Galavant: Completely Mad…alena/Dungeons and Dragon Lady

Summary of 1×05-06: Our intrepid heroes finally make it to Valenica, where Isabella’s guilt begins to overwhelm her. Richard prepares to kill Galavant, but Madalena has other plans.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Oh, this joyous little ride is coming to an end, but the story is definitely getting good!

Galavant, Isabella and Sid make it to Valencia finally, where Isabella has to take Galavant to the castle around “9 o’clock” (this is my favorite running joke from this week). Galavant is ready for his daring rescue of the kingdom, but Isabella convinces him to at least stop for a bath at the Monastery of Our Father of Perpetual Refrain. They’re greeted by a group of singing monks lead by Weird Al Yankovic, which causes Galavant to ask if they could just have a normal adventure. I kind of love how everyone in this show hates being in a musical. Except the monks, of course.

Back at the castle, Richard is gleeful, but Madalena is her usually angry self. Feeling like she’s the only competent person in the castle and having the most self-centered number about it, she tries to get to the bottom of what Richard is keeping from her. When she realizes that the chef fancies her handmaiden, she decides to use that to her advantage, first asking about the secret meeting Richard is planning. Upon listening to their conversation about how Richard plans to kills Galavant,  she sends off a mysterious message to enact a plan before telling the chef to make a meal for him and her handmaiden. There’s a really sweet musical number between the two that follows, but of course, it won’t last long thanks to Madalena.

After a failed attempt to get Richard to back down and a touching moment between Isabella and Galavant where you may be screaming “KISS ALREADY” like I was, the three of them sneak into the castle with the monks. They try to formulate a plan to attack, but Richard gets the upper hand. Galavant surrenders so Isabella won’t be hurt, but that’s when Richard reveals Isabella’s deceit. Which, of course, she feels really bad about.

Naturally, things are awkward in the dungeon. Isabella tries to apologize, but Galavant and Sid won’t hear it. Galavant even says that he would have helped Isabella and she asks if it’s true. He says that he guesses they’ll never know and is then carried off with a bag over his head.

Things are looking grim for Galavant as he stands at the noose. Richard is gleeful and he removes the bag from his head… to reveal the Chef. There is screaming from everyone, including me.

In Madalena’s chambers, Galavant is brought up and has the bag pulled off his head. Things get even more awkward still since Madalena had no idea that Galavant was coming. However, she thinks she can work it out where she can still be queen, while taking Richard out of power, and keeping Galavant as her side piece. She doesn’t reveal what her plan is, instead she does start a sexy dance number between the two where Galavant asks her if she actually loved him. She says she did… as much as someone like her can love another person. Geez. She’s colder than I thought.

She sends Galavant off to the dungeon and decides to rub it in Isabella’s face, asking her if she thought she could “get a piece of her leftover man mutton.” She then orders Gareth to torture them all, which he is hesitant about. Madalena calls him a dog and tells him that he needs a stronger master. This puts Gareth into a tail spin of wondering who his loyalty truly belongs to to the point to the point he never actually gets around to torturing everyone.

Unsure of why he’s letting Madalena walk all over him, the chef offers to take him to see Xanax (Ricky Gervais), a wizard he occasionally buys “herbs” from. I love to see references to drugs that don’t really fit the time period. Gervais plays Xanax, an unsurprisingly weird dude, very well without falling into his typical typecast. Oh, he also has a frog he turned into a man, like a reverse frog prince.

Giving Richard a potion for will power, he ends up taking him on a drug-induced mind trip to find the moment where he turned out like this. As it turns out, it was on the day Richard’s father died. His brother Kingsley was set to rule, but he decided that he didn’t want to do it, because he wanted to take what he believed was his.

So by default, Richard aka “Dicky” was picked to rule with a ten-year-old Gareth swearing his loyalty to him. Richard realizes that the reason he’s like this is because he’s spent his whole life feeling like he was everyone’s second choice. He thanks Xanax for his help and swears to ride back immediately and lay down the law. However, Xanax tells him that he may want to wait an hour because of the effects of the drugs and the laws against those kinds of things.

Back in the dungeon, Galavant starts overthinking what Madalena said, wondering if that means she actually loves him or not. This annoys the hell out of Sid and Isabella, but Isabella manages to finally get through to him and with a number called ‘Love Is Strange,’ the two finally confess their feelings for each other. JESUS CHRIST, YOU GUYS. Isabella feels as if this is ill-fated, but Galavant is determined to find a plan to save the kingdom.

Upstairs, Richard returns and lays down the law on Madalena and Gareth reswears his loyalty to him. However, Madalena tells him not to think too fast on that though because there’s a guest at the castle: Kingsley, Richard’s estranged brother (Rutger Hauer). He has one thing on his mind: taking the kingdom back.

This week was relieving and bittersweet all at once with all the plot points coming to a head. It’s playing out beautifully, but I’m going to be so sad when Galavant takes its final bow next week. At least we get Anthony Stewart Head as Galavant’s father. Can you say *squee!*?