'The Magicians' Episode 2 Review: Learning to let go in 'The Wrath of the Time Bees' leads to mixed results
Spoiler alert for 'The Wrath of the Time Bees' (Episode 2) of 'The Magicians'
The existence - and, now, the proliferance - of magic means that no one has to accept things as they are. Reality is malleable, and death does not need to be permanent. There's not a lot that magic can't change - the question is, at what price do those changes come? 'The Magicians' continues its examination of the different ways of dealing with grief this episode. We see most of the cast attempt to learn, in their own ways, how to let go. It's a lesson that not everyone is ready to learn, however, and the consequences of that could be dire.
Alice (Olivia Dudley) and Eliot (Hale Appleman), as the ones who perhaps loved Quentin (Jason Ralph) more than anyone else, are certainly not ready to let him go so easily. Death has been cheated before, and between time travel and resurrection, surely there must be a way make things just the way they used to be? The resurrection works, though not quite as intended. Alice uses living clay and Quentin's old notes to bring him back, resulting in a 12-year old version of Quentin (Luca Padovan) coming to life instead.
Padovan does a remarkable job of embodying a younger Quentin, aided by the writing. Quentin's nerdery, the desperate love for the worlds of his favourite stories, and his constantly vocalized discomfort with the world around him all come out in child-Quentin's first few lines, and continue throughout the episode. It's a younger Quentin, a little less depressed by how out of place he feels with the world, and a little more at ease with getting lost in a good story. This is absolutely the Quentin who fell in love with Fillory, and there's an ache to seeing him there instead of Jason Ralph's adult Quentin.
Elliot, in the meanwhile, is checking in with Jane Chatwin (Esme Bianco), Filloy's resident time travel expert, to see if something can be done about Quentin's death - not to mention Margo's (Summer Bishil) imprisonment and 300 years of the Dark King's reign. Jane Chatwin's conversation here points out exactly why turning back time isn't going to be the answer, here. Quentin died 39 times before finding a way to defeat the Beast, and his last death saved all of magic. To turn back time would not only render his sacrifice meaningless - the results might not be replicable the 41st time around. As Jane points out, "Time is a mother****er," and trying to fix things via time travel might just end up making things worse.
Not that Eliot is in any mood to listen. Via various methods of time travel, Margo and Eliot's attempts to save Fillory, Josh (Trevor Einhorn) and Fen (Britany Curan) from the Dark King and the mysterious Takers keep ending in disaster, until Margo realizes that in order to fix things, she's going to have to let go of both the Fillory she knows ("my Kingdom," she insists, posessively, earlier in the episode) as well as the man she loves, Josh Hoberman. Making the hard choice to save her Kingdom instead of her personal needs is something she does without the slightest hesitation, once she realizes what needs to be done. It is the act of a Queen, and the pain of making that choice is something Margo accepts as necessary. It's a choice that's undercut by Eliot, however, who instead of saving Fillory chooses to save Fen, Josh, and a handful of their courtiers instead, out of what is likely a misplaced sense of guilt. Eliot is still very much in the denial stage of grief, and the letter he holds in his hand that can go back in time and save Quentin may doom everything.
In the meanwhile, Alice deals with child-Quentin as best as she can, but it's not until later, when Julia (Stella Maeve) shows up that we learn that this minor resurrection have come at a terrible cost - the fragment of Quentin's soul needed to power the spell. Alice has well and fully done "something crazy" in this resurrection, but the wisom of child-Quentin helps her to say goodbye.
Child-Quentin has had to say goodbye to a lot of his favourite characters, and his favourite stories. His coping methods for transition anxiety - something fans of adult Quentin may be feeling something similar to in the aftermath of his death - help Alice see that it's time to start a new chapter in her life.
Not all letting go is a good thing, however - Kady's (Jade Tailor) memory wipe initially convinces her that she's fallen off the wagon. The fear she feels at how relieved she was to have fallen is a complicated emotion, one that's powerfully portrayed. She is clutching hard to her sobriety, but with the pressues of Hedge Witch leadership, she's starting to feel her grip start to slip. Whatever force is working against her is nowhere near as frightening.
Holding on too hard to something that's gone only causes pain. It stops the grieving process, and the path to healing, while still leaving in all the pain of loss. Learning to let go is an important step to moving on - possibly the hardest step - and it is a strength of the show that it manages to approach the idea from so many different angles.
The next episode of 'The Magicians' airs January 29, on Syfy.