The Magicians episode review — 4.7 — The Side Effect

Original air date: March 6, 2019
Director: Salli Richardson-Whitfield
Writer: Elle Lipson

Rating: 6/10

Considering I don’t really like high fantasy, I’m genuinely shocked that the most interesting plotline for me this episode was the mystery of why there are no longer talking animals in Fillory. But Fen is having these weird dreams, and Josh tries to coach her in lucid dreaming.

I’m not saying I love the episode or anything, but I kind of loved that part of the story. In the other stories, Kady tries to gather some hedge witches to sort of fight against the library.

I definitely really like Kady as a character, but this certainly isn’t my favorite story.

I guess I’d say I like it a bit more than seeing what the library is doing on their end, as they try unsuccessfully to get Dean Fogg to reveal Alice’s location, and ends up promoting Penny to the position of having to find secrets that are taken to the grave. The Penny stuff is just kind of hard to get into, with how weird and metaphysical his existence is right now. Again, I’m not really a fantasy guy.

Also were Quentin and Eliot even in this episode? Eliot definitely wasn’t, but was Q? I don’t know, but the episode still manages to be marginally entertaining.