Warning: Hopefully you realize this entire piece is a spoiler for The Magicians Season 4 finale!

When Quentin Coldwater sacrificed himself in The Magicians Season 4 finale, I didn’t blink. After all, there were another 15 minutes left in the episode. This would be undone, probably not until very the last second—or maybe not until the next season—but it would be undone. Magicians showrunners Sera Gamble and John McNamara—who co-wrote this episode, titled “No Better to Be Safe Than Sorry”—have always rewarded my faith, and I was more than willing to give it to them yet again.

Don’t get me wrong, I cried. (If Jason Ralph cries, I cry!) I was sad for Quentin, and sad for his friends. By the end, I was disappointed they hadn’t reversed his death—I didn’t relish the idea of watching a different alternate-universe Quentin replace our Q, á la Penny 23—and even more disappointed that Q never got his reunion with Eliot. But never for a single second did I think The Magicians had gotten rid of the character that holds the show together—not to mention the character it had seemingly touted as bisexual representation just a few short weeks ago—for good.

Then I read the press release from Gamble, McNamara and executive producer Henry Alonso Myers: “The choice for Jason [Ralph, who plays Quentin] to leave the show was arrived at mutually, with much respect for the story, fans of the show, and a shared sense of deliberate, essential creative risk.”

I’m sorry, what?

I read more: “We did the thing you’re not supposed to do — we killed the character who’s supposed to be ‘safe.'” Unless this a truly sadistic PR stunt, then Quentin is gone. For good. Next year The Magicians will return to SYFY for Season 5 without its main character. This is Jack drowning instead of Charlie in LOST, Jon Snow staying dead in Game of Thrones, Harry Potter getting Avada Kedavra’d in the graveyard at the end of Book 4. And I hated it.

As a critic, I have to concede the episode is, at times, a great one. The scenes are gorgeous: Quentin dissipating in slow motion, surrounded by an explosion of black-and-white sparks; Alice falling to the floor in grief; his friends singing a slow, sad cover of “Take on Me” in a nod to the show’s musical history. From an emotional standpoint, it was satisfying: Q—a character with a history of struggling with mental illness—asks Penny, voice wavering, “Did I do something brave to save my friends, or did I finally find a way to kill myself?” and realizes he truly did do this for them. (Though according to McNamara, that moment was apparently supposed to be ambiguous? I’m just going to go ahead and ignore that, for my sanity.) Making your characters suffer to come to an emotional realization—that’s good narrative storytelling 101.

But as a fan, I’m heartbroken, and not in a good, “all the feels” type of way. In Season 1, Quentin was the character he was in Lev Grossman’s books: whiny, self-centered, and frankly, insufferable. But Gamble and McNamara—perhaps sensing the incredible talent of Ralph—changed that. They gave him meaningful relationships with every character on the show. They let those relationships drive the plot. And then they gave us Queliot.

TV writers owe nothing to shippers, to be sure, but The Magicians decided to grant our deepest wish anyhow. Most assumed it was canon when Quentin kissed Eliot in Season 3, but just to make extra-sure we knew it wasn’t a quest-related fluke, Quentin explicitly asked Eliot for a romantic relationship midway through this season. Fans were ecstatic. GIFs exploded all over Tumblr. My group chat blew up. Many essays and articles declared it groundbreaking—the future of shipping, forever changed. It was a promise—not that Queliot would live happily ever after, but that queer ships were not a pipe dream.

And this is how we say goodbye to that character—and to that promise—forever?

Maybe it’s my fault. I constructed a narrative that wasn’t there. I read the season wrong. I went in with false expectations. Gamble has been famously tight-lipped when it comes fandom and shipping—she calls it the “Fandom Prime Directive”—so perhaps I should have seen this coming. But what was I supposed to think when Quentin asks Eliot to “give it a shot”? How am I supposed to interpret Quentin’s obsession with saving Eliot this season as anything other than build-up to an eventual Queliot reunion?

Some will argue killing Quentin falls under the “Bury Your Gays” trope, a.k.a. that thing where queer characters are statistically more likely to die than straight characters in fiction. I’m not so sure that applies. After all, one of the reasons queer characters are often expendable is that they are so rarely the lead. The Magicians did give us a bi- protagonist, that will always be awesome, and I’ll always be grateful. The press release makes clear the decision to kill that protagonist was driven by a desire to subvert expectations, something Gamble’s been known to do on her Lifetime show, YOU. I admire a big swing; but it has to be earned. At what point does subversion for subversion’s sake detract from the integrity of the narrative?

According to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gamble, McNamara and Ralph first had the idea to kill Quentin in Season 3. Maybe Ralph wanted to leave the show, and if that’s the case, I respect Mr. Maisel’s right to do what he wants with his life. But if everyone went into Season 4 knowing it would be Quentin’s last, then, respectfully: what the fuck was that?

In retrospect, we got a season where Quentin was barely present. We got a rushed reunion for Quentin and Alice—a relationship that two episodes prior, was supposedly over and done with. We got a build-up for a Queliot reunion with no payoff—when the moment finally came, Q barely spared a glance for his friend/lover as he was bleeding out on the ground. Sure, we got a hint this was coming when Penny greeted an unknown newcomer to the Underworld in Episode 7, and we got an (admittedly beautiful) five-minute sequence with a few flashbacks. But… that’s it? That’s the end? Really? It’s just… weird!

“This season, we saw the rare opportunity to complete his arc,” wrote the showrunners in the press release. That’s not what this feels like. This feels like a last-minute take-back. This feels like a rushed betrayal. This feels mean. And truthfully, I don’t see how the show will continue without the character who was the glue holding all these disparate misfits together.

The press release notes, “In real life, none of us are safe.” I don’t care about real life; I was never here for a documentary. I was here for the fun, for the fandom, for the friends, and for the feels. Yet I came away from this episode feeling something I’ve never felt after a Magicians episode: empty. It feels like The Magicians killed their own show, and that’s sad for a lot of reasons.

I know not everyone will agree with me. I know TV writers are only human, and I know The Magicians owes me nothing. I’m grateful for what it did give me. I hope for some fans the joy can continue. The characters will continue into Season 5, regardless of Quentin’s presence, and there’s plenty of juicy set-up in the finale for what’s coming next. Maybe, given some distance and a few good takes, I’ll change my mind. But for now, if this show wants to continue on without its heart and soul, then I don’t think I’ll be along for the ride.

Where to stream The Magicians.