[Penny is talking with Hades in the Underworld. Penny doesn’t know who Hades is until he introduces himself. Penny is shocked. Hades talks about how the quest isn’t what’s important because magic will always come back, even if it takes a million years] CLARA: Oh my god I love that clip so much. He is so amazing. Hi everyone. Welcome back to Physical Kids Weekly. I’m Clara. DANI: And I’m Dani. CLARA: And we’re back this week to talk about episode 310, “The Art of the Deal”, written by Christina Strain. So before we get into this episode, a quick recap: On Earth, Fen and Julia get the Fairy Queen’s help to free Skye and the other enslaved fairies from the MacAllisters, while in Fillory, Margo and Eliot play divide and conquer with their enemies to convince them to back off. And in the underworld, Penny makes a divine ally, helps an old friend, and..joins a bookclub? So I’ll start with our usual question...DANI, what did you think of this episode? DANI: This was a great episode. I think a lot of people saw the last episode, the musical episode, as a filler episode and this definitely is not that. It was exciting. CLARA: I feel like the musical episode did a really good job of bringing some happiness and light back, because we’ve had a lot of heavy episodes and this one is heavy too, but it feels like it was a good transition through that. Do something really fun and then get deep down and murder a whole bunch of people. [LAUGHTER] DANI: Yeah, I feel like that was a delightful [moment], I feel like people wanted that. CLARA: Yeah, yeah. It was both hard to watch and very satisfying to watch, which is kinda a tough combination to pull off. So yeah. We should get down to it. And the first thing that I have up on my doc to discuss is Hades because I fucking called it. [LAUGHTER] DANI: I mean, we both called it. CLARA: Yeah we did. [LAUGHTER] But I am just so satisfied by that. One episode after we’re like, who is it? Hades? And then Hades shows up. DANI: Yeah. CLARA: I guess that doesn’t necessarily, absolutely mean that he’s the one pulling the strings for the quest, but it sure seems like it. DANI: Especially if you take into consideration that Demon Todd was like, I only listen to ‘him’. ‘He’s’ the only one I would do this for. Like, who else would [Demon Todd] do it for other than Hades? CLARA: Well I think it has to be somebody who is a big fucking deal. But for a demon, it makes sense to be Hades. I’ve been wondering a lot since I saw this episode two days ago about what this means for the overall mythological ecosystem of The Magicians cuz we’ve seen so many different things that don’t necessarily connect. Like the demon was supposed to be German and we’ve seen fairies. And Baccus is also Dionysus, but they called him Baccus so they went with the Roman name. This is the first time where we have two characters who we’ve met, OLU who we’ve been told is Persephone, and Hades, who exist in the same story. So I don’t know. Have you been thinking about that? Have you been thinking at all about the mythology and where it’s going? DANI: I definitely have as I’ve tweeted you a couple of my theories and I feel like our Rafe theory just keeps expanding. [CLARA LAUGHS] CLARA: It’s true. DANI: But who’s he working for? He’s gotta be working for someone. I don’t think he’s working for the faeries anymore. CLARA: That’s right, you texted me this morning and you were like, what if Rafe is a sleeper agent for Hades? Or something like that. DANI: Yeah. Like, a god. He could be a god. CLARA: He could be. DANI: And I threw out Apollo and the only reason I threw out Apollo was that he’s the one who does that shit to Cassandra, and she’s already a part of this. CLARA: Right! Actually, why don’t we do a quick recap of some of the major myths that we think are involved. First just the Persephone and Hades one. It’s pretty straight forward. Persephone is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter and Hades kidnapped her and [took] her to the Underworld. And I’m trying to remember what else. She becomes the Queen of the Underworld and this isn’t really part of the mythology per say, but there’s a lot of cults around Persephone in history and all sorts of weird artifacts that show she was a very particular sort of goddess to worship. DANI: That would make sense considering OLU in general and in the books, they worship her. CLARA: Yeah, exactly. And I think… does Hades rape Persephone? Do you remember that? DANI: Yeah, he does. CLARA: That’s what I thought. There’s kind of a symmetry between the story of Hades and Persephone and the story of Julia and Reynard, who in The Magicians universe is Persephone’s son. There’s some weird cyclic shit going on. DANI: Hades has always been sort of… not necessarily a villain in mythology, but kinda like an anti-hero. A little bit of both. Always straddling the line. He is kinda given a shit hand, as far as being a god, always at