Previously on The Magicians.
- Before I got here, I was in the hospital.
- Quentin, I'd really recommend further treatment.
- Look, I've never threatened to hurt myself or anybody else,
so you can't make me stay.
- Brakebills is the first place that feels right to me
that is not literally a fairy tale.
- Quentin!
- I made the mistake of thinking you were just psychic.
- Do you know how to close your mind?
'Cause I will show you right now!
- You are a traveler.
- You can actually move between worlds.
- Where are you going, kitty cat?
- I'm done here for good.
You should be happy... Less competition.
- Hedge witches: amateurs, sad, and desperate people.
That means level 50. - So you were...
- Top witch in New York, for starters.
Get me everything on this list this week.
- I don't know what you're doing here, Jules.
- Magic wasn't just handed to me.
- People at Brakebills, Jules, they can read minds.
They can fly. You can do a party trick.
- You were my best friend.
- It's amazing I survived as long as I did
not knowing that I was a magician.
I can't go back.
[foreboding music]
♪ ♪
Fu...
Dude, you're in the wrong...
Or I'm in the wrong, uh...
♪ ♪
[indistinct chatter]
♪ ♪
- Hey! Big stuff.
- Hey. - Got 'em? I'm dying.
Where are they? Where are they?
- Oh, Jesus.
- Where are they? - Cut it out.
- You give me happy pills, me love you long time.
- Eliot, they're looking for you in arts and crafts.
- Watercolors.
Without me, they're just...
[slap]
- Quentin, could I speak to you?
- [murmurs indistinctly]
- Quentin?
- Okay, this is obviously a dream
where I realize I'm in a dream.
- So you think your life is a dream?
- No, my life is my life,
but this is like a...
This is the bad collage.
You, the hospital, the dean's office,
the Brakebills... It's all jumbled together.
- So we're back to Brakebills?
- Hopefully soon.
- Where you think you're a student
studying to be a magician?
- Okay, let's just skip the part
where you don't believe me, okay?
Um, yeah, it's a little chilly in here.
How about a miniature sun?
- That'd be great.
- [sighs]
[tapping]
I hate these dreams.
It's like your feet are stuck to the floor
or you're paralyzed.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
You released me, remember, in the real hospital?
I remember what I said. What was it?
Uh, "You can't keep me here.
I haven't hurt myself or anybody else."
- You know that isn't true.
- Well, none of this is true,
but I said that to you in real life before Brakebills.
[beep] - Send him in.
Quentin, do you remember why
the court ordered you to be here?
- The court? I don't...
If this is a trial dream, I am...
God, these things take forever.
- Come in, Penny.
Show me again what you found in Quentin's trash.
- I don't want to get nobody in trouble.
- No. Hey, it's okay, Penny.
No one's in trouble.
Thank you, Penny.
Quentin,
this is what happens when you don't take what we prescribe.
You start to hallucinate again that you're a magician,
you have powers.
It's all here...
Uh, the house of cards, Alice,
Eliot, Margo, the Physical Kids, The Beast.
I know this can all seem very real,
but it's not.
Brakebills is the hallucination.
This is the reality.
- You're seeing this, right?
- You're very, very sick.
[rattling]
- Are you not seeing this?
[rattling continues]
Oh, Jesus.
[gasping]
- I see you, Quentin, and I'm very, very worried.
- Oh, okay. They're gone.
The moths, they're... [sighs]
They're gone. - There are no moths, Quentin.
There never were.
[buzzing]
- Ah! [choking]
[body thuds]
[yelling] Oh, I can't breathe.
[gasping]
- Code red! Code red! Main office!
- Don't let them see.
I heard they shot you up.
- I'm kind of foggy. [stammers]
- No, no, no. Just focus on me, okay?
None of this is real. Just us two.
And this.
- Where are we?
I mean, what's going on?
- You don't remember?
- I... I was at school, I think, and...
And then I fell asleep at a party,
and then I'm here
where none of that ever happened, and...
- No, no, no, no, no, no.
