Season Review: Crossing Swords Season Two

Overview:

A knight’s quest for honor and justice is never complete, which is something that optimistic squire and the universe’s punching bag, Patrick, understands all too well. Patrick continues his perilous ascension to knighthood, and the respect and inner satisfaction that comes along with it, but he’s confronted with more intense and harrowing obstacles than ever before. Patrick remains vigilant, but he’s forced to honestly confront the nature of his passion and the kingdom that he serves to understand what he really wants, and if he’s even able to stay alive while he does it. 

Our Take:

It’s not uncommon for there to be parallel thinking when it comes to the development of television series and feature films, but there’s been an especially odd trend in the past few years towards comedic animated series that are set back during Medieval times. Disenchantment, HarmonQuest, Tigtone, and Apollo Gauntlet all use an ancient Medieval landscape as their creative playgrounds, with none of these competent series turning into huge successes or narrowing in on the perfect angle for this subject matter. 

Crossing Swords has its work cut out for itself by throwing its knight’s helmet into the ring here. The show’s first season didn’t rejuvenate the genre and its unique “peg person” stop-motion aesthetic was never as groundbreaking or endearing as Crossing Swords thought that it was (although there are more clever incorporations of mixed media in these episodes). Many of these same issues are present in season two of Crossing Swords and the program isn’t suddenly elevated into the crowning Medieval animated comedy. However, season two is an improvement and likely to entertain fans of the first season and those that thrive on the fast-paced, mainstream, reverential humor that one would come to expect from the creative team behind Robot Chicken.

Season two of Crossing Swords is an improvement over what came before it, but its style of humor hasn’t changed. It remains a series that’s happier to launch a barrage of benign gags instead of launching one seismic joke that’s allowed to properly build. Crossing Swords makes marginal shifts, but it still feels ambivalent towards real change in certain ways. Immediately, the season partners Patrick up with Sir Kutter, an accomplished knight who’s supposed to be an asset, yet comes across as more of a wild card liability. The fresh energy between Patrick and Sir Kutter is excellent and feels like a course correction, only for it to turn out to only be a temporary pivot and Crossing Swords quickly returns to the comfort of its standard Patrick and Broth status quo.

One of the most compelling aspects of the second season of Crossing Swords is something that’s only teased during the show’s freshman year. Patrick is practically defined by his undying passion for knighthood and this season gradually chips away at the pedestal that Patrick has placed it on for his entire life. A major aspect of Patrick is that he’s such a wide-eyed caricature and while this image isn’t completely shattered, he grows into a more palatable character as he becomes further disillusioned. Patrick’s soul searching culminates in some rewarding areas that also allows Crossing Swords to check off other Medieval milestones, like gladiatorial combat and ultimately, the prospect of full-on mutiny. 

This welcome depth is helpful to Patrick’s character, but it’s also the classic internal struggle that’s at the core of Disenchantment, HarmonQuest, and many other of these Medieval comedies. It’s the lowest hanging of dragon heads on the hydra. Additionally, the rest of Crossing Swords’ supporting characters are left to comfortably exist as stereotypes even if they still receive lots of attention. Surprisingly, it’s King Merriman and Queen Tulip who feel the most substantial as actual characters beyond Patrick, which is also inherent of the series’ skewed priorities.

Another smart move that this season makes is to extend the boundaries of what falls into the boundaries of the Medieval era. There’s a finite number of obstacles that knights and a questionable monarchy can generate and some supernatural-adjacent stories that lean into the untold mysteries of the time period makes a lot of sense. This brings unexpected elements into the mix, like Leprechauns, subterranean mole people, unicorns, mummies, and even an effective riff on zombies, which all represent Crossing Swords at its most effective and creative. This weirder material is a step forward for the series, but it still represents a fairly base level exploration of what’s possible. Crossing Swords shouldn’t be continually compared to similar series, but it’s worth addressing that all of its peers push these supernatural ideas further than where Crossing Swords is willing to go. Nevertheless, it’s these moments that the series should turn to more often rather than the baser instincts that Crossing Swords happily embraces like a Sleeping Beauty-esque scenario that’s triggered by overstimulation through the use of sex toys.

Crossing Swords doesn’t always hit its target, but there are still episodes that scratch the surface of deeper territory and attempt to do something more than just comedic riffs on the past. One of the most satisfying episodes of the season breaks down toxic female friendships and finds strength when the show strays from its usual trappings. There’s also an entertaining take on Halloween that highlights the utility of holiday stories in a series like this, which Crossing Swords should definitely continue to experiment with if it continues to go on. Crossing Swords successfully builds upon this newfound freedom as it plays around in different genres, like an undercover drug ring heist, which is admittedly not the type of material one expects to see in a series that’s set within Medieval times. However, it’s these sorts of pivots that help give Crossing Swords more of a voice this season. 

The standard knight fare is so played out that these sorts of genre and stylistic mash-ups are absolutely necessary for a show like Crossing Swords to survive. This sort of creativity could still be in much greater supply and just because this season showcases more exciting and atypical storylines, that doesn’t mean that they always culminate in a manner that’s satisfying or funny. Crossing Swords still has a long way to go, but this decision to push itself more out of its comfort zone and buck the norm at least reflects that it’s not a complete lost cause. 

There still may not need to be another season of Crossing Swords, but there’s more promise in that idea than there was at the end of the first season. It’s possible that Hulu may just want to hold onto Crossing Swords in order to add more to their growing stable of adult animated content, but Crossing Swords is so incongruous with their other, and stronger, content like Solar Opposites, or even Animaniacs. In two seasons it certainly feels like Crossing Swords has exhausted most of what it has to say and has done its very best to rejuvenate what remains tricky genre territory. 

It takes time for a promising squire to grow into an impressive knight. Crossing Swords is headed in the right direction, but it’s still stuck in the past and lacks the magic to pull the sword from out of this stone.

 

This review is based on all ten episodes of season two of ‘Crossing Swords’

Season two of ‘Crossing Swords’ premieres December 10th, on Hulu