ends with his brothers. CLARA: And did you want to say a little about Apollo? DANI: So Apollo is the god that ultimately does what happens to Cassandra. He’s the one that makes that happen. And that’s the only reason I say that Rafe might be him. I’m not the expert on mythology. I think we’d have to have Kat on to do that. CLARA: Yeah, true. One of the other theories we had about who was running the show was this idea that maybe it’s Shiva, if it’s not Greek mythology. One of the things I found fascinating about that speech that Hades gives that we played at the beginning of the episode is that he’s really pointing to the cyclic nature of magical loss and rebirth and that ending is so fascinating to me. It’s always going to come back because the gods always want humans to have magic so that they have something to take away or hold over their heads. DANI: Maybe they’re making Hades the same character. Like maybe how they did OLU and Persephone and how all mythologies come together. CLARA: I was thinking about that and I was thinking about your Rafe theory. We talked about how either Hades or Shiva is running the show, and I wonder if it’s like both. And I wonder if this whole cyclical thing makes Hades the same, the way they did OLU and Persephone like you said. Or maybe that’s just a hint for something else to come. Maybe Rafe is Shiva. DANI: That would be cool. CLARA: That would be really awesome, right? DANI: Yeah. There’s so many things and people it could be. There’s so much in mythology and we’ve just started it. Going back to the books, the original Richard, the one who’s not in the show, and how he’s like, we’ve been given these tools from the gods and that’s how we obtain magic. And he was pretty religious about it. CLARA: I didn’t make that connection, but that’s a good one to make to the view that Hades is exposing about magic. The other thing I thought about… It’s a little different from what we get in the books, like most of what we get about why magic is gone and why humans had it in the first place, comes from Penny. And I actually want to talk about Penny too, while we’re still relatively close to Hades, because I was thinking about how in the books he ends up in this really powerful position in the Library. I was kinda wondering if him joining the book club or whatever, him accepting his faith, deciding to double down on being dead and not pine forever after the life he had, is the first step towards that. DANI: I mean, probably. He becomes a literal master of the Order in the book, right? CLARA: Yeah, yeah. DANI: That’s what the Library calls themselves. I mean, I like that they’re kinda guiding it back towards Book!Penny’s journey and they finally found a perfect way to do it. And I don’t necessarily think that Hades was telling him he’s unsuccessful because he wants to have [Penny], but he just knows that Penny has a great destiny ahead of him. Also, he was slightly flirting with Penny. I just need to point that out. CLARA: We haven’t said this yet, but Michael Luwoye who plays Hades in this episode is amazing. I saw him as Hamilton in Hamilton. He was so incredible there. I actually hadn’t heard any of the Hamilton music ahead of time, so he was my first Hamilton. I had experience of going back and listening to Lin Manuel Maranda and being like, this isn’t my Hamilton, which I think is kinda the unusual one. It was really great to see him in this episode. He was amazing. He has a very godly bearing. I’m into it. DANI: His voice was very smooth. I loved it. He was an absolutely inspirational choice for Hades and I have no idea how they got him but I’m glad. CLARA: Yeah, me too. So one of the things I was wondering is that it feels like with the Persephone and Hades thing, and with Penny becoming allied with Hades, and Julia always being allied with OLU/Persephone, if the show is trying to set up a conflict between the two of them. DANI: Hmmm. Maybe. I don’t know. They always have conflicts already together. CLARA: Do they? I guess they have some. DANI: I mean Julia and Penny don’t like each other. CLARA: Yeah, but I feel like it’s hard for me to distinguish that from Penny’s normal [attitude]. DANI: True. I mean, their relationship is definitely a little bit better. VS that episode where Penny says he’s going to leave and he doesn’t. CLARA: The other thing I was thinking of is if there might be a battle between the gods on the show. And I don’t really know that that’s motivated by anything that we’ve seen, but I just started thinking about how the faeries are about to start this battle against the people that enslaved them and it’s a little unclear to me how far that’s going to go. Like how far that’s going to extend. DANI: I mean, it seems like there’s only one of them left from what we can tell. There’s only one MacAllister. CLARA: There’s only one MacAllister left, but I was kinda wondering whether they see just the MacAllisters as