- Oh, man. - No.
You came to find me.
- I did?
- To save me.
But first, we have to break the illusion.
- The illusion?
- I crash-landed on this planet 9.3 light-years ago.
- Alice? - Wait.
- You're a starship captain, and you came to rescue me.
- I... uh, no. Hang on.
- But none of this is real. It's...
We're trapped in a cage, a menagerie.
- Alice? - [growls]
And they show us these illusions
to make us fall in love and mate.
[snaps]
- Alice, that's enough.
Give them back.
- What, Dr. Fogg? - All of them, Alice.
We need them for Bridge.
- [grunts]
They collect us from all over the galaxy
to feed off our emotions.
- No, that's not true.
It's an episode of "Lost in Space."
- "Star Trek."
- What?
- That's an episode of "Star Trek."
- It's an episode of "Star Trek."
- They finally got to you.
You belong to them now. [giggling]
It's okay.
I'll still mate with you.
- [laughing]
- All right, that's enough.
- Me three! - That's enough.
- Me three.
- [sighs, clears throat]
Quentin, how are you?
Are you feeling any better?
- I guess.
- Good.
Are you up for seeing a visitor?
[melancholy music]
- Hey, Q.
♪ ♪
I mean, Yale's still kind of a letdown...
Still, in the best way.
I mean, you would've...
Well, you... I mean, you will totally agree, you know,
once, you know, it's you.
- When what? When I'm out?
- It's just so much easier than I...
Than we expected, is all.
- So you've been at Yale these last few months,
and I've been here?
- You don't remember?
- This? No.
- Okay.
James is sorry he couldn't make it tonight,
but he'll be by next week.
You know, we had to lock down a church.
- Church?
- Mm-hmm. For the wedding.
♪ ♪
- Are you engaged?
- [chuckles]
It's okay. - No, it's not okay.
- Seriously, it doesn't even matter.
It's not important.
- It's a spell. - A spell?
- We're all trapped in it, and I'm the only one who knows.
Okay, look. I know that I just...
I sounded like Alice just then, but I'll...
Hey, um, I swear I'm not crazy.
- I want to understand, okay?
I want to help you. - No.
- Just tell me. - No. No.
[grunts] No. Okay, I can do this.
[bright orchestral music]
♪ ♪
Oh, God, look.
[gasping] Jules.
Jules, look.
Look. Are you seeing this?
Look!
Are you guys... Are you not seeing this?
[stammers]
[people murmuring indistinctly]
[grunts] - Okay.
- Don't... - What?
- Look at me like that. - Q...
- Don't feel sorry for me. Do not.
I'm not me, and you're not you, and this is not happening.
Do you hear me? This is not happening.
I'm not... I'm not here.
I am the one that got into Brakebills.
I'm in Brakebills! - Hey, you!
Keep your voice down.
- I'm sorry. It's my fault, um...
Sorry.
Hey, I'm gonna go, okay?
Um, I'll be back Friday.
- This can't be my life.
Jules, it can't be.
- I wanted to see the fireworks.
I really did.
- Wait.
How did you know they were fireworks?
- What?
- If you couldn't see them,
how did you know they were fireworks?
- You told me.
- I never said the word "fireworks," Julia.
What's going on here?
- [laughs]
- Okay, did nobody see that?
- See what? - You laughing at me.
- Laughing at you?
What kind of a friend would do that?
- Exactly.
- Good-bye, Quentin.
- What? [gasps]
- All of them one by one.
Begin.
♪ ♪
I believe you, Quentin.
You are a magician...
A very bad one.
♪ ♪
- One thing that's real:
you're always a raging dick.
♪ ♪
[whispers] Ellsworth Downs.
Ellsworth.
Ellsworth Downs.
[sighs]
- [echoing] You know.
You know where to look, Quentin.
I can't show you.
I can't touch you.
It's very strong, this spell.
- It is?
It is a spell?
- It's in the book, but the book is you.
This is all you.
- Me?
[eerie music]
Uh, which book?
