Galavant

Way back in days of old there was a legend told

Some shows take a while to earn a reputation, having low ratings yet also ardent supporters who continue to sing its praise well after the conclusion. And today’s example of that is Galavant, a musical fantasy comedy series that aired on ABC.

The central joke of the story goes as follows: the evil king has kidnapped the hero’s love interest and is forcing her to marry him. The hero arrives and makes a grand speech about offering her love over wealth. The love interest chooses wealth and marries the king.

Everything about Galavant is essentially an expansion of that joke, which is the very start of the show. The titular hero abandoned the knight in shining armor business after he was rejected. Meanwhile Richard and Madalena, the evil king and damsel in distress, have an awful loveless marriage where not even Richard taking over another kingdom because Madalena wants a jewel is enough to make her like him.

Our real story begins when Isabella, princess of said occupied country, arrives with the jewel at Galavant’s doorstep seeking help. Galavant is out of shape and uninterested, only spurred to action upon discovering that King Richard is the one occupying it, and that Madalena has come to regret her decision.

Except Isabella made that detail about Madalena up, because she was actually coerced into working for King Richard to lead Galavant into a trap. Richard wants to kill Galavant due to constantly being compared unfavorably to Galavant, as he sings about in his villain song in the first episode.

And from this starting point we get an adventure full of even more catchy songs and laughs. Both of which are hard to convey in a textual format oh no. To sum up the style of humor, it mainly comes from characters bantering and light fourth wall breaks. The entire cast regularly does things like argue over who was supposed to get the big finish in a song or point out when something is actually pretty progressive for the middle ages.

I’d also describe it as ‘Disney but characters can swear and mention sex’ but worry that might paint an inaccurate picture of the show. Galavant doesn’t go overboard with the ability to make jokes not suited for younger audiences, as in they’re actually funny and not just a string of curses, as you can see from the linked song. And it still has to deal with TV standards that censor some swears, or maybe the bleeps are part of the joke, or both.

At its core Galavant is genuinely a story about knights and love, just one that likes having fun in the process of telling it. The subversive opening of the first episode simply sets the stage for the actual story the show wants to tell. Galavant and Isabella’s romance is incredibly telegraphed and far from revolutionary, but it has more weight from the opening with Madalena. And Richard is clearly bothered by the lack of love in his relationship with Madalena, ultimately proving Galavant right.

Speaking of Madalena, she is my favorite character from the show without a doubt. I could write a whole other post just about her and how she’s the axis on which the entire show revolves, both a simple love to hate figure and one of the more nuanced members of the cast.

The songs also carry the range of fourth wall breaking comedy and real emotion. Most have a strong comedic element for obvious reasons, but there are a few songs that get to stand out as mostly serious. It passes the test of me listening to its music on repeat after finishing the show.

In the first season screentime is mainly divided between Galavant’s near constantly bickering group and King Richard trying to really win Madalena’s affection, with attempts ranging from trying to act more manly to doing a stand up comedy routine. If you like comedic, incompetent to the point of sympathy villains, you’ll love King Richard and his antics. As the show goes on he arguably becomes more compelling than Galavant.

The second season essentially reshuffles the cast, breaking up the established dynamics between characters in order to explore new ones. Because of this it ends up having to split its time between more plotlines, which doesn’t favor everyone equally. Even in the first season I felt some aspects suffered from a runtime too short to be delved into, and that’s more of a problem here with more going on and only two more episodes of runtime.

This is less of a surprise when you see that by two more episodes I mean there were ten instead of eight. And I mean actual TV sized episodes, not hour long mini movies. With the need for multiple songs per episode it makes sense they couldn’t stretch it out too much, but again it does result in some parts of the plot being clearly rushed. The end of the first season felt like less of an ending and more of a scramble to set up the pitch for a second season.

While there’s plenty of fan demand for a third season, I actually felt that season two did provide a natural and satisfying end for the show. There’s room for more adventures from some characters, but others have too well done of an ending to take away from. It feels like a complete story, one I advise experiencing.