Magnus Archives Part 4:

Let’s get the rating out of the way so we can get into spoilers, overall I still absolutely love this podcast I highly recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of horror, it’s available on Spotify and YouTube. Plz check it out, so I’ll give The Magnus Archives a solid 10/10

Warning spoilers ahead y’all been warned.

So picking up where I left off, thanks to a recording by Gertrude that Elias had hidden, Jonathan Sims finds out there’s a way to leave the institute. It’s by blinding yourself so The Eye can’t see through your eyes…uh oh.

He gives the opportunity to Melanie, but she at first is hesitant to….I mean understandable. But she comes around and decides she’s gonna do it because she wants to leave this god-forsaken place. She tells John she’s just worried for them.

Because she won’t be able to help afterward. Then she asks John to call her an ambulance in 5 min because she’s about to blind herself by stabbing herself in the eyes. Eeeeeeeek.

Now here’s an episode that I personally wanna talk about because it’s spooky and perfect to add into this review. Hope you enjoy this spooky episode. Specifically episode 157.

John finds two tapes on his desk. One is of Martin’s conversation with Peter Lukas where Martin confirms that if he helps Peter stop the Extinction, he won’t come back. The other one is a statement from Adelard Dekker who has been a sort of informant to Gertrude in the past. Here’s the statement.

Ur gonna wanna sit down for this, there’s a bit but I’ll condense it down.

The statement is in the form of an email addressing Gertrude Robinson. Adelard confesses he is dying as he writes, and asks Gertrude not to come look for him. Even if she never had patience for his faith, he hopes it will bring her some peace to know that he faces his death gladly, knowing that he has done his duty before God.

His current predicament began when he was contacted by Christabel, his contact within the ECDC. She alerts him to a pandemic originating in the small town of Klanxbüll, Germany. The town has been quarantined and the disease appears man-made, potentially a bio-weapon, as its behavior does not follow any normal patterns. The symptoms are extremely disturbing: it causes the skin and muscles to become loose and malleable until they slough off the body, leaving the skeleton and organs exposed.

Dekker suspects a pandemic is where The Extinction will pull away from The Corruption and travels to Klanxbüll to investigate. Donning a hazmat suit before entering the town, he discovers a hellish landscape of streets crisscrossed with thin trails of blood and skin and walls and windows covered in a sheen of discarded gore.

He soon comes across a man wrapped around a lamppost. His flesh has begun to spread and fuse over it in thick tendrils and his bones are almost exposed. His exposed heart is beating fast, despite the green decay that is eating at it. Dekker understands there is no saving the town, but maybe he can at least discover the cause.

He starts checking houses and realizes that the trails of viscera do not lead into the homes, but away from them to some central point. He follows them and finds the source of the sickness in a parking space by the train station.

At the center of the carnage sits a most dreadful throne, formed from two dozen bodies mixed together like putty. Their eyes stare out in horror as their hearts lie bare, beating. A moaning rises from it as voices try to scream through things that are not their throat.

Upon this throne sits the source of the rot, a lanky man wearing an ill-fitting brown suit and a smile. Dekker has never met John Amherst but he knows his description well enough to recognise him.

It seems clear that this is the work of the Corruption and not the Extinction. Although it is a different enemy than anticipated, Adelard will not leave it unopposed.

He retreats and formulates a plan, grabbing a stretcher, numerous quarantine sleeves, and a syringe. At a nearby building site, he grabs a thick metal chain and activates a concrete mixer. He fills the syringe with garden pesticide.

Returning to the parking space, Dekker reveals himself and Amherst approaches coyly, thinking him some hapless quarantine worker. As Amherst reaches for him, Dekker grabs him and injects the pesticide. It will not kill him but it stuns Amherst long enough for Dekker to drag him onto the stretcher.

Dekker straps him down, wraps him with the chain, and cocoons him in layer after layer of quarantine sleeves. He drags Amherst to the building site and throws him down a hole, then empties the concrete mixer onto the writhing form of Amherst, burying him under four feet of concrete. It is a simple, yet effective, solution.

As Dekker savors his victory, he notices a tear in the hazmat suit: a large cut on his leg has gone through the material and it is that clear that he is infected.

He will not wait for the affliction to overtake him and sets out to end things on his own terms. Even as he feels the infection take hold, he drags as many of the afflicted as he can find to the parking place and lays them out by the throne. He douses everything in petrol and takes a seat on the throne as he prepares to release them all from suffering.

It does not strike him as proper to go to his death without letting Gertrude know what happened and, luckily, he finds an unlocked laptop and sets about writing this email.

