Wrapping Up Galavant

Okay, as the two warring armies line up for battle, here is the "Finale Recap" song for the penultimate episode of Galavant that I referred to the other day, but it hadn't been posted yet.

One of the fun things about the song is that the season had began with Galavant starting to sing the "Galavant Theme," but he was stopped just a few bars in, with the others complaining that the song (with continually changing lyrics) was repeated so many times the previous season that they were sick of it.  (Actually, it's a wonderful song.)  So, it wasn't sung at all the entire second year, except for a few lines and as just "exit music" going to commercials.

But -- in this Part One of the finale episode, they finally brought The Song back for a full season recap.  The lyrics and plot lines zip by fast, so it's a bit hard to follow...even if you know what happened.. but that's sort of the joke of the song, throwing everything in with clever, twisting rhymes.  They joke about that in my favorite couplet, that I quoted the other day.  The number is sung terrifically by Ben Presley, who plays the Jester (and also serves as the show's occasional narrator).

And then there's the Finale, wrapping up Part Two.  It's fun on its own, but is helped by some explanation.

To start with, it uses both the song that replaced the Galavant Theme at the beginning of the year, which I posted earlier, the big production number, "A New Season," as well as a reprise of the "Galavant Theme." -- and is sung in large part by Weird Al Yankovic, returning in his role as a Monk from the first season (complete with a joke reference to The Monkees).

Also, as I mentioned, there was some criticism last year that they ended the season on a cliff-hanger, and clearly the filmmakers decided not to make that same mistake.  So, things are wrapped in a series of Happy Endings, with only a hint of what could happen next year.

Know, too, that a running joke all season is that Galavant's squire, Sid, keeps complaining that he never gets to complete a song or often even a scene.

And finally, the show ends on a wonderful joke that refers to a great running-joke subplot throughout the year.  The childishly foolish King Richard had bought what he was told by a merchant is a baby dragon, which he thereafter carries around with him everywhere, SO proud of having his very own dragon. Whenever he shows it to people, though, they look at him like he's a complete idiot because, as they all tell him, "Er, that's not a baby dragon, that's a lizard!!!"  Yet he he keeps insisting it's a dragon (which he has wonderfully-named, for some reason  -- it must be a friend of one of the filmmakers -- "Tad Cooper.")  His need for others to believe him that Tad Cooper is actually a baby dragon, not merely a lizard, is really about something else entirely.  It comes from Richard having lost his kingdom and now is a man without purpose, therefore needing people to believe in him, period -- to need him, to find some place in life.

Which brings us at last to...The Finale.