[Quentin sets up the spell for “Under Pressure”. The clip continues as CLARA and DANI talk about it. Josh gets beat up by the demonic party goers. “Under Pressure” scene plays] CLARA [as Quentin is casting the spell]: I really love the look of that spell. DANI: It looks rad. [CLARA and DANI sing along with the song for a few lines] Penny [in the clip]: Turned away from it all like a blind man / Sat on a fence but it don’t work CLARA: Those are the actual lyrics. DANI: That song always makes me cry. CLARA: Oh my god, yeah. I don’t think anyone can blame us for singing along either. DANI: The funny thing is,the first time I ever heard that song was by My Chemical Romance, and I had no idea it was a David Bowie and Queen song. CLARA: Oh man! DANI: But this was like when I was ten or eleven. So when I found out I was like, ohhh that makes sense. CLARA: Yeah. DANI: But I just love everything about that song and how it works really well with what’s going on. CLARA: Yeah, I agree. So hi everyone. And welcome back to Physical Kids Weekly! I’m Clara. DANI: And I’m Dani. CLARA: And we are here to talk about this week’s episode 309, “All That Josh,” aka the musical episode! Woo! And unsurprisingly this one is written by John McNamara and then two new writers. They’ve been assistants on the Magicians staff it sounds like for a couple of years, Jay Gard and Alex Raiman, and they got to help write this episode too. DANI: Sweet. CLARA: Before we get into it, I’m going to do our recap. It was actually really hard to write a recap for this. I don’t know why, maybe because I was feeling emotional about it. Okay: After Quentin, Kady, and Alice return from the library, the quest takes them to a pocket universe made for Josh and seemingly run by Todd. Meanwhile, Eliot and Margo face death in Fillory, and Julia and Fen help Sky reach her magical potential -- with unexpected consequences. Things come to a head for everyone pretty much all at once when Josh gets fed up and Todd’s minions attack. So the gang must come together, across all of their different times and places, to save him -- performing a group rendition of “Under Pressure.” Alright so. Dani, what did you think of this episode? DANI: I really liked it. I was very hesitant when I first heard they were doing a full musical episode. And I was glad to realize it wasn’t truly a full musical. Just a couple. And I like that they made it make sense with magic. CLARA: Yeah! DANI: Like it didn’t feel like an episode of Glee randomly shoved into The Magicians CLARA: Yeah, and I think that was one of the things I really appreciated. I really like a lot of musicals, but there’s this whole section of them that doesn’t really make sense. People are singing and dancing for no particularly good reason. And here everything felt really story-relevant just because it was built in that way. The whole part of the quest was built around music and built around the unity part we got in the end. DANI: Also everybody be prepared for Under Pressure to be stuck in your head for at least a week. [Laughter] CLARA: Yeah, somebody tweeted out, “How many days has it been since we got the preview for Episode Nine? That’s how long Under Pressure has been in my head.” It’s gonna keep happening. I think you and I probably have it worse than most people because we had to watch it three or four times to prep for this episode, but yeah. It’s gonna be stuck in your head forever. DANI: Yeah CLARA: So I did want to talk about… our sound engineer, my husband, Lanier, is a composer so he had a lot of notes on the musical components of the story that I thought would be really fun to go through. DANI: Yeah! CLARA: He was talking about the part in the beginning where they’re talking about the medieval music notation and he said there are parts of it that don’t make exact sense. He had some comment about how there wasn’t really prolifany then so you didn’t get chords and there’s a chord in the last of the notes that they play to get in. And he said that the key change itself may not be historial because standardized frequencies/pitches are a newer development so you’ve probably heard of [the pitch] A440, like the pitch that people use to tune things. It’s the standard ‘A’. That’s pretty new. He said that moving tonic, which is what happened to medieval music to now, does change frequency, so that would be what we use to perceive pitch without changing the intervals. So the differences between one note and the next in a sequence, the melody itself is gonna be the same. It’s just gonna be shifted down. So that part does make sense. The reason he brought this up is that he said the whole thing about Demon Todd’s obsession with E suggests that the magic is attached to the frequency itself -- the physics of it -- not to the melody or other “musical” content. DANI: I feel like that would go in line with how magic works in their universe. It’s very scientific. CLARA: Yeah, yeah! I really liked that for exactly that reason because in the books