

This episode was definitely a stumble in a somewhat stellar series thus far. I guess not every episode can be perfect, but the series really suffers when the creators can’t get the pacing right and try to shove way too much into a single episode. Let’s hope they keep the action going at a steady pace but allow the characters and settings to grow more organically in the future.

And let’s get back to The Beast already! No more small teasers- I’m ready for a big time showdown, but I guess I will have probably have to wait until closer to the end of the season.