The Dragon Prince: Season 5

 
     

Created by: Aaron Ehasz and Justin Richmond 

Directed by: Villads Spangsberg and Giancarlo Volpe

Written by: Aaron Ehasz, Justin Richmond, Neil Mukhopadhyay, Devon Giehl, and Iain Hendry

Starring: 

Jack DeSena (Callum), Paula Burrows (Rayla), Sasha Rojen (Ezran), Jason Simpson (Viren), Racquel Belmonte (Claudia), Jesse Inocalla (Soren)

The Dragon Prince season 5 trailer: 

This series has really been a rollercoaster. 

Season 1 was great, season 2 was better, and season 3 was some of the most compelling and heart-wrenching storytelling I've seen. Season 4 had mixed reception, and while most audiences seemed to enjoy season 5, I felt that it was the worst one yet. 

The Dragon Prince (TDP) is something of a spiritual successor to Avatar, sharing one Avatar's head writers (Aaron Ehasz) as its co-creator and many similar themes. (Similar can be said about Voltron: Legendary Defender.) TDP takes places in a world where humans and elves are at odds, existing in a very precarious peace, and reclusive, sentient dragons may hold the key to either lasting peace or all-out war. The story focuses on two human princes and half-brothers, Callum and Ezran, who discover a hidden dragon egg--the titular "dragon prince"--and team up with an elven assassin, Rayla, to return the egg to its parent and secure peace for their world. This trio of heroes are faced against the King's advisor, Viren, and his kids, Claudia and Soren. 

When season 5 begins, Callum is a novice mage who is maturing in his skills, Ezran is attempting to reclaim his rightful place on the throne, Rayla is trying to understand her family's history, and they are joined by Soren, a warrior who has now turned against Viren. Meanwhile, Viren has unleashed a powerful elven mage, Aaaravos (Erik Todd Dellums), who seeks dominion over their world, and Claudia is diving ever-deeper into the depths of powerful dark magic. 

Rayla, General Amaya (Sheila Ferguson), and Callum on a quest

Ezran grows into his roles as king and as ambassador toward dragons this season

I'm keeping up with this series because season 3 reached such great heights, and I'm reviewing this season in the hopes that the subsequent seasons continue to get better. But I honestly did not find much redeemable about this specific season, sadly. I feel responsible to overview what I wasn't fond of, but I don't want to dive in too deep. 

One thing I find weak about this entire series is the humor, and season 5 reached new depths of terrible jokes. The humor always feels... childish. Cringey. Things that toddlers, who are stuck on snot and toilet humor, would find funny. (In fact, there is plenty of toilet humor in the series, which I can't stand.) This season, the toilet humor increased in quantity and screentime, and I felt compelled to mute minutes of dialogue that I found just distasteful and unbearably cringey. However, I realize all of that is entirely subjective. 

The biggest narrative issues I had with this season had to do with Claudia, Viren, and a new character introduced last season, an elf named Terry (Benjamin Callins), who became Claudia's boyfriend. In seasons 1 and 2, Claudia had been courting progressively darker magic, and in season 3, she took a major plunge and seemed to truly embrace the cost of dark magic to achieve what she wanted. However, Terry's introduction in season 4 and presence in season 5 has served the purpose of pulling her back: his character is a sweet, optimistic, and goofy one, which complements and draws out a similar part of Claudia's own personality. At the same time, very similar to Claudia's journey, Viren had been courting dark magic for much longer, and was a full-blown villain in season 3. However, certain events took him physically out of commission in season 4, and season 5 had him kind of "regressing" back to being a good person. On a third similar vein, Aaravos, who is also traveling with them, has transformed into a monkey-like buffoonish creature for the duration of season 5, stagnating this character's antagonistic ploys as well. With all three of these villainous forces seemingly on pause, it felt like there was no "bad guy" this whole season. 

With many stories, I could see this being a good thing: what's more juicy and compelling than a bad guy with a newly active moral compass, weighing the consequences of their choices and potentially switching sides? The problem is that we have this going for all three of them, and with Claudia, she started as a good person, and the depth of her arc lies in her courting of evil. We know she has a heart, and we already have Callum and Soren, both of whom she cares for, as forces to compel her back to "goodness." It would also be plenty to have her descent into "evil" complement her father's apparent rise back into "goodness"-- the opposing nature of these journeys, especially occurring as the characters are travelling together, would be deeply compelling. We have no need for Terry's influence, especially when his character appears to serve no other purpose. Instead, it feels like Terry is keeping Claudia stagnant; he's pulling her back from truly soulless choices, while she's also turned her back on being fully good. 

Aaravos (in his new form), Claudia, and Terry

The other frustration I had this season pertained to a new (and probably temporary) character who aids Callum, Ezran, Rayla, and Soren. She's an elf mage called Akiyu (Julie Lemieux) whose character felt... to put it bluntly, like an insult to the viewer's intelligence--and a greater insult to the character's intelligence. When our group of heroes encounters Akiyu and requests her aid, she sets them up on a short quest that turns out to be a deception and a test. My issue was the obviousness of her deception. The ruse was painfully evident to me, and I thought it was somewhat out of character that none of the heroes saw through it. Later, it occurred to me that the writers may have intended the viewers to be tricked as well, which felt disparaging. It also had the effect of placing Akiyu in an inferior light: where she was meant to be introduced as wise and powerful, this ridiculous test made me see her as silly and menial. 

This blog entry is getting long, but I don't want to end it without praising some of the positives of this season: the finale was still quality and compelling, as every season finale of this series has managed to be. Claudia takes another plunge into dark magic, this time with exceptionally high stakes, and directly confronts Callum and Ezran in a dangerous battle. This marks the first time these three have directly battled each other with intent to injure or kill, a sad and dark new chapter for these former allies. 

The season also had large focus on an encampment of humans and Sunfire elves, the latter of whom have been forced away from their destroyed homeland. The plot achieves an effective and important microcosm of a series-wide theme: human-elf relations. In fact, the center of this plot evolves a marriage between a human general (Amaya; Sheila Ferguson) and an elf queen (Janai; Rena Anakwe), which definitely focuses that plot point and places character-centric motivations and humanity behind a theme that may otherwise seem out of touch or too high-level. 

Amaya and Janai

I still have very high hopes for the remaining two seasons (which Netflix greenlit a number of years ago). I don't think the show has lost touch with its roots or with the concepts that made season 3 truly great (in my opinion, of course). While the series only has two more short seasons left, I have faith that it will end on the highest of notes.