The Magicians Review: Knight Of Crowns (Season 2 Episode 1)

The Magicians Season 2 Episode 1 starts off with a flush of actions negating all the horrific things that happened to our heroes on Season 1 Episode 13, “Have You Brought Me Little Cakes.”

Instead of making the decimated group of heroes fight their way back to strength, they are lulled back with bits and pieces of help in random books. It feels like a dream where one finds oneself before a problem, and suddenly is transported to after the solution.

But it skips the vital point of how this feat is achieved! 

This happens when Quentin finds himself alone in Fillory with all hope lost. He finds a regular cookie house in the woods. An old woman greets him and offers to help him for a vial of his earthly blood. Then, we find him at the door of the Shed Between Worlds, the gateway to the office at Brakebills, with the old lady in tow.

The others have been healed by Alice who has godly powers. Well, they are more or less healed. Penny is less than optimally healed. His hands are being kept in a wooden box.

My point is that the help provided by the old lady is never explained. It is just brushed away and dismissed.

She does say she is a healer. But our heroes head for a well-known spring of healing. Here, they stumble on a traveling healer who agrees to help the earthlings for free. Being treated rudely by Penny, he decides to curse his hands.

The random information on things of Fillory keeps on coming. That may be well expected as Quentin is a fan of the book series, but every problem is solved with hints from the books.

Only the royals of Fillory can get the help they all need to save Fillory from dying of unmagic. Presto, there’s a cove where you can get crowned or coronated. This is done by winging a ceremony pretty badly. With no witnesses.

Voila, now when the four royals of Fillory are crowned, they can get a carriage that runs in circles. Convenient dream magic if I ever saw it.

Here, we find the next stumble in either editing or plot. The carriage is sighted, then we miss out on an exchange and hear an after-the-fact proclamation from our heroes as the carriage leaves!

We wanted to see the scene!

The magical land of Fillory seems devoid of life. Not many wandering animals or people there. When we meet the royal court of Fillory, we are treated to the current ruling family of the land. Only to not being introduced to them!

We are told about a royal council, AFTER THE FACT, in a rather small walk in closet. The closet pass as the Armory, a place where Battle Magic is stored. Or rather used to be stored. This could have been an epic scene with High King Elliot ruling out disputes to the people of Fillory. No, no Little Cakes here.

The common enemy of Julia and The Beast, Reinhard The Fox is explained by rape and murder. This I find disturbing, you get the brutal violation of Julia by Reinhard which ended her a shade around her heart. Then we are galloped  to fun and games in Fillory.

The mood of The Magicians can’t settle on what it wants to be. Is it supposed to be a comedy? I wager that is the case. They constantly joke about all and nothing. But of it wants to be a comedy, The Magicians can’t show a rape alongside throats being cut and hearts being eaten.

That is just bad taste.

The Magicians could be a horror series if the producers let it. And they almost do in the segments where the show shines.

All scenes set on Earth work alright. They are believable! The magic bits in Fillory aren’t.

The anguish we see in Julia is great. Stella Maeve outplayed all the other actors. If we were spared the one-liners by Charles Mesure as The Beast he would have made those scenes all good.

All in all an abysmal episode with a glimmer of hope for the future as the fox hunt hasn’t started yet. And that it just simply only can get better. Next up on The Magicians is “Hotel Spa Potions.”

Notes from the books of magic:

• By what logic was Penny not considered for a crown?
• The knight of crowns, what a joke!
• Where did the puzzle wheel come from?
• What was the deal with conjured trees and flowers? Just asking.
• Will they wake up soon and say it all was a dream?
• Please, move the main plot back to Earth where we’ll have a man hut for Reinhard! Bring on the mayhem and drop the funny bits.
• Bottom line, you can’t mix rape scenes with comedy, ever!

Do you agree? Join in the comments and share your views on this episode of The Magicians.

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The Magicians airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on Syfy.

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