their slavers or if they think of it more broadly, like anyone who has in any way been an oppressor to them. DANI: Oh yeah. Because it seems like the MacAllisters took them in for a deal because they weren’t the ones who were hunting them originally. CLARA: Or at least they weren’t the only ones, yeah. DANI: That could be a thing. I don’t know. I hope they don’t take war on Earth too much. I don’t think so. I think they’ll be going back to the Faery Realm. CLARA: Well let’s talk about that for a second because the other thing is the Fairy Queen said that the Faery Realm was created and is sustained by the sixth key. DANI: Well she didn’t say the sixth key CLARA: Well no, but it’s pretty clear cuz that’s the one they’re looking for right now. And Josh smoked something, like the same drug he gave Quentin that allowed [Q] to see the shades and the same drug that he and Todd did in that episode last season that lets you see into other worlds. So it seems that that sees into the Faery Realm. DANI: Probably. I was thinking it was either that or the final key somehow unlocks the other side of Fillory where Julia actually goes to the other side of Fillory and becomes the Queen of the Faeries. CLARA: Well I’ve been wanting that because there’s a sort of upside down feel to the Faery Realm and even to the Faery Magic. It just looks very different from any other magic we see elsewhere so I was wondering if that might be the other side of the world. But I don’t know if that… I have so many thoughts about this. Like is Julia going to somehow remake or find a way to sustain the Faery Realm without the key? I feel like she’s not going to let them just take it cuz Julia’s thing now is going good and I don’t think she’s going to let anyone take a key that protects an entire race or species just so they can have magic back. DANI: Yeah, I’m thinking that Julia’s going to find some sort of alternative to keep the Faery Realm open with her god touched powers. CLARA: But I do find it kind of interesting and I think that it does seem to me that she will end up a faery goddess, instead of (in the books) she was a dryad, for those of you who haven’t read it. So it feels like a very similar deal. DANI: Mhm. And I’m thinking that unfortunately the Fairy Queen might die. CLARA: Awww I hope not. Why do you think she’s going to die? DANI: I don’t know. I feel like that would be the only way that Julia would be able to become the Queen if she died. I don’t think she would really step down. That’s not how it works. CLARA: Oh well I wasn’t necessarily thinking that [Julia] would be the queen. I don’t really know yet how it would work, but it’s certainly easier. DANI: I’m just thinking for when the whole faery thing comes to ahead [that] it doesn’t matter what Julia’s seen and what happened, the crew is not going to forgive the Fairy Queen. It’s just not going to happen. She took Margo’s eye. CLARA: Yeah, I mean I think Margo, as unforgiving as she generally is, if anyone is gonna be like, fuck that, there has been an injustice on them, I feel like Margo’s one of the ones. I’m just thinking about the whole thing with the Muntjac in the beginning of the season. She does seem to stick up for what's right when push comes to shove. DANI: Yeah, that’s true. CLARA: Anyway. Let’s talk about the faeries and slavery. First of all, the MacAllisters. The scene of their death was brutal but pretty sure if everyone was not cheering, definitely were sitting back with one eye open, like, yeaaaah, that’s the right move. DANI: Yeah, that family just very much... like I tweeted it out, very much reminded me of the family from Get Out. Just white, powerful people. CLARA: Yeah, yeah, and doing some equally creepy bullshit. What do you think happened to Irene MacAllister? When is she gonna get dead? DANI: I have no idea. I have a feeling she won’t show up in the very next episode. CLARA: Yeah, but that has to come back. You can’t just leave that thread hanging, right? DANI: It does have to come back. I assume we’ll see it towards the end and I don’t know what’ll happen though. CLARA: Yeah. DANI: Maybe they’ll imprison her. CLARA: Oh, so one of the other things I found really interesting in the whole faery storyline was [that] I found Dust really interesting as a character. Partly that’s cuz I’m reading a book right now about the history of slavery in the US and America (and if you’re interested is called The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward Baptist) and it’s very good. One of the things it talks about is the role of the overseers and how that was. These are like overseers of slaves on these large, industrial plantations, not even just large ones, but he talks about those ones in particular, and how this was a role that effectively (invented by white enslavers) to be a role often by Black slaves as like a whole new way of abuse. Like they would go to all sorts of lengths to cultivate