The trick with any show that is premised on an out-there idea and some pretty bonkers (thought delightfully) world-building, is that it needs to have a reason for being beyond simply being a whole of highly enjoyable, super colourful surreality.
While it’s fun to watch a show which is all colour and magic and loopy characters prone to quite comical outbursts, unless there’s some emotional substance, some narrative meat on the bones so to speak, then it’s all confetti and glitter and not much else.
Cool for an instant but not for the long-term.
The joy with Centaurworld, which finished with its second season in December 2021 – yes, we are a little late to the party but then there is a metric ton of viewing options out there and getting to everything in a timely manner is a monumental challenge which clearly this reviewer did not best – is that it serves all the technicolour lunacy you could ask for, and we like whimsy and oddities so that’s a lot on the wishlist, with a healthy serve of gut-wrenching humanity.
This is evident in the final eight episodes which comprise the second season, which culminate with a titanic battle between good and evil with a very cool, thoroughly imaginative twist and some hugely affecting outcomes for all concerned.
Yes, all the musical whimsy is still there, and many of the conversations between Centaurworld‘s various characters are sung in ways that are amusing and heartfelt all at once, but there’s a darker tone to proceedings as Horse (Kimiko Glenn), whom you might recall entered the candy-coloured brilliance of Centaurworld from her own ravaged, wartorn, human reality in season one, does her best to prepare for a war that is sure to engulf both worlds.
The barbarically cruel, antlered monstrosity that is the Nowhere King (Brian Stokes Mitchell) is on the march, with his army of armoured monsters and horrific Island of Doctor Moreau-like fighting creatures determined to wipe humanity and the various -taurs off the face of two very different maps, and only a combined fighting force can stop him.
But as Horse’s found family, known as the Herd – pink goofy but fearsome Wammawink (Megan Hilty), flamboyantly fun and very gay Zulius (Parveesha Cheena), pint-sized but very angry Ched (Chris Diamantopoulos), anxiety-ridden kleptomaniac Glendale (Megan Nicole Dong) who can’t hide infinite amounts of things in a magic portal stomach and giraffe-like, highly emotional goofball Durpleton (Josh Radnor) – find out in the first few episodes getting anybody to care about the impending threat to their existence is a thankless and initially fruitless task.
Everyone finally joins together but this being Centaurworld, not even remotely how you think it’s going to, and while good does prevail over evil (not really a spoiler), it’s how they get there that stamps this season of the show as something rather special, balancing some off-the-wall humour with some really poignant and hugely moving reveals.
It’s not entirely flawless with a sense that they are padding things out a little bit and that there’s sometimes more darkness than there is a light, but for the most part, Centaurworld is a clever and hugely imaginative farewell to a show that knows just when to say goodbye.
Thanks to those early few episodes which give members of the Herd as chance to shine in their own light and the show a chance to world-build to some very fun and wacky places, the season retains the surreal tone that made it so much fun to watch in the first season.
There is still a bizarre variety of -taurs including rich, aristocratic Centaurs (TM), who consider themselves to be the original and the best and who are so closed off from the world around them that they live lives of selfish, self-indulgent indolence, and the Birdtaurs who are social media obsessed in a richly amusing parody of a platform no longer named after a bird sound, and the sight gags flow as fully and madly as they did the first time round with all kinds of surreally warped moments.
In that respect, Centaurworld is still very much the show we came to know and love in the first season.
But, all too aware that all candy and no substance can soil even the most technicolour of loopy dreams, Centaurworld gives itself over to the darkness, allowing all its main characters, especially Horse who wonders why she stayed behind when she could gone back to the human world with her beloved Rider (Jessie Mueller) to go through some very dark nights of the soul, though with its trademark wit and silliness still very much intact, these are ushered in via Horse’s newly-acquired backstory magic.
While some will no doubt be disappointed in the show’s embrace of a more serious tone, the shift is an important one because it underscores that the show’s creator, Megan Nicole Dong and the creative team understand that for all of the loopy visual and verbal goofiness to have lasting impact that there must be real emotional weight and flawed humanity behind them.
The shift in tone is also a recognition that the good things in life are only worth something if you have seen their absence, or you might lose them and have to fight for them, and by going warlike, Centaurworld adds some real presence to what otherwise being a sequined volcano (yes, according to Zulius, that is totally a thing) spewing forth fun but not much else.
In its second and final season, Centaurworld absolutely sticks the landing, gifting its storyline with a lot more emotional weight than season one (though that was hardly a helium-filled giggle of sparkly nonsense with real poignancy to it at times) and finishing off its storyline with wit, wisdom, darkness and light, and a prevailing oddball reassurance that though things can get dark and terrifying and awful in the extreme, that when you belong and have family, anything is possible, and things may just turn out all right after all, and with a hootenanny to boot.