All four of our main first years contribute to the fight - Q materializes the watch that first pushes The Beast away, Kady and Alice both use spells to hurt him, and Penny destroys the mirror that he used to enter and leave.

Q tries to talk to Alice about the summoning spell, but Eliot and Margo find Q and Alice in the aftermath of the attack and are affectionate and coddling, cutting the conversation short. Margo takes Alice off to talk in her room, while Eliot and Quentin talk outside. Margo asks Alice about what happened and about her family; Alice does not tell her about the summoning. Margo tells Alice that she wants to be her friend; Alice does not believe her. Quentin does tell Eliot about the summoning, and he and Eliot also share their respective traumas of depression and telekinetic manslaughter.

So, a thought that I’m going to look at further: did Margo genuinely want to try to be friends with Alice but her manner and general personality combined with Alice’s own biases misled Alice into believing Margo’s actions were not sincere OR is Alice right that Margo does not actually want to be friends but is pretending to want to be for ulterior motives? Because Margo does invite Alice to join them and hang out in 1x01 too, and Alice dismisses that as insincere as well. However, if Margo was being sincere here, she might decide at a certain point that she doesn’t want to put up with having her motives constantly questioned, and so stops trying. I’m going to be watching future Margo-Alice scenes with a careful eye, I think, because it’s possible that Alice’s opinion is being colored by how incredibly selfish her parents are and she mistook a genuine attempt at friendship for something else.

Eliot is obviously, painfully, sincere and genuine with Quentin and Quentin, just as obviously, doesn’t doubt that Eliot’s intentions are good. This episode lays a very strong foundation for their future friendship (… and romance) by having Quentin confide readily in Eliot and Eliot deciding to share just as deeply so that he can have a real emotional connection with Quentin. And this kind of impulse in Eliot is, I think, what Martin takes advantage of when he’s possessing/controlling Mike later on this season. I’ll watch out for that when I get there.

Q and Alice then talk and he tells her about Fillory and that he thinks Fillory is real. The real Chatwins lived next to the author of the Fillory books, and Martin Chatwin went missing in real life and Jane disappeared the year after.

Ah-ha, yes. Penny confirms in his scene with Kady that he went to the lab because the voice that has been talking to him told him to — the voice that he now knows is the Beast. That voice taught him magic before he came to Brakebills. It talked to him all while he was growing up and he considered it his only friend. Ouch. Though, actually, that makes me wonder exactly how early in their lives the timeline loops over, if the Beast was already talking to Penny when he was a kid. Hmm.

Penny wants to leave Brakebills, Kady wants to convince him to stay. At this point, she does convince him to cover for her while she steals from the Physical Kids’ cottage, which… yeah, so Kady is definitely playing him at this point, since she’s actively using him now... which means that’s she’s doing the same thing to him right now that the Beast did to him all his life, tricking him into thinking she’s a source of support when she’s actually using him to advance her own agenda. …ouch again. She’s got some strong mitigating factors on her side but… still, ouch.

Sunderland confronts the group, she questions them individually, Penny throws Q under the bus regarding the spell, and both Kady and Alice let him do it. Eliot finds Q afterwards and tries to make him feel better. Q almost leaves a message on Julia’s voicemail apologizing to her for their conversation in 1x01 and asking her to remind him about magic when he forgets, but deletes it before he hangs up. Q then picks a fight with Penny, and he ends up getting punched and having his battle magic bounce back on him and throw him back several feet.

I had not recalled exactly how brutal the fallout was between Penny and Q in the aftermath of the summoning. And Q’s desperation in general was very apparent, kinda illustrating that if his and Julia’s positions had been reversed in this timeline, he probably would have been willing to go just as far as she was in trying to get magic back into his life.

Meanwhile, Julia meets the hedge witches and Marina (head witch) is pretending to be another beginner like Julia so that she can evaluate her. I mean, it takes up a lot of screentime and I enjoy the scenes but that’s… basically all that happens. We also find out in a scene with Pete and Marina that Kady is under Marina’s thumb, and that’s who she was stealing for.

