Mark Watches ‘Galavant’: S02E06 – About Last Knight

In the sixth episode of the second season of Galavant, Sid escapes, only to make a terrible mistake; Madalena celebrates Gareth’s birthday; Galavant returns to his father’s home. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Galavant. 

Hi, could this show calm down for one second?

Gareth

It’s still weird to me to see Gareth and Madalena act affectionate toward one another. I feel like the show is slowly leading Gareth to a place where he is actually going to be on Madalena’s side by the time the battle for Valencia begins. For the first time in her life, Madalena appears to have genuine enjoyment for another person beyond the obvious, and yet… I’m suspicious. What if that’s the point? At the same time, Gareth is his own man, and he appears to enjoy Madalena just as much as she enjoys him. While her “gifts” to him are strange and oddly specific, the thought behind them is… nice??? I can’t even believe I’m typing that because I can’t view her as “nice,” you know? But IS THIS REAL? Is this all really happening? By the end of “About Last Knight,” though, everything felt far more familiar. They’re both scheming to take Hortensia, and that seems much more like the two violent weirdos I know. So… will Gareth betray Richard if Richard makes it to the end?

Backstory

So, there’s definitely a bit of retconning here, right? I don’t recall Galavant mentioning anything about his father being absent or distant in “My Cousin Izzy.” That’s new, right? Regardless, I don’t think it really matters that much because it’s possible I just forgot and the story works well without any previous hints at it. In short: the version of Arnold Galavant in his son’s memory is WILDLY different than the version he sees running a training camp for at-risk youth. How the hell is that the same person? Incompatible, right? 

The show makes a joke of the way knights are supposed to behave—distant, uninterested in emotions, not tied down by any familial obligations—by portraying Arnold as the opposite of all those things. Well, in the present time, that is. Because he was absent from Galavant’s life! None of what he sung about to all of the kids was wrong. It’s just that Arnold had to express himself in a different way… through tapestry? I mean, whatever does it for you, I guess!!! It’s sweet, though, and Galavant has a way of warming my heart with some really, really weird shit. Like, the dude still doesn’t have an army, but he reconciled with his father! That’s a good thing, right?

Sid

I love that I lowkey complained that Sid hadn’t got his own story, and then HERE WE ARE, an episode where Sid gets about a third of the airtime. (Perhaps more!) I must celebrate that opening number, y’all, which pokes GREAT fun at Les Miserables and the notion of the heroic protest number. It’s probably gonna be my favorite opener this season, both because of the choreography and because of how unexpectedly graphic and grim it was. LOOK, PEOPLE JUST GET CAUGHT UP IN THESE NUMBERS, I DEEPLY UNDERSTAND YOU, SID. 

Sid’s escape from Valencia takes him on a strange path, but I suppose it’s no stranger than anyone else’s. Okay, the Forest of Coincidence is pretty fucking weird and hilarious, and I love that he literally gets handed everything he needs to make it to the Galavant property in just the right amount of time. Like, there’s a part of me that is convinced the writers did this on purpose so that they could joke about how they didn’t really want to write the middle of his journey; they just needed him to be at his final destination. How convenient! He finds a magical forest full of positive coincidences! WHO KNEW???

His reunion with Galavant is short-lived, though. I expected this because I figured Sid would tell the truth about what had happened to with Isabella. Yet before he gets a chance to, a freak set of occurrences (that are, frankly, so ludicrously impossible that I know they were intentional) gets Galavant impaled… on his own sword. AND THAT’S THE END OF THE EPISODE. What the hell, y’all??? Now what???

The video for “About Last Knight” can be downloaded here for $0.99.

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