Lev Grossman’s trilogy TV adaptation is back for its second season and I, for one, cannot be happier.
The first season finale left fans hanging on by their fingernails as the team from Brakebills has their showdown with the Big Bad Martin Chatwin. He dispatches them quickly enough, even Alice, who has levelled up to Master Magician thanks to imbibing Umber’s “essence”.
We meet up with the team in the new season premiere with Quentin running through the forest shouting for help. He finds a Healer and heads back to the scene of the massacre, only to discover that Alice has already saved everyone, including herself – apparently having god powers makes one invincible.
Here we have the first of many reiterations in this episode that nothing is free. “Be careful of strangers. We only look whimsical.”
We discover that Julia has essentially kidnapped Martin Chatwin to use for her own mission of revenge against the trickster Reynard the Fox. This has not endured her to the rest of the team, who now have to find a way to track down Martin and kill him.
There’s also the small matter of being crowned High Kings and Queens of Fillory.
They are so focused on their mission that it takes Penny shouting at them about carrying his hands around in a box for any of the team to acknowledge what has happened to him. it’s understandable that he breaks off to go get fixed.
Back on earth, Julia and Martin begin to track down Reynard in a twisted version of any buddy cop show we’ve seen on TV. but there’s something more to it. Martin has a begrudging respect for Julia that grows from their mutual experiences of abuse and violation. He offers her the ultimate consolation – to remove her shade or emotional heart. It builds up to something so tense that you feel like encouraging Julia to agree to it. But she proves to be the stronger person, refusing his offer.
Back on Fillory, Elliot uses his surprising knowledge of Dirty Dancing to pass the final test to be crowned High King. he then crowns Margot and Alice as High Queens. Margot uses the opportunity to crown Quentin and wipe their slate clean from the murkiness they created in the previous season. It’s a sweet point in the story, but we are still giggling from Elliot’s Patrick Swayze impersonation.
Down at Chatwin’s Torrent, Penny got his hands healed but refused to tip the man who helped to sew his hands back on. In a fit of pettiness, the man does something to cause Penny’s hands to misfire when he casts. When Penny confronts him about it, the theme of the episode comes back – Nothing is free, everything has a cost. And there’s a little foreshadowing thrown in about Penny’s future.
While Elliot goes to collect his queen and settle into the palace (don’t think we didn’t notice that the show runners swopped out the actresses who play Fen, Elliot’s Fillory queen. Originally played by Laci J Mailey in Season 1, now by Brittany Curran for Season 2, Quentin and Alice have a heart to heart as Quentin tries to encourage Alice to embrace her newfound powers. She promptly grows and apple tree and they kiss. Presumably they’ve forgiven each other for last season’s indiscretions.
The team find the armoury empty with a clue that leads them back to Brakebills. Only Elliot, as High King, cannot return to earth. He consoles himself by choosing to rule and invent champagne for the people of Fillory.
The second season kicked off with a heady mix of exposition and plot building; the jokes and references were slick and understated but there.
I have many questions, but I’ve also read the books so most of the questions are about deviations in the plot. Let’s see if the show can keep up with the momentum its built and not flag halfway through the new season.
Aired on Wednesday 25 January 2017 on SyFy.
Buy Season 1 on DVD on Amazon here.
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