especially they get into it periodically, like I don’t know that they go into the actual physics behind it, but they reference the fact that magic is science, that there are physical properties behind it that change things. DANI: Yeah, I really like that in the books they go over how different circumstances can change the magic. CLARA: Yeah, so it’s kind of cool to think of this as a medieval circumstance or something like that. One of the other things he pointed out was if the magic works in that key– when they get the key they shift it down to ‘A’, that’s where they purport the scale started at the time it was written. Now that part may or may not be true historically but if Demon Todd has an obsession with ‘E’, which is five above ‘A’ on the scale and if magic works in certain keys and ‘A’ is what got them in, he pointed out that when Kady goes to sing the song in ‘A’, and [Demon Todd] corrects her and tells her to do it in ‘E’, that might not be about a preference but it could be about making sure it’s consistent with the magic in the world. He wondered if, since they played a melody in ‘A’ to get in, if her singing in ‘A’ might have triggered an exit prematurely (or something like that). I thought that was a really cool theory about why he’s obsessed with it and why he doesn’t want them to go in other keys. DANI: Yeah, I was thinking that myself. That he was doing that to prevent them from exiting because he knew the key was there in ‘A’. CLARA: I thought it was really interesting that there were different musical components. Even if it wasn’t historically 100% accurate, it sounds like there was a lot of thought put into it and there were some interesting ways that played out that we might not even have caught with you and I being non-experts. So I was glad we had an expert on hand to consult. DANI: For sure. It gives you another layer. CLARA: As you said, it’s not a full musical, but there are a lot more musical numbers in this one than in last season. I counted four compared to the one from last season. I had to look a lot of them up. So “Wham Bam” is a song by a band called Clooney. I don’t know if you know them, I didn’t. That’s Josh’s first solo and there’s a lot of foreshadowing in that that I realized the second time I watched it. Because he talks about that he’s not the same person, that he wants to shed his skin and reveal his true form. And even though Josh is in his true form, Todd isn’t. So it’s really interesting. DANI: Yeah. CLARA: The second one was Kady’s solo, which is a version of a song, “All I Need is the Girl” from Gypsy. There’s actually a “All I Need is the Boy” cover that Family Guy did a few years ago, although it’s very different from Kady’s cover. It’s sung by the old lustrous neighbor who’s like obsessed with the son– DANI: Chris. CLARA: Yeah, he’s obsessed with Chris. DANI: I love that episode. He’s so fucking creepy and hilarious. CLARA: Yeah, that’s sorta interesting. So I hadn’t seen Gypsy, but Lanier had. It’s about a show-mom and her daughter. When I looked up more details, it’s based on a memoir written by the daughter, who was apparently a famous burlesque dancer so there’s a lot of cool layers in that too. And there was another reference that I did catch that I don’t know if it was intentional. There’s this really famous black and white musical movie from 1934. Do you know Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers? DANI: Mhm. CLARA: If anyone in our audience doesn’t know, they were tap dancers and they did really famous dozen or more musical films together. And one of them was “The Gay Divorcée”, which has this really long number, “The Continental” in it. And right in the lead up to that, Fred and Ginger’s characters are being held captive in a hotel room with a balcony overlooking a ballroom. And I won’t get into why, but they’re overlooking this ballroom and there’s all this dancing down below and they really want to get involved in it. But they’re afraid if they sneak out, their captor is going to go after them and find them. So in order to prevent him from finding them, Fred’s character cuts out a pair of dancing paper dolls and puts them on a record player, so that they’re going around and around, then shines a light on it so you see these shadows of the two little characters dancing. So I thought that was really cool too. Like it’s a really famous musical from history, but a very different time period than any of the stuff that we see on The Magicians. DANI: Well I know John’s obsessed with musicals so I’m sure it was intentional. CLARA: Yeah! So the last one is the only one that might not be intentional, but it’s not crazy. So for “Car Wash”, Lanier found this cover of “Car Wash” from the “Brady Bunch Variety Show” where Marcia seems to be having some kind of hallucination or dream where she and her family are all characters from the Wizard of Oz, and they’re singing “Car Wash.” And they’re doing this song and dance number. And, Alice, the maid in the Brady show, is in