'The Magicians' Episode 3 gives a glimpse into the biggest threats by unmasking Takers and the Dark King
Spoiler alert for Season 5, Episode 3 of 'The Magicians' — 'The Mountain of Ghosts'
It has been another emotionally heavy episode of 'The Magicians' this week, but that doesn't stop the more deadly events of both Fillory and Earth from moving forward. Dark things are afoot. Between pilgrimages of grief and tournaments for the month of the Yellow Ferret, we get our first real glimpses of this season's biggest threats. Most importantly, the Dark King makes his first appearance.
The Dark King
The Dark King (Sean Maguire) made a surprising stealth reveal in this episode, appearing as a sympathetic mourner making his own grief pilgrimage. He is nothing like what you would expect of a Dark King, oozing enough empathy and charisma to come this close to spending a passionate night with Eliot (Hale Appleman) under Fillorian stars.
Here is what we know of him so far:
From previous episodes, we know he was initially the only one who knew how to defeat the Takers, which should have been a clue, as his entrance into the show sees him taking out a Taker. We also hear some of his history — assuming that he wasn't lying about his backstory, of course. He has a connection to Earth — his family was from there — and he used to work in Fillory's rival nation Loria as a rare goods seller.
He also lost someone he was deeply in love with, and goes on a pilgrimage every year — and if he's been a king for 300 years, that's a lot of pilgrimages to be making. He is also, as Eliot points out, a bit of a s**t stirrer. He believes in honouring the truth of people, which is a noble way of saying he loves his drama gossip wherever he can get it. When his reveal happens, we see the symbol of the Dark King for the first time, on the back of his robe — a stylized sword, pointing downwards. If there's an Earth connection, that is the symbol you are going to be wanting to look out for.
Takers
The mysterious and seemingly inevitable Takers finally make their first appearance. We learn a little bit about how they operate — they take people, but they also take away items of emotional significance. It is implied they have some sort of magical or psychic connection to their victims. They are able to project Quentin's (Jason Ralph) voice into Eliot's head before taking the bag with the (thankfully unsent) letter and a fragment of Quentin's soul.
They seem to prefer covering their faces — the one we see hisses when its ornamental face covering is ripped off, revealing a pale creature with elongated fingers underneath. The Takers are also immune to traditional magic, though the Dark King manages to take them out with what he calls "anti-viral" magic. Are the Takers a sort of virus that has risen in response to the sudden abundance of magic? There's apparently more to them than just a common threat.
The harmonic convergence
Julia (Stella Maeve) and Penny-23 (Arjun Gupta) manage to make serious headway into figuring out what the coming apocalypse is. Thanks to apparent apocalypse addict Dani (Sola Bamis), Julia now is able to determine windows in which surges are likely to happen. One of those windows apparently coincides with a rare "harmonic convergence". These are conditions for a surge in magic, which when combined with a circumstance window will make magic exponentially more powerful, with a death toll "in the millions". The worst part? It is in two weeks.
Fillorian misogyny has gotten worse
Fillory has always been old fashioned, but the misogyny has apparently gotten worse in the 300 years since the Dark King took control.
We see our second Fillorian misogynist this season conducting the tournament for the King's elite centurions, and the inclusion of a rule that determines that the guard can't have more than one woman in it — "for the obvious reasons." Is the Dark King somehow responsible for it? After all, the show's literal male chauvinist pig, Sir Effingham, is played by the same actor as the Dark King himself — Sean Maguire. That's either an amusing Easter Egg or the Dark King in disguise showing up to send Julia on her quest. If that's true, the question is — why?
Soul long, Quentin
Alice's (Olivia Dudley) golem spell had some complications. It used a piece of Quentin's soul, which did not fade away. A worried Eliot brings up the possibility that it might be keeping Quentin from being at peace.
Alice may have thrown the soul down into the underworld, but that doesn't mean it will make Quentin's soul whole again. Until it is confirmed otherwise, a lost piece of Quentin's soul may still be out there. The other thing that was tossed in was the enchanted letter to the past. It seems dangerous to just drop a time-altering letter like that into a hole, given that we don't know what triggers the sending of the letter. It might have been better to destroy it — as it stands, the letter is still a threat to the timeline.
What Easter Eggs, plot developments and theories do you have about the episode? Let us know in the comments!
The next episode of 'The Magicians' airs on February 5 on Syfy.