Jane?
I can't remember what, uh...
Jane, they gave me pills, and I can't... I can't remember.
Jane.
[groans]
[sighs]
[echoing] Jane.
♪ ♪
[paper tearing]
No, No!
No, stop! Stop it!
Stop! No!
The answer's in these books.
Jane said that these books are my key to getting out of here.
Jesus.
Every time I talk, I sound batshit.
[sighs] - [laughing]
- Could I get some tape anyplace?
- Tape isn't permitted.
Right, I know.
But why, again?
- 'Cause you can harm yourself or others.
- It's tape.
- That can strangle, suffocate...
- Okay, what if you watched me the whole time?
- No one has that kind of time.
- I need to put these pages back together.
- You need to get to music therapy.
- [exhales sharply]
- Music is a way for us to express and receive feeling
in a way that is safe and fun
and sometimes illuminating.
So who'd like to begin?
- Oh, God, please not that one song.
- Ah, I'm sorry.
What was that, Penny?
- Oh, that one song, please, no.
It gets in my head, and it never leaves.
- Oh, which song is that?
- "Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore."
[whispers] ♪Agree.
- Everything here is me.
- All right, everyone,
why don't we kick it off with the Beatles?
- "Helter Skelter." Helter Skelter," please!
- I was thinking "Here comes the"...
- ♪ I stay out too late ♪
♪ Got nothing in my brain ♪
♪ That's what people say, mm-hmm ♪
♪ I got one too many dates ♪
♪ But I can't make 'em stay ♪
♪ At least that's what people say ♪
♪ Mm-hmm ♪
♪ That's what people say, mm-hmm ♪
[upbeat piano music] ♪ But I keep cruising ♪
♪ Can't stop, won't stop moving ♪
♪ It's like I got this music in my mind ♪
♪ Saying it's gonna be all right ♪
♪ Yeah, 'cause a player's gonna play, play, play, play, play ♪
- He's doing this because I made him take his pills.
- ♪ And a hater's gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate ♪
- Enough! Dr. London?
- ♪ I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake ♪
♪ Shake it off, shake it off ♪
♪ I never miss a beat ♪
♪ ♪
♪ I'm lightning on my feet ♪
♪ And that's what they don't see ♪
♪ Mm-hmm ♪
♪ That's what they don't see ♪
♪ Mm-hmm ♪
♪ I'm dancing on my own ♪
♪ ♪
♪ I make the moves up as I go ♪
♪ And that's what they don't know ♪
♪ Mm-hmm ♪
♪ That's what they don't know ♪
♪ Mm-hmm ♪
Hey, Penny, good luck getting that out of your head.
♪ ♪
[people cheering]
- Doctor... [speaking indistinctly]
- I hear you were the hit of music therapy today, Quentin.
- Look, I think I know what's going on here,
and I think I know how to get help.
- Well, help is why we're here.
- No, it's not.
I don't mean to be rude, but you're here
because of a spell, and I need to break the spell.
- Quentin...
- And if I can just reach Penny, the real Penny,
and if... if I can get inside of his head...
- Enough.
That's enough.
- Can I please have some tape?
- Do you remember the last time you saw your father?
- [sighs]
Dinner a few months ago.
Why?
Dad?
- Hello, Curly Q.
- I...
What happened to your face?
Did you run into a door or...
- You did that, Quentin.
- I...
[sighs]
Come on.
- It's time you see something.
- Look, I'm telling you it wasn't my dad.
It was The Beast.
I never even touched him! I used battle magic,
the same magic that I'm gonna use to get out of here.
Are you ready? Come on. Come on!
[banging] What did you do to my powers?
I need my powers. The Beast is here, okay?
He's coming for me. He's coming for you.
He is coming to kill us.
You have got to give me back my power!
[somber music]
I've got to save you!
Ahh!
♪ ♪
- Do you remember that night?
- Um...
- Your father does.
Tell him, Ted.
He needs to hear it.
He needs to know the truth why he's here.
