An Alternative Season 4 Finale for The Magicians
The finale of season 4 left me very confused for a lot of reasons, and I’ve been trying to collate ideas about how I would edit it for a while. Only, it’s so disconnected from most of the season thematically and character-arc-wise that most of it has to get thrown out, not just rearranged or edited, and things have to be fully rewritten. So I’ve taken a lot of ideas from speculation that some of us were talking about prior to the finale to fill those gaps (some spec sources: Charlton Hypothesis, Pandora Eliot , Q x Monster Parallels, Q won’t die).
After chatting with @s-cornelius last night I think I finally got something I think would work to knit together all the plot threads that were unceremoniously chopped off just so that Q would end up dying in a permanent way. This is not necessarily the best way this story could be told, or the only good way of finishing this story, but it’s one that makes sense to me.
(Also I have no plans to write it up as prose/fic or anything, this was just an exercise in story structure that at some points has dialogue/details where it seemed relevant.)
cw: major character death, depression, violence, optimistic endings
Stuff prior to 4.13 that changes:
No weird cryptic message from Penny 40 about things leaving when Quentin says to.
Alice, Kady, and Harriet are shown reaching out to magicians and hedges. Mostly this is important for Alice, who is calling people from Fogg’s records and reaching out to magicians through her family (mom, aunt, etc?)
In 4.12, Q and Alice don’t kiss; their conversation goes the exact same though. It’s not about finding the love they lost, it’s about finding the trust and the friendship that the love was based on. --Not that I don’t think that the love triangle/choices thing could work, and I’d be all for watching Quentin and Alice make the wrong choice and learn the hard way, I’m just really pissed that the show used it purely for trauma over Q’s death so I’m nixing this out of SPITE.
The rest of 4.12 goes the same, more or less. Plover gets locked up in the dungeon in Whitespire. The Monsters also don’t find the key scroll to open the door to the realm of the gods, since that didn’t end up mattering anyway and was pretty boring. So they don’t find it and it just makes the Sister angry. (And/or maybe Everett has it.)
Margo stays with Josh, tells Penny she trusts them to bring back Eliot. --This isn’t actually a change but I know it’s not everyone’s favorite plot point; I think it’s interesting for her character growth.
Scene 1: The Library
Monster!Julia faces Fogg, hears Quentin and Alice--this part is the same, up to when Penny stabs her with the ax. Only, it doesn’t do shit.
She is a God, in an immortal body. Those axes were for magical spirits, not gods.
Monster!Julia brings up a hand about to murder them all (including Fogg, perhaps she’s thrown them all into his cell with him) with a flick of her wrist when Monster!Eliot shows up. And these are his friends--sort of. These are part of why he likes it here, along with Starbucks and cheesy puffs. They’ve been helping him this whole time, even when they don’t get along, and he thought his sister would be anything like that, and she isn’t! So he saves them. He distracts her for long enough that he can teleport them away.
He’s not actually ready to face his sister yet.
Scene 2: Kady and Zelda Get Chemo
Kady meets Zelda for some magical chemotherapy after talking to Penny 23. They argue about Everett. Zelda wants to believe in him, still, after everything. It would fix the Monster problem, too.
Scene 3: The Secret Sea, Fillory
Fogg, Josh, and Fen stand in front of an empty sea. Fogg and Josh were going to power up to help, and bring back more magic-water for everyone.
Scene 4: Julia’s Happy Place
Meanwhile, we see Julia find a door in a memory and fight her way out. She’s more used to accessing god powers, she knows the shape of them, so she uses the Monster’s Sister’s powers to teleport herself.
Scene 5: Physical Kids Cottage
Alice, Penny, Margo, and Quentin are arguing about whether or not they can trust the Monster and what they should even do next if the axes don’t work while the Monster lounges around on the couch, kinda bored.
Alice gets a call from Kady “Sorry, we’re kind of in the middle of something--yeah, do it without me. The plan will work. You have everything you need, just let me know and we’ll help.
Quentin is actually really quiet too. Both of his best friends are possessed and they have no way to help either one of them. He’s watching the Monster.
“Why are you all the sudden on our side?” The Monster shrugs. “We’re friends.” Quentin shakes his head. “We’re not friends. Eliot is our friend. You’re still holding him hostage.” The Monster shrugs, “So I’ll give him back. But--I don’t know how to leave without killing him. Sor~ry.”
Suddenly, Julia shows up in the middle of the apartment and summons the Binder. Everyone is too stunned to do much but watch, and they don’t realize it’s Julia at first.
Julia tells the Binder: "You can turn us both human right?” And he starts expositioning, and she says “Yes or no?” “The Binder can do it.” “So do it. NOW.”
She looks at the others and says, “I don’t know how much longer I can hold her but this will make us vulnerable. The axes should work.”
As the Binder finishes, the Monster’s sister regains control of Julia’s body. She looks at the Monster, says, “Brother, what are you doing here?”
He flinches away from her. “I like it here!” She walks towards him, and Margo sinks her axes into Julia.
Alice and Quentin do the spell to hold her in the bottle and run out of magic, same as before. It won’t hold her forever.
