7 Things We Learned at ‘The Magicians’ San Diego Comic-Con Panel

This year at San Diego Comic-Con, the showrunners and the main cast of The Magicians talked about their favorite moments from Season 3, relationship statuses on the show, and all things Season 4.

Jason Ralph, Hale Appleman, Stella Maeve, Olivia Taylor Dudley, and Summer Bishil, along with series creators, John McNamara and Sera Gamble were in attendance for the panel. Felicia Day, who made an appearance in Season 3 as Poppy, joined the crew as the moderator.

Here are 7 things we learned from their panel:

1. New Characters

The Magicians Season 4 will primarily focus on the new characters, played by the main cast, as Eliot’s body is inhabited by the monster.

Jason Ralph will play Brian, or Bry-guy as he likes to say, Summer Bishil will play Janet, Stella Maeve will play Kim, Trevor Einhorn will play Isaac, Arjun Gupta will play DJ Hansel, and Jade Tailor will play Sam.

Olivia Taylor Dudley will continue to portray Alice as she works through the season to help her friends remember who they truly are. Rick Worthy will also continue his role as Dean Fogg, keeping Alice locked away as he helps the library control magic.

2. What We Can Expect From Alice

During the panel, Olivia Taylor Dudley admitted that she would like to see the return of Alice and Quentin’s relationship, but that seems like a long shot seeing as he is now Brian.

According to Dudley, we’ll see Season 4 Alice struggling with the answers to their problems, and she’ll be more like the Alice we saw in the first season.

“This season I’m kind of approaching her as Season 1 Alice where she no longer has the answers and she realizes that. She’s a little bit more innocent because she just doesn’t know,” Dudley said.

Dudley said that one thing she loves about playing Alice is the different versions she’s been allowed to bring to life, Niffin Alice being her absolute favorite to play. “I’m really lucky on this show as an actor I get to play so many different versions of the same character, which is the longest I’ve ever lived with a character, four seasons.”

“It’s amazing because I think every human being has a million different corners of their mind, and they’re one decision away from becoming very different. With Alice, I’ve gotten to explore all of those decisions, whether she made them or not. It’s been my favorite part about playing Alice is getting to play the different versions of her.”

In Season 4, we’ll see most of the cast play brand new characters, except for Dudley. “I was a little bummed, I was so excited that my mind was going to get erased, and I got to play another character yet again, but that didn’t happen. Now it’s everyone else’s turn.”

“I always get to switch it up with Alice, and now I just have to sit and be Alice alone in a cell with some ill-fitting clothing for a while.”

3. Where Dean Fogg Stands

Dean Fogg’s decision to help the library was a controversial one last season. Now we’ll get to see him put all his plans in action. Fogg may have been trying to look out for magic as a whole when he decided to switch sides, but his betrayal will not be forgotten by our heroes.

According to Sera Gamble, Fogg made a logical move by helping the library take control of magic because all he wants is control and peace. Under the library’s control, that’s what he assumes will happen.

“There’s a huge library presence this season because they stepped in to control the flow of magic, which makes a certain kind of sense because when just anyone can do anything people like Quentin, no offense, really fucked it up. So it’s logical. Where Dean Fogg falls in all of this is he wants everything to be orderly and to work. He’d also like students to stop blowing themselves up with magic,” Gamble said.

4. Bringing The Monster Inside Eliot To Life

Although Eliot technically doesn’t receive another name and life like the rest of the cast, he’s still gone with the monster inside of him. This is a totally different character with different mannerisms, but the same old face of Eliot.

“I think it’s a completely different character. I’m not playing Eliot. The monster happens to be possessing Eliot’s body, so they happen to share the same machinery, but the way the monster thinks and speaks and moves is different in certain ways. It’s been really different and in a lot of ways I feel like we’ve been creating an entirely new character to throw into the mix,” Appleman said.

When being instructed on how to approach the way the monster should act, John McNamara told Appleman that he should aim for a child with no empathy or control.