- We were having dinner to celebrate
when you got into Yale, and...
in the middle of the restaurant,
you suddenly said there were moths everywhere.
- No.
- And then you started calling me The Beast.
- Mm-mm.
You're lying.
- And then you picked up a knife.
- Mm-mm. No. - I tried to stop you.
I grabbed you. I tried to stop you from...
- What? From... from what?
- You tried to kill your father, Quentin.
♪ ♪
You need to stop fighting this Quentin.
The more you believe in magic, Brakebills, The Beast,
the more harm you do.
Accept who you are and what's put you here.
That's how you get better, Quentin.
I promise.
- Hey, you, seriously, talk to me.
Are you fuááing with me?
[blows]
[snaps] Dude.
Uh, um, look, this'll all be over soon, okay?
Just try not to get buried under it.
I'm gonna talk to someone. Shit.
[tense music]
- ♪ Play, play, play, play, play ♪
♪ And player's gonna play, play, play, play, play ♪
♪ And we'll shake it off, shake it off ♪
♪ Gonna play, play ♪ - Hey.
- ♪ Play, play, play, and player's ♪
- Quit singing that stupid song.
- ♪ Play, play, play, play ♪ [snaps]
[singing indistinctly] - Damn it.
- ♪ Do-do-do-do, do-do-do ♪ - Quentin!
- ♪ Do, do, do ♪
♪ Do-do-do-do-do, do, do, do, do, do ♪
♪ Do-do-do-do-do ♪ - Oh, no.
- Yeah, that's right.
I'm talking to you.
I told you, keep up with that stupid song,
and I'd come right into your brain and rip it out.
- No, no, no. - Well, here I am.
By the way, this is the most pathetic loser dream ever.
- Stop, okay? Just stop.
Please stop. Stop.
- Please be knowing that dinner will be served in five minutes,
and today, we are to be serving chicken curry,
which is, of course, my favorite.
- You racist motherfuááer.
- You're not real.
[foreboding music]
- Yeah, how's that? Real enough?
- That hurt.
Do it again, harder.
- What kind of sick shit are you about, Coldwater?
- Harder.
♪ ♪
Ow.
[panting]
Nobody here can see you.
- Yeah, 'cause there's no here, dumbass.
This is all in your head.
I'm in your head.
Now stop singing that song so I can go the fuáá back to sleep.
- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Oh, my God. It worked.
I did that. I called you.
I called you with the song.
- You called me? - I'm in trouble.
Seriously, help me.
What is today out there? - Wednesday.
- So I've only been gone for a night.
Am I asleep there somewhere?
- Man, I don't know what you do at night,
and I don't want to know.
- Where are you? - Trying to sleep.
- This is not a dream.
It... it's a...
All of this, it's a spell.
Please, listen. Find me, okay?
Out there, find me.
I have to be conscious to break the spell.
Okay, you have to wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up. Wake up.
Wake up. Wake up! Wake up!
- You, you will not be shouting.
End it now, buster.
- Wake the hell up!
- [gasps]
- Okay.
Good job.
- Wow. [sighs]
My whole body, every part of my body, is tingling.
I mean, you didn't tell me it would feel...
- So good?
It's high-end, designer cooperative magic.
It does something to your cells to channel all that juice.
Everyone gets stronger.
- Um, I just, um...
I didn't think Q would, uh, fall in so deep.
- Oh, this is nothing.
- Uh, what... What does that mean?
- Well, I mean he might want to take his shoes off
and get comfortable.
We cooked up a whopper here.
I don't really see him getting out of it,
even with your boyfriend's help.
- Mm, I thought the idea was to just mess with him.
- My idea was to fuáá him up hard,
and you loved it even harder.
- Yeah, yeah, fuáá him up, not kill him.
- Wait, what? Kill him?
- Oh, he's not gonna die.
He just might not actually ever wake up.
- [sighs] Oh, my God.
- Hey, you are not going limp on me here.
This is game time, ladies.
You got the ball, Kady.
