The Magicians Review: The Mountain of Ghosts (Season 5 Episode 3)

Eliot and Alice meet a stranger on their way up the mountain, Margo lets her emotions get the best of her, and Julia enlists the help from a pair of sisters to prevent the death of millions during the next magical surge on The Magicians Season 5 Episode 3, “The Mountain of Ghosts.”

The mystery of the Dark King has been revealed, but after the buildup of how horrible he is, I have mixed feelings about what to believe. He shows up out of nowhere to help Alice and Eliot get away from a taker, but it seems a little too coincidental.

With knowing nothing about him I think there’s a major possibility that he’s the one who controls the takers and did it all on purpose. I want to keep an open mind about him because he seems like he has the capability of actually caring, but he still killed Fen and Josh. Didn’t he?

If most of Fillory jumped three hundred years into the future does that mean that they were never murdered at his hand and negates how they should feel about him? I want to see the history books of Fillory now that half of them transported into the future to escape death.

If I’m being completely honest I have bad feelings about him only because of how he came out of nowhere in the woods to help them and then continues to flirt throughout the night with Eliot. The Dark King may not be a big bad at this point after the timeline manipulation, but I’m still heavily weary of him.

Besides dealing with the secret king in the woods, I love that Alice and Eliot have the opportunity to deal with the tension between them even if Alice didn’t want him tagging along. They have animosity towards each other, and rightfully so, over some situations, but mainly over Quentin.

They both loved Quentin in their own ways and while Alice may blame Eliot for everything falling apart, it’s both of their faults in how things played out. Without Alice betraying them all and trying to rid the world of magic Quentin would have never agreed to babysit the monster for all eternity and Eliot would have never killed the monster in hopes of saving Q.

They both have a play in how everything goes down, but I agree with Eliot that if he hadn’t rejected Quentin’s advances to try a relationship out things could have ended differently and Eliot would have never been possessed. However, now that he’s gone there’s nothing more that they can do and they know it.

Trying to send a letter to Q before he died would be the same trial and error situation Eliot was in with Margo trying to save Josh and Fen. Quentin may have been able to avoid being killed at that very moment, but who’s to say he wouldn’t have died some other way and things turn out ten times worse? Changing the past is reckless and rarely plays out the way you want it to.

Now that Alice knows first-hand from Eliot about the relationship he and Quentin had I think things could potentially change in them. If they got over their issues with one another they could help each other move on and learn how to move past his death.

As for Margo and Fen’s problem, well, if I were Margo I’d be a little upset too at the fact that my man is admitting to losing faith and cheating on me with one of my close friends. Granted, Margo did lose faith that she could save them as well, but she was emotionally distraught over it and had to be manipulated by Eliot to get over it quickly.

Josh and Fen, though, are overreacting about Eliot being the one who sends the letter to them because she gave up hope, but they cheated together and weren’t going to say anything until the full moon made them expose themselves.

Fen is taking Margo trying to kill her to heart, but she was in the middle of getting ready to transform in a day and had just learned that Josh was cheating on her. The anger inside of her got too overwhelming because it wasn’t all her, part of it was the transformation.

I wish that Margo would explain how she tried to save them multiple times and couldn’t change the outcome of their deaths. If they knew about how she tried over and over again to save them I don’t think they’d be as upset as they are.

Margo also needs to realize that she is not a bad person for finally coming to terms with the fact that she couldn’t save them. She had tried everything she thought of and in the end, had to try and save herself as well. She’s not a horrible person like she thinks.

With the Harmonic Convergence coming up in two weeks it’s up to Julia and Penny to try and find a way to prevent the mass causalities of millions. Zoey and her sister will come through to prevent another apocalypse if they have to, but I think that it would be better if Zoey helped alone because her sister isn’t on board all the way.

Plus, Julia has helped save the world before with the help of her friends so who’s to say they can’t do it again by themselves?

The shots in this episode are phenomenal, especially when Alice and Eliot are at the top of the mountain, and the storyline arcs make “The Mountain of Ghosts” one of my new top favorite episodes since “A Life in the Day.”

Favorite Quotes:

• “My sister will invoice you for my time.” – Zoey
• “I think I almost fucked the dark king.” – Eliot
• “I don’t own Josh’s penis and I don’t want to.” – Margo
• “He was pretty in love with you.” – Alice
• “I knew Q really well, and if anyone was messy it was him.” – Alice
• “As a wise king once said: ovary up.” – Eliot

What did you think of this episode of The Magicians? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Magicians airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on Syfy.

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