The Magicians episode review — 4.9 — The Serpent

Original air date: March 20, 2019
Director: Carol Banker
Writers: Sera Gamble and Alex Ritter

Rating: 6/10

I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on for most of this episode, but I did enjoy parts of it. Eliot’s out of the picture, I suppose, and if I remember right, he was inhabited by an evil spirit or something like that. But with Margo now High King of Fillory, she asks Fen to overthrow her so that she can go on a quest to save him.

There’s a lot of other nonsense going on, particularly with Alice and a group of terrorist magicians, which is probably a bit more fun in idea than in execution. And there’s some stuff with the Binder, which is something Julia needs, but she doesn’t know why she needs it.

The series definitely feels like it’s making stuff up as it goes along, and this is my biggest complaint with any long-running fantasy series, be it books, movies, or television. So that’s stuff that I just tend to not like about the genre, so I’m not trying to knock this episode or the show as a whole too much for it. And like I said, there is some stuff that I really enjoy in this episode.

I like that Penny has a chance to be heroic, which continues his redemption arc from when he found himself basically in purgatory, with a chance to just leave his friends and their universe. I like that Margo gets a chance to be heroic, too, and she’s definitely been a strength of the season.