The Magicians season 2 premiered this week on SyFy, and this year the Harry Potter and Narnia-inspired show is going in a very different direction from the underlying books. That’s because The Magicians season 1—a fun, sexy, snarky, sometimes unevenly plotted show about magic and all sorts of things—remixed and combined the first two books, then changed the ending dramatically. It all worked pretty well, but that means the future is entirely up in the air. We’re in (mostly) uncharted territory.
The Magicians Season 2: Julia’s Dark Adventures
The Magicians is based on a trilogy of books by Lev Grossman and the first season of the show combined a lot of the first two books in the series. Specifically, Julia’s storyline wasn’t in book 1—that all came to us by flashback in the second book. The show moved her storyline up, which was probably a good call. But it resulted in a weirdly different timeline with Julia coming to Fillory for the conflict with the Beast. That didn’t happen in the books and it led the show to a very different turn of events.
At the end of The Magicians season 1, the Brakebills gang failed to defeat the Beast, which had been their ostensible goal all season long. Instead, Julia switched sides. She formed a new partnership with the Beast, asking his help to find out how to kill a god. She had good reasons. But her decision left the rest of the gang hanging—grievously wounded, trapped in Fillory, their quest unfinished. And none of that happened in the books.
The Magicians season 2, which premiered this week, is thus going to take us into totally new ground for the series—written or televised. That’s actually pretty exciting. Other fantasy shows, like Game of Thrones, have only diverged from the source material out of necessity, whether it’s to appease the television audience or simply because the source material isn’t done. But The Magicians made a stark and deliberate choice to go on a new direction after the first season. That’s exciting stuff—because we really have no idea what to expect.