particular Black slaves to be overseers, like offer them rewards, but like treat them less shitty than everyone else in exchange for finding ways to turn them against other slaves. It’s really fucked up how they basically invented whole new varieties of abuse. DANI: Didn’t 12 Years A Slave do something like that? CLARA: I actually haven’t seen 12 Years A Slave. I’m actually behind for once. DANI: That movie is very hard to watch. CLARA: Yeah, I definitely need to watch it. One of the things I really appreciate about this episode was that they explored that, that they looked at the nuance of it and how broken down this one faery must be after 400 years of being a slave and feeling abandoned by his queen– and really being abandoned by his queen for that long. And how he’s clearly still struggling with it, like in that scene he tells the faery, you’ll feel a slight pinch or whatever, and you can see that it still affects him and that he still hates it and probably hates himself for it. I just so appreciated that the show dealt with all those different nuances and didn’t just go with ‘oh slaves. That’s the end of the story’. DANI: Yeah. I feel like they do a lot of research on this show in general [CLARA: For sure] which is very good and how it should be done. It’s a pretty heavy story to bring on there and I think a lot of people are like, really feeling for the faeries. Like, I didn’t expect too, that’s for sure. CLARA: Yeah, I feel like a lot of us are going through the journey that Fen has been going through for the last few episodes. I love that line where Julia and Fen are talking in this episode when Fen says… I can’t remember what she says, but she says something like ‘faeries make me feel gross’ or something like that, and Julia’s just like, ‘and how does slavery make you feel?’ DANI: Yeah. CLARA: And seeing her go to knife Dust when she thinks he is in on it, even though it’s super complicated. Just seeing her become protective of Skye, of a faery, of beaten children, or something like that. DANI: Mhm. She said they were like innocent children. CLARA: Yeah. DANI: And I think obviously she’s replacing her own daughter with Skye a little bit, psychologically, in that moment, but of course she’s doing the right thing. And I love how she’s just basically, ‘well we’ll do it without you regardless’ like ‘we’re gonna fight our own way’. CLARA: Yeah, it’s another case where a character who has every reason not to forgive, but when push comes to shove, she does the thing that’s right over the thing that feels satisfying to her. Okay so, there’s a couple things I did want to mention about Fen. I don’t really have her on my list, but I do want to mention that Fen’s cellphone is my new favorite thing. [LAUGHTER] DANI: I was like, of course Todd showed her what emojis are. CLARA: Yes, yes. Which makes me think if they don’t get together I’m going to be sad. Maybe not this season, but Fen and Todd has to be on the horizon at some point. DANI: I hope so. CLARA: They are clearly soulmates. [LAUGHTER] DANI: Also the gif discourse has come into another show. CLARA: I also say gif so yeah. That’s the correct way, don’t care what the creator said. DANI: Also, graphic image! That’s what it stands for. CLARA: Yeah, but the guy who made them is insistent that it’s jif. DANI: He is. He is. But he’s basically kinda gone, ‘ it’s up to interpretation, this is just how I say it’. Which makes no sense. CLARA: He’s probably got trolled so much because he’s wrong. We’re gonna get trolled so much. DANI: Probably. CLARA: The other thing I wanted to mention...we were talking about this a little bit and I almost forgot, but update on CLARA’s theories about Fen and the key. So the next episode is called… Well, one of the episodes coming up is called “The Fillorian Candidate”. It’s either the next one or the one after that. And that’s a pretty obvious reference to The Manchurian Candidate,which is this old movie and then there've been a couple of remakes. It’s the original ‘sleeper agent’ story where the presidential candidate is a sleeper agent and as you know, I’ve been thinking Fen is maybe a sleeper agent, or if not a sleeper agent, then something’s going on with her that’s more complicated and that she plays a larger role in the quest than anybody knows. And now I think with Julia and Fen having earned the Fairy Queen’s respect, it seems like they’re both going to have to play a pretty big role getting that key from the Faery Realm. DANI: Yeah, well I still think Rafe is the sleeper agent and he’s gonna come in. CLARA: Something’s going on with Rafe! It has been how many episodes since we’ve seen him? DANI: Just too many, obviously. I’m upset because we’re gonna have a good reason– they’re really good at bringing people back and giving them a good reason, like Josh in the last episode. CLARA: Yeah, I’ve been missing him this season too. Especially since we will be having Sergio