Galavant Review: “Two Balls/Comedy Gold” (Season 1, Episode 3&4)

And though the opening previously-on musical number is genius (“Forced into marriage with the cruel king Richard/Sweet Madalena has lost her saintly glow/In fact she’s tilting pretty sharply bitch-ward”), few other songs in the episode spark a memory.  The night’s second episode, “Comedy Gold,” finds a bit more success in that regard with a song detailing the slowly-building rivalry amongst Galavant, Sid, and Isabella as they continually annoy one another on their quest. And a song towards the end of the episode, that gives it its title, between King Richard and the Jester sleeping with his wife, who he’s hired to teach him how to be funny, is great. That there aren’t any out-and-out duds amongst the bunch yet is impressive.

Elsewhere, Hugh Bonneville pops up in the latter half of the night as Peter the Pillager, a pirate of the seas without a ship. They kidnap Galavant and his crew, sing a sea shanty, and bicker about their land-locked pirate ship. The ineptitude of the crew, and their obsession with wanting Isabella’s womanly supplies, result in a laugh or two, but mostly feel the most been-there-done-that the series has been thus far.

Otherwise, “Two Balls” and “Comedy Gold” kept the magic alive in Galavant‘s second prime-time outing. Joshua Sasse continues to tightly balance the titular character’s ego and soft side with panache, and the show appears willing to share the spotlight around to supporting characters – Sid in the first episode, the Jester in the second – while maintaining the main thrust of the series. But it’s also that main thrust that causes worry; the show, so breezy and lightheartedly goofy, doesn’t seem to need a big main plot arc to guide it, with the series’ best and most entertaining bits so far being largely side-stories and one-off adventures of both the main trio and Timothy Omundson’s continuously excellent King Richard.

It remains unclear on how, or if, Galavant will reinvent itself once that main quest reaches its completion, but, then again, we’re half-way to that finish line already. If the writers keep churning out hilarious gags like Gareth’s bleeped-out knock-knock joke, and lines like, “What on god’s flat earth is going on,” while also maybe reigning in on the somewhat ham-fisted Game of Thrones references, they could, and hopefully will, wrap Galavant‘s freshman season on a resounding high note.