Julia suffers mortal injuries, because she chose humanity, and it was HER CHOICE but it has consequences. But it saves her friends.
Penny teleports her to the infirmary and the rest of them follow.
Scene 6: Hedge Terrorism -- Kady’s Apartment
Kady, Lovelady!Pete, and Dean Fogg are putting the last pieces of Alice and Kady’s plan to bust the magic pipeline into place. They’re going to use cooperative magic to do it. Alice, with her mom’s help has gotten a bunch of magicians in on the plan, and Fogg is calling Brakebills alumni.
Fogg is here to remind them that they need to do this NOW so that they have a backup because Alice and Quentin were leaking magic by the minute and if it takes them too long to seal the Monsters, with no more secret sea to rejuice themselves they will fail. This is the backup plan.
Kady also has a secondary searching spell running through Alice’s map book, looking for something. (Fogg asks her what, she dismisses it as unimportant.)
Scene 7: Brakebills Infirmary
Julia is dead.
Margo refuses to do that to Eliot--the Monster is marginally on their side, and not as strong as his sister and she won’t risk Eliot’s life.
But since he's on their side now, Alice has an idea. If he's amenable, she can try to recreate the prism spell from 4.10, because it split her into different aspects of herself. It should split Eliot along the most obvious aspects--the actual, different people in his head.
She isn't sure it would work, but The Monster is actually really interested in this idea, because his head is a mess, and it hurts no matter how much alcohol or drugs or cheesy puffs he consumes, and he still can’t remember anything, but it hurts and it’s not actually his. If he had his own body, if it was just him in his head, maybe it would clear things up.
Quentin is in full breakdown. This is part of why Alice is willing to try anything. Penny is grieving, Margo is angry, Alice is trying to work things out. Quentin is just, gone. He’s sitting in a chair next to Julia’s bed, and he’s staring into nothing. His best friend just died, right in front of him. Two of the most important people to him have been god-powered monsters for the past few days. He’s not okay, and he isn’t reacting correctly to anything, but this is all just. Too much. Fillory is real but it doesn’t mean anything. This is real but it doesn’t feel real.
Scene 8: Brakebills Lab
Alice scribbles out a few notes and then sets up the prism & mirrors contraption to do the spell. She makes Margo and Quentin wait outside. She looks really worried at Quentin.
Margo confronts Quentin. “Okay we need to talk about this. Listen. I know this is a hard thing, But we’re not done yet, and we need you. Quentin, I can’t do this alone. Eliot is not okay yet, and I can’t lose you too. Quentin, look at me. I need you here. Eliot needs you here.” That finally gets through to him. He looks at her. “I can’t.”
“You don’t have a choice.” He stands up. “It doesn’t matter. I thought we could save Eliot by finding the organs, and that didn’t work. It just ended up getting Julia possessed, and now she’s dead, and it’s my fault. And then we thought the axes would work. Only they didn’t, and that’s part of the reason that she’s dead, too. We did this, Margo. You and me. And now we’re leaving that monster in a room with Alice. With another stupid idea, just hoping that nothing will go wrong this time. But something always goes wrong, and it doesn’t matter. It’s all bullshit. I can’t get Eliot back. I’ll never get Julia back. They’re gone Margo. And I can’t do anything about it.”
“Can’t? Or won’t. You’re hurting, I get that--” “I’m not hurting, Margo, I’m broken. Haven’t you heard?” “No. I did hear. You’ve been tortured by Eliot’s evil stunt double for weeks and you haven’t been sleeping or eating. Of course you feel like shit.”
And then there is screaming and the doors fly open and hundreds of horrifying monsters stream out of them.
[This is totally a commercial break moment js]
When that stops Margo and Quentin look into the lab where Alice is holding off a pair of the scary creatures from advancing on Eliot or the other prone figure on the floor.
Margo runs at them with her axes. This gives Alice time to get off a more powerful spell that sends one of them running. She tries to do it again but she’s used up all the ambient magic.
Quentin is on the floor next to Eliot before he realizes he’s moved. He’s hesitant to touch, not sure if it’s Eliot or the monster, not sure if he’s still alive. He takes a deep breath and checks. There’s a pulse. The other person on the floor sits up slowly and says, “Wow, my headache finally went away. Everything else hurts though. Fuck.”
Margo brandishing her axes (though she drops one of them) and Alice wielding a chair that she picked up chase off the remaining creatures. “Where the FUCK did those come from?” Margo asks. “I don’t know. They were in… I don’t know.”
Charlton stands up and says, “They were in my head. I’m sorry, I kind of know you, but I don’t think you know me. I’m Charlton.” Alice squints at him. “You’re the monster. You were at Blackspire.” “Yes, that was me. Part of me, at least. Living stone has some terrible side effects.”
Margo joins Q on the floor by Eliot. She uses the same speech about lights and grandma from the forest in 4.13. He wakes up, but he’s still in bad shape. “Oh! Eliot!” Charlton says, clearly happy to see him again.
