‘Galavant’ season 2, episode 5 review: Tad Cooper and the bridge to nowhere

“Galavant” was given a ten-episode second season last spring, and at the time, we were happy to have an opportunity to see two more stories play out every week.

Are we as happy about it now? The answer is both yes and no; while there were some very good comedy during “Giants vs. Dwarves,” it is still relatively hard to escape the feeling that this may have been the most disappointing episode of the season so far. Its biggest flaw is that save for a couple of small events that were really almost out of nowhere, not too much actually happened.

For Galavant and Richard, virtually nothing took place at all. Their entire story was a long gag about how there were two groups — the giants and the dwarves — fighting each other in what ultimately amounted to “West Side Story.” They also were not giants or dwarves at all; they were just normal people. Seeing Richard’s pet dragon / lizard made for a little more humor, but none of this was ultimately needed.

As for Isabella, this is probably the weakest plotline of the ones that we’ve had this season, mostly because she hasn’t had a consistent foil with Chef and Jester sort of popping in and out. Also, Princess Jubilee was a bit of a random inclusion, and her elaborate musical number existed only for the purpose of getting the crown knocked off of her. Surely, there could have been another way in which to make this happen?

There was some comedy in seeing Gareth and Sid bro down and talk about the former falling for Madalena, which led to Sid’s advice blowing up in his face to the point where he was wanted for murder. This probably was the best story from start to finish, though we are not entirely sure the ramifications of it.

In the end, “Galavant” for this first episode suffered from losing some of its familiar faces (Chef and Gwynne are going to be gone for a while), and while there were many funny lines in here, it continues the trend of the even-numbered episodes being better than the odd ones. Grade: B-.