The Small Fries

Let me start this by saying that I read The Magicians, the first book in a brilliant series by Lev Grossman, a long time ago. At the time, it was the only book in the series that had been released, and I remember the excruciating wait between each book. I waited for the release of each book in a way that physically pained me. Grossman’s writing is engrossing (yes, I do think I’m funny), and I was addicted. It is important that you understand all of this before I get started into my review, because it is impossible for me to review this without spoiling the majority of the first book (and some of the second).

SPOILER ALERT: Proceed with caution! 

Our first episode starts out with Dean Fogg and a woman, who I’ll call Park Bench Lady, talking about a mysterious person. Editing tells us that this mysterious person is probably our protagonist, Quentin Coldwater.

Fillory and Further

Quentin is a geeky introvert obsessed with a book series called Fillory and Further, focused on the Chatwin children and their journies in a magical land (much like Pevensie children in Narnia), and he is more than happy to skip a party to obsess over his books instead. He is friends with Julia and her boyfriend, James. In the book, the trio are set up as close friends, while the series seems to focus more on Quentin and Julia as best friends, and James has become more...well, a plot device.

I’m going to cut in here with one of my biggest complaints about the show. In the book series, Quentin is a consistent ass. He is an ass to a level that is typically reserved for antagonists. He is such an ass that readers argue online over whether or not the series is horrible or fantastic based on Quentin’s assery. Quentin Coldwater is an antihero to the nth degree. It is WHO HE IS. The series seems to want us to like Quentin. I believe it is important that it is usually hard to like Quentin until later in the series. Sigh. Back to the show.

Quentin and Julia taking their entrance exams

Julia accompanies Quentin to an interview for grad school. In the book, James is going with him to a Princeton undergrad interview. In both cases, the interviewer is dead when they arrive, and in the show, our Park Bench Lady shows up as a paramedic who just happens to find a manila envelope with the manuscript to a previously unpublished Fillory and Further novel. Quentin has heard rumors of this manuscript before on the internet. (If Quentin had a Tumblr, it would be Fillory fan fiction.)

Quentin and Julia part ways on their way out, and Quentin begins looking at pages from the manuscript. One of the pages gets caught by the wind, and Quentin ends up chasing it right through a portal. I hate when that happens. Luckily for Quentin, he ends up on the lawn of Brakebills University, and the brilliant Eliot Waugh is there to welcome him.

Welcome to Brakebills

Eliot, who is in his second year at Brakebills when we meet him in the books, guides Quentin to the exam he was unknowingly transported in to take. While taking the exam, Quentin encounters Penny, who is described as punk in the novel and I have no idea what he is supposed to be in the show, and soon figures out Julia is taking the exam as well. The exam itself is much like any important exam I’ve ever taken: the words seem to shift and change as the taker moves through the test. Literally.

Quentin moves on to the second round of the exam. He is commanded simply to perform some magic. He starts out a card trick, which he fumbles, and the examiners lose their patience. Frustrated with the demand and his own confusion, Quentin lashes out and some magic finally pours out of him, causing the cards to fly around the room and build themselves into a house of cards on the examiners’ table. Quentin is obviously accepted into Brakebills at this point.

Quentin showing off his card tricks

Julia, on the other hand, does not make it on to the second round. She is sent to an office of the man charged with erasing her memory of the afternoon’s events. Not wanting to forget, Julia discreetly cuts her arm and pulls her sleeve over it. It somehow doesn’t bleed through her shirt, so the poor sap that erases her memory has no idea that she has created a reminder for herself. She is sent home to become depressed over her rejection from Brakebills.

Quentin starts settling into life at Brakebills. He is roommates with Penny, who has the levitating sex that is seen in the trailer with a girl from class. Eliot introduces Quentin to his best friend, Margo. (Her name is Janet in the books.) They discuss the dangers of studying magic, and Margo advises Quentin to “stay on the garden path.”

From left: Julia, Margo, Eliot, Quentin, Alice, and Penny

We are introduced to the Chatwin children in this episode, though the series cuts the number of children from five down to three: Rupert, Martin, and Jane. Quentin has a dream after his conversation with Eliot and Margo that features a conversation between himself and Jane in Fillory. In the dream, Jane warns him that he will die if he “stays on the garden path.” He wakes up with a brand on the palm of his hand. The television series is setting Quentin up as some sort of “chosen one,” which is not so much of a thing in the books.

Julia, still depressed about Brakebills, goes to the internet for help. She probably wastes a lot of time down the rabbit hole of Tumblr. James gets worried and asks Quentin to come to her birthday party. This is different from the books, where Quentin and Julia do not have much contact during Quentin’s time at Brakebills, but it looks like they want to kick off Julia’s own story as soon as possible. (Readers aren’t informed about Julia’s journey during Quentin’s time at Brakebills until the second book, The Magician King.)

Julia using some of her magic

Quentin goes to Julia’s birthday party with Eliot and Margo, but it doesn’t go well. He has a conversation with Julia and essentially tells her she obviously wasn’t good enough to study at Brakebills. (Finally, Quentin is an ass!) He leaves the party. Julia meets a creeper in the bathroom that decides to introduce himself by first using his magic to suggest he is about to rape her. Not cool. The creeper offers to show her an alternative route to learning magic. I’m not sure why she is trusting this guy, but I guess it moves the plot along.

In this episode, we also meet Alice, a student at Brakebills that bypassed the test and is determined to find out what happened to her brother, who disappeared at the university some years prior. She shows off in class early in the episode, so when Quentin wakes up with the brand on his hand, he goes to her. Alice recognizes the symbol and recruits him for a spell that she wants to try. It seems that she wants to connect with her brother through a mirror, but even with the help of Penny and his lady Cady, they don’t see anything other than their own reflections in the glass. Thinking it is a bust, they leave. Breath fogs the glass and an invisible hand draws a nice little smiley face.

Alice and Quentin

In class the next day, time stops. Everyone seems frozen, but they’re awake. THE BEAST has arrived. In the books, his face is obscured by a branch, but in the show, it is moths. Dean Fogg arrives and attempts to stop The Beast, but The Beast doesn’t play around. He removes Fogg’s eyes and leaves them on Quentin’s desk, drawing a smiling mouth below them in blood. We hear The Beast say, “Quentin Coldwater, there you are.”

In the novel, Quentin being an ass during his THIRD YEAR causes this event, and The Beast does more than take a few eyes. He eats a student alive. A professor is casting a complex spell in class, and Quentin decides to mess with him by slightly shifting the podium. The slight hiccup in the spell allows for The Beast to force his way into our dimension. A student tries to cast a spell, and The Beast EATS HER ALIVE.

Watching The Magicians on Syfy made me feel like Julia when she returns home after her failure at Brakebills. Once you know the book series, it is impossible to UN-know it and settle for happiness with the television series.

Catch The Magicians on Syfy, Mondays 9/8c.

--Sarah