the role as the Wicked Witch of the West. The only reason I thought this might be related is because in the books, when Quentin and everyone hook up with Josh again in Venice, and he’s pulling a Wizard of Oz- type thing in Venice. So I thought maybe this is some weird, obscure reference to that. If anyone was going to do it, it would be John. DANI: Yeah, I definitely also thought that the pictures on the wall of Josh--like boarded and oil-looking made me think of him in Venice. CLARA: Yeah, yeah! And those are all references to famous paintings too. Like I didn’t know all of them, but there were ones I knew I’d seen and couldn’t place what they were. There was one that looked like a Rembrandt, one was definitely a reference to the Van Gogh self-portrait, and there was the pop art Warhol looking one. That [felt like] Josh was hooked up in his own private castle. DANI: I love Josh. This was such a good Josh episode. CLARA: I know! And I like that they didn’t… You know we’ve been missing him all season [and now] it’s plot relevant. Like he was gone for a reason. And them not noticing him was them being dicks, which he brought up. One of my favorite parts in this whole episode is Josh yelling at them about that because it’s so reminiscent of those two speeches he gives when he’s drunk and almost misses Welters (about how everyone underestimates him) and then he gives a version of that that’s less bitter later on in Venice. DANI: Where he’s like, it was kinda both of our faults CLARA: Well I think he’s also happy that he’s set up the way he is. DANI: I do love that it’s Julia who is the only one responding to him. CLARA: I know! DANI: And she’s like, dude you didn’t call me back! And he’s like, yeah sorry, I’m a dick. CLARA: I know! I love that too because he was getting on their cases for not getting back to him and then it turns out that somebody did and he didn’t get back to her. DANI: Yeah. CLARA: Okay, so the last number, obviously “Under Pressure”. Talk to me. You said you cried every time you heard it. DANI: It’s such a beautiful song. Just the lyrical content, like if you really pay attention to it, is so sad, so it always gets to me. CLARA: Yeah, and it’s super relevant to what’s going on with them in this episode. Because they all are under a lot of pressure. Or as Quentin puts it, they’re all “fucked in their own ways”. It was a bunch of little pieces like that and it really felt like the unity thing worked really well with it. DANI: Also we have to mention that unity, since it’s unity that the discipline theory debunked.. [CLARA LAUGHS] CLARA: You’ve been waiting for that, I can tell. DANI: Well I have been waiting for that. CLARA: I took some weird notes and Lanier and I were talking about this a lot, and one of the things was that there always seems to be a helper at every key. So the first key, it was Frey. She’s the one who was like, that’s not what a shadowbat looks like and she’s placed there by the fairies, so that’s interesting. And the second key… I can’t remember who the helper was. The third key… was that the depression key? No, that was the time key. So that’s Jane Chatwin because she’s the one who sends Margo back. With the fourth key, that’s Benedict… no Benedict isn’t the helper, Cassandra is the helper, I think. Either Cassandra or Silva. DANI: For the? CLARA: For the fourth key, in the library. DANI: Yeah, but it was originally in Fillory. CLARA: It was but I think if there was a helper person who you can think of as the quest guide for that one, it’s either Cassandra or Silva. It’s hard to know what their relative roles are. DANI: Like, saying if someone sent them to [the characters]. CLARA: Yeah, something like that. DANI: Like fake!Todd saying – CLARA: Yeah! I was obsessed with that. Like this whole week since I’ve seen this episode, I’m like who the fuck is running the show? At first I thought it was OLU, but when I went back and watched it again, [Demon Todd] definitely says he – “He said you’d ace it. The only one I’d do this for.” So who the fuck is ‘he’? DANI: There’s a few things it could be. It could be either one of the characters from the future, cuz we’re fucking with time. It could be Quentin’s son, who I swear is going to show up again. CLARA: I was sorta going the other way about who it can’t be. So it can’t be Umber because he’s dead. We don’t know what death means on this show, but he seems as dead as people get. DANI: But he could have set it up before he died. CLARA: Lainer said that too, but maybe there’s something. The Great Cock is the obvious one because he sent them on this quest. But that’s not so interesting so that’s not gonna be it. One of the ones I was thinking of was Hades. DANI: I was thinking of Hades too. CLARA: Okay, tell me why you were. Talk to him. DANI: I mean, depending on which tale you read, Hades can be very evil or he can be in the middle. CLARA: Like a trickster. DANI: Yeah, like a trickster. Obviously, his son is Reynard. And I just feel like he probably knows