Warning: If you don't want to know what happened in this episode, don't read this photo recap!
As Quentin comes to, we see the aftermath of The Beast’s visit: overturned desks, a broken mirror, people nursing various wounds and a body being wheeled away. It’s unclear exactly what happened, or how they all survived, but it’s very clear that those left standing are lucky to be alive.
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Meanwhile, Pete (the magician who found/aggressed Julia in the bathroom) has invited Julia to meet his group of hedge witches, which are basically magicians who are finding magic on their own, outside the Brakebills University system. While getting a tour, Julia finds herself stuck in a meat locker with another newbie, Marina. There’s no way out… uh oh.
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Back at the school, it turns out that Alice, Penny and Kady defeated The Beast with some battle magic. Now the school administrators is trying to find who cast the spell that allowed The Beast in, and is hell bent on punishing them.
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Quentin tells Eliot about the spell they used that conjured The Beast and his ensuing guilt. Eliot then tells Quentin about how when first discovering he could do magic, he was also responsible for someone’s death. Feels.
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Meanwhile, Margo takes Alice to her room for some lady bonding. Alice reveals to Margo that she wasn’t invited to the entrance exam for Brakebills, but instead found the school on her own, which is no small feat.
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As Julia and Marina try and find their way out of the meat locker, Pete throws an obstacle in their way: a dead guy who comes back to life that they are forced to kill all over again.
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Working on a hunch that The Beast is from Fillory, Quentin shows Alice a documentary on Christopher Plover (the Fillory and Further author). It turns out the Chatwins were real and seem to go missing an awful lot.
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While Alice and Quentin are hiding the evidence of their accidental conjuring, Kady tries to convince Penny not to leave. Penny is freaked out because he feels that the voice in his head might be dangerous. Before he leaves school for good, Kady convinces him to do something stupid…
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… which turns out to be theft. A crystal and a book, stolen from Eliot’s party lair cottage.
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And then, everyone gets busted because Quentin and Alice cannot hide evidence worth any kind of magic damn. Professor Sunderland has found the spell book and it’s time to answer some questions.
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After Penny tattles on Quentin and saves everyone else’s skin, Quentin is sure that he is about to be expelled and have his memories of magic erased by a specialist. When he can’t get in touch with Julia, Quentin confronts Penny (with illegal battle magic). It doesn’t go well.
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After re-killing the dead guy, Julia and Marina discover a spell to keep warm so they don’t, y’know, freeze to death. Julia proves to be a determined, bad-ass hedge witch to Pete, but more importantly…
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… she proves it to Marina, who turns out to be a level 50 hedge witch and the all around HBIC.
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Wondering how Penny blocked Quentin’s battle magic so quickly? The magic crystal that Kady stole earlier! It blocks spells!
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Speaking of Kady stealing, what does she need all that stuff for anyways? Well, looks like she’s giving it to Marina and the hedge witches, who seem to be blackmailing her.
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The specialist! It’s the lady from the bench! And the paramedic! Her name is Eliza and she too seems to have a connection to Fillory and The Beast. She heeds Quentin to learn magic faster, by any means necessary, while busting him for using Penny’s Crystal in order to keep his memories. Also, she lets him keep his memories.
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Having proven herself to the hedge witches, Julia gets her first tattoo denoting her leveling up.
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Dean Fogg is alive! A little worse for wear, y'know, missing his eyes and with his hands broken af, but alive. Eliza asks what she can do to help to which the Dean replies, “Make them magicians.” #Cahoots
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Quentin gets to stay at Brakebills. For now. In the meantime, he’s moving in with Margo and Eliot in the physical kid's cottage (they mainly do physical magic there… and drink a lot. But more on that next time).
