The season 4 premiere of The Magicians did an excellent job of setting up the major story arcs of the season, but falls short of being a great episode. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it, I absolutely did. However, being the season premiere I expected a bit more oomph, when looking back at some of the shows best episodes, I’m not sure I’d count this as one of them. And again, just because I’m sure I’ll get flack for this, I’m not saying it was a bad episode at all, I was just hoping for a bit more from a season opener.

The episode picks up some time after the Season 3 finale, exactly how long, I’m not sure, but we’re shown most of the gang in their new lives. Kady is a cop, Penny is a DJ, Margo is a fashion writer, and Josh is. . . something. With the exception perhaps of Kady and Margo, so little time was spent exploring the group in their new identities, it seems as though at least for these four, and maybe Quentin, their cover identities aren’t important.

Then there’s Julia, who as Kimber D’Antoni, has been invited to test for entry at Brakebills. This sets up several questions. . . more on these later. And last, but certainly not least, is Quentin. At the end of Season 3, The Monster approached Quentin and asked him to come play, when we see Quentin again, he and the monster look like they’ve been playing for a while (and by playing, I mean the monster has been murdering people while all Quentin can do is watch). I haven’t forgotten Alice, but unlike the others, she hasn’t been wiped. She’s in “jail” at the Library for breaking her deal.

I don’t want to recap the whole episode, because if you’re here reading this, hopefully, you’ve already seen it. . . and you know that Kady discovered Hedge Witches, found a book that she was a character in and proceeded to gather everyone else from the book that she could find together and that when they talk about their fake identities shit starts breaking around them until they stop. . . oh, and Santa Claus is in the cell next to Alice. . . and a hologram of Umber is in contact with Margo, but she has no idea who he is.

That about covers everything right? So, lets get into the questions. Does Fogg know that Julia is really Kimber? I couldn’t tell, on the one hand he’s doing things that make it seem like he does. Why did she get invited to Brakebills in the first place? It certainly seemed like he saw who she was in the globe and when he talked to her later. He cast the spell, so shouldn’t he know who they are? Unless the spell found a random book and used it to create their new identities. Speaking of the book, did you guys catch the name of the author?

James Tiberius R Martin is a fairly easy reference for most nerds, the other name however, Francesco Tomm has me stumped.

The only link I could find is to an artist named Tomm Coker who worked on an Image book called The Black Monday Murders. . . and the only connection I could really find is that it’s a supernatural noir style book. So, if anyone has any other ideas, please let me know.

Margo is now stuck in Fillory without knowing anything about her previous life there.

Further complicating matters is Margo now being stuck in Fillory and having absolutely no idea where she is or what dangers she could run into. I’m going to assume that she’s going to run into someone there who’s going to help her regain her memory, the Fairies? Maybe Fen? Fen was missing from the episode and after everyone got rebooted at the end of Season 3 . . . she was left out, we don’t really know where she is right now.

So, anyway, as I was saying, the episode overall, was good, I had just been hoping for a little more. I would have liked to have seen more of the others in their alternate lives, maybe that will come later, but now that they know something isn’t right, it won’t be the same. I’ve enjoyed Neil Grayston since Eureka, so not getting to see him play around in The Magicians playground was disappointing. Along the same lines, I think it would have been fun to see all of them acting as these different people at least for a little while longer.

THE MAGICIANS — Pictured: (l-r) Trevo Einhorn as Josh Hoberman, Arjun Gupta as Penny Adiyodi, Jade Tailor as Kady Orloff-Diaz — (Photo by: Eric Milner/SYFY)

All of that being said, I have faith that Sera Gamble, John McNamara and the writers know what they’re doing and that we’re in for another solid season. What did you guys think? Hit us up on the Twitter and lets us know!

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