2x09 The Madness of King Zøg

[7.0/10] I’ll confess, I’m tired of King Zog’s insanity. The honking and everything has become grating. And I’m also tired of the formless episodes in a pretty formless season. Once again, neither really has structure or rhythms other than vaguely comic, vaguely dramatic cul de sacs punctuated with occasionally meaningful developments. The construction of season 3 of the show (or part 3, or however you want to think about it) has been really sloppy, and it detracts from the good things the season and this episode is trying to do.

Those good things include Bean coming into her own as a leader. I like her breaking the glass ceiling here and showing up the rest of the royal council. It’s a little contrived that she achieves this by being able to translate her dad’s grunts and groans, but it’s a nice entree into her relationship with her dad and natural understanding of how things work in the kingdom giving her the edge to actually get things done beyond custom and protocol.

Also like the lunacy of Zog only being able to rule via a ventriloquist dummy and ultimately handing over power to Bean because she’s already basically running the place. There’s some real honest and vulnerable moments with Zog through his little dummy. As much a s the “slapping Odval” around shtick gets old fast, Zog talking about how he was tortured and how it got to him puts a sincere edge to all of the goofy takes on his “madness.” At the same time, the recognition o f Bean getting things done and leading her people in preparation for whatever the green smoke on the horizon is (presumably some kind of force from Steamtown?) in the absence of her dad, Oona, Derek, or anyone else to get in the way is a nice beat for her.

There’s just a lot of fluff and filler and not a lot of good form built around that laudable material. Still, I’m intrigued by what the finale has in store with the confrontation from the mysterious mist on the horizon, and hopefully the show can still end the season on a high note.