by Kimberly Filchak, Reporter

The past few weeks as we have wandered through whatever renaissance/medieval/Monty Python hybrid mash up Galavant is set in the show has not been all too subtle with its hints and inferences that this is all Madalena’s world and we are all just living in it to serve her dark will. With the episode Completely Mad…Alena the show gives up whatever it thinks subtly is and has decided to take hammer to the face. Basically our girl has gone full darkside and it suits her.

Galavant opens with a classic hero shot as the ship carrying our trio to Valencia sails across the waves toward their fate. Gal spies the shores of their destination and ponders his next move. As a hero he has certain standards to live up to, I’m sure there are by laws about this sort of thing. Check the rule book.

Gal worries that if he jumps right into saving his “one true love” (heh, dude so does not know he’s been boning) from the evil King Lassy it will lack a certain dramatic build up. Perhaps if he freed the kingdom fist it will provide enough material for all of the epic songs sure to be written about him. He’s only thinking of the bards here people, do you know how hard it is to get twelve stanzas outta four stanza’s worth of material?

That said it has been twelve long months since our boy last had his sword polished, if you know what I mean, and the siren call of his lady love being so near is almost too much to resist. That is until Princess Sassy Skirts, in an attempt to delay Gal’s scheduled execution that she is reluctantly complicate in arraigning, points out that the boy could use a bath.

Speaking of our low rent Lannisters, just what is going down in the royal castle? The real hero of the show, King Lassy, is still the most adorkable, misunderstood evil tyrant ever. He is anxiously awaiting the arrival of his nemesis with his loyal hench dude and his Adorable Chef by his side. The time of reckoning is neigh, for when “the sun has cast its last shadow upon the earth and a crest moon has risen above the eastern ridge” Gal is due to arrive. So basically around nine o’clock. His secret plan is to evil monologue his way into his wives pants by the mechanism of killing her hot ex-boyfriend in front of her (I still don’t think King Lassy has really thought out this plan…).

And as for Madalena? Well she is just done with this crap. It has been clear to her for some time that someone has to take control of the narrative and clearly King Lassy is not going take the reins and start impaling people on giant stakes to get her the bling she needs. Time to step up her game and her crazy by a factor of like a trillion by duet-ing with herself in a series of fabulous outfits and once she get the details on his nefarious plan outta Adorable Chef via the mechanism of hooking him up with her equally adorable chamber maid? She now knows that Gal is on his way so Queen Mad the Mad sets about changing the game with a mysterious letter and a rather tired fed ex joke which I will let slide because seriously? She scares me.

Meanwhile Gal, Sid, and Princess Sassy Skirts have finally washed up on the shores of Valencia. They are taking refuge and finding a place to rinse the stank off of Gal with the Monks of the Order of Perpetual Refrain. Who have taken a vow of singing because apparently that’s a thing that happens here.

Much like the Valencian tradition of hours upon endless hours of armature improve this vow constant singing by the holy orders of the land make me think Valencia is a very niche market when it comes to their tourism appeal.

On the plus side? Weird Al Yankovic is the head singing monk and as a girl who has been known to gleefully burst out singing “White and Nerdy” at the drop of a fricking hat I will allow it.

After he no longer is quite so redolent of the road Gal works to come up with a plan to get them to his lady intact and Princess Sassy Skirts has a come to Jesus moment after seeking the council of one of the singing monks. (I think she got the cute one, or possibly the bad boy? I am so bad with boy band tropes. It’s what I get for wasting my youth on Guns and Roses instead of the Backstreet Boys.) Realizing that she can’t betray the dude she has sort of kinda does not entirely have hate type feelings for, Princess Sassy Skirts goes to King Lassy to offer him the jewel free and clear along with all of Valencia if she will just let Gal and her parents live. But sadly no dice, King Lassy already has his evil gloating bit figured out and everything, also King Lassy still has not quite figured out the humor thing and her parents are starting to show signs of stage one Stockholm Syndrome.

So she heads back to the monastery of eternal doo wop to try and derail the dastardly plan but when confronted by Gal and his adorable plan to go off book to sneak in dressed as monks Princess Sassy Skirts chokes big time. With that possible hiccup in the plot taken care of the narrative breaths a sign of relief and continues doing its thang of gathering everyone together for the grand finale.

The rest of the episode goes as predicted. Sid goes commando under his monks robes which itch, Gal and company are promptly arrested, and King Lassy gets to use his tyrant voice which after only one false start he totally nails it. I have to say it totally worked for me. He’s so powerful and commanding and yet helpless and accidentally homicidal… sigh…

He also outs Princess Sassy Skirts as the betraying betrayer that she is. Both Sid and Gal are aghast and she feels horrible about it, she tried to tell him so often, if only he’d actually listened to any of her lyrics!