Don't drop it.
Now go put all that sweet hotness to work.
[slaps]
- Sorry.
[tense orchestral music]
♪ ♪
Ellsworth Downs, Ellsworth...
Downs, Ellis...
Wirth-Downs, Ellis Wirth-Downs.
The Madness Maker.
Oh, God.
Okay.
"In all of Fillory,
"one magician could drive every other magician insane.
"An inventor of puzzles with no solution
"and games where the rules changed for no reason.
"He was called The Madness Maker,
"but he had been born
"Ellis Wirth-Downs.
"On his first journey to Fillory,
"he played checkers with a powerful witch.
"He cheated, and her curse was simple:
"the only kind of magic
"he would ever do again was game magic.
"Jane Chatwin knew his need to make others suffer
"was only because he felt so alone in his cursed state,
"because the more Ellis played,
"the more insane he became.
But soon, Jane figured out how to break this curse."
Thank you, Jane Chatwin.
"The Madness Maker's curse was"...
It's okay. It's okay. I know this. I know this.
I know this.
What did Jane say?
God, why can't I remember?
[footsteps tapping]
Okay, look, I am, like, 100% sure I invented you,
so if you could please just disappear?
[tense orchestral music]
- Look, it was a party.
He's probably sleeping it off under something
or someone or...
- Hey.
- Where you been?
- I had to run into the city.
What's up?
- Your lover man here thinks our little Q
got roofied last night.
- Look, we covered the house.
Let's start checking the lab,
the libraries, or whatever.
- I know where he is.
♪ ♪
He crawled in here and passed out around 1:00.
Anyway, I've seen weirder.
- Come on. Hey, wake up.
- He's breathing. That's something.
- Let me try.
[eerie music]
This is bad.
- How bad?
- "We need to tell the dean" bad.
- Now what?
- We wait.
[snaps]
- When are you gonna tell me what all this is for?
- I did.
Bigger, better magic.
- Yeah, you just never mentioned how.
- I guess I could tell you now.
No, I don't feel like it.
Later maybe?
Mm, how about never? That's a growing possibility.
- Hmm.
Yes, I thought so.
The spell is called a Scarlatti Web.
We cannot break it.
No one can.
- Wait, he's not gonna wake up ever?
- I said "no one," not "nothing."
We need to summon a Matarese.
- Quentin, I really thought we were making progress.
I was wrong.
[dramatic music]
- No. What are you...
Lower the wards please.
[gasps]
[warbling]
Very good. And now the South wards.
- Dean Fogg following the playbook.
The only thing that can break our spell on your ex-BFF
is a Matarese... evil bug spirit of the underworld.
About the only way one of those can get
into this sugary wonderland
is to lower all the protective wards and shields
in the school, letting any old anyone waltz right in.
Welcome back to Brakebills.
Let's go steal their shit.
♪ ♪
- Careful.
Good.
Daemonium Matarese, ecce vocavi
te in carcere liberare mens est.
Imperio Scarlatti telem nobus.
- That's the answer?
- It shorts out the cerebral cortex,
which should break him out of the spell,
which should bring him back, halfway.
- Halfway?
- The spell is like a prison in the middle of the desert.
The Matarese breaks you out of the prison,
but you have to get yourself out of the desert,
and it is a lot easier with a guide.
Penny, are you ready?
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- [choking]
[gags and swallows]
- Quentin?
[dramatic music]
Quentin! Answer me!
- The problem is in your frontal lobe, Quentin.
Your emotions are in complete control now,
overriding logic, reason, even the will to live.
So this...
[ominous music]
Is inserted into the eye socket.
- No, no, no, no, no.
- It's called a transorbital lobotomy.
♪ ♪
- Dad. [whimpers]
Dad. Dad. [grunts]
No, no, no, no, no, no.
No, no, don't!
[gasps] Dad, don't!
Dad!
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
No, please, don't. I didn't mean to, I swear.
[sobbing] I'm sorry. - Hey, stop!
Stop talking. Stop listening.
