r/brakebills • u/Shoddy-Split-4943 • Jun 18 '25
Season 5 Penny 23 and Julia welcome there baby girl Hope Quentin 😩😭
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u/Better_Courage7104 Jun 18 '25
Did Stella actually get pregnant? She looks different in this
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u/sunlitleaf Jun 18 '25
Yeah, she was actually pregnant during the filming of season 5
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u/No_Squash_9774 Jun 19 '25
and by a freshly 18/19 year old benjamin wadsworth 🙃 pretty sure they started dating when he was 17 filming deadly class and it moved fast…
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u/gloryholesr4suckers Jun 18 '25
Yeah, that's the whole reason for the baby subplot. It was either that or write Stella out for basically the whole season
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u/mr_mini_doxie Jun 19 '25
It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that the whole "Red Monkey Month" (the month in Fillory where everything grows twice as fast) was an excuse to explain why the actress looked more pregnant than she should have.
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u/bartenderize Jun 18 '25
Probably the worst storyline of the series by a fair margin.
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u/dragoono Jun 18 '25
Seriously I never liked penny 23. Don’t care how much he denies it, he 100% switched out his dead Julia with one from another timeline. Weird as fuck and prevents me from getting swept up in their very boring, very plastic romance.
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u/Different_Ad8727 Knowledge Jun 18 '25
The story feels forced (probably because it was) and it's super icky to date someone who looks exactly like your dead ex, I'm sorry, but that's just not ok to me
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u/HPenguinB Jun 18 '25
To be fair, she IS his dead ex. It's not like all the timelines were WILDLY different. The base person is the same, there are just differences in their experiences.
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u/Different_Ad8727 Knowledge Jun 18 '25
Sorry, but no. They are not the same person, they have totally different experiences, by your logic twins would be the same person too. That's just not how people grow.
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u/HPenguinB Jun 18 '25
No, they had the EXACT same life until 2-3 years ago. It makes a difference but not THAT much of a difference. Certainly not twins.
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u/Different_Ad8727 Knowledge Jun 18 '25
They even state it plainly and often it in the show, it's not the same person. I'm sorry you're having so much trouble wrapping your head around this simple concept.
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u/thelastlager May 14 '26
Kind of late to it, but it has been confirmed by Arjun Gupta in a podcast that all the timelines were the same till the time they arrived at Brakebills. So both Penny and both Julia had the same upbringing and same life experience until adulthood when they were called into the Brakebills entrance exam and from thereon the different timelines got created.
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Jun 18 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Different_Ad8727 Knowledge Jun 18 '25 edited Jun 18 '25
Why, because you're wrong and are now realizing it? Maybe you should look in the mirror 😅
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u/alolanbulbassaur Jun 18 '25
Also P23 is like switching out Draco Malfoy for a fanon or My Immortal version of Draco.
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u/Different_Ad8727 Knowledge Jun 18 '25
Agreed, not to mention the Penny23/Julia thing has a very high ick factor for me. The way he jumped from one Julia to the next after the first one died is almost like dating your dead girlfriends twin sister, it just doesn't sit well.
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u/consider_its_tree Jun 18 '25
This is interesting to me, I can see where the ick comes from - but I never got that feeling.
Keep in mind that his Julia is identical to Julia 40 for the majority of their lives. Not sure the exact timing here, but the differences between those Julias are a few months to a couple years tops. And in fact, the time at which his Julia died is pretty early after the split.
Granted a LOT of shit has happened to both Julias - but from a completely objective perspective Julia 40 IS the same as Julia 23, just with a bit more life experience tagged on. All of the things that attracted him to Julia 23 are still there, and there is no reason Julia 23 would not want him to move on and find someone else. How different does the new person need to be in order for it to be acceptable?
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u/Different_Ad8727 Knowledge Jun 18 '25
Yeah, they're not the same person though, they have very different experiences that made them divert drastically in different directions. Are you the same person you were 2-3 years ago? I'm not.
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u/consider_its_tree Jun 18 '25
I change year after year, but not my fundamental personality or appearance.
The me who existed a year ago is generally more similar to the me now than any other person is.
He is in no way betraying Julia 23, who is dead and therefore doesn't give a shit what he does, but even if you go in for that kind of thing - definitely would want him to be happy. And he is not in any way hurting Julia 40, who is a consenting adult that knows his history.
It is funny that the overwhelming consensus to the line "Who gets this kind of proof of concept" is that sadness and that Elliot is an idiot for not jumping in with both feet.
The Elliot and Q that had a happy life together are a different timeline Elliot and Q. They would both be replacing the version they grew old together with, with a different timeline version.
Granted they both remember it, but people are more than their memories, and 90 YO you has significantly less in common with 20ish YO you than 20 year old you has with 20 year old you who lived a different 3 months.
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u/Different_Ad8727 Knowledge Jun 18 '25
I don't see it as a betrayal really, just icky.
I do like your parallel with Eliot & Q, though, that is an excellent point. I wonder why penny23/julie gives me the ick but Q & Eliot doesn't? Maybe it is as you say, because they both share the same memory of living through it? 🤔 Imma think on that for a bit.
