Season 2 | Episode 10| “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Magic” | Aired Sep 14, 2015

Smoke and mirrors go hand-in-hand with magic. This week, Penn & Teller showed how one of their smokiest tricks works, using the principles of magic. Penn narrates while Teller does a “simple” trick involving a lit cigarette, a small pencil, and a flashlight. The first time through, we see Teller only in profile, and the number of cigarettes in his mouth seems to change by magic. After Penn explains the principles of magic, we watch the trick again, this time from the other side, and get a behind-the-scenes look at how the magic happened. I love learning about magic almost as much as I love being mystified by it, so I love when P&T do “tricks” like these. Plus, Teller is so gifted with sleight of hand that, even when you know exactly what he’s doing, you can barely tell what on earth he’s doing. That’s magical.

And now, without further ado, let’s dive into this week’s rankings. As always, the aspiring Foolers are ranked from least to most magical:

Spidey and Joel Meyers: The “Sleightly Mental” Duo

This week’s group of contestants was an exceptionally tough set to rank. Everyone had incredible stage presence and brought unique and amazing tricks to the table. Coming in last (it pains me to say) are Spidey and Joel Meyers. They did a very impressive (and funny) mentalism routine. Spidey does the mentalism, while Joel handles the bulk of the talking. The setup of the trick was that Spidey would write down a word, then Joel would use the audience to find the word he guessed in one of six classic novels. One member of the audience wrote down a page number (between 1 and 200), which was then passed around to another random member of the audience. That woman chose a number, which helped Joel pick one of the six novels. The novel was handed to her, and she found the page written on the paper (by the other audience member). Spidey then started making guesses about the third word on the page (but why it needed to be the third word is unclear). Finally, it was revealed that on his prediction sheet, he’d written the code for a word in a dictionary that had been given to Penn before the start of the trick. And yes, that word matched the third word on the selected page of the novel.

It’s a lot to type out and a lot to see. It was an impressively intricate trick, but one that Penn & Teller seemed immediately familiar with (it all seemed to come down to the pen the audience member wrote the page number with and the magnifying glass Penn was given to read the dictionary). P&T do their own impressively intricate mentalism trick using joke books passed around the audience in their show, so I’m not at all surprised that this one didn’t fool them.

Marcus Eddie: Chains and Charisma

Marcus Eddie had an amazing attitude. If nothing else, his attitude and his approach to magic (that he wants to inspire people to believe, even for a moment, that anything is possible) were beautiful. His trick was short and simple (the only such trick on tonight’s episode). Inspired by Houdini and escape tricks, Marcus’ trick was him pulling (or at least appearing to pull) a solid chain through his torso.

At the end of the trick, he gave Penn & Teller both the chain and the markers he had asked them to use to write their names (or another distinguishing mark) on key tags at either end of the chain, which is ballsy because it means they could examined his work up close. In the end, even though they admitted that they believe he actually invented the variation of the trick he performed, they were familiar with something similar enough to guess how it was done. He moved awkwardly when the chain was at his back, and Penn’s clue about the trick had to do with his back, so we know the back was important—but hell if I know what he did back there.

Bruce Gold: The Brave Little Toaster-Toucher

Bruce Gold is a comedy magician who actually brings to the table equal parts comedy and magic. His trick involved a psychic toaster, which is funny enough on its own. Bruce was, sadly, saddled with an oddly unenthusiastic audience helper, but even with that holding him back (sorry, audience helper—I’m sure you were just nervous; I would probably be a deer in the headlights on television, so no judgment), he packed in lots of laughs and a fun, well-executed trick. The premise was pretty simple: The helper chose a card and the toaster predicted it by burning the answer on a piece of toast. Penn & Teller saw through the trick easily and, honestly, even I had a pretty good idea of how it was done (or at least could have been done). But the more I watch Fool Us, the more I realize that presentation is everything. There aren’t that many tricks, so finding an innovative way to present one is something special in and of itself.

Rick Lax: The Inventor Magician

Rick Lax claimed in his intro video to invent magic tricks, mostly for other magicians. That’s an impressive claim, and inventing new magic is basically the only way to fool P&T. Rick’s trick was a memorization trick. He looked at a set of cards, memorized their order (or claimed to), then proceeded to shuffle them methodically with Penn & Teller’s help. These weren’t true shuffles, just rearrangements of the deck that would make it increasingly difficult to remember the order and keep up with the changes. After rearranging the deck several times and in several ways, Rick sorted the deck into red and black cards, all while keeping the cards face down.

Oh and while he did that, he recited poetry and split his focus.

Penn & Teller weren’t sure how he did it and neither am I, unless he just really memorized the deck—in which case he probably deserves a chance to perform in Vegas.

