Warning: If you don't want to know what happened in this episode, don't read this photo recap!
We start off with Quentin and Julia searching for something in Fillory. What they find is a smelly cave inhabited by a hungry goat man. But wait, could this be either Ember, one of the gods of Fillory? Before we get any real answers, Quentin (narrating Book Seven of Fillory and Further) decides to take us back to explain how we got to where we are.
199312
Chapter 1: The Journey of The Witch and The Fool. After Quentin and Julia followed Jane into Fillory they came upon a scene straight from one of the Fillory books in which Jane gets caught in a trap and is rescued by The Witch and The Fool. Turns out that Q and Julia are The Witch and The Fool! They rescue Jane who goes on her merry way, only to discover that Martin Chatwin has been watching them the whole time.
199313
Chapter 2: By All Means Hinge Your Entire Quest On a Traumatized Teenage Boy. Once they talk to Martin and explain that they come from a time that Plover (who in Martin’s time is a scary child rapist) is a scary murderous Master Magician and they need to find the Leo blade to stop him, Martin offers to take them to someone who might be able to help.
199314
The weapon they need in order to kill a master magician is a blade of moonstone. Luckily, this sword smith has the only two moonstones in all of Fillory. Yet the blades will take years to forge and will not come cheap. What he wants is for someone from his family to eventually be a King or Queen of Fillory and the only way that can happen is if his family member marries someone from Earth. Quentin and Julia made a deal they may not be able to make good on. Once they leave the sword smith’s house they come across the temple of Ember, but can’t enjoy it for long because an evil entity known as The Watcherwoman has found them! Martin runs away, but Q and Julia aren’t so lucky.
199315
Chapter 3: The Watcherwoman or The Other, Other Identity. It turns out The Watcherwoman is none other than Jane Chatwin. Long story short, Jane was given the power to manipulate time as a young girl by The Watcherwoman, who is actually her as an adult. Jane sends them back to the Fillory of their own time, but not before telling Quentin that some very powerful magic has been used to block memories from Julia’s mind. But…what?
199316
Chapter 4:Everything Sucks Now, And Why. Once Julia and Q make it to the desolate Fillory of the present, a charmed map finds them and leads them to the rest of the gang. Which is when Q remembers that, oh right, they all slept together and still kind of hate each other. Awkwardness aside, it’s time to get down to business.
199317
Hold for all the feels. The team is walking through the woods on their way to the sword smith to collect their moonstone blade, when they happen along a grave. Upon closer inspection, it turns out the grave is that of Martin Chatwin. Looks like Q was too late to save him. Pour one out for Martin.
199318
Chapter 5: Be Careful What You Bargain For. So, since they’ve gone forward in time and the sword maker is dead – everyone’s sort of screwed. Just kidding! His son still has the blade they need to kill The Beast and the payment is still for his bloodline to become a ruler of Fillory, but now that the gang are the only humans left in Fillory, one of them will have to marry the new sword maker’s daughter. And the new high ruler is… Eliot. Yeesh.
199319
Chapter 6:How To Prepare For a Fillorian Wedding. Eliot is getting married. Margo is upset. Turns out, marrying in Fillory means Eliot will never be able to leave Fillory. She urges Eliot to consider not going through with it, but he decides that he’s tried drugs and booze and sex to make himself happy, maybe this time he should try doing something good. Awwwww.
199320
Chapter 7:Weddings Are So Boring, Penny Would Rather Astrally Project Into A Dungeon. Not being one to waste time, Penny decides to check out the dungeon that Victoria is captive in to see if he can figure out where it is.
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Chapter 8:Like I Said, Be Careful What You Bargain For. The wedding is over and Eliot is a married man. Time for some knife action! Q goes to grab the blade but finds out it's too hot to handle - literally. Turns out only a Master Magician can handle a Leo Blade, which none of them are… so, they’ve got that going for them.
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While Q and Julia decide to go find Ember, the Fillory god, for help, Penny and the rest of the gang decide to go rescue Victoria, one of the missing third year Brakebills students, in hopes that she might have some insight on how to kill The Beast. They find her, but apparently there is another prisoner around, who may also be of value.
199323
Chapter 9:The Gift of Ember. Annnnd we are back to where we started in the prologue, and yes! It turns out the goat man we saw before IS Ember! But why is he in this dilapidated prison eating mice? Oh, that's because The Beast trapped him here there. Yet Ember still has some power left, which he bestows upon Q in the form of… his semen. Gross. When Q is ready to face The Beast all he needs to do is drink it…double gross. Ember also bestows a gift upon Julia and lifts the memory spell that she was under. You know, the one that Jane told Quentin to LEAVE ALONE.
199324
Chapter 10:Helpless. So, Julia has her memories back and they are NOT good but won’t tell anyone what’s up yet. And it also turns out the second prisoner they rescued from the dungeon was Fillory author, Christopher Plover, who isn’t The Beast. But guess who is? Martin Chatwin. We'll give you a moment to let that sink in...
199325
As a boy, Martin found the source of all of Fillory’s magic to ensure he would never be kicked out again, but all the power destroyed every bit of humanity in him and made him what he is today- moths and all. Apparently, Martin must return to the source every night to feed and luckily, Plover can tell the group how to get there.
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Hold for even more feelings. They’re about to do this. They are about to face down The Beast, but Q is having some reservations. Is he strong enough to end this? Is he powerful enough to kill The Beast? Ultimately, he decides that Alice is the only one that can save them and gives her Ember’s… seed.
199327
Julia tells Quentin what she remembers (i.e. what Ember unblocked from her mind): turns out instead of conjuring Our Lady Underground, they actually conjured Reynard The Fox, a trickster who possessed Richard, killed the other people in Julia's Free Traders group; and was about to kill Kady before Julia stepped in. Then, in a gruesome scene, Julia was raped and left for dead. She then called Marina, who helped her dispose of the bodies and erase her memories. After telling Q all this, Julia makes him swear to help her find and kill Reynard. That was awful, team. Just awful.
199328
Okay team, it’s go time on operation: Kill the Beast! Thanks to Plover our crew of magicians have found the source of all magic and now they just have to wait for ...oh gosh, The Beast shows up out of nowhere. As Alice prepares to stab him, suddenly she no longer has the knife in her hand. The Beast leaves Alice gasping for air and with a bloody nose that's sure to kill her slowly and painfully.
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After knocking Margo and Eliot out cold, The Beast cuts Penny's hands off so he can't astrally project away from this mayhem.
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Quentin is saved at the last second by Julia! But wait, why does she have the Leo Blade and not Alice? And how is she holding it? Turns out, with Reynard’s "seed" still inside of her, she absorbed some of his godly powers. Instead of killing The Beast, Julia decides to make a deal in order to learn how to kill Reynard and just like that she leaves the rest of the gang bleeding out on the floor, while Quentin watches his friends die. As we wait with baited breath for Season 2.
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