on the podcast soon, which I think we’re both really excited about. Maybe DANI especially, because she has so many questions for him. DANI: I really do and I hope there’s some answers in the episode we have him on, at least, so I can talk to him about it. CLARA: Yeah! I reached out to him about it, right around when the premiere happened and I was like, we should have you on this season! And then he wasn’t in any episodes, so three or four weeks ago, I sent him another message like, heeeey. Sorry I haven’t reached out to you… we don’t know when you’re coming back! [LAUGHS] And I can’t say when he’s coming back, but I was assured that he was, so we can have him on. But yeah, he’s been gone too long for something not to be up. DANI: Mhm. Exactly. CLARA: Okay so the other character we need to talk about clearly, I think, is Josh. DANI: Josh is the best. CLARA: He is REALLY hilarious in this episode. DANI: I know. He’s like, stuck with two children fighting over their relationship, or lack thereof as of this moment. And I’ve been there. I feel like everyone’s been there. Been in Josh’s shoes. CLARA: Just mediating between [them]. DANI: He’s like, I just came to have fun! And it’s not fun. CLARA: I really loved him on the Muntjac though too. DANI: Yeah. CLARA: So he’s hilarious in this episode. He’s the one who actually figures out why they can’t find the key and where it is. Cuz drugs, of course. And before that there’s this really heartbreaking moment where he’s been back for a whole episode and no one told him that Victoria died. They knew that, at least Quentin knew that, Josh had a relationship with Victoria because he was there when she chewed out Poppy DANI: Yeah, he’s just too busy worrying about his relationship drama with Alice. Speaking of the relationship drama, I about cracked up when Julia was hovering in the background,trying to be quiet, like, oops. CLARA: You actually reminded me because I thought of it at several points after I watched it the first time, of Josh’s lines. What was it? The ‘snoop and poop’ voices? [LAUGHS] DANI: Yeah. CLARA: Love that. Okay so, now that Victoria has come back up, she’s gotta come back, right? DANI: I mean… the popular theory out there is that Harriet had magic when she went into the mirror and she didn’t know that. She vry well could have done something to save them. Maybe the fact that she could have been touching runes and they have magic, maybe the tattoos work. CLARA: Hmmm… I also kinda wonder, I’ve been thinking about this a little bit. I didn’t really question at first what a mirror bridge really is, like what that in-between space really is, or where it represents, but it’s not nowhere. Like they talk about the mirror bridge collapsing and they disappear, but there’s a lot of in-between spaces in this universe. We have the Neitherlands. We have the Underworld, which we now know is a waystation. We have the Faery Realm. There’s a lot of places that are not quite fully real that are not a place where you’re necessarily dead. DANI: Mhm. Yeah. CLARA: Like even the Underworld, you can leave it, if you’re alive. If the dragon lets you. DANI: True. They could be in the Underworld for all we know. [CLARA: Yeah] Just waiting. They could be in Purgatory. CLARA: Yeah! DANI: Like actual Purgatory. CLARA: As opposed to the Underworld. So there’s an Underworld waystation and there’s a Purgatory, and there’s a Hell. DANI: Maybe. They haven’t confirmed. CLARA: That’s true. We actually don’t know what’s on the other side. There’s that room where you confess all your secrets or whatever. DANI: I feel like the show would never ever say there’s a heaven or hell. We’ll never have that answer unless one of the characters crosses over, but I don’t think they would show it. I think they would just be gone. CLARA: I don’t think anything is ever that black and white in the show. I think that heaven would be too much on one side of things, hell would be too much on the other side of things. They tend to do more of the middle spaces more period. DANI: Yeah. CLARA: Is there anything you wanted to talk about from this episode? DANI: I think we covered… oh! Oh I guess there’s one thing we should probably cover. Eliot and Idri. CLARA: Oh yeah! God, we’re so bad at ships this season. But yeah, that was great. That was incredibly hot. We actually didn’t talk about Eliot and Margo’s storyline at all. DANI: Yeah. I just felt like it was very much them being them, scheming, but that was the most important part about it. And the fact that they would offer the children of Fillory magic. Like, we will teach them. We will figure out to open a fucking Brakebills in Fillory, basically. CLARA: It’s funny too, because it feels like that philosophy basically aligns them, or allies them more closely with Harriet and her cause. Because that’s more about making magic democratic and not having it be a thing that’s just for the select few. DANI: Mhm