Structuring the Pilot: The Magicians
It’s the return of the hour long shows, this time with The Magicians. Specifically looking at how this pilot works in terms of being the start of a serialized show, whereas most everything else I have looked at so far have been either episodic or serial-episodic. (Meaning this series acts more as a continuing story throughout, rather than having episodes that work primarily on their own.
Fun fact, this is also the first pilot I have written about that has a title other than “Pilot”, this one being “Unauthorized Magic”.
Teaser: Quentin
(A) Dean Fogg talks to Eliza about getting people ready, especially “him”.
(A) Quentin in a mental clinic; can do coin tricks.
(A) Quentin alone at a party; stares too long at dancing woman.
(A) Quentin says he feels well enough to leave the clinic.
(A) Quentin talks defensively about magic; doesn’t fit it.
(A) Quentin is asked if he really does feel better.
(A) Quentin talks to more people at party.
(A) Quentin believes he just needs to let go of childish things.
(A) Quentin is waved over by Julia; goes to refill drink instead.
(A) Quentin mentions a Yale interview; wonders if the clinic can force him to stay.
(A) Quentin ditched the party to read Fillory and Further.
(A) The Chatwins climb into a grandfather clock.
(A) The Chatwins are in a world with magic; find a tree with a clock in it.
(A) Quentin tells Julia he will sell his Fillory collection; lies about being in a clinic.
(A) Quentin is being psyched up by Julia for his Yale interview.
(A) Quentin sees the clock from Fillory, Julia finds a dead body.
We begin with a scene that pretty much epitomizes the idea of a “teaser”. The door of a building flies open, and we see inside isn’t an interior, but instead of large sunny courtyard. A man that we will come to know as Dean Fogg walks out, and the door closes behind him without his assistance. He has a conversation with a woman (eventually revealed to be named Eliza), about how some people aren’t ready. She feels they need to speed things up, they don’t have time to wait for them to be ready. She seems especially concerned about “him”.
Through the cut, we get a pretty good idea of that “him” is referring to Quentin. But, within the scene itself it is all nothing but a tease. We see magic but have no explanation. We hear about getting people ready but don’t hear about who or what it is they need to get ready for. And this fact is actually pretty great.
At this point in the show, we don’t need exposition. It is setting expectation and mystery. We get an idea that something fantastical is going on, and a vague sense that impending problems. We also learn that one figure may have extra importance for some reason. It gets the viewer into the right mindset for what is to come:
Magic is real, and something bad is coming.
Over the next few scenes, we’re introduced to Quentin. He’s admitted himself into a mental clinic for the weekend because he’s depressed, specifically because of the feeling he doesn’t belong anywhere. And while he talks to a doctor about leaving, the scene is intercut with him at a party, where his lack of belonging is on display.
Quentin’s headspace is the real focus here, but in all these quick moments we also get a couple other important little things: Quentin likes to do magic tricks, he has a Yale interview coming up, and we see Julia for the first time.
Quentin’s room is filled with books, specifically with different editions of the same five books: the Fillory and Further series. Again, we’re setting up who this character is, in this case, showing his fascination with this series. As he reads from the first one, it sounds like a take on Chronicles of Narnia. A group of siblings climb into a grandfather clock (instead of a wardrobe) and end up in a magical world. Jane Chatwin gets the most focus out of the three siblings, and she finds a tree with a clock inside of it.
Julia wants Quentin to get out of his room and socialize, but he claims he is reading the book for the last time before he sells his whole collection. Letting go of Fillory is specifically what Quentin meant in the clinic when he spoke of growing up. We’re setting up the closeness between Julia and Quentin in this scene, but as close as they seem to be, Quentin lies about the clinic when asked where he was all weekend.
Julia walks Quentin to his Yale interview. When they arrive, Quentin sees a grandfather clock and is drawn to it. We know it from the scene from Fillory and Further, as the one the Chatwin children climbed into. Julia snaps him out of it as she screams, having found a dead body.
This is the end to the teaser, coupled with the little we have seen of the Fillory story, mean more because of the opening scene that provides evidence of magic. Without that scene, there are a million ways to handwave the coincidence of the grandfather clock’s appearance. And, sure, there still are. But, because of the expectations set in the opening scene, we are made to question so much more, that if Quentin didn’t have his attention pulled away from it by Julia, would he have been able to walk through the clock and into a magical land?