The jar full of Sister is starting to rattle around a lot on the floor next to Quentin though. Charlton is like “I can do something about that.” And he uncorks the bottle and chugs it. And promptly falls back on his ass.
Scene 9: Kady’s Apartment
Kady’s locator spell blinks to life. Fogg looks at her. “I found Everett. I’m going to stop him. Pete how are we looking?” Pete looks up from his phone and says, “Go, we got this.”
Kady hoists the map book and calls Penny and says "Hey you said you'd be there for me, so NOW would be good." He’s still in the infirmary at Brakebills. "Not really a good time." She responds; "Now is the only time that matters." He sighs, but he’s standing in front of her before she hangs up.
She shows him the map, he raises an eyebrow, and teleports them away.
Scene 10: Brakebills Lab
Alice’s phone buzzes and she starts responding to a text message.
Charlton is sitting on the floor next to Quentin. He’s doubled over his stomach and he’s in pain. Margo is fussing over Eliot and Q is watching, from the sidelines, where he belongs. Charlton grits out, “Quentin, I’m sorry.” Quentin doesn’t care. Or at least, he thinks he doesn’t. It’s hard to tell right now. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. Can you just, go away and not hurt people anymore?”
“You’re right. Aaahhh. Yeah. As soon as I can feel my toes again. But I feel bad--” “Just shut up.” “Okay. Right.”
Everett walks into the room, with Zelda beside him. He does his “Hand over the monster” bad guy speech. While everyone is pretty much frozen and not ready for him.
While he’s talking, Kady and Penny show up in the hallway right behind him. Everett doesn’t notice them there, but Zelda does. She doesn’t say anything.
Everyone is watching Everett, who is glitchy and super juiced up, but the only people with any power in the room are Everett and Charlton--there’s no ambient left. But Charlton doesn’t want to fight, and he’s still in pain on the floor next to Q.
Alice’s phone buzzes again and she almost drops it. Everett just laughs at her.
Everett walks over to Charlton and hoists him up by the front of his shirt. He materializes a magical knife in his other hand.
Quentin Coldwater The Brave And Stupid lunges for the knife, and gets tossed across the room for his effort.
And then the pipes explode.
And then in the midst of this distraction, and with the ambient magic flooding back into the air, Kady casts a pretty vicious battle magic spell. Only, Everett notices that she’s doing it, and he ducks. And now all of his focus is on her. He sets Charlton on the ground but doesn’t let go of him and walks towards Kady.
She casts a few more spells at him and he doesn’t even bother to duck, they bounce right off of him.
“Fuck.”
He raises a hand with two fingers to begin a gesture that will end with Kady’s neck snapped, but before he can finish it, one of Margo’s axes is sticking out of his chest.
It’s the one that Margo dropped during the fight. Zelda picked it up.
Everett explodes in a violent magical flood. Zelda gets caught up in it and she’s thrown into something really really hard.
Everyone else just gets soaked in magic, but they’re mostly okay. Charlton isn’t much fussed, he’s starting to feel a lot better now.
Kady holds Zelda in her arms as she stops breathing on the floor of the Lab.
Final Scenes:
Kady and Alice, with Sheila and Harriet, standing in the mess of the Library, talking about the future of magic and information.
Zelda in the elevator. She apologizes to Penny, because she could have saved him, and she didn’t. They both get something out of it. She tells him how amazing Kady is.
Quentin walks out of a pharmacy with a prescription bottle. Eliot is waiting outside for him. He’s got a cane, he’s still in lousy shape. Q shakes the bottle at him. “Antidepressants.” Eliot smiles at him, then frowns. “You’re worried.” “What if I start taking them and I can’t do magic anymore.” “And they kick you out of Brakebills and wipe your memory?” Quentin rolls his eyes. “What was it I promised you before? I’ll find you, and seduce you. Make your life magical. Medication isn’t going to make your magic go away, though, Q. If it did, so would a lot of other things.” “Then why did Fogg make me throw away my pills when I started at Brakebills?” “Because he’s an asshole who knew what buttons to push after trying it 40 times. I don’t know, but I know you’re allowed to fix things sometimes. They don’t have to stay broken.” “Margo told you?” “Repair of small objects.” “It’s too bad mental health isn’t a small thing.” Eliot stops walking. “Okay, my turn to be brave.” “You want to go see a psychologist too?” “No, Q. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I’m sorry I told you I didn’t, I was wrong.” “Eliot?” Eliot kisses Quentin softly. Quentin presses himself into Eliot to return it, deeper. Some asshole on the street wolf whistles at them -- strictly speaking they don’t need to kiss or make up yet but I’m in charge now and I’m spiteful.
Penny and Margo are in Fillory. “Are you sure this won’t just remind you of her more?” “I don’t know, but I had to leave.” “Okay then. Woah, what the fuuuuck?” -- the 300 years later thing could work here, but an imbalance caused by too much magic and then too little stored under Fillory could cause plenty of more interesting problems.
Horrifying monsters feasting on human bones like something out of a horror movie.
Julia, on slab of stone in the basement of Brakebills, opens her eyes and they're glowing golden.