Spoilers for The Magicians season 4.
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| Margo (Summer Bishil) in season 4 |
I did not finish The Magicians. In fact, I would not have finished even season 4 if not for my drive to not abandon shows in the middle of a season. Season 4 really strained me, on the one hand because it showcases everything that frustrates me about the show and on the other hand - and probably more importantly - because it did not feature my favorite character much or at all.
Season 3 ends with a gang of misfit magic college students restoring magic to their - and all other - worlds. Even though they succeed, it all goes wrong anyway - as things are wont to do with them - and an unkillable god-monster takes possession of the body of my favorite character, Eliot (Hale Appleman).
Season 4 revolves mostly around finding a way to stop the god-monster, hopefully retrieving Eliot in the process, and getting magic evenly distributed again. Eliot being possessed by a god-monster tragically means we get nearly nothing from him and especially no interactions with the other characters. We do, however, get Hale Appleman giving a truly great performance as the god-monster and other characters saying and showing how important Eliot is to them.
One of these characters is Eliot’s best friend Margo (Summer Bishil). Their friendship is my uncontested favorite relationship in the show. When we first meet them, they are the breezy party people who take nothing seriously and live for life’s pleasures. As we get to know them better over the seasons and as they grow, they get depth and complexity and through it all remain each other’s most cherished person.
There is a time in season 4 where the characters falsely believe that Eliot is dead and the monster is just piloting his corpse. The fantasy world of not-Narnia where Eliot was king once and had a wife (long story) subsequently falls into a ritualistic grieving period and his wife, Fen, is inconsolable. Margo meanwhile is trying to stay on track, lead the kingdom and solve problems. She seems, for all intents and purposes, to ignore Eliot’s apparent death and coldly rebuffs Fen’s attempts to rope her into the grieving rituals. It gets to the point where Fen asks her why she isn’t crying, the clear implication being that that must mean Margo did not care about Eliot as much.
The scene that follows hit me like a gut punch. Margo stops in her tracks, turns around and says: “Fen, I’m only gonna say this once. Me joining your sad-face therapy party is dumb. Because I can’t cry out all the sadness ever. Because if I start, I’ll never stop, understand? I’ll be useless forever.”
Margo is generally presented as unaffected and nonchalant, which is why her admission here, that she grieves so deeply that if she let herself feel her grief, she’d never recover, is so devastating to me. Summer Bishil gives a fantastic performance, you can see her facade breaking and her emotions seeping through the cracks. I cried for her when I first watched this scene and it still gets me.
5 episodes later Margo is on a dangerous quest with the goal of getting Eliot back and Summer Bishil gives another incredible performance, digging deep into Margo as a character. If only for these scenes watching the season has been worth it.
Satori over and out
P.S. I could write a whole post about how Quentin's end was supremely unsatisfying, not only from a narrative standpoint but especially considering his character and what he represents but I don't want to be so negative on this blog so I won't.
