It's definitely fantasy, with all the spells and crowns and centaurs. Except that it's also shockingly bloody horror, with throats slashed and limbs severed almost weekly. When graduate student Quentin Coldwater enters a university specializing in magic, he learns that the mythical fantasy world he once read about is very real. It depicts brutal death scenes, psychological twists, drama and the corruption of humans and magic alike, The Magicians portrays the rebellious years of college without ignoring its cheesy fantasy side infusing humor into its story.
Through drugs, spells, sex and alcohol, Brakebills students discover dark secrets as they fight their personal demons. Gaining 7.5 out of 10 on IMDb and 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, this is a series that horror fans should watch on Netflix. As Quentin embarks on a journey of self-discovery and grows as a magician with a group of other Brakebills students, Julia sets out on a very different path to understanding a world that has caused her to be rejected for the first time in her life. The series has just finished its fifth and final season, and the first four seasons are available on Netflix.
The heart has been ripped out of the group, but the magicians put a bandage on the pain and face a new onslaught of magic and new terrifying threats. Alliances are forged and enemies are made when best friends Quentin and Julia take an entrance exam at Brakebills, a secret university for magicians. Unlike most of his classmates, Quentin is such an ordinary magician that his specialty goes undetermined for years. Families can talk about why people like to imagine worlds like The Magicians where magic is real.
With a new gap in this carefully woven team, much of the last season oscillated between mourning and apocalypse, with plot problems that threatened to cut the fabric between the many worlds of The Magicians. Q doesn't grow in power, but he develops a gift for understanding the relationship between the characters in Fillory's stories and the real-life journeys he and the other magicians are taking. Pursued by the knowledge that something bigger exists, Julia is recruited by a group of renegade wizards known as hedge witches. The Magicians' impressive special effects and creative storytelling help to compensate for a derivative premise and sometimes a slow pace.
Tonight's episode of The Magicians was an excellent example of how to juggle multiple stories without losing momentum in any of them. By merging nostalgia for fantasy stories and adult themes with self-awareness and fantasy, The Magicians quickly won praise as one of the best shows on TV you're not watching. Following the procedure, Brakebills will erase Julia's memory of the school of wizards, but without knowing it he is unsuccessful. Kady (Tailor of Jade), a rudimentary magician character created for the show, becomes the defender of amateur cover witches and evolves, through pain, into a mature stoicism.