Gertrude may have been right about the Extinction. He has been hunting it for decades and he has evidence of its influence in other powers, but never found anything to genuinely prove its emergence as a true power of its own.

He muses that perhaps it is an existential fear that flows through the others like a vein of ore, or perhaps the birth of such things is simply longer and more complicated than he believed.

Yet, he does not regret seeking it. He has done his duty and is proud of the work he has done. He feels honored to have worked alongside Gertrude and wishes her well.

John doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know if he should try to help Martin or not because Martin has said he doesn’t want it.

He can’t get a hold of Basira or Daisy, so he turns to his old girlfriend Georgie. Turns out the now-blind Melanie is staying with her and dating her. Georgie tries to get him to leave but Melanie wakes up and greets Jon.

She wishes him well but refuses to get dragged back into the mess she blinded herself to leave. Jon’s next stop is Helen, he asks her what’s at the center of the tunnels under the institute. She says she knows but won’t tell him because it’s more fun that way, warning him of bad things to come before closing her door on him.

Next, we jump to Martin and Peter in the tunnels. Peter reveals he has a Leitner that lets him control the shifting tunnel and shows this off by releasing the Not Them which Jurgen Leitner had trapped after it impersonated Sasha.

The Not Them scurries off to finish its business with the other members of the Archive. Yikes. While this is happening Daisy, Basira, and John learn that Elias walked out of his prison cell and is on his way back to the institute.

In the tunnels, Peter tells Martin that they’re entering the Panopticon of Millbank Prison. The Panopticon is a tower in the middle of the old prison that lets guards watch every prisoner at every second of the day.

The Institute was built on top of the prison because this is right up the Eye’s alley. Peter explains Martin is connected to the Lonely and the Eye and is the only one who can stop the Extinction…but first, he has to take the seat in the Panopticon by “disposing of the current occupant”…Jonah Magnus, the founder of the Institute.

He’s been dead for a long time but there’s his body and his eyes are missing…because they’re in Elias’ body, Jonah is still running the institute.

At the same time Jon, Daisy, and Basira are learning the same thing from a new tape. This is what the tape shows.

It begins with the sounds of sloshing liquid, presumably gasoline. Elias Bouchard catches Gertrude in an attempt to burn down the Archives.

The two confirm that Gertrude knows that Jonah Magnus can take on different host bodies and that Elias is Jonah; she became aware sometime after Jonah became Elias, but it took her a decade to find the location of his body.

Gertrude planned to set the Archives on fire, distracting Elias, then to go after Jonah’s body. She had planned to survive the attack on her own patron by destroying her own eyes, as she learned from Eric Delano. However, Elias was not distracted by the ritual of the Dark as she had hoped. Elias cocks a gun.

Gertrude insists that he make a move, whether it be killing her or something else, and before she can finish her sentence, a gunshot rings out. Gertrude Robinson’s last words are her acknowledging her death and claiming that she thought it would have hurt more. The recording ends.

Basira and John come to the conclusion that Elias Bouchard is, and perhaps has been, for a very long time, Jonah Magnus, and acknowledge his ability to ‘body hop’ like Maxwell Rayner. John wonders if Peter wants to help Elias or stop him. From afar, heavy footsteps and many screams of terror and confusion can be heard. Basira checks it out.

In the tunnels, Martin is weighing whether to kill Jonah. Peter pushes him to but Martin refuses even though he wants to.

He explains that he went to Peter when John was in the coma because he needed someone and at first he believed what Peter told him, but eventually, it didn’t make sense that he could possibly be the chosen one Peter said he was.

So Martin faked devotion to the Lonely to keep Peter occupied and away from John to protect him. Peter ain’t happy with this info and sends Martin into the Lonely.

John reaches the panopticon and quickly enters the Lonely to save Martin, even as Elias tells him he won’t return. So Jonathan Sims enters the lonely void to go save Martin, as soon as he gets there all he hears is Peter Luka’s voice, trying to taunt him and make Sims think Martin wants to be alone and doesn’t want to talk to him.

Because this is what Peter feeds off of…the loneliness of individuals. He ends up finding Martin and guess what? He tells Sims that he wants to stay here.

The loneliness feels safe, he also tells Jonathan that he truly loves him. Ok, what has Peter Lukas done to Martin? Sims tells Peter Lukas that he’s as much at fault as for why Martin turned out like this as Peter Lukas was.

Peter tells him to leave, which Sims says nah not going to, I now know where you are. You’re gonna answer my questions….which Peter says no that’s not how it works, and Jonathan says tell me your story (the sound of static increases). Peter starts angrily groaning and then says fine fine where should I start. Should I start with my upbringing when I was a kid?

