The Magicians season 5

Just in the nick of time !

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Tonight ! Be there !

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Ep 1 was pretty good. They manage to jump between unconnected plot lines without becoming confusing.  Alices' making of a golem and apparently attempting to 'infuse' it  with Quentins 'spirit will not turn out well. Those things never do.  Good to see that Jewel Staite still has a role, even with her goofy hairdo.  

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I liked it too and I'm ready for more.

That must be a weird and funny place to work.




Room Blog: Episode 502
Joseph Mireles
Wednesday, January 22, 2020 - 18:04

TheMagicians_blog_writersroom_502

And we're back! So that was neat, right? All the golem drama, mind wiping-assassins, timey wimey antics—what's not to like?

As we stated last week, this episode was written and shot in conjunction with the premiere episode, meaning it was confusing as hell to produce and keeping track of all the moving pieces was honestly only a job fit for a Vulcan. Thank the Maker we had Episode 502 Writer and Executive Producer, David Reed, leading the charge!

From a narrative standpoint, the loss of Quentin still weighs heavily on our characters because grief is not something that just goes away. It becomes a part of you that you must live with and process in your own way. And it's in these dark corners of the soul that we find universal themes that connect all of us as human beings and storytellers. The big question going into this episode was: How do we begin to process grief
or let go of the past?

From the get-go, Sera (Gamble, Executive Producer) approached the room with the idea that we should have Alice successfully bring Quentin back as a child golem. We already had the wonderful, Luca Padovan, in mind as he had played Paco on Sera's other show, You.

The moment Luca put on the wig; everything fell into place. His curious, sensitive nature embodied Quentin perfectly and he nailed the comedic timing with some serious taco eating skills. Luca actually has a few allergies, so it was necessary to build our own hypoallergenic tacos, which he devoured take after take. Most of the time actors will only pretend to eat and then spit the food out over so many takes but Luca literally ate every taco we set in front of him. Fun fact, our cinematographer, Marvin Rush, shot both of the episodes of Star Trek: Voyager that the Q Golem references.

The hilariously handsome, Jake Choi, played our mind wiping assassin; however, we had trouble legally clearing his tattoos so we had to cover them with something. We went with an octopus and just shot at angles to show only one side of him at a time. Welcome to filmmaking, folks!

It's easy to miss them, but there are inside jokes planted across this entire series. For example, in Episode 502, there is a deleted scene where ghost loop Fen is hanging from the noose while arguing with Eliot over the correct grammar of hanged as opposed to hung. This came from actual arguments in the room spurred by grammatical enthusiast, Jay Gard. Or another is when Jane Chatwin calls Fen, Flen. This one came from a worried Brittany Curran approaching David Reed, concerned Fen was killed off the show in Episode 501. David joked "We'll let you audition to play Fen's great granddaughter, Flen." Now if this sounds mean, just know Brittany is a veteran trickster. More on this later…

On the Eliot and Margo side of things, once we figured out that Eliot should speak to Jane Chatwin and then steal a bunch of her time junk to experiment with, we had a blast pitching what those tools should be. Like many fun additions to the show, they came from a wide range of random wild pitches, thoughtful research, and inside jokes which more often than not takes the cake. The Time Plunger might have been my personal favorite. It would have allowed Margo to basically facetime with Josh through time… through the toilet bowl…

The Time Bee Smoker Eliot used on the Royal Apiary though, seemed ridiculous at first but Reed explained to us how his dad is actually a bee keeper and uses a smoker to calm down the hive to extract honey…We were so deep down the rabbit hole on this one, we were losing sleep. We just couldn't crack the paradox of Eliot and Margo's existence not completely shifting every time they changed the past. Then one morning it hit us, and we basically collectively exclaimed "Eureka! Time Permanence Perfume!"

And just like that, the story clicked and we "lived to frack another day" (Which is a joke in Episode 403 inspired by a real-life Freudian slip by one of our writers). Because, like grief, sometimes it's just about making it through to the other side.

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Olivia 'hit it out of the park' last night with her portrayal of Alice.

In The Magicians, time travel and twists are so much fun, and come into play quite a bit. Hello, 40 (or 41?) timelines! Here's a look at all the times the show gets timey wimey.

Season 1

Episode 9: The Writing Room
Quentin, Eliot, Penny and Alice head to the old Plover estate. They get trapped in a ghost loop and see young versions of Jane and Martin Chatwin, Christopher Plover, and two scary and dead ghost kids.

Episode 12: Thirty-Nine Graves
1.   Quentin truthies Dean Fogg and learns that Eliza is actually Jane Chatwin. And, most importantly, that this is the 40th Timeline they are experiencing, thanks to Jane's ability to create time loops. Also, he has died 39 times before.