that all this stuff happened because of his son who he didn’t control. So Julia has the magic from OLU, but what about Hades who clearly has to be Reynard’s father. I mean, I guess it could be another god, but CLARA: It seems pretty unlikely that it’s anyone else, yeah. That’s how I was thinking too. I was thinking , is Hades someone we’ve already seen? And I have to say, I was thinking about your Rafe theory and I was wondering if Rafe is secretly Hades. DANI: That would be amazing. Speaking of Rafe, we’ve kinda changed our minds and we’re thinking that he’s on their side, to help them. CLARA: Oh yeah, thank you for pointing that out. DANI: Instead of trying to undermine them, he’s been trying to help them all along because he wants the Children of Earth to continue to rule Fillory. CLARA: Yeah, or something, right? The whole Children of Earth ruling Fillory, being a good thing still confuses me. DANI: I feel like it would be people who fucking hated Ember and Umber, right? And there’s probably people that worshipped Ember and Umber and believed that even if they made these rules as a joke, that they would still want to continue to follow them. I think that since Rafe particularly loves animals, he loves Abigail, that he would be for the creatures. There’s that theory. But I guess Hidden Hades would be very interesting. CLARA: Oh! So I took a screenshot. Did you see the book at the end? DANI: I didn’t see what you were talking about. CLARA: Okay, so I took a screenshot of the book and there’s like two things that I want to point out. So on the left you have the image and it is a woman in a Fen-like dress, holding a sword, and the moon is shining on her shield, it looks like, and bouncing off her shield it looks like a key. So there’s that interesting thing to begin with and then the text– “Across the furthest of rivers, through the thickest of forests, to the highest and lowest parts of the land, the girl traveled in search of the next key. Always keeping in mind what she was fighting for: to save her father, the glorious, acclaimed knight who she looked up to her entire life.” Sorry, if I’m pausing it’s because they’re using old-school notations so the Ss look like Fs and it’s throwing me off. “The man who crushed her dreams of being a knight before they’d even hatched. Along the way the girl asked every humanoid and creature alike about the keys. In a village by the floating mountains–” So that’s coming back. “The girl met an old woman who knew were one might be found. She told the girl the tale of a monster who lived in the ocean–” So maybe the dragon’s coming back. “And collected treasures–” And then my watermark is over part of it and then it says... “Obtained the key long ago and kept it for itself. Legend said the creature returned to the surface only when they were challenged to fend–” I can’t see the rest on my screenshot, but it said something like, by an appointed knight. So that’s chapter six of The Tale of the Seven Keys. So something interesting is going on here. The acclaimed knight made me think of Bingle, but then looking at that picture, where it looks like the girl is defending it… I’m bringing Fen back in, my Fen theory. I think that she’s gonna be the one – DANI: I don’t think Fen will find it. I think Fen will help Julia. CLARA: Oh, that’s interesting. DANI: Cuz I think this is the season of Julia. Like she has the power and her story is huge. Like just getting bigger obviously. CLARA: What happened to the sword that Quentin used to kill Ember and safe Julia? Do you remember? DANI: They never talk about it. They probably hid it somewhere in Fillory. CLARA: Hmm. Maybe we’re gonna see that again too. So before we go out of the theories portion, Lainer had one other comment about who might be running the show. So he thought the demon’s comment about the ashram could be a clue to think about Hinduism, and guessed the god we might be looking for, who’s running the show, is Shiva, who destroys the universe in order to remake it. DANI: Interesting. CLARA: I feel like that would be pretty consistent with the mythology of the books. DANI: It would be. Especially since the books love to play with different mythology. Not just straight Greek or Roman, which is what people are familiar with. CLARA: Right! It mixes it up a lot. One mythology is going to bleed into the other, in the books, and we’re seen a little of that in the show too. DANI: Yeah with OLU being like Persephone. CLARA: Yeah, so I like that theory. I still think that it has to be someone we know in disguise for it to be really interesting and powerful, but I don’t know. I’ve been surprised in the past. DANI: … but what if it’s Todd. CLARA: I THOUGHT THAT TOO. What if it’s Todd? Cuz Lanier was asking, why is it Todd that the demon took the form of? Like Todd’s a nobody. Does Josh even have any relationship with Todd? DANI: I mean he knew who Todd was. He sold Todd a lot of drugs, I know that. [LAUGHTER] CLARA: He’s Todd’s dealer, yeah. Okay, let’s move on