It’s midseason for Syfy’s The Magicians, and we find our heroes scattered, on their own journey’s to restore magic. ‘Six Short Stories About Magic’ is a brilliant episode that checks in with some of the lesser characters, including Poppy and Fen, and also gives us some amazing Harriet backstory. The episode was written by David Reed and was directed by Salli Richardson-Whitfield.
Penny | Penny’s (Arjun Gupta) going along with the groups plan and goes to find Benedict (Harvey Guillen) in the Underworld to try to find the depression monster key. Penny finds the mapmaker, but he no longer has the key, he says it’s in the Library, the place Penny has been trying to avoid. He goes to the Library and finds his old pal Sylvia (Roan Curtis), the girl who died in the Poison Room. She tells Penny she knew he was going to be there because she’s read his book, then takes him to someone that he needs to meet, Cassandra (Olivia Taylor Dudley). Cassandra looks like Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley), but is actually the writer of everyone’s books for the Library and is thousands of years old. Penny stays to see how the story she’s writing, the one of him and his friends, is currently going.
Later he realizes what he needs to do to get the key, he must apologize to Benedict. He goes back and apologizes for the way he treated him earlier and promises him the Library’s map room in exchange for the key. He gets it and sends it back to his friends. Unfortunately, Sylvia turned him in to the Library and he is captured.
Poppy | Poppy (Felicia Day) is trying to distract Quentin (Jason Ralph) from his doubts with sex, but it’s not working very well. Poppy decides to lay down the law and tells him to stop trying to change himself and just embrace who he truly is. Poppy also seems to be the only one in the group that actually cares about Victoria’s (Hanah Levien) life, she even tries to get Victoria to bail on everyone with her when things get hairy.
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Alice | Alice decides to take Fen’s advice and goes to the Library in hopes of obtaining a library card. Unfortunately the Library is no longer accepting applications for library cards, but Alice won’t give up that easily. She’s brought information she has from when she was a Niffin and is hoping to make a trade, but the Librarian (Mageina Tovah) does not want that. Instead, she wants Alice to do something for the Library in exchange for access to the Library’s knowledge. Since we see Quentin run into her in the Library later I think it’s safe to say she accepted the Librarian’s offer.
Eliot | Things aren’t going so well for Eliot (Hale Appleman) and Margo (Summer Bishil) in Fillory. They have a trial by wombat and where they plead their case to a literal wombat.
Fen | Fen (Brittany Curran) goes back to Earth and gets completely trashed with Alice. But in her drunken state she gives Alice some great advice: go after the knowledge she lost, it’s still out there. Later, she’s on the couch when Julia (Stella Maeve) answers a knock at the door, it’s Irene (Jaime Ray Newman) and she needs Julia’s help healing what the magic powder she’s been using has done. Fen notices Irene has a fairy with her, and goes to speak with that fairy later. The fairy, Skye (Anja Savcic), tells Fen to come back the next day to speak. But when Fen returns with Julia she finds Skye on an operating table, down a leg. Julia pieces together what the magic powder Irene gave her was, essence of fairy.
Harriet | The writer’s must be applauded for Harriet’s segment of this episode. Because Harriet is deaf and this segment was from her perspective, everything was completely silent, which was brilliant! We also got Harriet’s backstory and found out the Librarian is her mother, explaining why she leads a group about the freedom of information. Harriet and Kady (Jade Tailor) are on their own side mission in the Library, in search of whatever battery Librarians are using. But what they find is even more shocking. The Library’s workers are all able to use magic because the snort essence of fairy. Kady gets away, but Harriet confronts her mother. As she’s on the mirror bridge with Victoria, one of the Library’s cronies breaks the mirror on his side, shattering the bridge and presumably killing Harriet and Victoria.
By the end of the episode we have lost Victoria and Harriet, have discovered fairy’s can be ground up and used for their magic, and the main quest has succeeded in finding the next key! What could The Magicians have up their sleeves for next week’s musical episode?
The Magicians airs Wednesdays at 9pm on Syfy.
