'The Magicians' Season 5 Episode 11 sees the hilarious Hyman struggle with being corporeal again
Plum Chatwin (Riann Steele) and Penny Adiyodi (Arjun Gupta) did Hyman Cooper (Dustin Ingram) a great favor when time traveling to the 1920s. By hiding his body, they made sure he wouldn't astral travel and this meant he isn't just a soul that is stuck outside his body — a body that dies and withers when his soul doesn't return.
It is a good deed that didn't go unpunished by the mysterious Time Traveller, who trapped Penny and Plum in a room that led to her losing quite a bit of her time-traveling mojo.
But in this episode, the good deed pays off with Hyman becoming the friendly multiverse taxi service that Penny has been all this while.
Getting his body back and being corporeal again, however, did a number on Hyman, famous for being the "Pervert Ghost". At first,, of course, Hyman is overjoyed - touching things and making himself gigantic sandwiches.
But as time passes and people shoo him away as he eavesdrops on intensely personal conversations, he gets increasingly unhappy with his situation. After years of being a voyeur, flitting in and out of people's rooms and lives, "shipping" couples and living vicariously through them, he has no sense of boundaries. Something that Penny points out to him when tries to astral travel again. He gets the best advice of all — to go live his own life instead of other people's lives.
In a strange way, Hyman is all of us following shows (like 'The Magicians'), shipping characters and listening in on "private" conversations and moments. Unfortunately, Penny's advice comes at the worst time for all of us amid the coronavirus outbreak. There is no going out and living our lives, so to speak. So we'll all just have to "Be The Hyman" and binge-watch 'The Magicians' from the start before the series ends two episodes later.
Happy social distancing!
'The Magicians' airs on Wednesdays 10/9c on SYFY.