The gang reach Arriopa with the prize in sight, as Lazaro holds a grand ceremony with all the galaxy’s various rulers invited. But can they reach Lazaro in time before his guards – or their own side – force the issue?

So after a massively fun, silly episode last time out, suddenly Vagrant Queen finds its serious side, and oh boy does it as things get super dark.

That’s not to say the silliness we all expect isn’t still there. Isaac remains loveably goofy as ever as they check onto Arriopa to try to get to Lazaro at his ceremony which is oh so unsubtly Trump-themed, complete with ‘Make Arriopa Great Again’ red hats. But then the episode does something it hasn’t attempted at all to this point – it gives us some real insight into Lazaro, by way of a series of flashbacks.

We start in his youth as the rebellious, idealistic son of a wealthy family connected to the Royal Empire he despises, and follow through his recruitment as an agent in the nascent Republic and finally the deeds done as part of the glorious revolution. In all of this, we get more of an idea of just who Lazaro is, and far from being the three-dimensional cartoonish villain he’s seemed to this point, he’s something much worse.

This isn’t the time to revive the debate that plagued every discussion about Avengers: Infinity War a few years ago, about how ‘sympathetic’ Thanos was as a villain, mainly because the show smartly sidesteps any consideration of that point with regard to present day Lazaro, holding the power to control the galaxy and set to use it at his whim. This is about damage, abuse suffered as an idealistic young man, and the specific way that revolutions always end up demanding the same brutality from their actors as they’ve fought against and condemned in the regime they just deposed. Lazaro doesn’t become a sympathetic character here, but he does become an understandable one, with a credible origin story that led him to where he is today.

This level of social commentary would feel deep at any time, but given present events in the world it feels especially relevant and poignant – and shows how good the writing has been. It feels like it’s on a similar level to Thor: Ragnarok in terms of addressing deep and serious themes in a neon-drenched, joke-filled wrapper, and that’s not a comparison I make lightly.

Still, there’s the matter of the ticking clock as Elida’s own allies in the Royalist movement seek to deal with Lazaro in their own, fairly terminal way, not just for him but the whole planet. Elida is convinced she’s the only one who can face off against the new tyrant, and that means going it alone while the others go to rescue those imprisoned below the palace, which at least finally gives us one character moment it feels like we’ve been waiting too long for.

From its pilot episode onward, Vagrant Queen has defied every attempt to be quantified as anything, liberally stealing genre tropes and scattering them amongst madcaps plot, daft antics and completely bonkers premises. But it’s also always had heart at the centre of it in its characters – I just wasn’t expect this level of depth in its villain as well.

Verdict: An absolute barnstormer of an episode that comes out of nowhere and elevates this loveable, goofball slice of genre nuttiness from great fun to absolutely essential. 10/10

Greg D. Smith