to more plot-y stuff. One thing we definitely have to talk about is Demigoddess!Julia. So, are you excited? DANI: I am excited. It’s very weird the way they show it so far. CLARA: Like Cyclops. [LAUGHTER] DANI: I’m just so excited for it and I love how Fen was like, what the fuck? CLARA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. DANI: And then [Julia] is like, I guess I’m leveling up. [LAUGHTER] DANI: I mean, she’s holding the truth key at that point. She’s gotta know something. CLARA: Something’s going on. It’s all very confusing. I’m looking forward to seeing it unfold more. I was bummed there weren't more episodes in my screeners kit today. There’s a couple of other things we definitely need to talk about. You texted me about this. Eliot tells Margo he loves her. DANI: Yeah, that happened. And she was like, I know. CLARA: Lainer looked at me when that came up because that’s what happened in our relationship. He told me he loved me for the first time and I said I know. It wasn’t like I meant to be weird or anything, I just spaced out. Whatever. I was excited. DANI: Whenever anyone says that, I just think of Star Wars automatically. CLARA: Do you think that Eliot is romantically in love with Margo? DANI: I’m not entirely sure. I’ve always felt like Margo is romantically in love with Eliot. CLARA: Yeah. In the books that definitely seems true. DANI: And I feel like in the show, a little bit. In that speech at the end of season one when he’s about to get married. But I feel like she let that go. CLARA: Yeah. I feel like when we talked to Lev, or when we talked to somebody, we’ve talked a lot about how Eliot is gay, but there’s definately some measure of fluidity and there’s something that he feels for Margo that is complicated and different than what he feels for anyone else. Like if anyone was going to be his romantic exception it would definitely be Margo. I’m still not sure that what he was trying to profess in that moment was romantic love or if it was just him being vulnerable because that’s also a thing he really struggles with, telling her how much she means to him. DANI: I think he was also being like, you’re my life partner, regardless of gender or love. CLARA: Yeah, it’s sort of a recognition that they’re soulmates. DANI: Which a lot of people automatically think soulmates mean romantic love when it doesn’t have too. CLARA: Especially in the books I thought a lot about the concept of romantic friendship. There’s just a blurring of lines between romantic love and platonic love and all the other ways you can have a relationship. Quentin and Eliot feel that way to me a lot of the time, but so do Margo and Eliot. DANI: Back in the day we went on many a rants about romantic friendships in the Free Trader Beowulf chat rooms CLARA: Yeah, because it’s a real thing and did not die in the 19th century [Laughter] DANI: No, I mean we love to read books that involve that. The Secret Histories is definitely one of those. CLARA: Are you still working on that or did you finally finish it? DANI: I finally finished it. It took me so long and now I’m like, crap I need to read The Goldfinch and so many [books] are coming out. This is going to take me forever. CLARA: The Goldfinch was a much faster read for me. I read the first two hundred pages in a couple of days and then it took me a while to get through the middle three or four hundred pages and then the last two hundred pages in one sitting at the airport. DANI: I’m super stoked. The cast for that is fucking amazing CLARA: Yeah, I’m really excited for that movie. DANI: I still want them to make The Secret Histories adaptation and I still want to be a part of that, write it. [LAUGHTER] CLARA: Yeah DANI: I have good ideas. CLARA: You gotta apply to be a script coordinator or something. So you can work your way up in time for it. DANI: Yes. I think [the author] refuses to sell the rights to anybody at this moment, I think CLARA: Donna Tartt? DANI: Mhm CLARA: Yeah, that’s fair. I mean, I would want it to be made very well and I don’t know that I trust most people to make it well. DANI: Okay, okay. Let’s get back on topic. Romantic friendships, I think Quentin and Eliot have one. I think it’s less apparent in the show until recently. I mean the Queliot has been strong this season. CLARA: I think there was a moment last season when right after Eliot becomes High King, when he and Quentin are in some random side room together and have that very sweet moment? That reminded me of that. DANI: Until Eliot’s like, can you squeeze my ass a little? Then it was a little less [LAUGHTER] CLARA: Still consistent with the romantic friendship theme, though. DANI: Yeah, I’m just waiting until I hear… I mean in the books, Eliot writes Quentin that letter where he basically tells Quentin how important he is and how he’s basically family to him and he never felt like he had family. Like he didn’t know he had a family until he met Quentin. And it gets to me everytime. I want to hear [Eliot] say stuff