Folks here are like, you should be happy that Eliot has someone *clap* *clap* *clap* It’s cute! Look, I’m glad that Eliot is not completely alone and yes Charlton is cute.
But here’s a thought—why not demand they write gay characters with the same amount of relationship navigation and domesticity that every hetero pairing was given on this show. It’s a valid criticism to have.
Quentin and Alice; Penny and Jade; Penny and Julia; Margo and Josh; I’ll even throw in the forced marriage between El and Fen, because at least their wants and hard limits were given story space – all of these couples had seasons worth of active development and open discussion about their relationship. All this real estate to show domesticity and talk about having children ffs. Even this season’s major villain was the Couple who wanted to have babies.
Do we see this handling with any of the (living) glbt characters? Let’s survey:
Eliot’s is forced to kill Mike, forced to marry Fen, meets Idris who comes with a dead male lover, gets one episode to gain the beauty of life only for it to undergo a soft reboot (and slowly fade from memory per John M.), then gets possessed, followed by an epiphany of wanting a long-term relationship with Quentin–DOES HE GET IT? No. And no touching, speaking, or contact of any kind with Q either before he dies because (also John M.) that would be “unnatural”.
Enter S5, Eliot grieves and drives himself to drink, meets another gay with a dead lover, gets emotionally yanked around by said gay who is also the Dark King/Rupert, and hijacks El’s body as a vehicle for his dead love.
Then to change things up, we get the return of Marina and watch her lesbian dreams die on a fucking vine, as that relationship was over before it even began. We just met Anna and it was already a broken and dying relationship. And in that same episode, we have a ‘make-out as a cover’ trope literally handed to us only to watch Eliot kiss Kady and Alice—but no visible Kady and Alice makeout. Sorry Kalice fans. And for those that were hoping for some Fargo this season thanks to the Syfy twitter account, you were bamboozled too.
Now the finale… this had some surprise hooks to it, but none more so comical than Martin Chatwin catfishing as a gay man for the second time in this series. For real. And as expected, Rupert suffers for it, does not reunite with Lance, and has an ambiguous ending. Eliot, however, is very much miserable and separated from those he loves. Charlton is then custom-fitted to a body and thrown at Eliot as a literal last minute love interest.
Charlton is a lovely, charming little therapist, but this is not the m|m storyline Eliot deserved. The Magicians has reached several high notes as a series, but it does not have an equitable handling of gay relationships compared to the other couples on the show.
I have thoughts on other S5 storylines and characters, but I wanted to dedicate space to this topic.
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