The Magicians Review: ‘The Wrath of the Time Bees’ S05E02

With the fifth season firmly underway, we now look at episode 2 of The Magicians, The Wrath of the Time Bees.  The following contains SPOILERS!

With several new storylines having been introduced last week, this episode picks up where we left off, in a mixture of grief and potentially crazy actions.  Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley) is the biggest culprit here, deciding that reanimating a version of Q (usually Jason Ralph, but here played by Luca Padovan) as a Golem is a good idea.  This she manages successfully, but as is always the way with these things, it goes awry and the Q she gets is actually a teenage version.  While Alice is going quite out there with this plan, there is method to her madness, as she wants Q to translate a document.  Sadly, teenage Q doesn’t know how to, and it becomes clear that the Golem’s task is much more aligned with giving Alice closure.  This is handled very well, especially when Julia (Stella Maeve) shows up and takes her to task.

It looks like Julia could be the key figure this season, as she has started in a dynamic manner, which is always good to see.  Stella Maeve has portrayed extreme highs and lows over the seasons and made Julia a really interesting character, so her charge forward bodes well.

Similarly, Kady (Jade Tailor) is a force to be reckoned with, and her pursuit of a solution to get rid of the Reed’s Marks continues, albeit with some interference.  Someone clearly doesn’t want her to succeed, and we get a nice side story involving an assassin (Jake Choi), memory loss, and some extra layers of mystery from an unseen hand.  There’s an entertaining bait and switch in the story here, which turns cleverly from an investigation with Penny’s (Arjun Gupta) help, into a fight for survival.

The main focus though is really on the Fillory story, where Margo (Summer Bishil) and Eliot (Hale Appleman) are trying to figure out how to save Fen (Brittany Curran) and Josh (Trevor Einhorn) from being killed in the past.  This plotline line is classic Magicians territory and contains the usual doses of humour and pain.  For each character, the pain is connected to different elements though, as Eliot is clearly fixated on Q, almost to the point of giving up, while Margo worries about Josh.  The main difference is that Margo hasn’t been consumed by the bitterness and despair that afflicts Eliot.

Looking for an answer, Eliot goes searching for help from Jane Chatwin (Esmé Bianco), who despite hiding out, and tenderly declaring “Time is a motherf**ker isn’t it”, has been inventing all sorts of time travel devices.  Obviously Eliot steals these, which helps him and Margo in their efforts.  This allows various sequences through the episode where they try to find the best solution, including sending bees back in time to deliver a message, which unfortunately ends in Josh’s death, giving us the episode title.

They also find some magic stamps, which is a bit of a macguffin, but the writers have used these knowingly, and with some humour.  Their use also sets up a bit of a dilemma for Eliot, as he is tempted to write to Q and warn him, which could undo all the good that his sacrifice has brought.  After the first attempt with one of the three stamps, which fails, Margo decides that she needs to let Josh go, and stop endangering him though their attempts.

In a bit of a redemptive act though, Eliot has sent a different letter, which brings the court, as well as Fen and Josh, forward in time to the present.  It’s a solution she hadn’t considered and marks a re-connecting of Margo and Eliot’s friendship, easing away some of the animosity.  This is probably just as well, as it would have felt a little unrealistic to believe they could have sustained this low level anger for long without a full on split, or reconcilliation, based on their history.

Although it’s early stages in the season, there has been much to indicate we’re on a solid footing with an intriguing mystery shaping up in one corner, and individual quests popping up in others.  The cast have also delivered yet again with some difficult material, interspersed with irreverent humour, as is normal with this show.  Things may have changed, but the show continues to stay at the height of its powers.