The Magicians Season 4: Everything You Need To Know
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The end of Season 3 of The Magicians might have been the biggest game-changer the show has experienced yet. While magic was restored, the Order of the Librarians wiped the minds of the group, leaving them with glamours that have them living mortal lives, devoid of any of the extraordinary powers they've been living with.
Now, with Season 4 acting as something of a major reset, fans are going to want to pay close attention--because even with the memory wipes, The Magicians isn't slowing down one bit. GameSpot visited the set of the Syfy series to speak with the cast and producers about what exactly viewers should expect from the new season and while everyone was tight-lipped about many aspects of the episodes to come, we learned quite a bit.
Take a look at everything we learned while visiting the set of the Magicians ahead of tis Season 4 premiere, from how these new lives will impact the group to what the Monster being on the loose means for everyone to yet another musical episode being in the works. Be warned, though: In true Magicians fashion, things are going to get very weird.
The Magicians Season 4 premieres Wednesday, January 23, on Syfy. Additionally, the series has already been renewed for a fifth season.
1. Let's talk about that memory wipe.
While we can't say for sure how long this plot twist of giving most of the group entirely new memories and lives will last, eventually the show has to go to back to whatever it considers normal, right? Well, not necessarily.
While the characters may get their old lives back eventually, they'll never be quite the same. "What happens is they're given new identities and then they live those lives for a while," executive producer Henry Alonso Myers said. "Of course, magic and trouble and danger start to come for them, which will eventually wake them up, but that doesn't mean the lives they have been living for the last several weeks or months have been erased… There's stuff that they have learned, there's stuff that's different about them, and then there's also trouble that they've caused that's compounding. It just adds a whole other layer of complication and weirdness to the season."
2. Dean Fogg's betrayal wasn't without reason.
When Dean Fogg (Richard Worth) made a deal with the Order of the Librarians, resulting in the shadowy group controlling magic and initiating the mind wipe, it was easy to look at him as a traitor. However, as the actor tells it, there has to be a reason for it. "I had a feeling he might do something where it would have to maybe almost look like a betrayal, but from Fogg's point of view, he's really had to hit the reset button and wrestle control of magic back as much as he can in his hands," Worth said. Of course, when the Order of the Librarians is involved, it's hard to tell how in-control Fogg could possibly be.
3. What about Alice?
One character that wasn't given a new life and memory was Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley). In fact, as Dudley teased, Alice is going to be very lonely for a big chunk of this season.
"Alice is the only one in the group that doesn't have a glamor, which is cool but also as an actor, [it's] not as fun because it would have been so much fun to have another person to play and all that," she said. "But it's fine, Alice is like the straight man in the group so it makes sense. But yeah, she's still at the library jail for a long time actually this season. I did a lot of acting by myself in a room, which is fun, actually."
4. She is trying to right her wrongs, though.
After attempting to shut down magic once and for all, before finding herself imprisoned in the library, Alice has clearly made enemies of those she considers friends. That choice will mean she needs to do some serious soul-searching and groveling once the time comes.
"This season is kind of her redemption," Dudley teased. "The whole season is going through and telling everybody she's sorry for what she did and explaining it and trying to make up for it, because in the end, I think Alice realized that magic is a good thing to have in this... She has a much more complicated relationship with it than everyone else because she's the only one who was born into it, had it her whole life."
5. Unfortunately, the position she's in leaves little room for vulnerability.
While she may be trying to make amends with those she cares about, it's not going to be easy. "Everyone is pissed at Alice this whole season. So there's no room for her to be vulnerable because there's nobody there for her," Dudley said. "So Alice has to just push through it and buckle down and grit her teeth and take it. Take the punches when they come from everybody. I mean nobody's happy to see her this year, which is so heartbreaking to Alice, because in her mind and in my mind she's done nothing wrong, really. So, it's been a painful journey anytime I'm in a scene with everybody."
6. What about the Monster?
Another interesting development in the Season 3 finale was seeing the Monster take up residence in the body of Eliot (Hale Appleman). As Myers teased, that twist is going to play out in a surprising way.
"The monster, who inhabits Elliot, has a whole journey that he's going to go through over the course of the season," the executive producer said. "He doesn't even know everything about himself. Part of the fun of that character is that there's things that he knows and things that he's trying to remember. And we're going to discover pretty early on in the season that he is trying to recover some of the things that happened to himself as well because he doesn't remember a bunch of them. The mystery of who he is and where he comes from and what he's there for is something that we're gonna unravel all the way up to the end."
7. At the very least, the Monster has a BFF.
While it remains to be seen whether Eliot can survive having his body inhabited by the monster, at least the creature has a friend in Quentin (Jason Ralph). Well, at least as close as a friend as he can be, as a monster who wants to unleash his wrath alongside someone with no memory of who or what he is. Strangely, though, it seems like that's what will make the Monster so compelling. "There's a childlike aspect to this monster," co-showrunner Sera Gamble teased.
Now that he's free from imprisonment, he's found someone to latch onto, even if that someone has had their memory erased. "Quentin was nice and tried to show him a card trick. So, somewhere in that childish part of his mind, he kinda did the math and realized that this was his new friend," Gamble said. "That's kinda as deep as the math goes for the Monster."
8. There will be another musical.
The Magicians always seems to have a song it wants to sing, and Season 4 will be no different. There is a musical episode coming. Unfortunately, there's not much we're allowed to say about it. However, it will center on Margo's (Summer Bishil) journey through the desert.
"I was telling everybody it was just so soul-fulfilling," Bishil admitted. "I never in a million years thought I was gonna have that experience on a show. It felt like we were making another movie. Me and the crew and everybody were out there just making some indie film. And I got to not wear makeup and kind of look like myself for the first time."
9. That's not the only concept episode in Season 4, though.
While there's plenty of story to tell in Season 4, that's not going to stop The Magicians from having a little bit of conceptual fun with its episode formats. In addition to the musical, Gamble revealed a sort of sequel to something the show tried in Season 3.
"The one I'm super excited about this season is kinda companion piece to the 'Six Short Stories About Magic' that we did last season, where we really flipped the switch on who... we got make this hard argument about when you think the show is about one thing and it's not. And we follow a bunch of characters that you wouldn't necessarily follow. And we tell their stories and reveal how the things that they go through are just as important, if not more important, to the overall story of magic than the people who we think are, say, the protagonists. I think that episode is great."
That's all she'd tease about the episode, but our interest is piqued.