The entire teaser comes down to setting up the expectation of magic having some kind of involvement and giving us a starting point for who Quentin is. Though Julia is in a few scenes here and will go on to carry the entire B plot of the episode, her involvement so far is almost just to be there and give Quentin someone to play off of.
Act One: The Exam
(A) Quentin and Julia talk to paramedic; Quentin gets a package.
(A + B) Quentin has Fillory 6 manuscript; Julia thinks he needs to grow up.
(A) Quentin chases a page that is blown by the wind.
(B) Julie gets in an elevator.
(A) Quentin continues to chase page.
(B) Julia’s elevator goes the down instead of up.
(A) Quentin continues to chase page.
(B) Julia’s elevator stops on the wrong floor.
(A) Quentin’s chase leads him through trees. On one side it is night; on the other, day.
(B) Julie steps out; follows a sign leading to an exam. Quentin is outside.
(A) Quentin is told by Eliot he is at Brakebills University; thinks he is hallucinating.
(A + B) Quentin and Julia take the exam.
(A + B) Quentin is relieved to find Julia; confirms this is real.
(B) Julia is told she failed; cuts her arm before her memory is erased.
(A) Quentin does real magic, faints.
Where the teaser made Quentin the only character it focused on, it is in act one that we see a separation between him and Julia, and she’s given the ability to carry her own scenes.
Eliza, as a paramedic, gives Quentin a package, which he discovers is a manuscript for a rumored sixth Fillory book. Quentin’s excitement over it is enough to make Julia snap. He had just said he was getting over all this stuff, and he is drawn back in so easily.
We get more of an explanation of Quentin and Julia’s history. How she was the one who got into Fillory first, and she was so into the series that it was to impress her that Quentin started learning magic tricks. It’s clear that it was a friendship for Julia, and more than that for Quentin. Julia admits she knows where he was all weekend, says she’s worried about him. Again, that she knows him well enough to have figured this out is about telling us how close the two are.
The two split up and the next scenes play out intercutting between them. Quentin chases a page from the manuscript that blows away in the wind, and Julia hops in an elevator that goes the wrong way. It is nighttime by this point, but they both end up in a place where suddenly it is day.
Julia is inside of a building and Quentin outside of it, but they head in the same direction. Not to get into things for further on in the series, but this whole intercut section of the two of them taking different paths that lead to the same place is very relevant.
Quentin runs into Eliot. It is a small moment packed with information, the most obvious being the introduction of Eliot. He tells Quentin (and us) that this is Brakebills University, and Quentin has a shot at a preliminary exam for the graduate program. We also learn that Quentin is worried this is all a hallucination. And, given how he got there, it’s a pretty fair thought.
Dean Fogg introduces the exam. It is a room filled with people at desks, Julia and Quentin are both there, but don’t see each other. The test is on paper, but still magical. The questions are constantly changing on the page. This gives us our first glimpse of Penny and who he is. As Quentin looks around for an explanation, he turns to the guy next to him, Penny, who glares back at Quentin for looking at his exam.
After the test Quentin finds Julia. A familiar face is enough to finally convince him this is really happening, and not a consequence of his new meds. Though the two just fought at most hours ago, it is completely set aside as they share in excitement over what is happening. Again, setting up how close they are.
Just as the two of them are brought together again, they are forced into another divergence. Julia failed the test and is completely distraught by the idea of living a normal life while knowing magic exists. When she is told she’ll have her memory erased, she cuts her own arm to remind herself that this all happened.
Quentin on the other hand is put in front of Dean Fogg and a handful of others, being told he must perform real magic. He tries to do card tricks, but the pressure gets to him and he fumbles around. Dean Fogg yells at him, berates him. When the results become Quentin launching the cards into the air and having them float around above them, it is clear that this is what Fogg was trying to elicit from him. Quentin faints, and as he falls to the ground, the cards do to.
This act does quite a bit. First, it creates a mystery around this sixth Fillory book, while using it to create a tension, and even separation, between Quentin and Julia. Next, it introduces both of them to Brakebills and furthers the idea that magic is real. And finally, it separates them both again, sending them both down different roads for the same thing as Quentin stays at the school, and Julia is told she can’t.