2.    Julia and Quentin are trying to get to Fillory. They use time magic to go back to the UK in 1942 via a time bridge and then follow in Jane Chatwin's footsteps from the books. They head to the UK, and then activate their time magic device. Landing in WW2-era UK, they spot Jane using a magical phone booth portal, and then follow her and head into Fillory. No sweat.

Season 2

Episode 7: Plan B
When the team is working on a bank heist, Julia is able to push the time back four times so they can retry to escape the vault.

Episode 10: The Girl Who Told Time
In order to learn about Shades, Quentin, Dean Fogg and Julia use a Tesla Flexion machine to talk to Alice of the 23rd Timeline.

Season 3

Episode 4: Be the Penny
On the Key Quest, Julia and Quentin are searching for the Truth key. Thanks to their observation of a ghost loop, along with astral plane Penny, they learn that Rupert Chatwin gave it to his beloved, Lance Morrison. Lance was then killed by his evil father, a McAllistair, who kept the key.

Episode 5: A Life in the Day
This one is the ultimate in timey wimey episodes. Quentin and Eliot follow the key quest into a Fillory of the past. They spend a lifetime of 50 years working on a magical mosaic in order to get one of the Quest keys, and then solve it as old men when Eliot dies. Quentin works some time magic getting a letter to Margo so she can go back in time, dig up Jane Chatwin and get the keys, then return to them before they start the Quest — keys in hand. This time, Eliot and Quentin retain their memories from this magical lifetime.

Episode 8: Six Short Stories About Magic
In this episode, we learn a lot about different characters. In the fascinating stories about librarian Hazel and her daughter, Harriet, due to the way time works we see Harriet go from childhood to adulthood, and ultimately she and her mom are seemingly about the same age. Trippy.

Episode 11: Twenty-Three
Julia and Josh are working on the time Quest. They get pulled into a Tesla Flexion by the Josh of the 23rd Timeline. And going through the portal clock they quickly enter that Timeline, where they meet an alive Marina, a messed-up Alice, and a Penny who is obsessed with Julia. Oh, and evil Beast Quentin. Upon escape, Julia and Josh return home with the only survivors: Marina 23 and Penny 23.

Season 4

Episode 5: Escape From the Happy Place
Eliot is possessed by the Monster and trapped in his mind palace, the "Happy Place." He has to comb through his memories to find a door to get out and reach his body, so he can take control again and speak to his friends. A lot of the past is revealed, with Eliot observing his younger self and his most painful memories — from bad haircuts and high school trauma up through him rejecting Quentin when they came back from Fillory during the Key Quest.

Episode 6: A Timeline and Place
Marina 23 and Penny 23 are kidnapped by a Horomancer named Stoppard. He believes that their being in the 40th Timeline is messing with his mother's health, and wants to banish them back to Timeline 23. They flip through multiple Timelines and end up back in 40 — when Penny tells Stoppard he blew dandelion seeds from another Timeline around 40 and there is now no way to clear them out — Stoppard has no choice but to let Marina and Penny stay.

Episode 11: The 4-1-1
Quentin and Alice are on a mission to retrieve the incorporate bond spell from Mayakovsky of the past. Quentin has to interact with Alice of the past during their time at Brakebills South, and in the present, Alice connects with Past Quentin.

Episode 13: No Better to Be Safe Than Sorry
After Eliot is saved from The Monster and Quentin dies, Margo and Eliot go back to Fillory and find themselves 300 years in the future.

Season 5

Episode 1: Do Something Crazy
Margo and Eliot seek out the Clock Dwarf in the center of Fillory. He maintains the Clockwork Heart in Fillory's center that was created by the dwarves who taught Jane Chatwin to do time magic. But turns out, he can only move time forward and not back.

Episode 2: The Wrath of the Time Bees
There is a lot of fiddling with time — both on Earth and on Fillory. Alice has animated a golem with the memories of Quentin and brought a 12-year-old Baby Q into the present. And in Fillory, Eliot stumbles into Jane Chatwin's cottage. After a chat where Jane says they can't mess with time, Eliot steals all of her timey wimey gizmos and runs away. Then he and Margo work with the items to try and retroactively save Josh and Fen. Oh, and there are magical stamps that can go through space and time to arrive anywhere (they find three and use two).


Will there be more timey wimey moments to come this season? Stay tuned to The Magicians every Wednesday at 10/9c to find out!

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Time loop stories are always "fun" and/or confusing.

Tonight !

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Wed. sched. is working out well. Survivor at 7, The Magicians at 8, and Stumptown at 9.

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Olivia is getting some good screen time this season.

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Oh no !  Magicians is ending at the end of this season.

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Hopefully Netflik will pick it up, move the production to NM, and I'll get to meet Olivia someday.  We all have our fantasies.....

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It's hinted at that the cost was too high for the income, for SyFy to carry it anymore.

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