Season 4, Episode 5
Escape From the Happy Place
Margo attempts to open her Birthright Box, Julia is given a mission by Iris to trap the Monster, and Eliot attempts to escape the Monster's mind so he can tell his friends he's still alive.Tropes That Appear In This Episode:
- Always Chaotic Evil: The other creatures within The Monster's mind are all the other (Monster-eaten) twisted mistakes of the Gods, and they're...not very nice.
- And I Must Scream: The souls of every being the Monster has ever possessed reside inside his mind, unable to escape or make their presence known. Even when Eliot manages to break the Monster's control, it's only for a few moments.
- Armored Closet Gay: Eliot was bullied in school. When his only friend was outed as queer, he joined the mob beating him.
- The Atoner: Alice is trying to figure out how to atone for her actions, but Quentin flatly tells her that there's nothing she can do to make him trust her again.
- Blatant Lies:
- In his second The Loins Sleep Tonight memory, Eliot claims that it's the first time it's happened.
- When the Monster accuses Alice, Quentin, and Julia of trying to imprison him, they quickly spin a lie about having deliberately lured Iris out for him to kill and kept him in the dark because she would have gone back into hiding otherwise. He buys it.
- Brought Down to Normal: For some reason, all the talking animals in Fillory have been struck dumb, essentially turning them into regular animals.
- Cessation of Existence: If a soul within The Monster is destroyed, it's no more. This happened to the knight Ora, when she went to confront the other souls within.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Shoshana the maenad acts like this about Julia when Penny's around.
- Closest Thing We Got: Margo calls for the castle locksmith to open her Birthright Box, but is informed by Fen that the staff is out for mourning save for the carpenters constructing Eliot's memorial. Undeterred, she gives it to the carpenters and tells them to get it open, which they do.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: The artifacts the Monster has been harvesting from the gods are pieces of a body, presumably his.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Eliot remembers his most painful memory after his conjured memory of Quentin says that people sacrifice for the ones they love.
- Fighting from the Inside: With great effort, Eliot manages to find the door inside the Monster's mind that allows him to regain control of his body for a few moments.
- Flipping the Bird: Julia does this to Alice when they go back to the apartment.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Shoshana leaps in front of Julia to protect her from Iris's blast, and is killed.
- In Spite of a Nail: Alice describes how Quentin is supposed to die because he's distracted by a woman and her dog. She helps him accelerate the plan by two days, and yet the same scenario plays out when they arrive in the park. Alice manages to get him back on task before the Monster shows up.
- Internal Reveal: The group learns Eliot is still alive inside the Monster.
- In the Back: Iris gets it when the Monster shows up unexpectedly.
- Killed Offscreen: Ora's soul was caught and killed by the other monsters in the mindscape.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Iris tries to kill Julia for failing her mission, only to kill the maenad, and is then killed herself since the Monster knows she's there.
- Literal Metaphor: The substance that can keep the Monster from teleporting is blood from a literal stone.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Nobody in Fillory, not even Margo or Fen, knows Eliot is still alive yet.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: Two of Eliot's bad memories are instances of this.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: Eliot is trapped in his happiest memory while inside the Monster. Charlton shows up to help snap him out of it.
- Love Cannot Overcome: Quentin admits he loved Alice, but he simply cannot trust her.
- My Greatest Failure: Eliot's is turning down Quentin's suggestion of a relationship after their experience in "A Life in the Day".
- Noodle Incident: The maenad mentions there was bad blood between Iris and Bacchus for something Iris talked him into doing, which was terrible enough that he refused to speak of it despite being rather open otherwise.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Iris gives Julia a means to trap the Monster, and threatens to kill her if she refuses.
- Once More, with Clarity: We're shown an extended version of Eliot and Quentin's conversation at the end of "A Life in the Day". Quentin suggested they might make a good couple, but Eliot shot it down because he was afraid.
- One-Steve Limit: Todd's first name is revealed to be Eliot, too, but Eliot makes him go by his middle name, Todd, because he didn't want another Eliot in the room.
- Only Friend: The only child Eliot knew as a kid who didn't treat him like crap was a kid named Taylor. This friendship ended when the closeted young Eliot helped other kids gay-bash him.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Alice tries to justify killing Plover this way. Quentin is outraged regardless, even knowing what Plover has done.
- Put on a Bus to Hell: Ora's soul, trapped within The Monster, is revealed to have been overwhelmed and destroyed by the other souls off screen.
- Reformed, but Rejected: Alice genuinely wants to be a better person after all the problems she's helped cause, but Quentin simply isn't willing to trust that she won't betray him yet again. At the end of the episode, she agrees to leave because he won't let her stay.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Invoked (see Trying Not to Cry below) by Margo; now that she's taken up her mantle as High King again, she refuses to let anything get in the way of doing a good job, even the (she thinks, anyway) loss of her best friend.Margo: Somebody has to rule this kingdom, and I will be goddamned if I drop the ball because I was too busy lamenting with my tits out.
- Screw Destiny: By changing the conditions of Quentin's story, Quentin and Alice are able to avoid his death.
- Something Only They Would Say: To convince Quentin he isn't just the Monster playing a game, Eliot mentions some snippets from their experience in "A Life in the Day".
- Taking the Bullet: The maenad jumps in front of Iris's attack on Julia, which kills her. Iris attempts another one, but the Monster shows up to kill her since she's given her location away.
- Teleport Interdiction: Castle Blackspire is made of a material that specifically prevents the Monster from teleporting. Iris gives one of the stones to Julia so she can bleed it and douse the Monster with it, disabling him long enough for Iris to put him back in the castle. Quentin screws up the plan when he realizes Eliot is still alive.
- Trying Not to Cry: When Fen asks Margo if she's grieved for Eliot, Margo explains that she has not and will not cry, because with everything that's happened to her she would never stop if she ever let herself start.
- The Unreveal: Margo manages to get her Birthright Box open, which contains a talking iguana that will deliver a message, but since the talking animals have been struck dumb it does her no good.
- We Need a Distraction: Eliot conjures up memories of his friends at their most badass moments so they can fight the other monsters in the mindscape and serve as distractions he can sacrifice if he needs to.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Because everyone trapped in the Monster are just souls, they can hurt and kill each other even though they aren't physically real.