CLARA: My brain is going all sorts of places with this, but I wonder how that’s gonna fit in with the whole god thing too. Like if the gods are using it as a carrot, it might be that they’re trying to meet out… oh shit I’m having so many theories. It might be that the gods only wanna give it to certain people because they want to control it and they wanna keep it in the balance of power. Like the gods might be thriving off the fact that magic creates this upper class and this lower class among humans and through that, gives them more control. If that’s the case, then remember when we did the fan theory special, how somebody was talking about how they thought maybe the librarians were fighting against the gods? Maybe that’s not it. Maybe the librarians are protecting what the gods want. DANI: Maybe. Also, this just reminded me, Alice confirms that she’s working for the Library. CLARA: Right! Yes! This is another important thing we almost forgot to mention. Alice confirms she’s working for the Library. DANI: Yeah, which is kind of a big deal. I mean I don’t think it’s as sinister as it sounds, I mean she’s under the impression that doing she’s good. I definitely don’t know how I feel about what the Library wants. Like I can’t tell if they’re working for the gods, then they’re probably bad. If they’re not, maybe they do just want magic back. CLARA: Yeah, I really don’t know what the Library wants either. Shit. [LAUGHS] Okay so somebody asked about Irene’s map. [To DANI:] Are you looking at the thing? DANI: Interesting… CLARA: So this is from Ana, “Any thoughts on Irene’s map from 3x07? Seems like a big clue to me.” So it looks like there’s these pins. It seems like a whole bunch are in the center of Europe and actually, maybe that’s in England. Maybe that’s where the first door is. There’s like nine strings leading out from it. So it can’t be the keys, but it could be something else. Given that Irene is an enslaver, my first guess would be that those are places where they know faeries are on Earth. DANI: This could also not be Irene’s map. It could be that she’s stationed at Brakebills now and it could have been Dean Fogg’s and it could be where the schools are. CLARA: Oh, that’s true. You’re right, that could be Dean Fogg’s. DANI: Cuz I’m thinking… I see one way down south and it’s looking like it could be Brakebills South and I know that there’s plenty of magic schools. The only weird thing about that is the strings, because there’s also a lot of pins as well CLARA: Well I guess another big question is why is the center in England? I’m guessing that that’s England. I’m guessing that’s where whatshisface, paedophile asshole lives. DANI: Yeah. Chatwin. CLARA: Not Chatwin. The one who wrote them. Plover! There. DANI: Plover, yeah. I dunno. It’s really weird. I mean, there’s a lot of things it could be. CLARA: Yeah. DANI: I’m not thinking it’s Irene because she kinda just took over Brakebills and hasn’t changed anything. CLARA: I think you’re probably right that if that [map] is at Brakebills then it’s probably Foggs. The other possibility… you remember in the books there was a globe that lights up to tell him when somebody does magic somewhere? DANI: Yeah. CLARA: I’m wondering maybe if that’s the equivalent of that, if the strings kinda don’t fit into that. But, yeah. Okay, so next question. Kim asks, she wants to know our thoughts about Penny’s higher calling. What do you think Penny’s gonna be? DANI: I mean, it’s the books, it’s The Order. That’s it. CLARA: Yeah, I mean Kim, if you haven’t read the books – DANI: He’s just following that destiny. CLARA: If you haven’t read the books, in them, Penny joins the Library in sort of a different way and fashion and he ends up running this thing called The Order, which basically [is that] they protect magic, they cultivate it, they keep an eye on the gods, all that sort of stuff. Was there anything I missed in that? DANI: No. CLARA: So we think it’s something like that. We’re not exactly sure how it’s gonna pan out, especially with him aligning himself with Hades, it seems like he’s gonna become a god’s errand boy. DANI: Yeah. CLARA: Alright, this one I think is one that you’ll like. Miriam asks, “Has anyone else noticed that Julia’s hedgewitch tattoos have disappeared this season?” and asks if we think that’s a continuity error or a side effect of magic going out. DANI: I mean, I’m not sure. She could have potentially removed them. CLARA: So I have two thoughts about this. So I don’t think it’s a continuity error cuz the show is meticulous about scene setting and all those little production details. One possibility that is just the basic one is when Marina slashed her tattoos I don’t remember if she had them back after that, or if they stopped working. DANI: She does. She has to still have them because Kady’s mom flashes hers and they’re still slashed out. Like, oh we have the same fate. I feel like she might