Warning: If you don't want to know what happened in this episode, don't read this photo recap!
When last we saw our resident hedge-witches, they'd been given a quest by Our Lady Underground to find a man who could help them summon her. It takes some work to convince him they are worthy of his help, but they finally get an invocation that comes with a warning. “You can’t unring a bell, so be certain when you call.” Ominous af, right?
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Back at Brakebills, the gang is dealing with the repercussions of Quentin, Eliot, and Margo’s ill-advised ménage a trois as Penny tries to come up with a game plan to get them to Fillory. That game plan does not come to fruition as tension and drama are running very high.
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Speaking of tension, what is Penny doing up in Alice’s room!? After Alice stormed out of the meeting downstairs, Penny follows her because, as she is the sanest one of the group, she’s the most likely to explain just what the hell is going on with everyone.
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Julia and Kady have the spell to invoke Our Lady! Time to celebrate right? Not quite. Julia still has some reservations about the whole thing after the parting words from Our Lady’s servant. Richard convinces her that because they are pure in their intentions they have nothing to worry about. And then they do it.
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Speaking of doing it… remember how we left Alice and Penny alone in her room with a bottle of Triple Sec? Quentin, with all of his broody feels, discovers noises coming from Alice’s room. Loud noises. Kinda grunty ones. We get it Alice, you were pissed and felt betrayed. But Penny? Quentin’s nemesis at Brakebills? Cooooooold.
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If anyone hopes to survive, they have to get to Fillory stat! Thankfully they have those magic bottles to house their emotions or Alice and Quentin would get them all killed. But within seconds of crawling out of the fountain they are surrounded by Eve and her henchman! In the fray, the gang loses their map and Q gets pushed back into the fountain and lands back on Earth, with no way to get back to the rest of the group.
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Penny leads the gang to the Neitherlands library and safety. They soon find the quirky librarian from Penny’s last visit who says that they can stay and hide out. They are just not allowed to have any food or drink or other intoxicants, including their emotion bottles which she quickly destroys, once again causing the gang to have ALL the feels.
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With no way back to the Neitherlands, Quentin pays a visit to Dean Fogg, whom he slips some truth serum and learns that Eliza (remember the British lady killed in Episode #8) was actually Jane Chatwin and she had a magical ability to mess with time, put Q and company in a time loop in an attempt to defeat The Beast. Everytime the gang died, so Eliza changed one thing in each new loop in hopes THAT would be the time the Beast would be defeated (in one loop, for example, Margo was named Janet). Quentin realizes the difference in this loop was a) Eliza died and b) Julia wasn't accepted into Brakebills. Mind = Blown.
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Penny keeps searching for answers on how to travel with people and the books he needs are, of course, at another branch of the library. What the librarian can give him though is a promise that if he lives long enough, he will learn to be a master traveller. Not exactly a rousing pep talk, but Penny will take what he can get.
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Quentin seeks out his oldest friend to help him on his quest. He explains everything to Julia; the time loop, the fact that the last 39 times the loop happened she had been accepted to Brakebills, Fillory, The Beast. Q wonders how Julia is taking all this news so well, which is when she explains that she has found bigger/better magic out there and tells him all about…
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… Our Lady Underground. It worked! Through some very brief snippets we see the summoning of Our Lady as she cures cancer and depression in an experience Julia describes as taking a massive dose of ecstasy. But where’s Julia’s gang now? Apparently, Our Lady has sent them all, including Kady on very hush-hush missions.
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With his best friend back, it’s time to start finding ways to Fillory. But how? Whenever the Chatwins went, a door just appeared for them. Julia and Q can’t make a door appear. But if they could get to one of these doors from the book, they’re in! Which just leaves them with the small problem of getting to the 1940’s. Luckily, Julia has an idea.
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Eliot, like Penny is looking to do some extracurricular reading in the library and finds his dead boyfriend Mike’s book. Eliot is torturing himself because Mike is dead and it’s Eliot's fault. Maudlin feels. He torches the book, and The Librarian quickly banishes the whole gang from the library. Luckily, they run into a former Brakebills student who takes them to his secret hideout. This student is…
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Josh Hoberman. One of the mysteriously disappeared 3rd year students we’ve heard so much about. (Also a fan favorite in The Magicians books!) Apparently the girl locked up in The Beast’s dungeon, Victoria, took Josh and some fellow classmates to Fillory for spring break, ran into trouble, and now Josh sees a chance to go back.
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After a trip to Brakebills, Julia and Quentin are now in possession of a magical time machine that will take them to April 19, 1942, two days before Jane Chatwin finds a door into Fillory in one of the Fillory books. And, OMG it works! The friends find themselves in England in 1942 and where they spot Jane. They follow her into Fillory.
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Back in the Neitherlands, Alice bends light so she can hide her friends as they walk right past the guards. Eliot, however, bungles the whole thing after eating some psychedelic carrots and wanders away from the group exposing himself. Battle magic and bloodshed ensue but the gang escapes into the Fillory fountain. They’re safe!