like that to Quentin on the show. CLARA: Yeah. I feel like we get bits of it. The life partner comment was a bit. But it would be nice to see him be more sincere like with Margo in this episode. DANI: Yeah, maybe it’ll open him up to being more sincere CLARA: Yeah. Okay, so the other thing I definitely wanted to talk about is that the Muntjac saves Margo and Eliot. I think that’s gratitude and some sense of sisterhood and solidarity for the fact that Margo treated her with respect, like a person, like something with agency early. It’s recognition that something within Margo makes a good leader. DANI: Mhm! Margo’s a great leader. CLARA: Let’s get rid of Eliot and have Margo rule all of Fillory by herself. DANI: I mean she does rule all of Fillory by herself while Eliot is off on the quest. CLARA: Yeah! Fuck the patrichary. DANI: Well that doesn’t exist in the books, the whole divide between matriarchy, patriarchy. There’s just rulers; they all have equal value. CLARA: Why do you think they brought it back– the patriarchy in the show? DANI: I assume it has something to do with the way they wanted to portray Fillory and how it needed help, to make it a bit more relevant with what’s going on in the world today. CLARA: It’s given us a chance to see Fen’s character grow for sure. I think we’ve seen some other interesting things around that. Speaking of Fillorian natives… let’s talk about Tick. DANI: Ugh, I love Tick and I love Rizwan. CLARA: I feel like we’re gonna need a super cut of that this season, of every time you’ve said you love him. DANI: I know. We’re always just like Todd and Tick and all these random side characters. CLARA: Who all have four letter names beginning in ‘T’. DANI: Yeah. I love it when he all of a sudden goes bad. And I never really expected it until that moment and then I knew it. CLARA: Do you think he’s been giving them bad advice all along? DANI: Probably. CLARA: Do you think he’s been working with the Fairy Queen? DANI: Probably. The thing is now is that the faeries, it’s hard to know whether or not they don’t like [Margo & Eliot] or if… I don’t know. Maybe the faeries are the reason they’re on this quest. CLARA: I think so too! The faeries have to play a larger role than we thought on the quest, or the things Fen and Julia are encountering on this quest wouldn’t be relevant. DANI: Mhm. I think that the faeries are just trying to liberate the slaves. CLARA: Yeah! Which I am all for, but couldn’t she had just fucking said that? I feel like everyone would be on board if she’d just revealed [that]. DANI: Yeah, but I feel like, faery logic. Everything has to be a riddle or earned. CLARA: Yeah, and I guess we already talked about this, but it does feel to me that Tick has a point, and the FU Fighters have a point, that Fillory should be run by Fillorians. Like there’s a weird political thing in this. We saw Black Panther last weekend and it was amazing and one of the things Lainer pointed out was that the politics are a little weird because they have this patriarchal monarchy and the idea that these should be the politics we are supporting, is a little strange. And it sounds like from what I’ve heard from people who have read the comics, there’s more discussion of the politics and of the nuisance and strangeness of not being as simple as a good/evil split. But I was thinking about that here too. The politics that we associate with the people who are heroes, our protagonists, all of the magicians that we know, don’t quite add up to good. DANI: Have you read the article where Chadwick Boseman says the real villain of Black Panther was himself? Was Black Panther? CLARA: Yeah, yeah. DANI: I mean, yeah, honestly, it’s one of those [movies] where the villain isn’t necessarily wrong, he just has a bad way of getting there. The same way x-men comics and movies do. Magneto isn’t necessarily wrong, he is just doing it in a really fucked up way. CLARA: Yeah, Yeah. And I feel like we must have something going on like that here right now. I’m really interested.. I don’t feel like we got to explore the politics in Fillory like we did in the books as much as I would have liked. And I think Lev said that part of the reason he got interested in doing The Bright Sword [Translator’s note: Lev’s currently unpublished book about King Aurthur] was because he felt like he hadn’t explored the politics of a sort of medieval period as much as he would have liked too. So I’m really excited to see more of that in the show, to get to look through the politics in more detail. DANI: Yeah. CLARA: Okay, so what else do you want to talk about in this episode? I feel like I’ve been talking for an age. DANI: I mean you’ve been bringing up good points so that’s okay. Let’s see. Let’s see. I think we’ve talked about most of everything. Let me think. I like to see Alice and Quentin working together again. CLARA: I know! And I was so sad at the end when he goes back to being suspicious. DANI: I mean, he has a good reason because she’s not being honest. I