Galavant Rewatch 1.1, "Pilot"

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The musical series begins with an appropriately titled episode that sets the winkingly satirical tone of the rest of the show.

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1.1, "Pilot"

Written by Dan Fogleman
Directed by Chris Koch

Synopsis

"...a fairy-tale cliché"
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary

An expository song lays out the basic premise of the series, that "a hero known as Galavant" rides around righting wrongs and loving a woman, Madalena. That he is highly regarded in-milieu is made clear.

King Richard soon enters the narrative and abducts Madalena. Galavant rushes off to save her, purporting to interrupt the intended wedding; Madalena calls out to him as Richard interrupts her with lewd suggestions that clearly disturb her.

Our eponymous hero
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary

Galavant fights his way into Richard's castle, notably not killing the guards aligning against him, as the expository song resumes. He does interrupt the wedding and, after an impassioned speech, calls on Madalena to return to him; she decides instead to remain with Richard, choosing the noted fame and fortune over love. Galavant is removed from the scene by Richard's supporter, Gareth.

A year later--with a title card proclaiming such--Galavant's squire, Sid, makes to rouse him from his drunken stupor to accept a charge from a Valencian princess whose long name--Isabella Lucia Maria Elizabetta--is frequently truncated to Isabella. She tries to importune him to aid her, citing her family's straitened circumstances; he initially refuses, even when offered a substantial payment. She reprises the theme of the the initial expository song, which he joins in a reiterated rebuttal before shutting his door in her face.

The Princess and the Squire*
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary

Isabella reflects on her situation, which is somewhat ludicrous, given that Richard and Madalena have invaded Valencia (and Madalena is cuckolding Richard). A scene in Valencia explicates Richard's incapacity and his vexation with the memory of Galavant (as well as his dependency on Gareth).

In a pub, Galavant begins to reconsider taking up Isabella's charge as she continues to recount events leading up to her arrival with him. He also explicates his own backstory--leading up to his betrayal by Madalena. That Richard is the source of her trouble is what convinces him to go along with her.

As it happens, though, Isabella is acting in Richard's interest; she is bait to bring Galavant where Richard can kill him...

Discussion

I will admit that, when I added the series to my family's Netflix queue, I did not expect it to be a musical. I am not entirely fond of the genre--rather the opposite is true--but the generic conventions do work reasonably well with prevailing medievalist tropes in the United States. The network that hosts Galavant, ABC, is a subsidiary of Disney, which is itself a major source of ideas about the medieval through its long series of animated children's movies. Many of them feature fairy-tale renderings of the medieval and medievalist, and most of them are musicals. Consequently, Galavant being a musical series serves as a quiet reference back to Disney's other properties and so a connection to a common, if ultimately inaccurate, form of the medieval.

Far more overt is the overall premise of the show. It is clearly meant to be medievalist, focusing on small kingdoms, castle-dwelling armored sword-fighters, a questing knight, accompanied by a squire and a princess, seeking to redeem a kingdom and reclaim a lost love; it is an almost prototypical chivalric romance. Almost. It becomes clear quickly that the series is going to make much of snarky humor and ribald jokes that make it more a fabliau than the straight-ahead romance. It is an interesting subversion of expectation, one that moves away from the usual subversions of medieval romance--Martin's works come to mind as prominent examples (and read Shiloh's excellent commentaries on them!)--which work for grittier "realism" than is usually admitted of in the chivalric romance. Yet the fabliau was a popular genre in high medieval Europe, even if it is not often invoked; the series premise marks it as not only medievalist, but medievalist in a way that suggests the producers are actually trying to work from what is known about the medieval.

To some extent, at least. There are things that are inaccurate, of course. Anachronism abounds, for one. The armor worn by Galavant and Gareth, for another example, is more a suggestion of armament than actually effective protection. The people are remarkably clean throughout, even those who have been imprisoned for long periods or who are clearly working with livestock and fresh produce--neither generally admits of soil-free attire. And the numbers of people present in the castles and in the depicted countryside seem low--which is a frequent trope in medievalist works, to be sure.

That a series would get things wrong is to be expected; what is surprising is what Galavant gets right even in its first episode. In addition to working towards the fabliau, the inclusion of people of color in a pseudo-medieval-European setting is an often-underrecognized accuracy; people of color were present and active there and then, despite what some ill-workers might suggest. That people at varying socioeconomic levels are present and presented is, as well. There is a tendency to focus only on the titular nobility and royalty, which reifies a "great persons"--and, too often, "great men"--understanding of culture and history that is not accurate; the series avoids it. Additionally, the situation of the in-milieu jester has a delightfully Chaucerian resonance.

I was left on the initial watching and on the rewatch wanting to see what would come next. Pursuing it seems like it will be rewarding.

*As a side-note, this picture--a still taken from the episode--is useful in that it shows both characters. It is problematic as all get out with Sid, though; the character is not making an ironic or sarcastic expression in the moment, though he does at other points in the episode and throughout the series. As such, while the series does well to involve persons of color in a medievalist setting, and to do so as major characters, it is not free of prevailing anachronistic stereotypes that are decidedly not to its credit or its producers'.