'The Magicians' Season 5 Episode 2: A piece of Quentin's soul stolen, graffiti teases Time Bees
Spoiler alert for 'The Magicians' Episode 2 'The Wrath of the Time Bees'
The protagonists of 'The Magicians' are still in mourning for Quentin (Jason Ralph) and need time to grieve. Time, unfortunately, is not on their side. Time's a little more aggressive than usual in this episode and trying to use the past to suit their own ends backfires repeatedly.
The Time Bees were foretold!
Or teased, at least. The Adam St. graffiti in the opening credits has had bees featured on it in Seasons 1 and 2, but the bees for Season 5 are new ones, hovering around a pocket watch. If only there was some graffiti representation of allergies, as well, we could have foreseen Josh Hoberman's (Trevor Einhorn) unfortunate death via bee sting allergies, but it turned out alright in the end.
Speaking of which, it's not explicitly stated, but did Eliot (Hale Appleman) swap out Margo's (Summer Bishil) letter for the one that instructed Josh and Fen (Britany Curan) how to get to the present? Margo is not one to shy away from a hard decision for the greater good, and choosing to save Fillory over being reunited with Josh is definitely one of those decisions. With the state Eliot is in now, however, safer, short-term, selfish decisions seem right in line with where his head's at.
The Dark King and the Takers
Last week, we pointed out that it seemed a little too convenient that the Dark King was the only one able to take the Takers out. It seems that his reign was more inevitable than people assumed, as with multiple chances to change the past, the Takers still kept coming, Fen & Josh kept getting overthrown, and the Dark King kept coming to power. The Takers are too convenient a part of the Dark King's rise to power for him to not be working with them. The Dark King was, in all likelihood, responsible for turning the population of Fillory against Fen, Josh, and the other absent Kings of Earth.
The Signal
Wherever the Signal is coming from, and whoever is sending it, it's persistent. Penny-23 (Arjun Gupta) had to lower his wards to hear it, but now that he has, he can't stop hearing it. He wears a magical patch to dull the noise, but what's interesting is that he has no memory of where he traveled to the last episode when the Signal first overwhelmed him. Is the Signal a cry for help, a warning, or something altogether more sinister?
Magically mindwiped murderers target Kady
The force that stole an entire magically protected Library building, and wiped the memories of anyone who had ever seen it, is covering its tracks. Sending sleeper agents to wipe Kady (Jade Tailor) and Pete's (David Call) memories, using agents who themselves don't remember what they do. The building thieves take no prisoners while they were content to just have Kady and Pete forget they'd ever looked for the Library's building.
A piece of Quentin's soul
The return of Quentin, albeit a child verson of him played by Luca Padovan, led to some beautiful scenes between him, Alice (Olivia Dudley) and Julia (Stella Maeve), giving them a chance to say goodbye. The scene where Alice and Quentin perform one last act of magic together was especially touching, but it comes at a steep price. Alice used an actual piece of Quentin's soul to power the spell. Souls are not meant to be taken apart, no matter how small the piece, and Alice may just have cost Quentin a peaceful afterlife if the soul fragment did not immediately return to him once the spell ended.
Let's not forget why she ostensibly used the spell in the first place, however. Quentin has left behind an undecipherable page and considering Alice's considerable talents, the fact that she can't decipher it means that it's something special indeed. She may have put the page away, finding a certain measure of peace in saying goodbye to Quentin, but the page is a real Checkov's gun and is sure to come back.
Tracking favourable conditions
Julia, on her quest to save the world, is trying to understand why the surges are happening. Dean Fogg (Rick Worthy) theorizes that it's got something to do with certain conditions that make magic easier. Things like the phases of the moon, which has been teased in the promotional art, in interviews, and takes up a central position on the Adams St graffiti. We're inching closer and closer to whatever it is that happens with the moon, and whatever happens, it's going to have a powerful effect on all magic.
Fen has three bars
Fen has a cellphone, and she's making full use of it. Seen in Margo's phone after one of the time changes, we see that Fen's fascination with Earth-American pop culture has her making videos, and trying to get on social media despite Fillory having none. It's a fun, quick tie-in to the YouTube webseries that must have happend before the Fillorian timeskip. Who is providing interdimensional cell service, anyway? It's probably not important to the show, but inquiring minds want to know.
The next episode of 'The Magicians' airs January 29 at 10 PM PT, on Syfy.
