‘Galavant’ season 2, episode 2 review: Plight of the unicorn

While we thought that the season premiere of “Galavant” did a solid job of setting up what the plot would be for many of the characters, we at the same time felt that it was probably good-but-not-great in the comedy department. Some of the stuff at the Enchanted Forest treaded a bit on familiar ground.

None of this is true for the second episode of the season, which we’d wager may be the funniest half-hour that the show has ever done. From start to finish, this was fantastic, and the stories were all tied together in really great ways.

Galavant and King Richard – The two arrived at a fair-of-sorts in their journey to get closer and closer to Richard’s castle. What they uncovered there was a unicorn who seemed certainly fascinated by a certain element of the King’s “purity.” We thought that this was the sort of bit that would get old, but the more the unicorn turned up, the happier we were and the more we laughed. Much credit should be given to Timothy Omundson, who continues to make this character wacky, lovable (despite his somewhat-terrible past), and delightful to watch.

As for Galavant, the only thing that could equal the unicorn bit was seeing him try to use a fortune-teller’s magic wand-of-sorts to communicate with Isabella through a pendant, which she claimed to wear all the time even though this was the first we’ve seen it. (Brilliant play on the fact that this was an obvious plot device to make communication possible.) Yes, we’ve all seen the whole “you think I’m insulting you because I’m losing signal in and out” joke a million times before, but there was something about this one that was especially funny. Maybe it was the cow randomly showing up.

Also, wonderful use of the “kiss” song to take a dramatic turn from a song all about romance to a song about how the first kiss between Galavant and Isabella was actually rather terrible.

Isabella – We just covered much of this, but we didn’t mention the opening gag with Chef holding onto the pendant (really funny use of censorship), or the constant references to the changing of the guard being very “elaborate.” You could see this happening for at least half of the episode in the background.

Gareth and Madalena – While at first this was a silly story about Gareth wanting to keep his stuff in the throne room, their song about finding common ground had a wonderful ending: Tossing Sid out the window when they realized that their disdain for him was the one thing they agreed on. Now, this could be a new thing. Little did they know that Richard is off somewhere heartbroken over the idea of Gareth taking the throne.

In the end, episode 2 is a hoot, and precisely why we’ve loved this show through and through. It may be the funniest episode of anything we’ve seen since either the end of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” or that episode of “Silicon Valley” where the “let Blaine die” board came into effect. Grade: A.