Act Two: Magic is Real
(A) Quentin is in Fillory; Jane warns him about the Beast.
(A) Quentin wakes up, sees evidence the day before was real.
(B) Julia remembers Brakebills because of her cut.
(A) Quentin has Brakebills explained and signs up to attend.
(A) Quentin discovers Fillory 6 is missing; Eliot and Margo come by.
(A) Quentin learns about types of magic, and that most of the third years have disappeared.
Act two slows things down. It is the episode taking a breath, and mostly showing us what the events of the exam mean for Quentin and Julia. It sets up the new status quo.
This is true in all but the first scene in the act, where Quentin finds himself in Fillory. He meets Jane Chatwin, who warns him about the Beast. An impending threat that is specifically after Quentin. It is a moment that connects to the warning Eliza gave Fogg in the opening scene. It continues to reinforce the stakes that are being established, though we still don’t know exactly what it means.
Quentin’s first move when he wakes up has him find Fillory 6 and the deck of Brakebills cards on the nightstand. It is enough to let him relax, which shows he was still concerned none of it was real.
The scene is mirrored by Julia. She wakes up in her own apartment and finds physical evidence of her own (the cut in her arm). It is enough to get past the memory magic and has her searching the internet for answers.
And now we’re primarily in exposition for Brakebills. This begins with Quentin in a meeting with Dean Fogg, where he hears definitively that this is a school for magic. Fogg gets incredibly uncomfortable when Eliza is brought up, creating a little more mystery around her. And by the end, Quentin signs up to officially be enrolled.
The one thing that gives Quentin any pause at all is when Dean Fogg asks for Quentin’s meds. Fogg explains:
“Quentin. You haven’t been depressed; you’ve been alone. And you are not crazy, you’re angry. And you are correct. Everyone. Everyone medicates. Out there. Here, we hope you won’t need to.”
Fogg is connecting to everything that brought Quentin to the clinic, everything he’s been struggling with. This idea of Brakebills being the place where Quentin can finally belong is a strong driving force in him.
After this, we find out the Penny is Quentin’s roommate, and Fillory 6 is now missing. The two of them get in an argument over it which only ends because Eliot pops by with Margo.
Eliot and Margo give Quentin a tour of the campus, which again is for exposition. We learn more of how things function here, how students are split up by what kinds of magic they are most natural at, and each of these types basically function as a clique.
We also hear that there are only four third year students left, and no one knows whether they died or dropped out. It is a moment that we never return to in this episode but sets up further mystery for the show to delve into later on.
Act Three: Julia and Alice
(A) Quentin in class; sees how good at magic Alice is.
(C) Penny and Kady have sex.
(A) Quentin hangs with Eliot and Margo. Margo jokes about Alice.
(A) Quentin sees Alice looking up a weird symbol. She doesn’t want to be social.
(A + B) Quentin is told to come to Julia’s birthday party to check up on her.
(A + B) Quentin arrives at the party. Julia gets a drink.
(A + B) Quentin tells Julia she doesn’t have magic; she makes sparks out of her fingers.
(A) Quentin gets Margo and Eliot so they can leave.
(B) Julia’s her shirt rips off and magically pins her to the wall. Pete reveals himself.
The episode feels like it switches gears in a lot of ways beginning with this act. So far, the episode has been about setting up for the series as a whole, and as much as that continues throughout, it is at this point that the episode focuses in more on its specific story. In order to accomplish this, Quentin really takes a backseat for this act to give others the chance to be developed.
We start off act three in a classroom. The whole scene comes down to Alice, and her ability with magic. She is given a glass marble and reshapes it into a glass horse. Quentin is completely awed by how good she is. And in the back of the class, Penny meets Kady, and the two quickly hit it off with their mutual desire to make fun of Alice. They hit it off so well in fact, that they are hooking up in the next scene.
The next two scenes are further building out who Alice is. First, Margo tells Quentin all the rumors about her, and then Quentin himself tries to talk to her (and discovers which parts of the rumors aren’t true). She has no interest in being social with him and is incredibly preoccupied reading about a particular symbol in a book.
