What happened to Gary in Practical Magic 2 is worse than a breakup, and Aidan Quinn had no say in it
Practical Magic 2 brings back all four Owens women from 1998, and gives the man Sally finally fell for about as much screen time as a houseguest who left before dinner.
The sequel opened on September 10, 28 years after the original. Susanne Bier directed it from a script by Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel, based on Alice Hoffman's 2021 novel The Book of Magic. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are back as sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, with Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest as the aunts. Joey King and Maisie Williams play Sally's grown daughters, Kylie and Antonia.
Who Gary was
In the first film, Aidan Quinn played Gary Hallet, a state investigator from Tucson, Arizona, who turned up in Massachusetts looking for Jimmy Angelov, the violent boyfriend the sisters had accidentally killed. Gary ended up clearing them instead.
He was also, it turned out, the "impossible man." As a girl, Sally had cast a spell so she would only ever fall for a man with a list of traits nobody could possibly have, which was supposed to keep her safe from love altogether. Gary had all of them. The film ends with him coming back to Massachusetts to be with her.
What the sequel does with him
It kills him off, and fast. Sally and Gary marry, and Gary dies soon after the wedding.
He never appears on screen. The film doesn't show how he died, and it doesn't flash back to him either. It just moves on with what his death does to Sally:
- She gives up magic entirely.
- She casts a spell on Kylie and Antonia so they forget magic too.
- By the time the story picks up years later, her daughters don't know where the family's trouble really comes from.
Why it's worse than a breakup
Because in the Owens family, it was never going to be a breakup. Since Maria Owens cursed her line, any man who falls in love with an Owens woman dies. Sally already lost her first husband, Michael, to it in the first film, hit by a truck. Gary makes her a widow twice. The Book of Magic keeps the same count: Sally is the widow of Michael and of Gary.
The sequel does finally end the curse, though it takes the whole movie and costs the family Frances, played by Stockard Channing, who sacrifices herself to break it. A year later, at Kylie's wedding, Sally kisses Ian Wright, a magic professor played by Lee Pace.
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Aidan Quinn had no say in it
Quinn wasn't offered a scene, a cameo or a goodbye. He told the Dublin radio station SPIN 1038 in February:
"I would have said yes, but I wasn't asked."
At CinemaCon in April, Bullock explained why Sally is single in the new film in one line.
"If you know the original film, you can probably guess why."
Quinn, for his part, called his memories of working with Bullock and Kidman "lovely."
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