The Magicians Episode 4: The World In The Walls Recap With Spoilers

Quentin wakes up in the sanitarium. He goes to his drawers and finds his clothes, quarters, and pencils. He notices the bracelet around his wrist and the Fillory books on his desk. He's startled by another patient.

Quentin walks the halls of the sanitarium and runs into Elliot, who comes onto him looking for "happy pills." Dr. London sends Elliot away and pulls Quentin into a meeting.

Quentin tells Dr. London that he must be dreaming. He starts talking about Brakebills, but London has heard this fantasy before. Quentin tries to perform a spell. Nothing happens, but he's still convinced he's dreaming. Quentin recalls the conversation he had with Dr. London when she released him, but London says that never happened. She asks if Quentin remembers why the court ordered him here, and then calls in Penny, a sanitarium orderly. Penny found pills in Quentin's trash. London believes Quentin is hallucinating because he's off his meds. She's heard about Alice, the Beast, and the Physical Kids. A moth flies by Quentin's head. Then there's a group of them under a lampshade, then a swarm outside the window. London denies seeing them, but then her face becomes shrouded in moths. Quentin becomes frightened, and the moths disappear. They suddenly reappear and swarm Quentin. London calls a "code red" to her office.

In the common room, Alice gives Quentin a Brakebills playing card and tells Quentin not to let them see. She tells him that none of this real, only the two of them and the card, then hides the card in her robe. Quentin tells Alice that he doesn't remember what's going on, that he fell asleep at a party and then he was here. Alice says Quentin came to save her, but now they have to break the illusion. She starts going on about how she's an alien who crash-landed on Earth and Quentin is a starship captain when Doctor Fogg interrupts her. Fogg demands she hand over the cards. They take Alice away, and Fogg checks on Quentin. Fogg asks if Quentin is up to seeing a visitor, and Julia stands in the doorway.

Julia and Quentin talk and she tells him that she's at Yale. She also tells him that she and James are getting married, which she told Quentin before but he seems to have forgotten. Quentin insists that he's caught in a spell, and tries to cast one of his own again. This time he sees fireworks coming from his fingers, but no one else notices. He starts to yell and Penny hushes him down. Julia calms him and says she really wanted to see the fireworks. Quentin never told her they were fireworks, and asks how she knew if she couldn't see. Julia's face begins to blur and laugh for a moment.

Quentin lines up and takes his pills while Penny watches. Penny says he believes that Quentin is a magician, a bad one, then forces Quentin to take the pills that he palmed and hid.

Quentin notices a sign naming the place Ellsworth Downs Hospital, and repeats the words to himself in bed that night. Jane Chatwin appears in front of him. She says he knows, but she can't show him or touch him, and that the spell is very strong. She says the spell is in the book, and the book is him, that this is all him. He asks which book, but Jane begins to fade away. Quentin reads his Fillory books through the night. When he wakes in the morning, his roommate has started tearing them apart.

Quentin asks a nurse for tape, but she tells him that tape isn't permitted. The nurse tells him to go to music therapy. London is leading the group and overhears Penny mumbling to himself about hating one of their songs. Quentin remembers what Jane told him and starts singing "Shake it Off" by Taylor Swift. The rest of the group joins in and the song chases Penny out of the room.

Quentin tries to explain to Fogg and London that he needs to find the real Penny to break the spell. They shut him down and he asks for tape.

In another session, London asks if Quentin remembers the last time he saw his father. He says dinner a few months ago. London lets Quentin's father into the office. Quentin and his father awkwardly embrace, then Quentin notices a mark on his father's face. London says that Quentin did that. Quentin doesn't believe it. London shows him a tape of Quentin claiming that his father wasn't his father but the Beast and ranting about needing his powers back to protect everyone. Ted tells Quentin that they were having dinner to celebrate his getting into Yale. He says Quentin got up saying the restaurant was filled with moths. He started calling his father the Beast and tried to kill him.

