Discussion: Season 4 Episode 1, "A Flock of Lost Birds"

[allheadybooks]

This is the official discussion post for the Season 4 premiere episode! Feel free to jump into the comments below and share your reactions, questions, best lines, weirdest moments, quippiest quips, and most tragic facial expressions.

I work Wednesday nights (unfortunately), so I will be joining in tomorrow once I've had a chance to watch the episode. I'm planning to use SyFy's one-day-delay streaming option, but if anybody knows of a good black market source for fresh-off-the-back-of-a-truck Magicians eps, do us all a favor and link below.

This post is just for discussing the episode itself. A second post will go up tomorrow where we can collect screencaps, icons, gifs, fic prompts, episode codas, and meta about the episode.

Comments

[mific]

Unf - I LOVE that pic of Eliot, but we won't get season 4 streaming here for a whole damn year. We only just got Season 3! *pouts*

[allheadybooks]

Well, if you're willing to walk on the wild side, there's a link to a free stream in the comment right below!

[bluewinged_songbird]

Psst, I'm here to provide hedgewitchery.

Can't guarantee if it'll work next week but it worked for me so far.

[allheadybooks]

Aaaaaah, you're a genius

[bluewinged_songbird]

Glad to be of service stealing spellbooks providing links!

[allheadybooks]

Here are my extremely not organized, impressionistic livestream thoughts. Big thanks to bluewinged_songbird for magicking up a putlocker stream. :)


Oh my GOD, Todd's Eliot impression is amazing and terrible

The library is so ~*~*~eViL~*~*~

I'm weirdly attracted to Cop Kady

"Great *boop* ill *boop* is *boop* afoot!"

Margo did it with BANKSY. And it makes total sense that Fillory would need her back, did the Library not anticipate that happening? It's been a while since I watched the end of season 3 so I don't remember if they addressed it.

Her eyepatch is back!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alice's cell neighbor is Santa?!??!

I know I'm using a lot of exclamation marks but this episode has had some Batshit Elements so far.

this is my HAPPY shirt! Possessed!Eliot and Brian have a very Hannibal vibe.

[bluewinged_songbird]

First thought: Todd cleans up nice.
Second thought: Todd what the hell?!

The Santa thing really threw me off. Best way to hammer in how evil and controlling The Library is!

I'm quite pleased that Eliot's alter is the bastard son of an English Lord. This amuses me. So does Brian/Quentin's face when he thinks he's been kidnapped by a serial killer.

Ahhh, I can't wait to get back to Fillory (although I feel bad that Margo had to wake up alone like that)! I need to know what's happened to mah gurl Fen!

[allheadybooks]

Somebody somewhere on Tumblr (cite it if you remember who!) once described Eliot/Quentin as "if Lord Byron went out with Blair Sandburg," which is actually really really close to "bastard son of an English Lord and English professor," so nice to see that the show knows itself so well.

[bluewinged_songbird]

Google tells me Blair Sandburg is from a show called The Sentinels? And I can kinda see it??

This show's shameless lamp-shading is honestly one of the best parts about it. Having Margo say it? A GIFT WE DO NOT DESERVE!

[allheadybooks]

Yeah that was a show with a mega fandom in the 90s/early 2000s, and Blair is the anthropologist character who like studies weird superpower people. Small, awkward nerd, basically. I have never seen the show but picked this much up through fannish osmosis

[bluewinged_songbird]

Fannish osmosis is such a blessing! I learned something new today.

All hail smol awkward nerds with long hair!

[star_swan]

I'm so happy that this show is back. I watched it twice yesterday evening. <3
I love how it is batshit almost in the way that a cartoon is, I mean the looney tunes variety or Spongebob. I would stare at things like that as a child openmouthed and entranced like "Where the heck is this going next??" but it makes sense and it is quite ingenious. I cannot predict this show a lot of the time and it's brilliant! "Oh, they went there. wow."

MARGO IS BACK IN FILLORY!!! Shit is about to go down. And Marina is back.
I was almost tearing up when Dean Fogg was talking to "Julia" about how he wasn't going to make the same mistake again.

Cop Kady was distracting <333 And I am glad that they made her a cop and put her in that role of rounding everyone up.

Eliot broke my heart a little. "I like you" *shares icecream cone* x_____x that broke my brain. Still, he can't kill Margo.

The Library are in league with the evil fairy torturer. Why am I not surprised? Ugh.

Some Thoughts

[bluewinged_songbird]

I cannot believe with all that effort Julia still ends up in Brakebills! Do you think it's her goddess nature that's gotten her an invite, despite her not being able to do any magic at this point of time?

I'm also glad that Jade Tailor gets to do so much in this first episode. She gets almost the entire team back together so quickly! Shoutout to whichever huge nerd constructed their fake identities for making things so easy.

Re: Some Thoughts

[allheadybooks]

They said she shorted out the whole network or something, right? I'm assuming she still has some weird volatile magic that's inherent to her, rather than using the Library's rations like everybody else. Which would explain why they sensed magic in her but she can't do the normal stuff all the other students can do.

Ooo, so you think the comic book existed already? I assumed it was created as part of the spell, to go along with their new identities, the way that everybody has their own book in the Library.

Re: Some Thoughts

[bluewinged_songbird]

That makes sense, since Julia's magic comes from her goddess seed and not the Wellspring. Maybe that's why she can't do magic now too, because the seed has to be renurtured.

Actually while we're on the topic of magic rations, how the hell do hedge witches still have access to magic?! I am confusion, Magicians explain! EXPLAIN!

Kady said it was an obscure comic book series that was available out there. I assumed that when she found other people who had names and backgrounds straight from the book she got hella suspicious and that's why she tracked down "Janet Pluchinsky" first thing. Whoever crafted their identities probably saw the chance of making their nerd dreams come true and took it (which is par for the course in this show)!

*Edit: The books in The Library have to be manually written either through magic or Cassandra so I don't think the witness protection spell produced the comic book. Why would it, when it was so adamant to not have people talk about it at all?

[schneefink]

That was a great episode. "Eliot" and Quentin and the ice cream were so wonderfully creepy, poor Quentin. Ember with the kittens looked adorable. (So the "emanation" is a failsafe that every High King automatically gets installed?) The library is such a great villain, especially Zelda.