Time to summarize this up.

Peter had four siblings and a deeply faithful mother. His father left when he was young, and Peter slowly lost all his siblings. His mother is alive, though Peter says he cannot remember her face. Two of his sisters left the family.

His brother and other sister were sent away young and never returned. Peter acknowledges that his mother may have lied and actually killed them, but he does not believe she was cruel enough.

Peter was the favored son, as he was naturally very lonely and kept to himself. (You can probably summarize this in a couple of sentences and just say he had siblings but barely knew them)

The Lukas family was wealthy, Peter states, but his upbringing was not very normal. His mother believed that friendship was dangerous. As he got older, he would periodically steal money from his mother and run away for days at a time. He acknowledges that looking back, she probably left so much cash in her purse on purpose.

He would walk the darkened streets alone in whatever town he ran away to, and would simply revel in the distance he put between him and his family. He hated when he would pass another person, wishing they would disappear; until one day, one of them did when Peter asked him to go away.

When he returned, his mother and a bunch of relatives were waiting. They took him downstairs and showed him their god, presumably the Lonely.

He describes the process of getting the crew together for his expedition to the Arctic, and how much he loved being alone in his cabin, so far from anyone except his crew.

Eventually, he meets Adelard Dekker, who tells him about The Extinction — Peter believes that a world completely devoid of human life would defeat the purpose of the Lonely and what makes it so special to truly distance yourself from everyone, and hopes that if he can complete his own ritual, the Extinction will be stopped.

Peter invested in an apartment building in London, hoping to use it to summon the Lonely through a ritual he dubs the Silence. He creates the building to be extremely lonely; the first floors are empty, so the only people living there can only see people on the streets from a distance. False doors are abundant so that knocking on your neighbor’s door will often get no answer.

The rooms are small, with no room for more than a single bed and a small couch, and the kitchens cannot do much more than microwave. Each room has an office space with no door, so you cannot escape your work.

He then rented each room out incredibly cheaply, but only to people who were predisposed to loneliness; recent college graduates who were new to London, recent divorcees, etc.

He then planned to wait until their despair reached a maximum, lock them inside their rooms, cut the phone lines and internet, and leave them all to die.

However, Gertrude discovers this plan and tips off the Guardian newspaper, and the building receives much support from the city by being dubbed “The Loneliest Building in Britain”. Though this ruins his ritual, now that he has had a taste of “the game”, Peter is easily persuaded by Elias/Jonah to take over the Institute by promising him, Martin.

John kills Peter after Peter refuses to tell him Elias’ plan. He then has to go find Martin who is lost to the Lonely. He hides from him and rejects Jon’s calls for him to come home with him until John asks him what he sees…he says “I see you Jon” and joins John as he leads them out of the Lonely.

To summarize it up, Peter spent all of season 4 convincing Martin to join the Lonely, sacrificing himself to protect the rest of the staff and stop the Extinction.

Martin was convinced until he was confronted with the decision to kill Elias, which would have allowed him access to the panopticon.

Martin’s refusal granted Elias his victory, and Peter took Martin to the Lonely as bait to draw John in. Peter thought he could keep John there to take Elias’ victory but it ended up killing Peter instead. His last words to John were “Leave me alone!”

While all of this happened in the tunnels, in the Archives Daisy and Basira learn that Trevor and Julia are back and the Not Them has come up from the tunnels. Daisy gives in to the Hunt and, after asking Basira to kill her when it’s all over, goes full monster mode on Trevor and Julia.

Now we’re officially in the final episode of season 4 which means onto season 5, btw I won’t be adding as many details to season 5 I’ll pick some small very important segments and then mention the last few episodes of the series finale.

John and Martin are hiding out in one of Daisy’s safe houses in Scotland and they’ve been there for a few weeks. Basira has been sending John statements for sustenance and he goes to read another while Martin leaves to give him privacy.

The statement turns out to be a fake-out, starting with a story about a house fire and being interrupted by these words:

“Hello Jon. Apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to announce myself. I’m assuming you’re alone; you always did prefer to read your statements in private. I wouldn’t try too hard to stop reading; there’s every likelihood you’ll just hurt yourself. So just listen. Now, shall we turn the page and try again?

Statement of Jonah Magnus regarding Jonathan Sims, The Archivist.”

Jonah lays it all out for Jon, explaining what he wants and how we got here. First, here’s some info about rituals. So each of the Fears has followers who attempt these big rituals to bring their chosen Fear into the world physically.

