The Magicians Season 2 Episode 6 Review: The Cock Barrens

This The Magicians review contains spoilers.

The Magicians Season 2 Episode 6: “The Cock Barrens”

With storylines that are on such different narrative tracks, it’s amazing that The Magicians can remain cohesive, but somehow it works. Little touches unify the different threads, and details are dropped that relate to the larger story in quite subtle ways. Ultimately, it’s the emotional depth of each character, both in overcoming adversity and dealing with disillusionment, that brings viewers back each week. Everyone wants, among other things, to see Eliot’s rise, Julia’s vengeance, Penny’s cure, and Alice’s return.

That last one might be a tall order that could take many episodes, especially since it appears that Alice is not, as it first appears, seeking Quentin’s help with anything other than punishing her parents by forcing them to enact a a completely superfluous summoning spell. Granted, the ritual may have helped Stephanie realize how her self-centeredness made it hard to understand her daughter and made Daniel confront his fears and his tendency to retreat into denial, but the big surprise is what Alice’s manipulation means for Quentin. If her niffin is living in Q’s cacodemon tattoo, what “fun” does she have in store? Plus, Olivia Dudley is already smokin’, but the literal smoke trailing behind her was a nice touch.

It was very crafty of the writers to give Quentin the Fillory-travel button, too, which helped him attend Alice’s funeral but prevented Margo from leaving Castle Whitespire when the Lorians supposedly moved it to the titular Cock Barrens. Margo is such a fun character, and seeing her take no shit is always a joy. On the other hand, Eliot’s awakening to the sacrifices that Fen has made and the very real political situation he inherited as High King is also a transformation that’s fulfilling to witness. Viewers likely want to trust Fen, but Eliot’s reticence is understandable.

Less obvious is the motivation of Benedict, the royal mapmaker, who not only reveals to Penny the location of the Cock Barrens but also draws him a map of where to find the moss he needs for Mayakovsky to help cure his hand problem. While Penny figures out the trick that the Lorians have played on the Earth-born royals, Benedict seems more concerned with accurate cartography, belying his generous gesture. Nevertheless, Penny handing Margo the intel she needed to put Prince Ess into his place was another nice plot crossover.

Not that anyone expected Margo to declare war on the northern province! In fact, it seemed at first that, in the process of putting down any misogynistic notions of using marriage to the “virgin” queen as a point of negotiation for Wellspring rights, Margo appeared to take a shine to the Cincinnati prince. Sure, she was also proving that she could “bang circles around” his Lorian whores, but let’s not forget the naked midterm dream Penny interrupted; there may be some insecurities there! Is the declaration of war an over-compensation? Regardless, no one can argue against the entertainment value of lines like, “We’re gonna stick our Jimmy Choo’s so far up your ass you’re gonna taste next season.”

And then there’s Julia, whom we’ve gotten used to seeing in a completely separate storyline, but even her arc hints at a larger picture of which we have only had glimpses. The investigation itself was well-constructed, from the story of a fire in Hoboken having a ripple effect to the atlas spell that only yielded results once their target went out to buy cat litter. And the litter itself was a wonderful misdirect, leading viewers to suspect that the erstwhile banisher of Reynard was keeping her demigod child chained up in the basement. It might have been easy to miss hints that her child is actually “a good influential man.” But who? WHO?

That small but important detail was hidden inside a wonderful yet horrible realization: Julia must bring the child to term if she wants to banish Reynard, using her pregnancy as the magical “nuclear reactor” necessary for such a strong spell. Surely the abortion spell that Kady’s contact gave her will be ineffective enough to push things in that direction. At least the haxenpaxen will keep Reynard at bay while they figure it out. Oddly, that reassurance, plus the fact that Julia was knocked on the head, reduces the sense of betrayal in leaving Reynard’s earlier victim vulnerable to attack from the fox god.

There was one misgiving that arose during this episode: were the “cock barrens” really necessary? Sometimes, The Magicians goes for the easy sex joke or base toilet humor, and that’s fine; it’s part of the show’s charm. But when the episode title refers to a secondary location that has little impact on the story and seems solely designed to sneak a penis reference past the censors, it feels a bit juvenile. Honestly, The Magicians has enough going for it, especially in expertly fashioned episodes like this, to rise above such gimmicks or at least make the humor more relevant.