Synopsis of 3×03: The exorcism of Quentin Coldwater, as told by The Magicians Season 3 Episode 3. Alongside Alice’s family battle against the Lamprey, Kady and Julia seek help for Penny.
So here’s the skinny:
- After pirates attack the Muntjac, Eliot escapes with his family. They disappear for the rest of the episode. Margo comes to the rescue a little too late with the Fairy Queen and tries to sway the Muntjac into nonconsensual boat sex with the pirates’ boat. The Fairy Queen kills all of the pirates once she sees Margo step up to the plate.
- Alice quarantines herself, her parents, and Quentin in her family’s home to defend against the Lamprey. After possessing and leaving Quentin, it slithers around the home until it gets a chance to possess Alice’s father. She shocks the Lamprey, killing it, and causing her father’s death shortly after.
- Kady and Julia work together to summon a demon to save Penny. The demon Asteroth, not to be confused with the more powerful Astaroth, performs a surgical procedure on Penny that fails to save him. Penny dies while astral projecting, so now he’s stuck that way.
Was there always a keyhole right there?
While on the Muntjac, Eliot and family encounter a thieving band of pirates. They escape through the hull with the illusion key, the first of the seven keys. Far too convenient, but we’ll let it slide this time.
Homecoming.
Alice returns home to her parents. After a bitter reunion with Stephanie, her mother, and an overbearing one from Daniel, her father, she duct tapes their family friend to a chair. The Lamprey has made this girl paranoid! Her cat alarm sounded, so she assumed Carol was the Lamprey’s vessel.
While her mother was shocked to intrude on such a scene, her father was on his hands and knees helping. His research suggested that electricity weakens Lampreys and ejects them from their hosts. So, they shock Carol.
Quentin shows up. Just in case you had forgotten, the last we saw him he fought a Lamprey and lost. So, he became the unwilling host. Daniel notices Quentin’s neck move oddly as Alice and her mother squabble. When he points it out to the others, Quentin disappears. So now, the game begins!
Pegasi smell like horse and bird sex.
After some convincing, the Fairy Queen speedily flies Margo and Tick to the Muntjac. Once she leaves, Tick implies that he can pickpocket Margo’s eye off of the Fairy Queen. To which Margo agrees. The pirates lead her to their king.
A possessed cop with a gun is a bad thing.
With the Lamprey using Quentin to play hide and seek, Alice covers all of the windows and exits. Her mother suggests that they call the cops and let the cops take him away. Alice points out that the Lamprey would just jump bodies and possess a cop instead. The last thing any situation needs is a possessed cop with a gun. With the electric rod’s battery dead, Alice takes a trip to the garage for a car battery.
In the garage, she runs into Quentin. She almost bashes his head in with a tire iron. The Lamprey left his body, but why?
Demons like chocolate…
Or rather, it makes them less likely to eat humans. Kady and Julia prepare a ritual to summon a demon in hopes of saving Penny’s life. He’s really light on Kady and atypically forgiving, especially considering he contracted his condition trying to help her.
Ships can get PTSD too.
So, remember when we found out the Muntjac is technically a living magical creature? Well, the pirates have a living magical boat too, a horny one. The pirates’ boat wants to have sex with the Muntjac and won’t let the pirates leave until it does.
Pirates are dirty, in a Johnny Depp sort of way.
Margo has a heart to heart with the Muntjac and asks it to lay with the other boat, although it can’t talk. Luckily for everyone involved, the Fairy Queen kills all of the pirates. Such a shame. The pirate king was a confident woman just trying to get hers. To keep the Fairy Queen from spying on her, Margo crushes her own eye that the Fairy Queen had originally taken.
What are we going to do without magic? Get jobs?
Alice finally admits why the Lamprey is after her. As a Niffin, she tortured the vengeful creature’s family to death for a “trivial pursuit” of knowledge. Stephanie wanders off to the bathroom without a word to say, for once.
In her vulnerable state, Stephanie unloads her baggage on Quentin, then forces herself onto him as he consoles her. He tries to wiggle away, but this is Quentin so let’s remember he lacks physical strength. Alice catches her mother on top of him. Daniel accuses Stephanie of being the Lamprey, so Alice drops her with an electrical shock from the shock stick. No creature comes out.
Alice tells everyone that the Lamprey had no intentions of killing them, but has instead planned to lay eggs in their brains. Quentin shocks himself to prove he’s not the Lamprey. Alice realizes that the Lamprey is in her father. The Lamprey claims that her father has a bad heart and would die with a shock. Unsure of its honesty, she shocks him and kills the Lamprey. Daniel survives… at first.
How to save a life.
Kady and Julia commence the summoning ritual and conjure up Asteroth. Not Astaroth, but his cousin, whose name is comically similar. He can extract Penny’s cancer through a painful surgery. Once he starts, the unbearable pain causes Penny to project in astral form.
And he died anyway.
Alice and Quentin touch base about their reunion after her return from “Niffin” form. She’s no longer the same girl she once was, but she senses how much Quentin only wants her old self. During their talk, Daniel dies from the shock he received earlier.
Meanwhile, Asteroth finishes the surgical procedure, but it was too late. Penny dies anyway. Yet, he remains in astral projection form, so where do we go from here?
Not a bad episode, “The Losses of Magic” delivers what you’d expect from The Magicians: light drama, pop culture references, and a few twists to tide you over until the next episode. There’s also some big plot developments, like two deaths and Margo’s standing up to the Fairy Queen. What did you think of this episode? Let us know, we’d love to hear it and respond.
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