The Magicians - 'The Mayakovsky Circumstance'

"Welcome to McBrakebills sir or madam how may I serve you today."
"I'm lovin' it."

Following on from last week, we see what happened to the students after they got goosed.

As a flock, the freshmen fly to the Antarctic, where a near-identical Brakebills house (it's like it's the same set with a blue filter) awaits, along with the possibly insane Professor Mayakovsky, a magician of great power and obscure methodology. He takes away their voices and tasks them to complete a series of spells without incantations, then begins instructing them in mind control, despite the fact that to do so runs against the previously taught ethics of magic (never practice on living beings.) During this time, Quentin and Alice exchange a lot of furtive looks, prompting the Professor to suggest they just screw and get it over with.

After they find it difficult to manage the mind control task, Mayakovsky locks Quentin and Alice out in the snow, forcing them to work out how to shapeshift into foxes. They have fox sex, because turning into stinky verminous carnivores really floats their collective boat, apparently.

Everyone booze up and riot.

Meanwhile, Eliot and Margot are preparing for their annual trip to a sun, sex and sorcery trip to Ibiza, which includes both an opening orgy and presenting gifts to the organising faculty.

Brakebills!

Actually, I should remember when being outraged about Brakebills student-staff relations that, despite being indistinguishable from TV high school students (because TV,) the characters in the show are at least all grad students.

Anyway, to impress the faculty they translate a spell to make magical gin, with help from passing stranger Mike, to whom Eliot takes enough of a shine to provoke uncharacteristic jealousy in Margot. Naturally, it turns out the the spell actually summons a djinn, which impresses on Margot and responds to an unspoken wish that Mike would 'go back where he came from and suck on some other knob' by making him tongue the front door handle. The Magicians gets weird sometimes.

In Antarctica, Mayakovsky tells Penny to lose the anchor tattoo and has him travel around to see where he ends up (home, desert, volcano.) Meanwhile, Penny and Kady reconnect as she lets her mental wards down, but this allows Mayakovsky to see what she's been doing. When they try to steal her one big score to break away from Marina, the Professor stops her and gives her the option to leave instead of going back to Brakebills to face the music and take Penny down with her. He also breaks the news that her mother is dead.

Speaking of that, Julia is picked up by her sister when the police determine she probably didn't make someone's organs liquify, who tells her that she needs to get help or their mother will have her committed to save face.

Actually, despite being quite such a bright blue, it's a moth. My bad.

The freshmen return home, sans Kady. Penny is mad as hell, since the note she left suggested that she just took the thing he nicked for her and scarpered. Quentin thanks Mayakovsky for his teaching. Eliot opts to stay with Mike, but promises Margot that nothing and no-one will come between them, so Margot takes a keen fellow student named Todd to Ibiza. Mike sees a butterfly on a mirror and his eyes glow blue, so that's not good.

The Magicians is kind of weird, you know. It's sometimes sombre, sometimes whacky, and always with this muted colour palette that suggests it ought not to be quite so filled with sight gags about oral sex and humping spell books. Quentin remains a somewhat unengaging lead and I'm not really sure what's going on with Julia. It feels like they're speeding through a lot of material with her in a very short time. Eliot continues to be awesome, and is no longer merely an informed bisexual. I will be deeply saddened if he gets eaten by moths, since it will make the series about 40% less engaging.