The Magnus Protocol Reviews: “Temporary Positions”

“Temporary Positions” Is Great For Mystery Lovers

Maybe this is just because I’ve listened to a lot of Magnus, and am going off patterns, but the series does have a habit of outright stating something after it was possible to mostly have figured it out. And that’s what “Temporary Positions” feels like. It’s a clarifying episode for anyone who’s not been following this storyline as closely as someone like me.

So, let’s go over what we already knew.

We already knew—without almost any doubt—that Celia was being pulled back to her universe when she slept. Now it’s happening to Sam, though maybe more aggressively. And it’s also maybe pulls some harder people into the “holes” than others, since both Celia and Sam seemingly end up near the precipice, but weren’t fully taken.

We also already knew about the whole Hilltop Road thing with the cleaner. The second I heard the name in “Temporary Positions,” my memory pinged. I don’t recall if we ever got to hear Anya’s voice before, though, and I’ll explain why. This is a little inside baseball, but I actually have a personal rule that I’m not going back and relistening to referenced episodes of Archives, because I want my reviews to be of this current series as much as possible. I haven’t gone back and listened to Celia’s scenes in Archives, either.

Now, onto what we maybe didn’t know—or don’t know for sure. I had forgotten about Sam being in terrible condition when he arrived in the new dimension back in “Compartmentalising,” but considering the “holes” open up to a lot of places, not just linking Protocol and Archives, it stands to reason he may have been in there longer than we know. It would not be the first time the franchise has played with time in interesting ways.

We May Now Know More Answers Than We Don’t

Finally, though this is really going out there, we don’t actually know how The Web fits into this—if at all. The Web orchestrated the opening of those holes, after all. So, is the randomity something The Web knew about, or just the nature of reality? Did The Web actually want to shuffle people around to different worlds, or is that an unintended consequence? And, most importantly, considering The Eye is a possible threat, are the Dread Powers in all of these mentioned worlds, one of them, or off in the space-between-spaces that Anya mentioned? Or somehow multiple of those options?

I obviously want answers, but I do actually feel in the swing of things at the moment. Maybe that’s hubris, and maybe I’ve made that mistake before, but the majority of the chessboard has been set between this and “Repetitive Strain” for season two’s big conflict. “Temporary Positions” did throw out what feels like a poorly paced cliffhanger, but at least it’s one that seems primed to jump us into more action. The next episode might—given Protocol’s track record—throw us a random horror statement with no further big-picture stuff, but the episode after that, episode 50, has basically got to launch into something nice and plot-heavy.

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