The Magicians: All That Josh | Season 3, Episode 9 | Rating: 10.2/11 |
Before we tackle All That Josh in all its musical wonderment we need a recap a few things, so, (imagine a Hale Appleman voice-over here) previously on The Magicians… Fairies are evil, let’s kidnap their babies, blackmail and destroy them. Oh wait, fairies shouldn’t be slaves and cut up so we can snort their bodies in powder form to regain magical abilities. No, let’s save the fairies! Fen and Eliot’s child is a not log, is not a bunny, is not Fray but was in fact dead upon birth. Poor Fen. Meanwhile, Tick – our favorite faithful member of the Fillory royal council – was just waiting for his moment to seize the throne and reclaim his place as King of Fillory. Say what?! Quentin and Alice are still complicated. Margo and Eliot pleaded their case to a wombat judge, were found guilty and are facing execution. Harriet is stuck on the mirror bridge, and is possibly dead or will die there. Kady is still a badass. Julia’s seen her first fairy and her god-given magical power has leveled up from the good deeds she’s been doing. And Rafe is, well honestly we have no idea. Perhaps taking care of all the bunnies, after all traveling between world’s to deliver messages must be exhausting.
FINALLY JOSH
The unsolved mystery of the last month’s worth of Magicians episodes, which resulted in a weekly tweet by yours truly, has finally been solved. Just where was Josh?! Oh, in a pocket world created by a demon who feeds off joy. Of course he was. And of course Josh’s dream world was a Bacchus style party that never ends and magic has returned good for party tricks only.
Tonight’s musical episode centers around the fifth key which focuses on the quester who always feels left behind, in this case Josh Hoberman. The fifth key promotes unity and connects all of our heroes together for a brief moment. You know just long enough to sing the length of Queen & David Bowie’s collaboration “Under Pressure.” It’s the perfect song to promote love, unity, and express great strides and frustrations (like going over the Infinite Waterfalls).
However All That Josh wasn’t like previous musical episodes of The Magicians that only featured one song; All That Josh contains five songs (if you include the mildly uncomfortable rendition of “Happy Birthday”)! The real highlight being not necessarily the song choice, but Jade Tailor’s overall vocal strength in “All I Need is the Boy” (an alternate version of “All I Need is the Girl” from the Broadway musical Gypsy). Pages could be (and should be) written about Jade’s vocal gift, but what the audience should really want to know is… Hey Jade, when are you putting out an album? Cause you should. Those pipes of yours are better than half of today’s pop stars.
Also to be celebrated is Hale Appleman’s balls of courage to take on Freddie Mercury’s falsetto, and do so respectably. It’s not easy to hit those notes in a way that brings “Under Pressure” and Freddie any justice, but that Why-scream as Eliot & Margo go over the Infinite Waterfalls was pretty spot on. Follow that moment by the fact that muntjac flies and that’s what I call magic. P.S. THE MUNTJAC FLIES!
THINGS WE’VE LEARNED OR LOVED
- Just because a character dies on The Magicians does not mean we will never see them again. Maybe they can save Benedict from the Underworld? After they figure out how to retrieve Penny from the Underworld library that is. Does this mean we could run into Umber and Ember too? Hmm.
- Zelda, the head librarian, is Harriet’s mother. We see Harriet as a little girl in 1952, who doesn’t become a teen until the 1980s because time is different in the library. And in present day, Zelda still looks exactly the same as in 1952. Just how old is Zelda?
- The sense of comfort and relief hearing Penny’s voice brings Kady (as Penny joins the sing-a-long), expressed subtly within Jade Tailor’s eyes, speaks volumes of their love story. That’s everything you ever need to know about Penny & Kady in just one look. Aww!
Episode 10 airs Wednesday, March 14th at 9/8c.