have either potentially gotten them removed just to not remember them or maybe we just haven’t seen that part of her arm in awhile. She wears a lot of long sleeves. CLARA: That’s true. DANI: 99.9% of the time. Plus it’s on the inside of her arm, so if she’s not showing that, maybe they just haven’t shown. CLARA: Another thought is that maybe OLU removed them or that maybe [Julia] removed them herself. Like she has magic and you mentioned her getting them removed, but maybe that’s a way of her healing herself, like you were saying. DANI: Yeah, like she might have removed them magically rather than actually doing them in a hospital. That shit hurts CLARA: Yeah. Logan demands, “Give me all your book club conspiracies.” DANI: I don’t have any, to be honest. CLARA: The only thing I have is that the book club is connected to The Order. That’s really all I got. Though I also kinda wondered, as I’m thinking about this, if The Order actually exists right now or if Penny’s going to create it basically. Since Hades hasn’t really talked to anyone else and Hades wanted him to join the book club, maybe Hades is going to get him to form it through that. DANI: Potentially. CLARA: That’d be cool. That’s my best theory on short notice DANI: Yeah. CLARA: Alright, I think that might be everything. The only other thing we have is, best argument for the Fairy Queen. She had ten episodes of being a dick and one episode of marginally redeeming actions. I would say that her actions were more than marginally redeeming, but I do think that she’s gonna have to reckon with herself that she left those faeries on Earth for so long, knowing they were there. DANI: Yeah. CLARA: I am really curious how the breaking the deal will make things shake out, though. DANI: Yeah, that was some intense blood magic she did too. CLARA: Yeah! Have we seen that sigil before, by the way? Is it the one we see in one of the keys? One of the ones we haven’t seen yet. DANI: I dunno. Maybe. CLARA: I’m gonna look up the seven keys quickly. You know, it doesn’t look like that one. It looks different, so I don’t think it’s that. It is interesting though. I’m curious to learn more. Okay, that’s all for the episode then, I think. So then we have fashion. Did you have anything on fashion? I didn’t have much. DANI: Eliot’s like, dress, that he’s wearing with pants underneath is great. It’s like a robe, I guess. A robe. CLARA: Yeah, I really liked Margo’s outfit too. I didn’t catch all the detail, but I liked that it was a tight bodice on top and a mix of tough fabrics and lacy things. DANI: Yeah. I’m trying to think. Julia’s been wearing more blazers. She’s wearing a blazer again. CLARA: I love Julia in blazers. DANI: She looks good. Yeah, there wasn’t a whole lot of fashion in this episode. CLARA: Well and I think also since we got it so late I didn’t pay as much attention to that. Also I was super absorbed with the performances. I did notice a little art department touches though in the library. The biggest one was the rug with the Twin Peaks zigzag pattern. Especially with the log lady reference with Fen earlier in the season, it seems pretty clearly intentional. I’m gonna be on the lookout for more of those. DANI: Yeah. CLARA: I haven’t thought about it as more than a fun thing, but in Twin Peaks, [it] ends ups (spoiler alert if you haven’t seen Twin Peaks, but also you’ve had 30 years, go see it) DANI: Has it been that long already? CLARA: I think not quite, I think it was ‘91, but it’s pretty close. But the way the original Twin Peaks ends is that it turns out there is an upside down. Like there’s a black lodge where there’s this evil version of Copper and everyone talks backwards. It’s a little more complicated than that, but y’know look it up on the internet, you’ll know what I mean, and that’s where that rug is [from]. The whole two worlds thing, this kinda flipped upside down thing, makes me wonder if that early reference was a clue to everything we’ve been seeing since then. DANI: Maybe. I’m sure they take from so many things. The writer of the episode was talking about how she was inspired by the cat bus from CLARA: Totoro? DANI: My Neighbor Totoro for the Underworld big giant pig thing that they’re talking about. CLARA: Oh, that’s awesome. DANI: So they take from everything. I still swear from episode 8 that they took the blood magic from Fullmetal Alchemist because it’s a big thing about philosophy and equivalent exchange, which also ties into religion as well. CLARA: Speaking of blood magic, sorry I’m going back. This isn’t even this episode, but a lot of people have been asking when is the vial of blood [that] Quentin gave the woman, the random fairytale woodswoman in the first season, when’s that gonna come back into play. Do you have any theories about that? Cuz we’ve seen a lot of blood magic this season. DANI: I really don’t have any theories about it. Like, I have no idea what’s gonna happen