All seems to be going to plan for team bad guys, with Gal heading off to the gallows and the backup languishing the dungeon. And look! There is Steve, the hot jester! It’s good to see he still has all his bits intact. Except not! – I mean things do not go to plan with King Lassy’s whole kill Gal plan, not that Jester Steve’s bits are no longer… you know… I mean I assume they are still there, the show neither confirms nor denies that piece of information because this is not HBO and even Game of Thrones has as yet to give us the full monty.

Instead, the person set up to hang is the Adorable Chef dressed in the Monks robes and Gal is delivered into the boudoir of Queen Mad. Psyche! Luckily King Lassy is the type who wants to make eye contact as he gloats at the person he is about to kill, so even though the noose is around his neck the Adorable Chef does not end up to high kicks on the end of a rope. And clan I just say thank fucking god? I would have been seriously traumatized by that, especially after his duet with the chambermaid.

Seriously, this is the cutest song about the grinding misery of a life lived in eternal poverty ever!

Also, if you were wondering why all of the music from Galavant has been digging it’s way into your brain and laying eggs? It’s written by Alan Menken (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast) fall of the most amazing Disney songs ever, so there really was no escaping it.

What a cliff hanger! Luckily the next episode is up and ready to go. If Simply Mad..Aleina was Princess Sassy Skirts introduction to the clue-by-four than Dungeons and the Dragon Lady is everyone else’s. In her sumptuous chambers Gal enjoys a meal with his Lady and after being told repeatedly that she loves him… “as much as someone like me can love anyone.” Once he is deposited back in the scary dungeon, because our Queen Mad is on a time table and she does not need her boy toy getting in the way of her plans, Gal finally begins to think that maybe his beloved Queen Mad is kind of an evil sociopath and that true love has been looking him in the face and calling him on his shit for the last three weeks. True love on the other hand figured that shit out weeks ago so it is time for another terrifying honest song about love and it’s messy, embarrassingly gassy, ways.

Their love properly declared in song the pair along go off to confront the bad people. And everyone else realizes that the doors to jail have been unlocked all along.

As for our real hero King Lassy, well things are not going so well for him. Queen Mad is done with him and his evil yet adorkable ways, time for the girl to do what a girl has to do. Which is basically take over all the things. This would not be so bad, except that by declaring herself the top dog she has won the loyalty of King Lassy’s best-est most loyal hench dude and that is the cruelest cut of all.

With his neck literally on the line, since it is still in the noose and King Lassy is accidentally executing people as he tries to figure out where he went wrong, Adorable Chef offers up the idea of Xanax. Which in Valencia means tripping on ‘shrooms with Ricky Gervais and a musical homage to Yellow Submarine or Across the Universe, depending on whether you were raised right by godly people who introduced you to the Beatles or are a freaking feral heathen godless heathen who probably also prefers Mamma Mia the musical instead of ABBA Gold. What is wrong with some people?

With his less than enthusiastic spirit guide leading the way King Lassy and Adorable Chef trip back in time to the source of King Lassy’s issues. Turns out he is desperate for approval because he was not originally set to be King, his older brother Kingsley was. But Kingsley was not interested in ruling anything, he just wanted to emulate Genghis Khan, killing his way across the world and father enough bastards that centuries later at least eighty percent of the global population will be his descendants. So Kingsley peace’d out, taking the royal sword with him, and little Lassy was left as everyone’s second choice as monarch. A trend that sadly continued throughout his life, even his loyal hench dude, who has been by his side since childhood, picked the crazy Queen over him.

That issue resolved King Lassy heads back to the castle to sort his shit out. Sorting his life out means winning back his one true hench dude, and breaking up with his evil domineering queen. This happens pretty quickly and would be anticlimactic save for Queen Mad’s game changer last episode. The letter she wrote was a call back up and back has arrived in the form of Rutger Hauer, aka Kingsley; King Lassy’s jerk faced badass older brother.

Basically everyone is screwed. Except of course Queen Mad as she is the puppet master pulling everyone’s strings like a pro.

Next week? The conclusion of this little experiment in musical theater whiplash. Will we find out if Gal and his tiny ethnically hard to pin down princess find true love? Will Queen Mad will finally be able to rule her court of madness from a throne of sculls while banging the help in peace?  Is King Lassy is open to dating a media reporter based in Los Angeles who has an love of brown liquor and an unfortunate obsession with The Vampire Diaries? Can Rutger Hauer actually sing?