Reeling from the emergency demigod exorcism in last week’s episode of The Magicians, we discover that Julia’s shade accidentally got severed by the mugong in the process. This was definitely foreshadowed earlier in the season when Martin Chatwin offered to free her from it so that she could live a happier unencumbered life (like him).
The Beast temporarily displaced Julia’s shade from her body though she quickly told him to put it back in because she needed it. It was the thing that allowed her to feel emotions and in a sense was her humanity. As she wakes up in the Physical Kids’ cabin following her ordeal, Julia acts as if she just had great night’s sleep and all was well in the world. When Kady asks if she’s ok, she answers that she feels great and a huge weight has been lifted off her chest. Sure, all that pain, fear, and sorrow she’s been feeling since Reynard entered her life just vanished. Julia’s still out to kill the fox god though, but in a much more chipper and frank manner.
She works out that they need to find Dana’s son to harness his demigod mojo to cast a powerful god-killing spell (that they still need to create). The two women begin researching any newborns that were delivered during the time Dana could have given birth and Julia manages to find a hospital in New Jersey that fit the bill. She quickly goes and opens a doorway that leads to the outskirts of Hoboken. Both Kady and Quentin protest that she needs to stay at Brakebills to be protected by the wards, but the hedge witch insists that Reynard doesn’t actually care about finding her. She even tells Q thanks but no thanks for his opinion because she didn’t ask for it. Well claws are out I see. How wrong she is though because as soon as she’s waking on her merry way Reynard appears and wants to know the location of his son (he couldn’t get out of Dana even as she died). He immediately senses that Julia no longer fears him and deduces that her shade is gone. The fox god also knows that Quentin is hiding behind the tree and tells the magician to come out and run. But before anything else happens Q takes Julia and himself to Fillory. He leaves her there while he goes back to school to help Kady find the demigod.
In Fillory, Julia is super bored so she proposes to Margo that she’ll accompany the High Queen during negotiations with the dryads at the One Way Forest, since the Lorian army is amassing outside it’s borders. When they get there the two women are greeted by a sexist dryad refusing them passage through his territory. Julia sticks around though and catches the Lorian magician casting a spell. However, she explains that she’s only looking for a powerful invisibility spell that can hide her from a god and if he provides it she’ll let him go. The magician agrees and enchants a stone so that as long as she wears it, no god will be able to track her. She thanks him and they part ways. Julia next comes upon the dryad who is put out that she’s still there. She implores him though that they want to make things right and gives him a wooden box as a gift for his people. The magical creature relents and takes the box. As she walks away from the forest, a huge explosion is seen and she smiles in evil amusement.
At Whitespire, she is imprisoned by Margo, who has to go into damage control over her assassination of the forest dryads. This act angers the people of Fillory and Loria but Julia just finds it ridiculously amusing.
Ah!! So beastly! Julia right now is essentially the new Beast as she does things without remorse and only serves her own interests. Think of what kind of havoc she and Martin could have raised had she given in to his offer back then. She confirms this during her conversation with the Lorian magician, stating that her loyalty will always lie with herself above all else.
This new shadeless Julia is so vicious that it naturally reminds me of Martin, but also of niffin Alice (who is now a being of pure magic). These three characters are all free of human morality but Martin and Alice both paid terrible prices for it. Will Julia suffer the same fate? Will she realize that she’ll lose her friends if she keeps this up? Only time will tell.
She’s had to navigate through a lot of crap so far in seasons 1 and 2 and thus a small part of me feels like she deserves a break. Though if anything, The Magicians shows us that all people have selfish tendencies and at times it leads to disastrous consequences. This version of Julia is a lot different from the woman we first met at a college party back in the first episode of the show. She’s grown and gotten stronger considering all the obstacles she’s had to overcome so far and I am liking this uninhibited Jules. Don’t get me wrong, her actions this episode have been crazy, but given the circumstances she can embrace the madness for a hot second.
The Magicians is on Syfy Wednesdays at 9/8 central.
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