In this act we get the establishment of the episode specific A story: Quentin and Alice going from strangers to doing a spell together. Up until this act, the A story has been following Quentin as he is put in a position of mostly reacting to things and learning about the world, but it is with the introduction to Alice that he begins making real choices for himself. Though, in this act those choices are mainly to get him to the places where we can find out about the other characters.
We also get the minor C story being introduced: a romance between Penny and Kady.
The second half of the act is all about the B story, which has more arguably been going on since Julia and Quentin both went their separate ways. The story here is all about how Julia finds her own means to learn magic.
Quentin is told to come to Julia’s birthday, that she’s not acting like herself, not sleeping, not eating. At the party, we see just how apathetic Julia’s become. The two of them chat outside, and she reveals that she remembers Brakebills. She wants another chance, but Quentin refuses to take her side, telling her that if she didn’t get in that it is for a reason. She shows him that she can do magic, creating sparks with her fingers.
This plays out almost like a reversal of the scene where Quentin is given Fillory 6 and Julia argues that he has to join the real world. Here, Quentin is telling her the same, that she needs to be a part of the world she is in. He says that she only wants into Brakebills because it is the first time she’s ever failed at something, that her life is here. And then, like Julia left Quentin before, Quentin leaves Julia now.
We end the act with Julia in the bathroom, and our first experience with darker uses of magic. The buttons of her shirt pop off. Her shirt flies up and wraps around her hands, tying her up. She’s pulled back by an invisible force, pinning her to the radiator. And a guy walks out, it’s Pete, he tried to talk to her at the bar. It’s a pretty horrifying scene that ends the act with it looking like Julia is about to be raped.
Act Four: The Symbol
(B) Julia makes huge sparks to free herself. Pete claims this was a test.
(A) Quentin returns to Fillory. Jane tells him to get off the path; burns a symbol on his hand.
(A) Quentin wakes up, looks at his hand; it’s the symbol from Alice’s book.
(A) Quentin shows Alice the symbol, she talks him into doing a spell tonight.
(C) Penny tells Kady he hears voices. They listen to the voice and head out.
(A + C) Quentin learns about Alice’s brother; Penny and Kady arrive to help.
(A + C) The group leaves when the spell does nothing; a smiley face is drawn on the mirror.
Of course, with the cliffhanger ending of the last act, we start back up right where it left off. Julia manages to free herself by using the spell that creates sparks again, but this time it is amplified to the point that it almost looks like she has blowtorches coming from each hand.
Pete starts to explain away the situation, saying that he would never do anything to her, that this was all a test to be sure that she can do magic. True or not, Pete doesn’t look too good here… But he gets Julia’s attention as he says, “we’ve been watching you for quite a while now.” And of course, she wants to know the same thing we do, who is “we”?
Back at Brakebills, Quentin is studying in the library and hears a knocking on a door. He ends up back in Fillory where Jane says he won’t be in Brakebills for long, but that sounds awful for him. As mentioned above, Brakebills is the first place where Quentin feels he can belong, which he feels has been his biggest problem in life. She argues that it is not the place that has him feeling this way, but that fact that he is finally moving toward his destiny.
Jane presses his hand into a symbol on a tomb next to them. He wakes up back in the library, the symbol burnt into his hand, but now he recognizes it. It’s the symbol that Alice was looking at earlier. So, he goes to ask her about it.
While Alice starts out as cold to him as she was before, seeing the symbol on his hand is enough to change her mind. She tells him she needs his help for something involving this symbol and they make plans for late into the night to do a summoning spell.
The story of Penny and Kady’s romance culminates (for this episode) as Penny decides he trusts her enough to tell her that he has a voice in his head. Because of how close they have become, not only does Kady not think he’s crazy, she tells him she is going to follow him to where the voice is leading.
We get a little more backstory about Alice, learning that she is trying to summon her brother who mysterious died at Brakebills five years ago. And the C story and A story dovetail as Alice learns they need two more people to perform the spell, and the voice in Penny’s head leads him and Kady to this room.
The four of them do the spell, but nothing happens. They all eventually decide to leave, assuming the spell failed. But just as Alice leaves, the mirror fogs up, and a smiley face is creepily drawn on it.