Q steals the Emerson’s Alloy from Penny to keep his mind from being wiped, but Jane (calling herself “Eliza” to Quentin) is there and she, of course, has no plans to wipe his mind right now. Their conversation is very interesting. She’s evaluating him, testing him to see if she thinks this version of him is up to the task. She tells him not to overthink things, and I’m thinking about 3x05 — also, in 1x01, Julia told Q to “live his life”, which is used in 3x05 as well. “You’re late”, “don’t overthink things”, “live your life here”. I’m going to see if those pop up other places, too. Jane wants Q to think outside the box, to break out of what he might normally do, because she knows he’ll get involved — she’s not sure why it’s Quentin, but he’s inevitable. Jane does take the Emerson’s away from Q, so none of the main group have it now.

Jane talks to Fogg and he is not happy with how things are going. He tells her that she should be the one fixing things in Fillory and killing the Beast, not Penny and Quentin. We do end on a cheerful note, with Margo and Eliot happily welcoming Quentin back.

Magic: 1. Pete locks the door of the meat locker for Julia’s test with Marina. 2. Q “materializes” the watch from Dean Fogg’s hand into his own and uses it against the Beast to push him away. 3. Kady uses battle magic against the Beast. 4. The Beast knocks Kady’s head against a desk. 5. Alice uses a spell against the Beast that drives him back into the mirror. 6. Pete ‘wakes up’ the corpse in the meat locker to try to get Julia looking in the right direction. 7. Magic-sensing map that Sunderland uses. 8. Julia creates the temporary warming spell in the meat locker. 9. Quentin uses battle magic against Penny, but Penny has the Emerson’s Alloy that Kady stole from the Physical Kids’ cottage, so it bounces back on Quentin. 10. Healing magic for Q’s arm in the infirmary. 11. Healing magic is being used on Dean Fogg’s injuries. 12. Eliot uses magic to increase the fire in the BBQ.

Relationships: Dean Fogg & Jane Chatwin: slightly shaky allies Quentin & Julia: estranged friends Julia & James: established relationship -> becoming estranged Quentin & James: estranged friends Quentin & Eliot: friends & confidantes Quentin & Penny: antagonistic & hostile Eliot & Margo: best friends Margo & Quentin: friendship Quentin & Alice: temporary allies Penny & Kady: romantic & sexual relationship Kady->Penny: manipulative relationship Margo & Alice: potentially aborted friendship Penny & the Beast|Martin: manipulative mentorship -> betrayal Marina & Pete -> Julia: manipulative mentorship Marina -> Kady: blackmail/extortion Eliot & Alice: No interaction; Eliot was focused completely on Quentin in the aftermath of the attack Quentin->Kady: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Kady->Alice & Quentin: “losers" Alice->Kady & Penny: temporary allies Penny->Alice: seems okay with her Jane&Fogg->Quentin&co: manipulative mentorship

Physical contact: The Beast covered Q’s mouth with his hand during the attack (to suffocate him, looks like) and left blood on his face. Right before that, he also touches Q’s cheek (somewhat similarly to how Pete touches Julia in 1x01, actually). Penny holds Kady after the Beast attacks her. Eliot puts his arm around Q’s shoulders; Margo puts her arm around Alice’s shoulders and holds her hand. When they get to the Physical Kids’ cottage, Margo takes Alice by the arm and leads her off. Kady grabs Penny by the wrist while she’s trying to talk him out of leaving. I also think she touches his stomach, but it’s below the camera. Eliot and Margo snuggle on the couch in the Physical Kids' cottage. Penny touches a random Physical Kid student while distracting him from Kady stealing things from the cottage. Kady grabs Penny by the arm again after she steals from the cottage and they’re outside. She grabs his chin to get him to look her in the eye. Penny takes Kady by the hand after he leaves Sunderland’s office. Quentin pushes Penny, Penny pushes him back and punches him, then holds him down with his arm behind his back. Sunderland pushes Penny back slightly to keep him from approaching Quentin again. Marina puts her arm around Julia’s shoulder after the test is done. Jane rests a hand on Fogg’s knee as he’s in the hospital bed.

Character Notes: Alice Quinn: unaware of Fillory, never read the books and did not know the main character’s name. Not a fan of fantasy books in general. Marina: level 50 hedge witch; self-proclaimed ‘top witch in New York’.

Students: No new info.

Timeline Notes: Picks up in the aftermath of the Beast attack. We find out that it’s a Monday (classes are cancelled ‘tomorrow’ but pick up again ‘Wednesday’). The last scene of the episode is the next day (Tuesday).