Our introduction to the episode is Quentin and the sociopathic god traipsing around, the theme of lost identities is something that’s been quite intriguing within this series so far. As one of the prominent themes knitted into this series, it’s slowly revealed to infect all involved. Our sociopath reveals he doesn’t know who he is. Or at least parts of him are gone, have been taken. He’s hunting down the other gods who did this to him, who each took a part of him.
This episode’s first scene raised some interesting thoughts when we see NotEliot ask Quentin to fetch a wild piglet, as a part of a ritual to summon a god. When asked to kill it in order to make a sacrifice to summon the god, he refuses. Having seen enough and been asked to do enough he finally reaches breaking point. Asking NotEliot to kill him instead, finally. This request is refused and after a quick bout of torture, Quentin backs off and agrees to kill the poor piglet.. Not too surprisingly, dying is something somewhat easily to accept, be it quick and relatively painless, having your limbs broken one by one on the other hand.. Commenting on how easy it can be to ‘die’ for a cause, but to live and suffer for one is a different story.
Marina, through some guesswork and logic figures out that Penny is.. well Penny. Which clues her in to the identities of the rest of the group.
Point of interest, there’s been some build up to the possibility of in some timeline, Fogg being a father-figure, adoptive parent, something paternal to Marina. The first we hear about it is in the beginning of the episode, she follows the sentence with an immediate jesting deflection.
Fogg: “What timeline are you from?”
Marina: “The one where you owe me child support. I’m kidding,”
She curses Fogg to the same fate that he condemned Alice, Quentin, Kady, Penny, Josh and Margo. Later on, when she comes across him in his new form, a confused Fogg utters: “Marina..?” To which she responds.. “Hi, Dad..”
Alive finds a way to access magic whilst captive, and uses it to her advantage, figuring out her escape plan.
We then follow Julia [or Kim*] after her conversation with Fogg. She realizes that even when magic has reached its limit, and its cut off, the spell that’s on her and the others holds strong. Meaning that there must be a self-contained perpetual source that’s cultivating the energy needed for the continual glamour. Her and Todd find Fogg’s perpetual energy, we can very confidently interpret this as cultural commentary on sustainable energy.. Julia, recognising that it’s highly likely that the orb could be overloaded, if this happened and it shorted out, that would result in the spell/glamour being nullified and reversed. For glorious entertainment purposes, the way in which this can occur, comes from repeated attempts to come into contact with it:
Meanwhile in Fillory, Margo, acting High-King and their magistrate find a familiar face impersonating a certain demi-god..
Now that Quentin is Quentin again, he and NotEliot delve deeper. Asking about the God they had tried to summon,
NotEliot responds: “Oh we’ll get him, and I’ll get back what he took from me. And then the others. They all took.”
Q: Took what, exactly?
NE: See, that’s what I don’t really know. They took this part of me, that.. knew things.
This intense declaration of a massacre is juxtaposed pretty perfectly, with the two sitting side by side twirling daisies, talking about friendships, both covered in dried blood with a dead body in the out-of-focus foreground.. Leaving us with quite an interesting conclusion this weeks installment..