“We’re building it as we go. We just finished episode four, so I only know so much. I think John said something at the beginning of the season about ‘try playing him like a nine-year-old without any empathy or impulse control,’ which was kind of like a place to start,” Appleman continued.

The monster is fascinated by the way humans act and work, which is why he tries his hardest to grasp the concept of humanity.

Appleman said, “He’s not a human being, I think he’s attempting to assimilate into humanity somehow. He’s trying to piece together facets of humanity and I think in some ways he’s a collector.”

“He’s looking at other experiences that he sees other people having, and he’s trying to gain insight and emulate that, but he doesn’t have the actual human genes so he can’t quite get there. He’s trying to facilitate the experience of being human without actually being human himself,” Appleman continued.

5. Queer Characters Are Important And Needed

When asked how the cast feel about bringing these queer characters to life they had a lot to say.

“There wasn’t a character like Eliot when I was growing up. Like, I didn’t have a queer king. So, I’m grateful that I get to play a character as multifaceted as Eliot, who is queer, or fluid, or however you view him. He is deep, he’s complicated, and he likes dudes. That’s great,” Appleman stated.

“There should be more queer characters. Period. Until sexuality isn’t even a conversation anymore, and we all fuck who we fuck, and no one gives a shit,” Appleman continued.

Ralph was then asked if it’s natural for Quentin to love who he loves, or if his sexuality is something that he also struggles with.

“It’s something that’s apart of Quentin, so, no, it wasn’t a surprise. It’s sort of laid out, it’s something that’s relatively undiscussed, and I think that’s a little bit of the beauty of it. I don’t think we get to see a lot of that in television or in media. Sexuality is a spectrum, and Quentin falls on that somewhere in the middle. It’s the one thing in his life that he’s not anxious about, and I like that,” Ralph said.

“It was important to Hale and I, when we were shooting the ‘A Life in the Day’ episode after the kiss that we have early on, the morning after, wasn’t a weird bumbling of ‘we shouldn’t have done that.'”

Appleman threw in one last comment on the subject. “We don’t need to explain it, it exists. Chemistry is chemistry.”

6. ‘A Life in the Day’ Seems To Be The Consensus For Favorite Episode of Season 3

When asked about their favorite thing from Season 3 and working with certain people Ralph immediately brought up The Magicians Season 3 Episode 5, “A Life in the Day,” which made the crowd erupt in cheers.

“When we shot ‘ A Life in the Day’ that was a real gift, one I think we knew was going to be special from the first read. Our show is very fast paced and high stakes; it was very nice to have the opportunity to slow things down a bit and have small frustrations about little things that built into larger things that ended up changing these people lives,” Ralph explained.

“There’s so much that happened in the books between Eliot and Quentin and that relationship is so rich and having the opportunity to investigate those things on the show was a treat,” Ralph finished.

Appleman chimed in after Ralph finishes speaking. “It was a beautiful opportunity for us to invest in the mundanity of everyday life between these two people and allow the depth of connection between Quentin and Eliot to live on screen.”

As far as Quentin and Eliot’s relationship in Season 4, well, at this moment it’s nonexistent.

“I haven’t seen Eliot at all this season so far in what we’ve shot or in the scrips that have been written, so I hope so. I think the monster and Brian have a close bond, according to the monster at least,” Appleman explained.

7. Everyone Loves Julia And Fen’s Friendship

Stella Maeve doesn’t get a lot of time to actually bond with the other women on the show on the screen like she would want, which is why last season was a fun one for her. “I liked seeing Julia team up with Brittany Curran, who plays Fen, last season and that dynamic shocked me because I didn’t see it coming at all.”

“John and Sera kind of blessed me with that little surprise, and it was nice to work with another female and have that energy and two people that are totally from opposite walks of life team up together for a good cause. It was harmonious, and it was a lot of fun,” Maeve continued.

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While we don’t know much about Season 4, there’s no doubt that The Magicians is going to bring their A game and blow us all away.

The Magicians Season 4 will return in 2019 on Syfy with 13 episodes.

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