There are only three things that are real: you, me, and...
- [gagging]
[coughing]
- That. - [coughing]
- Get up. There are no straps.
This is not a hospital.
You are not crazy.
You can make it disappear.
Do it!
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
[lights buzzing]
Quentin?
- The old alma mater hasn't changed a lick.
- Wait, you went here?
- Kicked out three months before graduation.
- So, what, this is revenge?
- When you're here for that long,
they can't just erase you.
They take you into a special room
off the dean's office
and remove every memory you make here.
Every single magical thing you learned amputated,
but those memories are stored.
Normally there's a shield on this door
a hundred magicians couldn't break.
Now...
[snaps]
Keep a lookout.
- Wait, what's going...
- [gasps]
[tense music]
- It isn't working. What happened?
- I don't know. I went there.
I told him, the Matarese did his thing,
and then everything went black.
♪ ♪
- Hey.
- He's not gonna wake up...
ever.
- No, Marina just has to...
- Marina is a psycho.
You were his friend.
- It's her spell. I can't...
- No, I didn't sign up for this shit.
No, you have to go reverse it now.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
[eerie music]
♪ ♪
- [gasping]
- Well, I can finally reach you again,
but that's never been the problem, has it...
My reaching you?
- Will you please, just for once...
No more riddles, okay?
Just tell me what to do.
- It doesn't matter what anyone tells you.
You make the web you're in.
You're the spider and the fly,
just like...
- Look, I can help.
I can give you the exact wording of the spell.
- It's too late.
- It was just supposed to be a joke.
- Yeah, bullshit. You did it to get even.
- Oh, fuáá you! Somebody help him.
- If I had the exact spell wording one hour ago,...
- There's got to be something.
- You have any idea where he is right now?
Why would you do this?
- She didn't.
Not by herself. Did you?
[eerie music]
♪ ♪
- You sure you want to play?
♪ ♪
- No. I'm not sure of anything.
Except I'm tired, so tired.
- Of?
- Fighting all the time,
becoming someone that I actually want to be,
and then realizing that I...
[sighs] Am nothing.
- So you made the hospital,
conjured that terrible thing you never did to your father.
Of course you're exhausted.
And you can hide from it all forever
in this lovely, quiet, blank void.
But you also built a way out.
Otherwise, why are he and I here?
♪ ♪
- "The Madness Maker didn't play for the joy of winning,
"just the fear of losing.
"The real curse was, he only played when he could win,
"which cut him off from the surprise,
horror, sadness, and wonder of life."
♪ ♪
"Jane saw only one way out for him:
"stop playing.
Start living."
♪ ♪
- [gagging]
[retching]
[coughing]
- [sighs]
- [gasps]
- Hey. - [sighs]
- Somebody woke up.
- Took your damn time.
- Somebody get him some brandy.
- Flying in.
Wait.
Where's the hedge bitch?
- Chop-chop.
They're going back up.
[laughs]
You should've told me your friend wasn't properly erased.
- I know.
- And you and Eliot never should've taken on
the hedge witches alone.
- I know.
- Quentin, do you really think that the magic that we teach
means that you just get to fly above right and wrong?
Magic does not solve problems.
- It magnifies them. I know that too.
Believe me.
I don't need to be taught what magic is or isn't.
I need to be taught magic
so that I can decide what it is or isn't...
for me.
- That was almost well put.
Good night, Quentin.
Oh, and Quentin...
I'm glad that you're still here with us.
- Me too, actually.
- [sighs]
Wow. [sighs]
Wow.
[laughing]
I kind of can't believe I ever thought I knew...
anything.
I'd like to share now
some of it with some of you.
- Ow!
[gasping]
Wait. Wait.
No. No.
- I didn't get you out of there
because you pulled one over on me.
You and Kady bitched out, but you'd talk.
She can't. [chuckles]
Oh, poor you and your taste of honey worse than none at all.
You think Brakebills cut you off from magic?
You don't know cut off.
But, baby...
[whooshing]
You will.