don’t know why she’s not being honest. She must have some sort… she must know something because she just left the library. CLARA: That brings up a good point though. The last thing we see with her in the library before she talks to Quentin is the Head Librarian asking her if she knows about the quest. So what the fuck do you think the library wants with the quest? DANI: I mean the Library wants magic restored just as much as anybody and they know these people are on the quest. I think they’re gonna try to help them– CLARA: Are you sure? Because I kinda feel like it’s the other way around. Like the Library’s hoarding faery dust so clearly they’re up to some kind of nefarious bullshit. DANI: I’m assuming they’re buying that off of whatsherface. McAlister. CLARA: They know what it is, right? So that’s creepy. DANI: That is creepy. Maybe they don’t like the faeries. CLARA: Maybe. I would buy that. I would buy that they don’t like the faeries, but I also feel like I don’t really know what their game is. Like when the Head Librarian said that to Alice, my immediate thought was she wants to stop them from getting magic back. And I think part of why I felt that way is because she’s hoarding all the knowledge and the books. She’s not letting other people access it. DANI: Oooooh. Okay, I think that the final key, cuz in the books it unlocks the other side of Fillory. I have a feeling that instead in this, it’s gonna unlock magic, but it’s also going to merge the worlds so that they’re easily accessed by everybody. CLARA: Yeah! See! Then the Library would be against it. That’s a great idea. I love that theory. And then what happens in season four? DANI: And that’s why they don’t want her to do the theory of unified magic because then magic would be unified CLARA: Right, or why they only want her to do it if she’s under their control. If she’s working for them and willing to keep it away from everyone else. DANI: I hope that Alice said no. CLARA: I hope she did too, but I don’t think she did. DANI: I have no idea. We’ll find out. CLARA: If you’re right, that Cassandra is Future!Alice, then I think that says that Alice said yes, that she is working for the Library. Like, that she made a contract with them. DANI: She might have. Or it might be Alice from another timeline completely. CLARA: That’s always possible. Oh man. I can’t wait to find all this out. DANI: Cuz I have a feeling it is Alice in some form because take a look at Margo because they were like, you were Janet in another timeline. It goes with the books, but you can have different names in other timelines. CLARA: Yeah. Well you saw Sera’s tweet that there’s going to be more Alice shenanigans, crazy Alice shenanigans. DANI: Yeah. CLARA: I am looking forward to it! I feel like I don’t stop being excited for this season, which is the best thing. It’s been such an amazing season. Every single episode is on point and I have no idea where they’re going despite having read the books and despite what the path looks like in the books. DANI: Yeah, I have no idea where they’re going either. I’m always constantly like, well shit. Now what? CLARA: Okay, so there’s a couple other little things I wanted to mention. Actually there’s only one. We talked about everything else. But the only other thing I wanted to mention was another possible reference to all the music zombies. Did you ever play the Michael Jackson game, Moonwalker? DANI: No. CLARA: So it’s kinda like the Triller video, but in the game, Michael Jackson controls the music zombies so it’s a lot like Todd. So Todd is Michael Jackson, I guess? DANI: Yeah. Demon Todd. CLARA: Yeah, Demon Todd, the charm mister. Which is not a thing as far as we can tell. We looked it up. DANI: It was funny because I kept watching the episode and I was like, is this Todd? Is this really Todd? Like why does he keep falling asleep? Oh, it’s because he’s an old man. [LAUGHS] An old man demon who is tired of being there. CLARA: I’m game for that idea. I identify with that. Okay, fashion then? DANI: Let’s do it. CLARA: Okay, so I don’t have much for fashion today since most of the characters are wearing the same things they wore in the last episode, but I did want to call out Kady’s outfit during the burlesque number. So first I thought it was a dress, then obviously she pulls off part of it. When I watched it the second time, I could see the skirt was separate. But it was really cool and a great shoutout to old-school burlesque shows. DANI: I loved the spell she did to get it on herself too. It was beautiful. CLARA: Yeah. And I guess the other thing we should probably talk about is less of a fashion note and more of a plot question that has to do with a fashion one is Skye’s necklace keeping the faeries from using magic. One of the things that’s kinda weird about it is that it still works even though magic is gone. Lainer had pointed this out and wondered if it’s like the keys, an inherently magical object? DANI: It probably came from Fillory or something