Season 2 | Episode 13 | “Future Tense” | Aired Sep 14, 2015

The first two episodes of Faking It’s season 2B were about the past, about everyone obsessing over things that had already happened: Amy and Liam’s affair. Karma’s parents’ drug bust. Shane’s outing of Duke. Lauren’s reveal that she was intersex. Liam’s decision to give up art and join the Skwerkel empire to save Karma’s family. This week’s episode, however, was all about the future.

Specifically, it was about the terrifying and exciting bit of future that every high school student gets to dread and/or look forward to: college. To go or not to go? That is the question. And if the answer to that question is “go,” that opens up a whole new line of questions. Where will you go? What will you study? How will you pay for it? These are big, universal questions, and ones that the Faking It crew is facing.

We learn that, in addition to having BFF necklaces and plans to grow old together, Karma and Amy have always planned to go to the same college, Clement University. At the college fair, they learn that CU has a summer program that funnels pretty directly to admission, and great news for totally-broke Karma: It’s free. The catch? There are only 30 slots, and Karmy are facing off against people like Lauren, who have a slew of unique extracurriculars and a full course load of A’s to back up their applications. Karma is pretty sure that her B- in Yarn Arts will keep her out of the super-exclusive program. She and Amy make an admissions video full of lies that they hope will impress the admissions board, but Felix, the voice of reason, tells them just how bad it is. The episode brings a lot of change and future plans (and changes to future plans) for everyone:

Karma: Karma is a planner. Sure, not all of her plans are great ones (like that whole pretending-to-be-a-lesbian idea), but we know Karma is a girl who decides what she wants and goes for it. She knows that she wants Clement University and, after everything Karma has been through, I’m going to be pretty bummed if her dream doesn’t come true (and maybe even more bummed if she gets in and can’t pay for it, and more bummed still if she gets in, can’t pay for it, then accepts a Skwerkel bribe to stop seeing Liam or talk him out of art school in exchange for tuition).

Amy: I’m not sure Amy knows what she wants when it comes to anything. She doesn’t know how she identifies in terms of her sexuality. She thinks she wants to go to film school and make documentaries, but it doesn’t really feel like her passion. She wants Reagan, and that’s about all she seems to know at the moment—but in the end, she has to be honest about questioning her sexuality, and that’s the end of Amy and Reagan. Amy makes the admissions video with Karma, but she’s terrible in it. When Reagan invites her to spend the summer touring with musicians, she almost ditches the idea of college all together. When Reagan dumps her because she can’t handle being with someone who isn’t fully sure about her own sexuality, she seems to be back on the college train. It’s hard to say what path Amy will choose at this point.

Lauren: Lauren wants everything. She wants to go to the best college, ace her major, meet the love of her life, and, I imagine, “have it all” (whatever that means to her). She’s determined to make an impression on the Clement University rep, and she does—but not a great one. She sees Theo across the quad and curses at him. She tries to make up for her bad first impression the next day with a disastrous (and flammable) baton demonstration, only to find out that she doesn’t actually have to try so hard for admission—CU is interested in the diversity she’ll bring to the program because she’s intersex. Lauren, not wanting to be admitted because she’s intersex, immediately withdraws her application.

Theo: I can only assume that jail time is in Theo’s future. After Lauren and company outed him as an undercover cop at his new school, his bosses wanted to send him undercover to another school, and he declined (because he’s tired of lying to people). So, as punishment, he was reassigned as a school cop at Hester, where’s he’s hated because everyone knows he was a narc. When Lauren finds out colleges want her because she’s intersex, she finds Theo and demands to know why he liked her. She needs to know that there is someone out there who likes her for her and not just because she’s intersex. He explains that he likes her because she’s fierce and badass and goes after what she wants and, well, now she wants him again. I’m torn because, as great as Theo seems and as much as I want Lauren to be happy, he has to be several years older than she is to be a police officer. I don’t see this ending well.

Shane: Shane and Duke decide to become monogamous. I see a heartbreaking reveal in his future, but no news on college plans from Shane.

Liam: Liam’s story is an interesting mix of past and future. Nicholas Brendon returns as Jackson Lee, the artist who shut Liam down a while ago. This time, though, he’s totally into Liam’s art and wants to mentor him. Great, right? Well, not so much, since Liam has promised his dad/grandpa that he’ll give up art and work for Skwerkel. Liam forms a misguided theory that Jackson is his real dad (he was a senior when Liam’s sister/mom was a freshman), and that he’s taking an interest in Liam because he wants to connect and have a father-son relationship. In reality, he’s angling to get Liam to recommend him to paint a mural on the Skwerkel campus. Sigh. Liam loses his dreams of having a cool, artistic dad, and still has to face a future in the tech industry. However, this is a great reminder that Liam is an artist, so maybe he’ll find a way to get back to that by college.