Galavant

Today I had planned to do a detailed recap of Galavant. I had planned to sit down and watch the show again, taking detailed notes. Notice I said 'had planned'? S has been running a fever off and on for the past few days. She woke up at 4:30 with a headache and feeling very hot. After giving her some ibuprofen, I tucked her back into bed. When she woke up this morning her fever was down but not completely gone. So I kept her home from school today. With her home from school I won't really have a chance to rewatch Galavant. I could try to watch it with her around since most of the jokes would go over her head but there was some stuff that just isn't for a 5 year old. What follows is what I remember from the episode. If I get things wrong, I'm sorry. :-)

First, I thought it was funnier than the first episode. Our hero, Galavant, and his companions Sid and Isabella are still traveling to Valencia to rescue Madalena and Isabella's parents. They stop for a night in Sid's hometown of...wait for it...Sidneyland. Apparently the people in the town don't travel much because they believe Sid's letters home saying he is a dragon-slaying, joust-winning knight of the realm. Sid begs Galavant to play the role of his squire and Isabella, who reveals that the Valencians love theater, takes the role of Sid's betrothed. Sid's parents are thrilled he's come to visit them and even more thrilled that he is engaged to Isabella. Galavant, who has reluctantly agreed to be Sid's squire, hangs out with the other squires and realizes how much of an ass he has been (through a song no less). Galavant apologizes to his companions and they leave Sid's town.

As they get closer to Valencia, Isabella advises them from traveling a certain way. Galavant ignores her advice and proceeds to get them captured by pirates led by the Pirate King, played by Hugh Bonneville. It was awesome to see him all scruffy after seeing him all prim and proper as Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey. The pirates had been stranded on land when their boat washed ashore and are terrible at being land pirates. Galavant agrees to help them free their ship if they will transport our heroes to Valencia. The Pirate King agrees and are heroes' journey continues.

Meanwhile in Valencia, King Richard is bored. He questions the people about what they used to do for fun. They tell him about how they used to spend hours in the evenings performing theater productions. Richard doesn't like the sound of that. He asks a bald-headed man about what else they used to have and his reply is "Balls" which causes Richard to laugh like my 9 y/o son does when he hears balls. Richard discovers the man is a eunuch and encourages the people to kick him where it won't hurt. He even demonstrates how to do it when he feels some of the people aren't doing their best.

Did anyone else notice he was bald and wearing robes? Now maybe they were just playing into the stereotype for eunuchs (is there even a stereotype?) but my first thought when I saw him was they were giving a nod to Varys from Game of Thrones. Maybe I'm reading too much into it or just wishes GoT was back on.

Richard decides to host a ball but of course he's killed all the musicians. He and Gareth, his right-hand man, manage to scrape together a band composed of the executioners. Their song is truly unique. While the Valencians are dancing, Richard realizes they aren't having fun and some are even fainting from hunger because Richard destroyed all their food. He invites them to share their feelings and they call him and Madalena all sorts of names. The last person to speak is the eunuch, who says the king is so stupid he doesn't realize his wife is sleeping with the jester. Oops...

Richard is upset that his wife is sleeping with the jester. But he's not upset that she's cheating on him; he's upset because the jester is funnier than he is. He goes to the jester (whose name we find out later is Steve) and asks him to help the king be funnier instead of asking him to stop sleeping with Madalena. The jester, scared out of his wits, agrees to help Richard. But Richard is clueless and everything he tries comes out wrong. He ends up putting on a comedy show for Madalena. He tries different jokes but the only thing that makes her laugh is when Richard hits Gareth in the face with a pie. Richard takes this as a sign of success. Later,Madalena sees the jester and asks him if he wants to go to his chamber. After his encounter with Richard, Steve declines and this makes Madalena angry and she has him hauled away to the dungeon. Poor Steve!

Okay, there we go. It's probably got errors in it but it's the best I can remember.

As a side note, I usually drink a cup of tea while I write. I had bought some pumpkin spice tea back in the fall when pumpkin spice was "the thing". I hadn't had any for a while so I thought I'd try some today. Bad choice! I forgot that it was icky. The more I drank the worse it tasted. I should have stuck with my Captain Swan blend tea that my good friend gave me for Christmas. It never disappoints me! Pumpkin spice and tea just don't mix.