Originally I had planned on writing about the final episode of season 4 but I feel so strongly that one cannot understand the gravity of what happens at the end of season 4 without first witnessing a whole life in a single episode. Midway through season 3 of The Magicians our heroes are on a traditional “Epic Quest” bestowed by a questing beast in an attempt to bring magic back to Earth and to the magical Narnia inspired land of Fillory. Their goal to find seven magic keys has led two of them, Eliot and Quentin, to an earlier timeline of Fillory where they have to solve a mosaic puzzle by depicting the true beauty of life.
Eliot and Quentin have a bit of a history. In the first season Eliot teases his affections for Quentin in pithy comments about how cute and hopeless he is. Closer to the end of the season while drunk on emotion potions (fun phrase). Quentin and Eliot end up in a threesome with their friend Margo. This absolutely destroys Quentin’s budding relationship with the cold and very talented magician Alice. So Eliot likes Quentin and they get along and they’ve slept together. Most other shows would leave it at that and bury the queer feelings as the books (written by Lev Grossman) do. The Magicians is not most shows.
In Season 3 Quentin and Eliot are tasked with arranging the tiles of this magic mosaic. Quentin does the math and there are near endless possibilities to try so they begin work. They argue about placement, laugh and tease, hold each other together through frustration. An entire year passes and the two are no nearer to a solution but they begin to grow closer. They share a kiss and it is presumed much more. Time continues forward in montage. They both hit it off with a pair passing fruit sellers and enjoy their fair share of “peaches and plums”.
We are shown their lives at breakneck speed. Quentin marries and has a son with the woman who sold fruit. Eliot lives with them and the four make a life in a small cottage next to the mosaic. Tragedy strikes and Quentin’s wife dies but Eliot is there to help pick up the pieces and raise their son. Quentin and Eliot, now past middle age, send their adult son to make his own life while they stay together, working on the mosaic.
Finally we see them both as old men. The fantasy world has turned them into bearded hermits, still teasing each other as they continue to work at the mosaic. When Quentin calls to Eliot and hears no response he sees that he has died. With the same tireless work ethic of trying to solve their lifelong puzzle, Quentin prepares Eliot’s body and with a strike of his spade to bury his lifelong love he discovers a golden tile that had been buried. When placed in the center of the mosaic the magic key that they had been searching for appears.
The best part about this episode is that we are shown all of this and we are never told why the key is obtained this way. The audience is left to make their own conclusions about the beauty of life. Is the beauty of life that it ends? Is it true love and companionship? That’s the magic of Fillory and The Magicians at work.
Lucky for us The Magicians usually has a clever way of unkilling their main characters. Whether it be a trip to the clock barrens and a conversation with The Watcher Woman or a quick trip to the underworld for some soul recovering shenanigans we always see our heroes again, in some capacity, albeit often quite changed. Quentin and Eliot return to their original ages and continue to search for the other keys but not before sharing some peaches and plums and remembering the whole life they shared.
So where does this fit into the finale of Season 4? Well if you’ve seen it you undoubtedly know that magic comes from pain and you will feel pain whether you love or hate what happens. You’ll see the lengths that someone will go to save the person that they love even if they can’t or don’t have the time to deal with their feelings. The Magicians is a pansexual fever dream that I often describe as Harry Potter in Grad School meets Game of Thrones and if you haven’t yet you should give it a shot.
Alex Vigue is a queer writer from Vancouver, WA. He has a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Western Washington University and has been recently published in Peach Mag, Chronotope, and Homology Lit. His debut chapbook “The Myth of Man” was published by Floating Bridge Press. He is the co-host of Literary Merit, a queer podcast about celebrating guilty pleasures in media.