like that. CLARA: So how did Irene come to possess it? DANI: I’m not sure. She has to be working with somebody evil. CLARA: The only other thing I was thinking about is this might be where we start to get the Rupert connection. Because wasn’t it the MacAllisters… DANI: Her name’s Irene right? CLARA: Her name’s Irene but – DANI: Her name’s Irene, but her great uncle or something was Rupert’s lover, Lance. CLARA: So I’m wondering if maybe Rupert… You know like in the books, there’s this briefcase of Rupert’s that factors in. We won’t talk too much about it, but maybe it has some stuff that came from Fillory in it and maybe he left that with Lance. DANI: Yeah, maybe they stole it. CLARA: Yeah. I think that’s an interesting question. I wasn’t paying too much attention to the MacAllisters at first and even when I saw the Faery stuff I was like, they’re shady as shit but I think that there’s something more to the sinister shit that they’re doing that we haven’t seen yet. DANI: Yeah, they’re a weird ritualistic family. Very scary, old white family. [LAUGHTER] CLARA: Definitely. DANI: They make me think of that family that would probably be in Get Out. CLARA: Oh yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Alright, that’s all I had for fashion. Is there anything you noticed that wasn’t in the last episode? I feel like we talked about Julia’s stuff in the last episode and she’s wearing the same stuff. DANI: No she’s not! CLARA: Isn’t she? DANI: I don’t know if it was the same– her business-y outfit. I don’t know if she’s wearing it at the end of the last episode. CLARA: She was because I actually noticed it. I didn’t talk about it because you were talking about the Julia stuff last time, but I noticed the blazer and the white button-up shirt that has black lining around it, right? DANI: Mhm. CLARA: Yeah, I think she’s wearing the same thing. So yeah, not too much for fashion. MVP? DANI: I had to cop out and go for the ensemble. CLARA: Saaame. It’s just so great. DANI: I was just gonna go ensemble or I was just going to give it to Josh. CLARA: I was exactly the same way. I thought about giving it to Todd too, because this is a different kind of Todd than we’ve seen. DANI: Yeah, I had thoughts about giving it to Adam as well. CLARA: I do think though we should call out two amazing singers in this episode. So we didn’t get to see Jade sing in the last musical number, she wasn’t a part of that. So we should definitely call out Jade cuz she’s an amazing singer. We did get to see Hale sing in the last one, but I feel like Hale as Eliot as David Bowie is just peek amazing for his voice. DANI: Yeah, Hale has an incredible voice. [untranscribable, static-y] I’m sure they were all fine by. CLARA: Yeah. Did you notice Olivia’s voice in it? DANI: I did. CLARA: I thought she had a really great voice and I wish they’d given her a little more to do, but I remember her saying that she gets nervous singing, so maybe that’s why. DANI: Yeah. I totally get nervous singing in front of other people. CLARA: Alright. We’re both giving it to the ensemble, despite much waffling. Gotta call out Jade and Hale as amazing singers. DANI: Actually, Trevor has a really good voice too. CLARA: Yes, that too, He had two solo songs and he had a solo in the last number so clearly he’s doing something right. DANI: I’m also still waiting for them to give us an Arjun rap because he said he would do it. CLARA: And I’m mad they didn’t let Adam sing. We know he can sing. He’s done it before for a movie. DANI: Yeah. CLARA: He was right there. DANI: Next time. CLARA: Yeah. Next time he can sing from the Lion King. DANI: Yeah, he needs to sing “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King”. It would be perfect. CLARA: Alright, ratings? DANI: I would probably go with an 8.5 out of 10. CLARA: I’m gonna go with a 9. I’m gonna round up. I thought it was a great episode and I’m done trying, pretending that I didn’t hit the ceiling with season three a long time ago. I think this is a great episode. 9 out of 10 for me. DANI: I’m curious as to if they can pull anything else out that could be better than the last few episodes we’ve watched. CLARA: We’ll find out! I’m sure they can. I mean, it was amazing though. It was really really amazing. It was a lot that’s hard to top. I’m looking forward to a wild finale and penultimate episode. DANI: Yeah, for sure. CLARA: Alright, I guess that’s it then. Nothing else? DANI: Don’t think so. CLARA: Alright, Listeners, thank you for joining us this week. Remember to subscribe and rate us on iTunes. The more positive ratings we get, the higher we show up in search results, which means more fans can find us. And I also want to give a shout out to all the wonderful people who did give us ratings recently. I noticed, thank you so much. It’s been really great to see those numbers going up and we love doing this for you, so thanks for giving us that back. As always, you can follow us on Twitter or Facebook @physicalkidspod. Bye! DANI: Bye!