The Bad News Bear

First Aired

February 6, 2019

SYFY's The Magicians
← Previous	Next →
Lost, Found, Fucked	~~Marry~~, Fuck, Kill

The Bad News Bear is the third episode of the fourth season of The Magicians, and the forty-second episode overall.

Synopsis[]

Kady gets a puppy; Quentin meets a snake.

Plot[]

The gang reunites at Marina's apartment. The Monster says he is there to kill all of Quentin's friends. As Margo is entering the lobby, she runs into Marina 23, who is leaving in a hurry. Marina explains that something just walked through every defense and alarm that she had around the apartment. She tells Margo that inside she has set a trap up that will subdue a god. One must sit on the gold chair in the living room and then Margo must ring the bell on the table, which will release a concentrated dose of ambrosia. While it won't kill a god, it will incapacitate one. As she enters, she finds out Eliot is possessed and stops the Monster's attack by agreeing to help him on his hunt for gods. She says that she can take him to Bacchus and use the ambroisia on them. The Monster agrees. Josh objects, but since he is Bacchus' friend they will need him to get close enough to poison him.

Quentin, Julia, Kady, and Penny 23 confront Marina about why she is helping them. She admits that she was looking for them and helped them to retrieve a bounty on them by the McAllister family. The bounty is for three Deweys, which is a coin that the Library invests with large amounts of magic. She agrees to let them go in exchange for 5 Deweys. In order to get Deweys, they will need a black card issues by the Library which allows for unlimited Dewey withdrawals. Penny knows a master forger, Frankie Gallo, who could pull it off. They meet with Frankie who names his price - 5 Deweys. He will also need brief access to a real black card and a real Dewey to start with. Quentin enters a tournament of Push with other magicians, wagering Penny's services as a Traveler for a month. He wins the tournament and gets the seed Dewey. Penny uses his traveling abilities to briefly steal, then return, a genuine black card.

Frankie next explains that the luck spell is balanced via a teddy bear, which results in whoever holds the teddy bear experiencing all the bad luck while those holding the forgery get good luck. The spell fails to override Julia's divinity so Quentin takes it. As Kady and Penny, in disguise, attempt to withdraw 12 Deweys (keeping 2 for themselves) bad things increasingly happen to Quentin. He spills his soup, cuts himself on a paper towel, is attacked by a python, and, ultimately, gets a voicemail from his mother telling him his father has finally died of cancer.

Meanwhile, Alice stays at the Library to find her friends' books and ends up kidnapped.

Josh visits Bacchus' tent is greeted by Shoshanah, one of the Maenads. and the two catch up. Bacchus explains that he is hiding out in Fillory as Ember because the Monster is hunting him. He takes the drink that Josh made for him but as they toast Josh knocks it over. He goes back out to Margo who threatens to dump the rest of the ambrosia in the nearby well, poisoning everyone there. Josh reluctantly agrees to try again and gives another drink to Bacchus. He drinks it, briefly asks what is in it, then passes out. The Monster drags Bacchus into a field while Margo and Josh watch. It asks if Bacchus remembers him. Bacchus recognizes him and says that they stuffed the Monster away with all of others of his kind because of "what he did." The Monster says that he ate all the others. The Monster asks for what Bacchus took back and Bacchus says he can never give it back. The Monster then cuts open his abdomen and pulls out a glowing stone, which causes Margo to wince in pain and cover her fairy eye. She says it is like looking into the sun.

Back in New York, Kady and Penny 23 give Marina her Deweys in a park. She walks away from them and begins examining more closely, just as someone comes up from behind her and says he's been looking for her. Kady happily walks down the street with the forged black card in her pocket when a woman approaches her with a box of puppies, saying they are free to a good home. Kady accepts. She then meets the rest of the crew in Marina's apartment. When they ask if it is safe to meet there, Kady says that it is now her apartment and, with regard to Marina, she "took care of a problem."

Julia comforts Quentin over the death of his father. He wonders whether all of the have done has been worth their sacrifices, and Julia tries to convince him that the world is a little brighter because of their sacrifices.