This year has already been so jam-packed with pop culture releases that I completely forgot that we were getting the last season of Matt Groening’s fantasy comedy (fancom?) Disenchantment. Season 5 was released on September 1st, 2023, and I finally finished it just last night, after being a pretty consistent, faithful watcher since it first dropped.
And honestly? Wig. The show ended very beautifully for what’s essentially a non-stop gagfest. It might just be the PMS that’s getting to me, but I got a little choked up as everyone’s storylines wrapped up (including the magical horses whose only magical properties are being able to laugh, love that).
All of this made me think: Disenchantment doesn’t get nearly as much cred as it should. When it was first released, people were eager to dogpile on it for being “mid,” but it was always apparent (to me, at least) that that was its whole point. This was never going to be a show that changed the game for adult animation, whatever the hell that means. This was always a silly, whimsical show that never tried to be anything more or less than it was. In the end, ironically, that made it a tighter show overall than most popular adult cartoons.
If you don’t know what Disenchantment is all about, it’s a Groening-Netflix-exclusive that follows the misadventures of Princess “Bean” Tiabeanie (Abbi Jacobsen), the buck-toothed, foul-mouthed, very bisexual princess of Dreamland who just wants to party and live her best life. Her adventures are often joined by her two closest companions, Elfo the Elf (Nat Faxon) and Luci the demon (Eric André), much to the chagrin of her constantly exasperated father, King Zog (John DiMaggio). The rest of the cast is also fantastic and includes everyone’s favorite modern dandy Matt Berry as the prince-turned-pig Merkimer, and Tress MacNeille as my personal favorite character, the amphibious Queen Oona.
I once saw someone compare both the old and new Clone High and point out that one of the best parts of the original show was how each scene contained some kind of gag. That’s pretty much what Disenchantment has going for it, although the gags are definitely more aligned with that silly, middle-Simpsons-era kind of humor (as can be expected from a Groening/Josh Weinstein show). The show rarely takes itself very seriously, yet it knows better than to flippantly let go of important plot arcs.
In fact, I was pretty impressed that such a silly-ass show was able to tie up its loose ends so well during the season finale. This was definitely the right time to end the show, yet all the same, I grew fond of all the freaks that inhabited it, and I’m a little sad that it’s ending. Disenchantment had all the whimsy of a fun fantasy show, like Merlin, and it was unabashedly silly without relying on a lot of the cheap tricks that many adult cartoons tend to fall back on. I could passively put it on while doing other things and still get a lot of enjoyment out of it, and honestly, that’s the hallmark of some of my favorite shows.
Overall, I’ll continue to appreciate Disenchantment for what it was, and I hope more people will give it a shot! I might even give it a rewatch, for nostalgia’s sake.
(Featured Image: Netflix)