there or why she’d want it. I dunno. CLARA: So one thing I was thinking, I was talking to some folks on Reddit about the next episode that’s coming up and theories for that. Because as you know, I pretty heavily theorize that we’re going to see Alice23 again and that she’s going to be involved. I think I said she’s going to be involved in some of the conversations with the faeries and some of the negotiations there. DANI: How are they gonna do that? CLARA: Yeah so I don’t know how all that’s gonna work. I can read you what I said. It was basically that in promo photos from the next episode, Alice is missing three fingers, just like Alice23 is. And in the teslaflection when Quentin asks her about it, she says that's the least of the things she lost trying to figure out how to retrieve or fix Quentin’s shade. So we know that the Fairy Queen has this penchant for taking body parts, like Margo’s eye and Fen’s foot– DANI: Oh yeah CLARA: Right, so I was wondering if maybe that’s where Alice’s fingers went. Now that I’m thinking about it, that might also be where Quentin’s blood went. DANI: To the faeries? CLARA: Yeah, if not directly. She didn’t appear to be a faery and he, as far as we know, doesn’t see them, but I also don’t know that he’s been in a position to see them at any point. Like I don’t know if he’s been anywhere that they’ve been. DANI: I don’t think she’s a faery, but I think she gave his blood in exchange for a faery deal. CLARA: Yeah, that’s something I was thinking about as well and that could be an interesting way to bring that thing back that’s been gone for always two seasons and also tie all these different threads together. So yeah, what the fuck do you think the Fairy Queen wants with all those body parts? DANI: I don’t know. Maybe for some kind of crazy spell. CLARA: Yeah, some of you [listeners] who responded, and I think this makes sense (and I still don’t know why) said they were going to use [the body parts] to make something. Like make a person-shaped thing. DANI: That would also be in-line with anime for sure. Like equivalent exchange. They could definitely like a human or faery or something. CLARA: Or a faery Frankenstein’s monster. DANI: That would be disgusting. I kinda hope not. CLARA: But yeah, I feel like that was the first time that I thought about the fact [the faeries] are taking all those body parts and more than just some grotesque thing. DANI: Yeah. CLARA: Anyway, back to the not-fashion fashion section. The other thing I wanted was that I really love seeing the sheer volume of books all over the library. Especially after Olivia told us that they would steal those books and read them and that they’re mostly real books. And I just loved that they made the ticket out of the Underworld was a metrocard. It just seemed so perfect, given that the Underworld is this embodiment of magical bureaucracy. DANI: Yeah, that was pretty funny. Kinda made me think of Harry Potter and Kings Cross station and how Kings Cross is also an in betweenn as well. CLARA: Yeah. Yeah. Okay should we move on to MVP? DANI: Let’s do it. CLARA: Alright, mine’s a loaded question. Candis Cayne is my MVP and my loaded question to you is, is there really any other option? DANI: My only quick thoughts before the end of the episode were Hades. CLARA: Yeah, I mean he was great. DANI: Brittany, I mean Brittany was amazing. CLARA: Oh my gosh, she’s so fun. DANI: But other than that I was just like, Candis the whole time. She’s just incredible. She’s absolute perfection as the Fairy Queen. CLARA: Yeah, and the monologue is perfect, and actually, since I have it, we can just play that monologue before we give our ratings. What do you think? DANI: Sure. [Fairy Queen Monologue plays] CLARA: And they did. DANI: They sure did. CLARA: Alright, rating time. You wanna go first? DANI: I’m gonna say a 9.5 out of 10. CLARA: That’s what I had at first, who am I kidding? The only reason I wanna give it a 9.5 out of 10 is because I’ve given so many tens this season. I’m starting to feel bad about it. DANI: Yeah, I just feel like overall, if you subtract Julia and Fen plot, the rest of the episode does not hold up to it, that’s probably why. Oh and the Hades part was also incredible. CLARA: So if you subtract 80% of the episode, the remaining 20% doesn’t hold up? Yeah, I guess it’s fair to knock off half a point for that. I really did love this episode though. It’s so great. It’s really solidly written and acted and the shots are gorgeous. The library is amazing, that dinner party scene is really beautifully lit and shot. It was solid. DANI: True. True, true. CLARA: Alright, any last thoughts or are we done? DANI: I think we’re done. CLARA: Alright, thanks all the listeners who tweeted at us and thank you just for joining us and listening 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 as always, you can follow us on Twitter or Facebook @physicalkidspod. Bye! DANI: Bye!