The Magicians leaps forth with a song in its heart this week, in episode 10 of season 4: ‘All That Hard, Glossy Armor’. The following contains SPOILERS!
As has become customary, this week saw The Magician’s annual musical episode, where things take a more tuneful direction. This time around, the basis for the tunes is that Margo (Summer Bishil) has gone off into the desert to search for some ice axes, and en route licks the back of her talking lizard, launching a psychotropic adventure. This being The Magicians, it all makes sense and isn’t some shark jumping debacle.
Plot wise, the main point driving it forward is that the ice axes can be used to save Eliot (Hale Appleman), so Margo is extremely motivated as we saw last week when she implored Fen (Brittany Curran) to dethrone her, allowing her to embark on this quest. This trip into the desert has long been on Summer Bishil’s mind according to various interviews, as well as anticipated by the fans, as it appears in one of the books of Lev Grossman’s source material, and she knew how good it could be.
With the ice axes as her goal, Margo wanders into the desert, getting all her steps in, until short of water, she decides to lick some off the back of the aforementioned lizard. As you’d expect, everything then becomes very trippy, and she starts to hallucinate. This is where the music kicks in and we get ‘Don’t Get Me Wrong’ by The Pretenders delivered by a gyrating Eliot, who guides Margo further into the desert where she meets The Foremost (Devon Long) and his nomadic tribe. There appears to be a bit of a dangerous situation here though, as anytime a woman gets upset, a demon made of red dust appears and one of the men is attacked by it. The Foremost, with his axes attacks the man, while the demon exits the body and is trapped in a small glass bottle.
Throughout this, Margo is still ‘trippin’ her balls off’ and has been seeing all her friends appearing as different facets of her psyche, especially during the well-publicised version of Whitesnake’s ‘Here We Go Again’. This works extremely well, and the cast relish jumping into these roles. There are some great bits of dialogue here, such as when Fen appears or when Kady (Jade Tailor) sings, which reference elements of both the characters and the actors themselves. Clearly, everyone had a good time while making this episode, but it never tips over into pointless indulgence or knowing winks that jar. In some ways there could have been even more musical elements in there, and I felt like it was really only a half-musical episode. This could well be because they limited the songs to the desert story, and within the confines of Margo’s trip.
Despite her musical and hallucinatory diversions though, Margo is still focused on the axes, but the Foremost refuses to hand them over. Instead, he and his co-leader (Clare Carey) indicate that to get her own axes, Margo must go out and collect black specks that can be forged into a weapon. This is the main test which leads to Margo truly looking inside herself and battling with her own demons, along with her upbringing. This is played exceptionally well, and Bishil should be commended. During this the truth about the nomads is revealed and things wil never be the same for the Foremost!
Elsewhere, there are two other stories being played out, with the Monster still trying to gather the body parts, and Kady & Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley) starting their rebellion. The smaller of the two is the Alice and Kady story, which is more about Zelda (Mageina Tovah) finding out the true extent of the lies that the Library has been telling, led by Everett (Brian Markinson). This will become a much bigger issue in the coming episodes, as the truth starts to emerge, and I fully expect there to be some kind of coup in the Library.
The larger story is the continuing adventures of the body part hunters, with Julia (Stella Maeve), Quentin (Jason Ralph), and Penny (Arjun Gupta), trying to find Enyalius (Gethin Anthony). After his chat with Eliot, Penny has been able to report back that the Monster is actually trying to rebuild his sister, although he doesn’t know it yet, which would be catastrophic. The trio therefore need to find and tell Enyalius to hide. This unfortunately means they need to find a Leprechaun (Elyse Maloway) and end up with a side task of defeating an Escape Room, before meeting up with the less than worried Enyalius. This bit of the show didn’t work as well for me as some others, with the Escape Room element feeling like being a bit of a time filler. I think the idea was that it would be deliberately annoying, as Julia had stated the Leprechauns are irritating, but even so, this only partially worked for me. The Monster also seems a bit behind the curve this week, but does easily catch up with them and ruin their plans somewhat, which means it looks like all may be lost. On the upside though, this story does mean we get to see an appearance from the brilliant Magda Apanowicz, who it seems may ultimately end up taking on the role of the Monsters sister.
At its core, this episode hinges on a powerhouse performance by Bishil, who not only delivers the usual sarcasm and wit of Margo, but also great emotional depth and vulnerability as she ‘finds herself’ in the desert. Alongside this, the rest of the cast support superbly, while also being involved in their own quests elsewhere. There is a lot packed into this episode, but it never becomes disjointed, and it moves things along nicely, while also having some great character moments. It also looks fantastic, especially in the desert shots and the Escape Room. The set design and cinematography is normally excellent, but they seem to have surpassed themselves. As usual, The Magicians gives us another great episode, the tail end of season looks like it’s going to be great, and Margo will always be a King.
