Season 4 of The Magicians continues, with people finding their mojo once again in episode 3, The Bad News Bear. As usual, the following contains some SPOILERS!
After the last episode I wasn’t sure what direction they were going to take the show, but as usual they have found a way to form a solid foundation from which to launch the rest of the season. The unexpected key part of that does end up being a stuffed bear, but what do we expect, this is The Magicians!
Principally, this episode gets our heroes from the revealing of their true identities, all the way to the commencement of a new direction story wise. Their focus is obviously to save Eliot (Hale Appleman), but they are also concerned with hiding from the McAllisters, and then fighting the status quo that has been set up, in order to survive.
What’s great this episode is that the main driving, active, forces are Julia (Stella Maeve), Kady (Jade Tailor), and Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley), even though Alice is somewhat removed from the rest. Hopefully this means we shall see some more brilliant elements from the duo of Kady and Julia, as they have been a highlight in previous seasons, and along with the return of a pissed off and forceful Margo (Summer Bishil), it is looking good.
Therefore, we not only get a passionate Margo, intent on saving Eliot, but Kady shows a ruthless side, which I think she may be slightly aiming at the wrong target, as Marina (Kacey Rohl) isn’t the Marina from this timeline. Personally, I love the character of Marina, and would happily have her much more involved, but obviously for Kady, there is too much history of the other Marina, to bring her too close to the fold!
As ever, the plot this week is littered with nice gags and touches that are not critical to the storyline, but add to the overall quality of the show. There is also strength in depth with guest stars, most notably a brief appearance by Jewel Staite as Phyllis; an intriguing addition, and one which is most welcome. More integral a guest star to this week’s story is Frankie (Zach Cherry) who appears as Penny’s (Arjun Gupta) friend and go to for all his forging needs. It’s Frankie that provides a lot of the odder elements, including the sandwich delivering pigeon, and the aforementioned bear; this all makes perfect sense in the episode too, and is part of an entertaining caper.
As an aside after all the events of this episode, there is an interesting section where Julia and Quentin (Jason Ralph) discuss the amount they have had to sacrifice in order to get where they are, even going as far to talk about whether they would do it again. Last season it was noted that all the characters each had to give up something, and there was a steep price for them all in their quest. That they are now reflecting on that is a good sign, as quite often in episodic television, past traumas get ignored and there’s something akin to an emotional reset each time, unless the writers want to make a point of something. Here though, there does seem to be a consistent desire to keep the characters rooted in their history and as real as possible.
After the start of the season, this feels like a bit of a staging episode, setting up for a proper launch into the rest of the story arc. This is not a criticism though, and it felt a well-rounded story. What it did do is get various pieces moved into the right places, and have small probes into the longer story at the same time. It also let the main characters settle back into their normal state, which is probably more for the viewers benefit than the audience.
Going into The Magicians each week, my expectations are high, and yet again, the writer/creators Sera Gamble and John McNamara have come up trumps. Like most weeks you don’t know quite what you’re going to get, and I noted that the synopsis for this episode was ‘Kady gets a puppy; Quentin meets a snake’. That’s somewhat of an understatement.