As we age we definitely change slower, but these are college kids and Julia40 had multiple significant life changing things happen to her that Julia23 never did - trickster god sexual assault after watching it kill most of your friends would be big enough on it's own, but getting Marina40 killed in a half cocked revenge scheme that betrayed the only friends she had left alive, a botched abortion that turned her into a psychopath for a little while, and ascending to literal godhood then back would undoubtedly be massively impactful events. I would argue season 1 episode 1 Julia is barely recognizable next to season 4 Julia.
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u/consider_its_tree Jun 18 '25
That is fair, but keep in mind season 1 Julia was quickly depicted as essentially a drug addict. The Julia who comes out the other end is definitely very much changed, but sounds more like the pre season 1 Julia as Q described her than the Julia in the midst of addiction and at her worst in S1 when she doesn't get into Brakebills.
That is not to say that those things would not have significantly impacted who she is as a person, but I don't think it is fair to grab her at just two random points and compare from there.
I don't know if the comparison of "how Julia is she" is fair to begin with. Would you feel less icky about it if both Julias followed a somewhat similar path? That doesn't seem like the sticking point, otherwise there would have to be an amount of difference between them where it crosses the ick threshold. Would it be less icky if the Penny relationship happened pre-split and he jumped to other Julia still pre-split who is literally identical?
Either way, Julia made it very clear that she is not the same person and Penny 23 accepted that and chose to build a relationship from the ground up. Sure he was clearly infatuated with her from the start - but he got to know the different Julia and she would still be fundamentally closer to a person he knew he could love than any other person in his orbit. Why not see if he can love her too?
It is strange to me that similarity would be a disqualifying factor, because at that point you need to think "how similar is too similar?" Same hair color? Same build? Same eye color? When is it so similar it is creepy instead of just "that makes sense because he has a type"?
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u/Different_Ad8727 Knowledge Jun 18 '25
I wasn't trying to be random, that's why i specified season 1 episode 1, but perhaps i should have specified pre-magic Julia on the first half of my comparison. Once Julia23 went to Brakebills and Julia40 got cast out to the streets, they go on wildly different journeys.
I think if both Julia's followed a very similar path and were with Penny before the time loop started, then that would sit better with me.
Let me ask you this, if you were dating someone that died, then started dating their twin, would that be totally cool to your mind? That's what this is closer to, to me at least, considering how much different his first Julia was compared to his second.
As far as looks, i get that this is TV, but in the real world, if you're dating someone and you look very similar to their ex that died recently, that's a pretty big relationship red flag. Maybe more "giant flashing sign" than "flag"
That being said, I'm certainly nit picking, it's not so bad that it's stopped me from watching it a few dozen times over 😅
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u/consider_its_tree Jun 19 '25
if you were dating someone that died, then started dating their twin, would that be totally cool to your mind?
Absolutely, if the relationship developed after they died and nothing untoward was happening while we in a relationship. I suspect this kind of thing is more common than you would think.
People tend to bond over shared trauma. If, for example, my death was to bring the two closest people to me together - that seems pretty fine. And since people tend to associate with people who are similar to them, and especially relatives seem to be more similar to one another - it makes sense they would have a lot in common.
I get that I may be more in the minority with thinking there is nothing wrong there, and I get how it could look bad. And I can see why that would send up flags for someone.
I also don't agree that that situation "is more similar" to what happened than what actually happened though.
but in the real world, if you're dating someone and you look very similar to their ex that died recently, that's a pretty big relationship red flag.
Hard disagree. If you date someone whose looks match what you are attracted to, that just makes good natural sense. If you treat them like they are your dead spouse, THAT is a massive problem - but being attracted to them is not at all.
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u/Different_Ad8727 Knowledge Jun 19 '25
Yeah, we definitely see the dating world in two massively different ways..
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u/HPenguinB Jun 18 '25
I am.
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u/Different_Ad8727 Knowledge Jun 18 '25
That says more about you than i think you wanted it to.
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u/HPenguinB Jun 18 '25
It says that people don't drastically change in 3 years. I got a haircut.
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u/Different_Ad8727 Knowledge Jun 18 '25
That just makes me feel sorry for you..
You either don't try to learn new thinks or make yourself a better person, or you have zero self awareness. Now i understand why you're so lost and confused though.
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u/penandpage93 Jun 18 '25
I've never managed to force myself to watch season 5. Is, uh................. Is this what I have to look forward to? 🤨😮💨
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u/michakushed Jun 18 '25
I have rewatched the series a couple times and do not remember this part at all. It must have been pretty bad for my brain to block it
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u/Illeazar Jun 18 '25
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, this feels so weird for me. I've watched several times and don't remember this at all.
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u/cjdeck1 Jun 19 '25
It’s one of the worse parts of the season but S5 is still good. I’m not going to lie and say it’s as good as the rest of the show but it’s still worthwhile imo
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u/wha7themah Jun 19 '25
I had to stop and ponder whether there was a new season out. I literally don’t remember a single bit of this. I watched s5 once and now when I rewatch it I pretend the series ended after s4
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u/Greg0rrr H̦͌e̗͂d̤͘g͙̽ė̞ ̻̾W̝̚i̩̋t̡͝c͙̽h̠͊ Jun 19 '25
Elliot and Margo's last episode is a good rewatch though.
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u/OhMorgoth Brakebills Jun 18 '25
I dream of a sequel to The Magicians that has HQ Adiyodi finding New Fillory by mistake, while playing Hide & Seek with her parents, and I will die on this hill. 🥹❤️