John and the crew have stopped some rituals, like the Unknowing by The Stranger. Second, here’s a refresher on the 14 Fears: The Eye (aka Beholding, Ceaseless Watcher), The Stranger, The End, The Buried, The Vast, The Desolation, The Dark, The Flesh, The Corruption, The Slaughter, The Hunt, The Spiral, The Lonely. Okay now back to Jonah’s explanation.

Robert Smirke, the architect who designed so many cursed buildings, taught Jonah and Peter Lukas about the Entities.

Each of Smirke’s students eventually found their chosen Fear and Jonah began to worry one of his peers would complete a ritual before he could–so he started his own instead.

Smirke built Millbank Prison with all of the Fears in mind but Jonah insisted on the addition of the Panopticon to feed the Eye specifically. Jonah used the prisoners’ dread to attempt his own ritual: The Watcher’s Crown.

While it failed and killed all the inmates, it also granted Jonah the ability to see through any set of eyes, even the ones in a painting. To keep the prison safe and prepared for another ritual, he built the institute on top of it and body-hopped between heads of the institute for centuries.

Then came Gertrude Robinson. She wasn’t interested in statements, she just wanted to prevent rituals. She and Jonah eventually came to the same conclusion: rituals didn’t fail because they were done wrong, they failed because they could never work.

Gertrude tested this theory by letting the People’s Church of the Divine Host (a cult serving The Dark) attempt their ritual with no interference. As she suspected, it collapsed without any sabotage from her.

Jonah realized that these rituals couldn’t work because they tried to bring individual Fears into the world, but the Fears couldn’t actually be fully separated from each other because they overlap and define themselves in contrast with each other. The Vast couldn’t exist without The Buried.

So Jonah’s big plan is to summon ALL 14 of the Fears at the same time. All he needed was an Archivist who was marked by all 14 Fears. John was the perfect person for the job because he had already been marked by The Web at a young age. Once he got the job, Jonah first let John be marked naturally…then guided it. Here’s how he was marked by each fear.

The Web: John read a Leitner called A Guest for Mister Spider as a child and his friend was taken by Mister Spider.

The Corruption: Jonah waited until Jane Prentiss’ worms burrowed into John to activate the fire suppression at the end of season one.

The Stranger: Jon’s neck was slashed by the Not Sasha and he was injured while interfering with The Unknowing.

The End: Jon’s near-death experience after the Unknowing and his comatose interaction with Oliver Banks was enough for Death to mark him.

The Spiral: Jonah fed John Helen Richardson’s statement to draw The Distortion in, and John was marked even more by his repeated encounters with Helen when she became the Distortion.

The Hunt: Jonah requested Daisy be assigned to Jurgen Leitner’s murder, and eventually she tried to hunt and kill Jon. Another mark!

The Desolation: Jonah gave John the statement leading him to Jude Perry, whose burning handshake marked him.

The Vast: Jonah gave John the statement leading him to Michael Crew, who sent him into freefall and marked him.

The Slaughter: Jonah took advantage of Melanie’s ghost bullet from The Slaughter as an opportunity for a marking and tied her to the institute. John was marked when Melanie lashed out during her surprise surgery.

The Flesh: Jonah had sent Jared Hopworth the letters instructing him to attack the Institute, but it happened when John was still comatose. Luckily for Jonah, John approached Jared Hopworth voluntarily for his rib removal and was successfully marked by The Flesh.

The Buried: Jonah sent Basira on a wild goose chase so John could enter the coffin to get Daisy. Another mark!

The Dark: Jonah sent John and Basira to “stop” The People’s Church of the Divine Host’s ritual which had already failed, all so John could see the Dark Star and be marked.

The Lonely: Jonah bet Peter that he couldn’t turn Martin against Jon, eventually leading John to enter the Lonely and receive his final mark.

Throughout the show, Jonah took measures to ensure John would be marked, like killing Jurgen Leitner before he could clue John in on what was happening. Now that he’s marked he’s ready to summon all the fears. Compelled, John reads Jonah’s incantation:

“You who watch and know and understand none. You who listen and hear and will not comprehend. You who wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right. Come to us in your wholeness. Come to us in your perfection.

Bring all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and bleeds and dies! Come to us.

I – OPEN – THE DOOR!”

Martin wakes John and tells him not to go outside, something’s wrong. John tells him that he knows–he knows everything, and it’s happening everywhere. He tells Martin to look at the sky…and it’s looking back.

Now we’re going into season 5, the series finale.

Join me as we continue to discuss about The Magnus Archives in the series finale part 5 review, hope to see y’all there. Anyway hope y’all enjoyed this review and here’s a link to the full podcast.