The Magicians Review: Garden Variety Homicide (Season 5 Episode 8)

Magical spores invade Brakebills, somebody has a bun in the oven, and Margo switches bodies with Eliot to enact their plan to kill the dark king on The Magicians Season 5 Episode 8, “Garden Variety Homicide.”

One thing that always brings a smile to my face is when reality begins to affect fantasy when it comes to television shows, and that’s precisely what happens in this episode with Julia’s pregnancy. Since the announcement of Stella Maeve’s pregnancy, I’ve been curious to see if we would see Julia have the same fate on the show.

The pregnancy in real life is an exciting thing, but for Julia, it couldn’t come at a worse time in her life. Her relationship with Penny has flown out the window because she’s too focused on trying to save Fillory, and he wants to settle down and have a boring life together, so the endgame on this plot twist is one that I’m looking forward to seeing.

With Red Monkey month in Fillory, Julia won’t even have a full nine months of pregnancy, and it’ll be her luck that in a few weeks, the baby will be ready for birth. How will she work around this issue, will she have a fillorian abortion or will she choose to have the baby with Penny?

No matter the outcome, Julia is a smart, strong woman who can stand on her own and will make the best decision for herself in the long run.

One thing that this season has revolved around firmly is Quentin Coldwater, which I love, and it looks like even in his death, he still plays a significant part in everything that is magic. His knowledge of the world seed was never made known, which draws the question: how and why did he have the instruction manual to grow it?

Quentin’s vast knowledge of all things magical was nowhere near touched before his untimely death, and now it’s up to Alice to figure it out, even if it kills her.

Alice has been enchanted with this page of Quentin’s’ all season, which directly correlates with her not being able to let him go or forget anything about him. Now she has the chance to figure it out and get the answers she wants, but with a potential love interest.

It’s been almost a full season of Alice trying to find ways to cope with the loss she feels and it’s accurate for her character to continue fixating on things that correlate with Quentin, but what if all of this has brought someone else in her life that could be special to her?

Hamish shares the same intellectual capabilities as Alice and is a trained magician who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to his plants. They have common character traits in stock, and the way the two of them interact makes me believe that they could potentially be a good couple. However, he has a lot to learn when it comes to boundaries between him, Alice, and talking about Quentin.

Margo and Eliot’s dynamic this season has been strained as they butt heads on issues, and it seems as if their friendship could be twisted, but anytime you think they could be fading away from one another, they find a way to make amends and get through the tough times.

Hale Appleman has always shown range, but the past two seasons have been such a dramatic character change for him, and I don’t think people give him the needed praise he deserves. His acting skills have grown exponentially, and it’s shown through in this season as he effortlessly portrays the vulnerability, sorrow, and terror in Eliot. Also, his body switch having to play Margo is utterly amazing.

Eliot knows that he needs to go through with the plan to get rid of the dark king, but he doesn’t know if he can go through will the killing by himself, so Margo does what she does best and comes up with an insane plan to get what they need. This time the idea is a body swap spell between her and Eliot.

It wouldn’t be as bad if Margo and Eliot told each other everything like they used to do in past seasons. After all the trauma they’ve been through the both of them have been fighting their own personal demons by themselves, which means that acting like one another is a small feat to accomplish without being found out.

Margo is being too upfront and handsy around the dark king, which throws him off because that’s not what he’s used to from Eliot. But, with Charlton’s help, she soon realizes that the dark king doesn’t have a thing for Eliot because of how affectionate he is, but because of how open and vulnerable he is. That’s what their connection stems from.

As for Eliot, he does a pretty decent job of trying to get Josh to fall for it without having to tell him the truth, but in the end, he ends up possibly ruining what’s left of Margo and Josh’s relationship because Josh is adamant about talking with Margo. I don’t blame Josh for confronting who he thought was Margo while they’re alone, but I wish that Margo was actually there for the conversation.

Margo is doing everything in her power to avoid the tough conversation with Josh, but I wish she would sit down and get it over with already so she can stop blaming herself. If Josh were aware of how hard Margo fought to try and save them, he wouldn’t be as irritated or upset with her, but because she’s never explained what happened, he’ll never know what actually went down and how hard it was on her.

One good thing that comes from Margo being in Eliot’s body is now she can see first-hand how hard it is to hate the dark king and how easy it is to feel bad for him because even she couldn’t mercilessly kill him after having spent real time with him.

After judging the dark king for the whole season, rightfully, there could be some backstory to how became ruler of Fillory that could exempt him from being truly evil. He acts as if he’s being forced to make the takers and can’t leave even if he wanted to. The conduit he used to keep himself alive is destroyed, but still, he continues to live. It makes you wonder if there could be someone else in the picture pulling strings.

One thing that irks me, and feels like an ugly plot device, is the fact that after killing the dark king, he’s left on the floor. Why would they not move his body to make sure that he genuinely died after knowing he’s been through seven assassination attempts? It feels like a write off to further the plot and not something either Julia or Margo would really do.

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

Critic Rating:

User Rating:

 

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

 Follow us on Twitter and on Instagram!

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!

25 Tragic TV Romances That Absolutely Ripped Our Hearts Out