TV Underdogs: Can ‘Galavant’ season 2 use more Madalena?
We are starting to near the home stretch of “Galavant” season 2, and what the ABC series has done so far for the most part is provide some sort of snapshot of many of its different characters. Few of them have been in the same place over the course of the season, and that has led to everyone being a little more limited in regards to screen time. For example, Madalena has not shared a scene as of this writing this season with either Richard or Galavant, and that is certainly a shame.
In the end, Madalena’s a delightful villain, and while it may be counter-intuitive in some ways to have her labeled as an underdog for our latest edition of this series, we’ll do our best to explain it below.
Why she’s an underdog – Let’s put it this way: Who would’ve expected the character typically put into the damsel-in-distress role on medieval shows to be the person who eventually became the Big Bad? She’s circumvented almost every preconceived notion that you could have, and defied the odds to the point that at one point, she didn’t even have a king at all and sat on the throne alone. She’s incredibly selfish and entitled, and yet at the same time you cannot help but enjoy every scene she’s in. Why we’re not sure you root for her to succeed, you at least do root for her to continue to play a big part in the story.
Why we don’t see more of her – It’s a symptom of the geographic distance between many characters. If they can all eventually descend on the same place, that will surely change. For now, there are only so many characters that Mallory Jansen can spend time with … and even Sid is now out of the equation with him back with Galavant. Luckily, we think her plan with Gareth to stage an invasion is still something that will pay big dividends on Sunday night.
Ways to give her more screen time – The biggest one is have Galavant and Richard arrive to her doorstep sooner rather than later. That’s the confrontation that almost everyone wants to see. Another great thing that the show could do is show what Madalena could be like leading an army, or conducting more of the sort of traditions that tend to keep rulers in power popular and likable. So far, she’s shown herself incapable of exhibiting any level of kindness to her subjects at all. If the show goes on long enough, we imagine that some of these could be explored. The main issue is that with ratings being what they are right now, we’re not sure there’s a chance we will see the show beyond a couple more weeks on ABC.