The Magicians Review: Mendings, Major and Minor (Season 1 Episode 5)

The Magicians Review: Mendings, Major and Minor (Season 1 Episode 5)

Rosie Robinson Reviews, The Magicians

In this week’s episode of The Magicians, “Mendings, Major and Minor,” really drives home the point that you can’t just fix your problems, well, magically.

Quentin’s dad has brain cancer. Quentin doesn’t want him to die, so he inevitably spends some study time looking for a mystic cure and accidentally kills a puppy in the process. Yeah, you read that right. As you’d expect, spells can’t cure cancer because if they could, no one would have cancer, so it doesn’t look like there will be any major mending this episode.

Just because these characters are wizards doesn’t mean they don’t have to deal with the less-charmed side effects of growing up, like the reality of death and the tragedy of losing a loved one. It’s a bitter realization for Quentin, who struggles to care about playing school sports or finding a mentor while his dad is dying.

Quentin: Then why bother? What is the point of any of this, of magic, if we can’t fix real problems?

Magic can’t fix his dad, but it can help fix their relationship before it’s too late. Q tells his father what he’s actually been doing at grad school, because there’s no better way to say ‘I love you’ than magically reassembling a model plane. All jokes aside, it’s a sweet scene between them.

The drama with Q’s dad highlights an interesting rule of The Magicians’ universe – their magic is fueled by personal pain and suffering. What makes you unhappy also makes you more powerful, which is pretty dark-and-twisty if you ask me. It also leads to my favorite exchange of the episode:

Quentin: What kind of system is that? Why can’t it run on love? Or cocaine or something?

Margo: It’s the universe deep-dicking us. Lie back and try to enjoy it.

“Mendings, Major and Minor” feels uncoordinated, with lackluster plot lines like the welters game and mentor week that are seemingly unconnected and irrelevant to the episode or the show at large. The binding agent should be the story between Quentin and his father, but the emotional resonance between the two falls flat, mainly because we haven’t seen much of their relationship before now. After last week’s wonderfully fun and creative episode, it is a little disappointing and in need of at least some minor mending.

Other thoughts:

  • Favorite Meta moment:

    Eliot: This isn’t Middle Earth Quentin, there aren’t enough noble quests to go around.

  • Eliot continues to be wonderful. I mean, he bakes cupcakes.
  • ‘shipper alert: Alice and Quentin’s hands almost touch when she tries to comfort him over his dad and I may have feelings about this.
  • Julia’s quickly approaching unlikeable character territory and needs to make a U-turn.
  • Penny finds an alternate universe Red Room of Pain?
  • There isn’t a Taylor Swift reference this week. I am understandably disappointed.

What did you think of this week’s episode of The Magicians? Tell us in the comments below!

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The Magicians airs Mondays at 9/8c on SyFy.

Rosie is a journalist, TV obsessive, and vampire lore expert. Her favorite game is sorting TV characters into Hogwarts houses. (She’s a Ravenclaw.) When she’s feeling down she watches “Once More, With Feeling.” Chances are she’s thinking about a fictional character right now. She’ll fight you over Felicity Smoak and Lydia Martin. She lives her life a quarter-mile at a time.