Synopsis: Quentin and Julia’s encounter with a dragon leads them to the underworld to find Julia’s shade. Penny continues working at the Library of the Neitherlands, while trying to find a way into the poison room.
So here’s the skinny:
- Julia and Quentin find a dragon who sends them to the underworld. In the underworld, they find Julia’s shade and Quentin comes across Alice’s shade. Julia brings Alice’s shade back with them instead of her own.
- Most of Fillory’s royal court and council turns into rats. While Eliot and Margo brainstorm a solution with the remaining humans of the council, Eliot’s truth serum forces Margo to admit that everything has been her fault. Eliot sends her to the dungeon, but a member of the council gives her an elixir that sends her to the fairy realm.
- Penny tries to ascertain the head librarian’s name, so he can use the book of her life to uncover a way into the poison room. He figures out her name, but her book has been moved to the poison room. His younger supervisor at the library offers to help him break into the poison room.
- The senator, Reynard’s son, comes to Kady pledging his allegiance to the pursuit of Reynard’s death.
In an alleyway, Julia and Quentin find a manhole with ancient greek on it. Quentin admits that he still has one of his own and before he can say anything else, Julia does an extraction spell that knocks it out. Ouch! They drop his tooth into the manhole and the cover bursts off. They traipse through the sewer below with flashlights.
A dragon’s voice startles them from the darkness. A talking dragon with a smooth, regal, classy voice and sense of pride to complement it. I’m sold. It’s just as notable that the marvelous dragon is female instead of male, which dragons tend to be so often in popular media. The dragon requests a gift and Quentin offers the button, against Julia’s considerate protest.
The dragon puts the awe in awesome, especially for a primetime tv series. She gives them a riddle: “The first door remains open.” He leaves the button for the dragon. She tells them that their bodies will remain while their souls visit the underworld. Julia asks what will happen if they fail to return to the portal within 24 hours. The dragon jokes that she’ll stay waiting and then says of course she’s going to eat them, because she’s a freaking dragon. She sends them off to the underworld and scoffs “millennials” as soon as they leave. Funny that even primordial beings such as dragons despise millennials.
Quentin and Julia take an elevator that brings them to what looks like an warehouse that has been styled with living room furniture. A bell hop welcomes them to the underworld and asks them politely to take a number.
Fen’s location is still unknown, but that doesn’t stop Eliot from welcoming the Lorian king into his throne-room.
Quentin and Julia consider unveiling Julia’s soulless condition, but decide against it when they see another shadeless individual escorted away by underworld guards.
As Penny is practicing sphincter magic, the head librarian interrupts him to direct him to shelving books and to introduce him to his supervisor, Sylvia. It looks like Penny’s met his match in the sorcery that is cynicism.
Eliot converses with his soon to be husband over his reluctance to marry Fen initially. The king blindfolds him and begins seducing him. Eliot waits, but when nothing happens, he lifts his blind and sees a rat crawling out of the absent king’s robes.
We see the senator again, this time speaking with his political cabinet, which includes Reynard. The rest of the officials leave to let Reynard convince his son to take advantage of his demigod abilities in the political setting.
Julia reunites with her old friends from the failed Lady underground summoning in the underworld’s version of a bowling alley. Fun fact: Quentin’s got a laughable grudge against bowling alleys. His fingers got stuck in a bowling ball when he was young, so he’s resistant to bowling, but they convince him to anyway. He scores a strike. It’s impossible to do otherwise the first week in the underworld since they’re all strikes, but we’ll let him have this one.
The fairies’ emissary appears before Margo. She accuses him of the mass rat transformations in the castle, but the fairies are innocent. He tells her that this was all caused by a supernatural power that wreaks havoc just because it can. Not sure what that means…
Penny flirts with the head librarian, I haven’t even seen him flirt this strongly with Kady, the girl he’s confessed love for. His romance fails, he’s not her type. Quentin and Julia take advantage of Richard’s distraction to sneak into the underworld office and discover that the shades are located in Elysium.
Quentin and Julia sneak around Elysium and find a home full of shades, all young children. One of them leads them to Persephone’s room where Julia’s shade has been sneaking into exceedingly lately.
Eliot sits with the remainder of his council. Eliot reasons that the culprit must be someone in the room, so he tricked everyone with truth serum in wine. A council member has been using the castle guards to run an escort service. Margo reluctantly confesses that this was all her fault. She reveals that she made a deal with the fairies and knows where Fen is.
Penny goes to the break room to find the head librarian’s lunch bag with her name on it. He can’t find it, but when Sylvia corners him and sees what he’s trying to find, she gladly hands over a bag with the head librarian’s name. It’s Zelda. Penny compares her to Willow from The Sopranos. I never pegged Penny for a Soprano’s fan, or a fan of anything for that matter. Sylvia corrects him on the name drop, it’s Meadow.
Margo defends her deal. It irritates him to clean all her messes while fearing another one to follow it and tells the guards to take her to the dungeon. But Eliot’s not all bad, he insists that the guards ensure Margo’s coconut oil gets to her.
Quentin hears voices from behind a door and investigates. Quentin finds Julia’s shade and Julia finds Alice’s. Quentin doesn’t balk for a second and buries her in conversation instead.
Reynard meets with his son and the senator questions his wife’s love for him considering the power he has been unintentionally wielding over her their whole relationship. Reynard vents about Persephone, he loved her. Who knew the monster could love.
Eliot turns him back into a human, Josh suggests he get delegates through an election and Eliot commends Josh for creating democracy that will save Fillory. When he tries to give Josh a high five, it whirls him back to the physical house at Brakebills.
Sylvia crashes the party in Kady’s head. She hitched a ride in Penny’s mind when he jumped into Kady’s mind. Sylvia says she’s been trying to get into the poison room and offers her help to get them in as well. She highlights her and Penny’s shared hate for everything.
The senator comes to Kady and pledges his aid to defeat Reynard.
One of the council visits Margo in the dungeon and gives her a vial to teleport her to the fairy realm. She disappears after drinking the elixir.
Quentin realizes that the reason his spell was never able to bring Alice back is because her shade was in the underworld the whole time. Quentin reluctantly leaves her behind. A portal through Persephone’s closet brings them back to the elevator out of the underworld. Julia brings Alice’s shade along instead of her own. Whoa! What’s she planning? Is she going to put Alice’s shade into her or bring Alice back to life and give her her shade?
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