This is the first act where the focus isn’t on establishing anything. The major characters have all been set up, their stories begun, and here we’re seeing them all come to their climax. Julia’s search for Brakebills has led to another group finding her. The romance between Penny and Kady has been tested. And, Quentin has gained Alice’s trust, enough to help her perform a major spell.
Act Five: Cliffhangers
(B) Julia is led to a derelict building. She’s told rules for this place.
(A) Quentin is in class; everything freezes.
(A) Dean Fogg sees his watch stop; starts running.
(A) The Beast comes in, kills teacher, rips out Fogg’s eyes, and knows Quentin.
It is in the final act more than any other that the difference between episodic and serial story telling is most evident.
We can see this already by how Julia’s story for the episode “ends”. She is led by Pete into a derelict building. Her story has been about getting into the school that rejected her, but instead she’s seemingly found a new one. One that is an incredibly stark contrast from Brakebills. Though she has been brought to this place, there is nothing final about it.
The last time we see Julia, she walks in the door, but it closes behind her and we don’t see what is inside. We’re left to wonder what exactly this place is, and if she is at all safe here. The end of her story acts to set up for possible stories in the next episode.
Story-wise, there is a similar situation with Quentin back at Brakebills. He is in class again, when suddenly the clock, as well as everyone in the room, freezes. They aren’t completely frozen, just their bodies. Their eyes still move as they try to figure out what is happening.
The man walks out of the mirror, which reveals to us that he is what they summoned the night before. His face is covered by moths that float all around. He has six fingers on each hand, which he uses to cast a spell that kills the teacher.
Fogg rushes in, but this man is more powerful. Fogg is frozen in the air and has his eyes ripped out (he puts them down on a desk and draws a smile in blood for good measure). Between this and the way the man walks, putting a bit of a dance in his step, it’s a juxtaposition of horror and playfulness that makes the character seem even more dangerous.
Quentin’s hand glows and he manages to move just enough to drop his coin. It gets the man’s attention. The man leans in and says, “Quentin Coldwater. There you are,” as he reaches out to Quentin. And if we didn’t know before, we know now, this is the Beast that Jane warned him about.
The episode ends here, and though the situation seems much more dire in Quentin’s case, his story ends in the same way Julia’s does, with his actions in the episode resulting in him being put in a place where it is completely unknown what is about to happen to him. And, that it doesn’t look good.
Conclusions
Even with serialized shows having their episodes all acting like chapters in one larger story, the episodes themselves still need to tell a story within them. The difference is how contained the stories are.
Here, the entire first half of the episode is about setting up the series as a whole. Because Quentin is our main protagonist, this is mostly done through his perspective, though Julia is given POV power relatively early on as well.
It isn’t until the second half that the story narrows to something that can be accomplished in this episode. And even then, the stories are incredibly small in order to fit them in. Quentin and Alice’s summoning spell in other episodes could have taken them the full runtime to gather supplies. But instead, everything happens relatively easy for them. The same goes for Julia. As soon as Quentin turns her down, she doesn’t have to go looking for another option, it immediately finds her.
When I wrote about Supernatural’s pilot, I brought up that it is serial-episodic. It does similar things, but with its emphasis being on different parts. The first and last acts are entirely about the serialized story, but they also have a complete story of them fighting and defeating a monster contained within the rest of the episode. The focus is on the episodic qualities, with the serialized elements primarily existing as connective tissue between episodes, at least at this point.
In The Magicians much more time needs to be spent on the larger story, because it has to be developed enough to drive the entire show going forward. Without self-contained stories, it needs to create expectations of the direction that it can go.
The episode fills itself with small moments that are introduced to be developed further on. There are the big two: Quentin with the Beast, and Julia with her new possible school. But then there are all the other questions it leaves us with: who is the voice in Penny’s head? What happened to Alice’s brother? What happened to all the third-year students? Who is Eliza? Where did Fillory book 6 go? And more!
In short, the pilot of a serialized show can often ask more questions than it could answer within the episode. And even the answers it does give (ie: the Beast coming out and Julia arriving at a new place to learn magic), create more questions. It has to do all this, while setting up who the main characters are, what the world is like (especially in the case of sci-fi and fantasy), and still having some small section of the story told within the episode.
