The Magicians recap: Season 3, episode 13, Will You Play With Me?

The Magicians closes out its season and quest and finds our characters one step forward and two steps back. 

This third season of The Magicians has been a truly terrific season of television. The latest episode, “Will You Play With Me” only cements that. All of the wheels are set to be in motion.

They have all seven keys. They know how to handle the monster in the castle. Julia has apparently become a goddess. Quentin, in true Quentin fashion, is prepared to sacrifice himself to ensure their success. Once they’re done, Alice wants to erase her memory. Everything is fine.

There’s writing all over the wall that this is going to bad, but the joy in this episode (in as far as that exists) is finding out how that goes wrong. Is it Eliot shooting the monster so that Quentin doesn’t have to guard it forever? No, but that will have longstanding repercussions.

Is it Alice deciding that she knows what’s best and destroying the keys before they could be used? Somewhat, but only so far as it takes Julia’s powers off the board when she creates new keys from her spark.

No, the part where it goes wrong is something that likely happened a long time ago when Dean Fogg made the choice to work with the Library. Once that happened, there’s only so many ways this could end. Of course, Dean Fogg, being who he is, arranged it for his students to be put into what effectively amounts to witness protection.

Long after magic has been turned back on and the Library controls the flow of it in all of its bureaucratic mania, these young magicians are all off with fake memories and names, living a completely new life.

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It’s not clear what Margo or Julia do now. Margo seems to be a powerful executive type and Julia is pitching an arts building. Alt-Penny is a DJ (which is kind of perfect) and Kadi is a drug dealer. Josh is a chaffeur and Quentin seems to be pretty much the same. Alice has been locked up by the Library and is adamant that somebody listen to her about the monster.

She claims that it’s seen her and knows they’re magicians and, since magic is back, they need to be protected. That’s where Eliot comes in, who, for a moment, seems like he remembers Quentin, but instead is revealed to be infected by the monster.

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All of this opens up so many fascinating narrative routes that the show can go down next year. It’s effectively rebooted itself, a al The Good Place, and who’s to say what form it will take when it returns next year.

The Magicians returns for its fourth season in 2019.