The Magicians Review: Will You Play With Me? (Season 3 Episode 13)
Julia’s powers reach a new level, the quest to return magic comes to an end, and Alice regrets her decisions on The Magicians Season 3 Episode 13, “Will You Play With Me?”
I’m at a loss for words if I’m honest. This season finale has me in my emotions so hard because right as Julia finally begins to live up to her potential, becoming the Lady of The Tree, she sacrifices her god power to save the group after Alice’s betrayal.
Forgiving Alice for her actions is not going to be an easy task, for them or me. It’s understandable for Alice to be scared of magic being returned because she knows she can’t control herself with it.
What’s not understandable is siding with the library and giving them the power to divvy up magic to who they decide should get it or destroying magic forever because of her own misdoings and fear.
It’s one thing for Alice to betray the magicians all over the world and destroy magic forever, but to also get a potion to forget about doing it is despicable. If Alice has the strength to kill all magic, then she has the power to be able to remember it and regret it for the rest of her life.
There was a point in time where Alice was my favorite character, but now I’m at a point where I am happy that the library has her locked away. It’s what she deserves for turning her back on everyone.
Then again, had Julia stayed and not left with Iris to do god work she would’ve been with them to stop Alice from destroying the keys. She also would have been there to prevent Gavin, Irene, and Dean Fogg from using the siphon on the magic.
I’m torn because part of me wants to be mad at Julia for leaving them when she knows how dangerous the quest is, but the other part of me understands why she did it.
Julia has always been destined for greatness, but it’s taken a lot of hard work for her to get to this point and to just ignore the fact that she has become a god would be ridiculous. It’s also not like she left without helping at all. She did give Quentin enough power for a killing blow, but he wasted it talking with Aura in the castle.
I hate to say it, but besides Alice pulling her stunt the whole thing could technically fall on Quentin. Julia gave him enough juice to kill the monster in the castle, not go talk to Aura and promise his life away to keeping the monster locked up.
Because Quentin decides to waste the magic he was given all they have left is the god-killing bullet, that Eliot uses anyway because he thinks he’s saving Quentin’s life. It’s adorable and heart-warming that both Eliot and Alice try to come up with ideas to keep Quentin from living his life with the monster. But, it’s reckless and puts them in an even deeper hole.
I find it abysmal that Dean Fogg is siding with Irene and the library. What possible reason could he have for wanting magic to stay under lock and key? And why in the world is everyone in the group besides Alice a regular human again? How dare they take away their memories after they’ve risked their lives to save everyone so many times.
I feel sorrow for the Fairy Queen. I know that she made the lives of everyone we love hell for a long time, but after everything, I see her in a different light. It’s heroic of her to sacrifice her own life so that no fairy is ever hunted again.
She single-handedly just saved the fairy species and unless someone shares what she did with her people nobody will even know what happened.
There are so many different storylines that can play out for Season 4 and it makes me so excited but scared at the same time. Things are going to get hectic with the monster inside of Eliot’s body. Especially with him finding Quentin.
Margo looks to be a successful businesswoman, Josh is a cab driver, Julia is a top architect, Penny a DJ, Kady a drug dealer, and Quentin is now Eliot’s new friend.
Other Thoughts:
- At least in Julia’s human world, she’s still getting to create a version of her own worlds.
- The real question is: is the penny we see as a DJ, in the end, our Penny? Or the Penny from the 23rd timeline?
- Fen being the distraction for Gavin and Irene in the forest is the best “gotcha!!” scene ever. Fen is a clever one.
What did you think of this episode of The Magicians? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Reviewer Rating:
User Rating:
The Magicians will return for Season 4 in 2019 on Freeform.
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Cade Taylor
Cade Taylor is a television and film critic living in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a Senior Writer for Tell-Tale TV. His love for television developed at a young age, with a concentration on queer stories, sitcoms, teen dramas, and science fiction thrillers. In addition, he works full-time as a news producer, telling the stories of Missourians and helming "Produced in the Bi-State," a segment spotlighting actors, musicians, and entertainers from the St. Louis area. He can be reached by email at cade@telltaletv.com.
5 comments
Review missed a few things. Sure decisions got made but Q tried, and his plan would have worked.
Alice tried to do what she felt was right, failed, but realized her mistake with regards to the beast and it is like her potion from the dean was actually to make all the others lose their memories.
The Dean and the Librarian, not to mention the Fairy snorters are the bad guys, who win everything.
When a season ends on this much of a downer, I don’t come back for more.
my thesis on the end of the season 3 that little part that some people missed is that what i think the unnamed god is some thing like a archangel (Lucifer) red eyes and a prison that looks like it is in hell always wants every thing
I am so extremely disappointed in this season finale. I feel like the writers are just throwing things together, maybe one person writing one thing and another writing something else and neither are collaborating – I understand the concept of a season finale, but I thought it could have ended a million ways better. The first and second seasons were great, but this one seemed wishy washy and confusing. Just bummed and season 4 a whole year away, that sucks. 🙁
So one thing I noticed is that the fairy deal specifically stated “I offer […] in exchange for a new agreement. No fairy would be hunted by a non-fairy anywhere, ever. And this deal cannot be broken for any reason by any being ever.” So this brings a couple of questions: First, that is really one sided… Since it doesn’t say the fairies can’t hunt anyone else (and if a fairy attacks a non-fairy and runs away, would that technically count as hunting the fairy?). Secondly… what about gods? The monster trapped in the prison? Surely those creatures aren’t bound by the fairy deal?
I thought the first two seasons were inspired and the characters developed beautifully. I enjoyed the uplifting moments interspersed with the more solemn ones. I felt that there was somewhat of a balance.
I love the realistic expressions of emotion by the main characters.
Season three started out well. Their struggle to get magic back sends them on a quest. Ok.
Too many twists and turns later and season three finale is here.
I was NOT impressed!!!
At the end of the finale they still have no magic, all the leading characters are screwed, and literally nothing good came out of it except the fairy deal. The fairy who we all grew to hate steps up.
I really have to question ending a season this way. Why make the end of the season so gloom and doom.
I get cliffhangers but this plain sucks!
Do the writers want us all tohate the show for the rest of the year? Is this their magic trick to suck all the warmth and happiness out of our viewing experience.
Well hats off to them!!!
Message received. I will never watch this show again. Nor will I watch anything else by these writers.
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