London tells Quentin he needs to accept who he is and how he got there if he's going to get better. Quentin is practically catatonic when Julia visits him. She says she's going to talk to someone. As she's leaving, the real Penny walks in and overhears orderly Penny singing "Shake it Off." Julia notices it before she leaves. Real Penny tries to snap dream Penny out of it, but it doesn't work. Real Penny finds Quentin and says he warned Quentin that he'd rip the song right out of his brain if he didn't stop. Real Penny overhears dream Penny's accent and calls Quentin racist then goes after him. Penny pushes him and Quentin feels pain. He tells Penny to do it again. Quentin says he sang the song to get Penny's attention. He tells Penny it is a spell and he needs Penny's help to break the spell. He manages to wake Penny up.

Julia also wakes from a trance she was in with Marina. Marina says she doesn't see Quentin snapping out of their spell anytime soon, pointedly saying to Kady that even Penny won't be able to save him. Kady and Julia are upset because Marina went further with it than they expected, but Marina sends Kady to do her part.

Quentin swipes the keys from the nurse and gets tape from the supply room. He tapes together a page that describes the Madness Maker, an inventor of puzzles and games that drove other magicians mad. His real name was Ellsworth Downs. Downs had cheated in a game of checkers with a witch, and the witch cursed him so that he could only perform game magic. The book says Jane knew he only did these things because he was cursed and lonely, becoming more insane as he played. Jane knew how to break the curse, but Quentin doesn't have the page. He tries o pull it from his memory.

Penny goes to the Physical Kids Cottage looking for Quentin. They can't find Quentin, but Kady arrives and tells them she knows where he is. They find Quentin in a closet. Kady and Elliot say they need to tell the Dean.

Julia and Marina wait outside the Brakebills barrier. Julia starts to question how exactly all of this is supposed to gain them more magic, but Marina refuses to answer.

Fogg says the spell Quentin is under can't be broken by any of them, but that they need to summon a kind of bug demon the underworld. When Fogg lowers the wards around Brakebills to summon the demon, Julia and Marina cross onto the campus. The demon is placed on Quentin's face. It should snap Quentin out of the dream, but Penny will have to help guide Quentin back. The demon climbs inside Quentin.

Inside the illusion, Penny searches for Quentin. He's strapped down on a table as London prepares to have Ted Coldwater lobotomize him. Penny arrives and tries to snap Quentin out of it, telling him he needs to make it all disappear. The illusion begins coming undone.

Marina tells Julia that she was kicked out of Brakebills just 3 months before graduation. When you've been at Brakebills that long, they have to "amputate" your memories, but they keep them stored away. She goes looking for them.

Penny comes back to the real world, but Quentin doesn't wake up. Kady finds Julia and tells her that Quentin isn't going to wake up unless she reverses the spell. Marina finds her way into a secret chamber where her memories are stored. She takes them.

Quentin finds himself caged in an empty room. Jane Chatwin is there. She says you make the spell you're in, and the chessboard and the Madness Maker appear.

Julia goes to the Physical Kids Cottage and offers to help, but Fogg and the others say it's too late. Fogg knows that someone else helped cast the spell.

Jane tells Quentin that he can hide in the void if he chooses, or he can find his way. The pages appear in his hand. They tell him that the Madness Maker didn't play for the joy of winning, but out of fear of losing, only playing what he knew he could win and cutting himself off from surprise, sadness, and the wonder of life. Jane saw his only way out was to stop playing and start living. Quentin knocks the pieces off of the board. His physical body jumps up and coughs out the demon. .Julia disappears, summoned outside the Brakebills border by Marina just before the wards went back up.

Later, Fogg scolds Quentin for not telling him about Julia and for facing the hedge witches alone. Fogg begins a lecture about what magic is, but Quentin cuts him off and says he needs to learn magic so he can decide what it is for himself. Fogg dismisses him and says that he's glad Quentin is still with them.

Back at the hedge witch headquarters, Marina reabsorbs her memories and uses some of her new powers to cross out Julia's stars. Marina implies that she killed Kady, and banishes Julia.