The Magicians is known for having some sort of musical number or episode every season, and that tradition continues with this season’s musical episode! Besides bringing back memories from when I was in showchoir and musical theater, the episode really allowed Margo to shine and continue her journey as a strong and wise woman fighting to get her best friend back. ‘All That Hard, Glossy Armor’ was written by John McNamara and Mike Moore and directed by Shannon Kohli, and has quickly become one of our favorite episodes of the show to date. Here’s what happened!
Leprechaun | Penny23 (Arjun Gupta) tells Quentin (Jason Ralph) and Julia (Stella Maeve) that The Monster (Hale Appleman) isn’t putting together his own body, he’s putting together his sister’s body. If the gods chose to kill her and only imprison him, she must be real bad. They don’t want him to remember her, but cut to a bar with the Monster making a terminally ill patron touch his face to help him remember his sister. Now it’s a race to find the next god holding onto the next piece, Angus aka Enyalius (Gethin Anthony). To find him they must find a leprechaun, which they do, but she (Elyse Maloway) traps them in an arcade escape room.
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Eventually Julia uses her ability of being indestructible to good use and gets what they need to “escape” and meet Angus. They warn him of the Monster coming, but he doesn’t seem worried as he tries to remember the password to his safehouse along with trying to persuade Julia to go with him to learn how to use her powers. Unfortunately for Angus, he doesn’t remember his password fast enough and the Monster finds them and rips out the next piece of his sister. Penny zaps Q and Julia back to safety, where they can drink about their problems with everyone else.
Trippin’ on Lizard in a Desert | Margo (Summer Bishil) has been cast out of Fillory and is traveling through the desert to find a weapon that can save Eliot, but she runs out of water. She’s traveling with her birthright lizard, and notices it has a drop of liquid on its back and she decides to lick it up. This immediately triggers a crazy musical trip that lasts the entire episode. She sees Eliot as her spiritual guide, and he dances and sings Margo right to a small village where she can get water and help. They don’t trust her until they see her mark of banishment, then they welcome her to their group. She sees a woman getting angry and suddenly red sands appear to possess the man she is yelling at, the Foremost (Devan Long) then takes his axes and plunges them into the mans chest and removes the red sand spirit and the woman catches it.
Margo knows she needs the Foremost’s ice axes, so she seduces him [with E, Fen (Brittany Curran) and Josh (Trevor Einhorn) singing to her] to try to get him to borrow them. The next morning she tells her that only he can use them, but she can go out into the desert and pill a bucket with only black grains of sand so she can make her own, but she can’t use magic. She sets off with a musical entourage including Kady (Jade Tailor) and Dean Fogg (Rick Worthy).
She spends the day separating the grains of sand and ends up getting very upset, summoning a red sand demon. Margo can actually see the demon because of her fairy eye, and the woman speaks to her telling the truth about her kind. Then she helps Margo by filling her bucket with black grains of sand.
Margo takes her black sand back to the Foremost and the woman, and they laugh because the task was only a fools errand. Margo reveals to them that she lost her temper, summoned a red sand demon, spoke with her, and learned the truth. They are there to protect and help women, not hurt them, but the woman and the Foremost already knew that. They were hiding the truth from their people to keep the patriarchy in power, so of course Margo topples it. She tells the people the truth and shows them that they can just ask the spirits to leave the men they possess instead of stabbing them with ice axes.
Now Margo is in possession of the axes and is ready to save her best friend.
This episode of The Magicians was an absolutely incredible one. Summer Bishil deserves an award for her acting in this episode and her portrayal of such a strong woman who isn’t afraid of being vulnerable. And the entire cast getting to be a part of the musical numbers was an absolute delight! This is definitely our favorite episode of the season thus far!
Catch The Magicians Wednesdays at 9pm on SYFY.