Episode Recap: The Mayakovsky Circumstance

Our intrepid magicians, fresh off their getting-naked-and-expressing-feelings dates turn into geese and fly to Brakebills South. It's a rite of passage for Brakebills students, to fly as a goose to Antarctica and study with a great magician named Mayakovsky. He's an angry Russian guy who won't let them speak and tells them they have to do a spell to drive nails into boards with magic as their only tool. Which is tough, and also, somehow, makes Quentin and Alice realizes they love each other quite a bit.

Meanwhile, Eliot and Margo are going to Ibiza for what seems to be Brakebills Spring Break. In order to go, one has to be invited and bring a gift for the elders. So not only do they have an underclassman named Todd begging them for an invite, they've decided to conjure magic gin to take with them to present to the elders. They head off to the library to find the spell (which is in Arabic) and meet Mike, a handsome new friend for Eliot to fool around with.  All of that while Julia's sister arrives to check in and take care of her. Though, big news, Julia's mom thinks that Julia has started to crack up and may be considering putting her away for good.

After some difficult spell-casting, Quentin and Alice both finally master the nail-spell. Mayakovsky tells Quentin he's a great magician, slaps him, and then Q and Alice totally make out. Not one to congratulate anyone, Mayakovsky tells the team that they have to learn mind-control on lesser creatures (bugs n' such). Mayakovsky also realizes that Penny is a traveler and now wants to help him by cutting off the tattoo that binds him to Earth. After Penny embarks on some traveling, and survives even landing in a volcano, he decides to patch things up with Kady by reading her mind and learning all about her. He decides to steal something from Mayakovsky so that she can buy her freedom from Marina.

Eliot and Margo's plan to conjure magic gin actually turns out to be a plan to conjure a magic Djinn. So. A genie. And since it was Margo that conjured him, the Djinn reads her mind and makes Mike disappear.  It turns out that the wish Margo made in her head was for Mike to go "find another knob to suck on."  And so, quite literally, that's where they find him.

More nudity! Mayakovsky turns Quentin and Alice out into the snow for another challenge. Shortly thereafter, they turn into foxes. And they have fox-sex. After Kady had to drop her brain charms so Penny could read her mind, Mayakovsky learned about how much she'd been stealing. And so has Brakebills. She's been expelled and learns if she goes back, her memories will be wiped (meaning, no memories of Penny). She decides to abandon Penny for good, perhaps to protect herself and perhaps to protect him (imagine poor Penny if he knew Kady was still around and didn't remember him. Would that hurt more than him thinking she dumped him?). Mayakovsky and Quentin have a heart to heart and the gang all goes back to Brakebills, to magic things and another day.

Finally, Margo wishes everything back to normal and Eliot bails on Margo's Ibiza trip so he can hang out naked with Mike. And uhm, something's up with Mike, gang. A blue moth, some creepy blue eyes. Is Eliot going to be alright?