The Dragon Prince Season 5 (2023)

Score: C+ (7.5/10)

Once past its consistently lackluster pacing and tone, The Dragon Prince Season 5 leaves the series in an impressive spot moving into the show’s climax, producing a season finale well worth the character development and tension the series had and always deserved.

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After its fourth season failed to live up to fans’ and critics’ expectations, The Dragon Prince Season 5 needed to improve. It had to improve upon Season 4’s reliance on plot devices, kid-friendly writing, and its lack of pacing and dialogue tension. The season includes several moments where those concepts were not an issue, like when it focused on Viren and Callum’s struggles. However, more often than not, the season failed to deliver a gripping narrative. Luckily, Season 5 learns from some of its quarrels by moving closer to the more emotionally gripping narratives seen throughout the series’ current arc. However, it also maintains the weak pacing and kid-like dialogue seen in Season 4.

To start, Callum continues to struggle with his relationship with Rala and dark magic. Callum and Rayla have had an eventful relationship since they first met in Season 1. The duo went from enemies to allies, friends, and even lovers. Season 3 leaves the two on an emotional high before entering Season 4 on the exact opposite. One of Season 4’s greatest strengths was Callum’s struggle with Rayla’s disappearance, even after two years of recovery. At first, he dives into Rayla's grief about the ordeal but has every reason to do so. He trusted her, and she went to do something on her own. However, Callum knows he cannot remain in the mindset. Callum and Rayla need each other’s help stopping Aaravos, which Callum makes clear to her in Season 5, with Rayla also implying her regret for leaving him in such a distressing state. Their relationship is not solved, but it's a step in the right direction, knowing how well they get along after their regrettable separation.

As for dark magic, Callum refuses to partake in dark magic because of its evil and sadistic practices throughout the series. However, he used it as a last resort to keep his loved ones safe and out of harm's way. In Season 5, Callum deals with said dilemma and needs a way out of a precarious situation. As a result, he becomes visually and emotionally distraught because he frequently swears off the use of dark magic. Callum knows how wrong it is to use dark magic but needs to use it if there’s no other way. It’s a hard line for him to identify, making it difficult for audiences to know if and when he crosses the line.

Another arc detailed in Season 5 is Viren’s, who no longer wishes to collaborate with Aaravos, the astral mage and the predominant protagonist in The Dragon Prince’s second arc. After seeing his wrongdoings as a father and a mage in a series of dreams, Viren wishes to right his wrongs, starting with letting his “resurrection timer” run out. Since Season 4’s beginning stages, Viren has acquired much more humanity. He knows he’s not invincible because he was already defeated. Viren knows he shouldn’t use dark magic because of the man it made him become. He knows how his ambitions blinded him to how he emotionally and psychologically affected his children, with Soren no longer wishing to be a part of his father’s schemes and Claudia following the same dark path as her father. Viren doesn’t want any of this to continue, so he refuses to work with Aaravos and, as mentioned earlier, becomes contemptuous of his eternal death.

Unfortunately, Season 5 comes with some downsides. The pacing is nothing to write home about, which is negatively amplified whenever the series chooses a more child-like tone and narrative. Ezran has somehow resorted to being a plot device, evident by his poor decision-making and lack of consequences in the fifth season. It’s unfortunate when Ezran is a pivotal character in the series’ narrative and chooses to make decisions used as an excuse to get a plot point rolling. Ezran, however, is one example surrounding the show’s continuously middling quality outside of its previously mentioned strengths. Season 5, in particular, manages to switch between light-hearted and dramatic tones with its narrative, resulting in well and poorly-delivered sequences in each episode. Luckily, once the story takes center stage by the season’s end, these weaknesses become vastly overshadowed by the season’s strengths.

Despite being a ways off of the series’ emotional high points, The Dragon Prince Season 5 gives audiences a future narrative something to write home about, with the season’s final few episodes being perfect examples of them. Excluding Ezran, each main character has time to shine by the season’s end, with Soren being an unexpectedly perfect example. There are improvements over the previous season, but some of its shortcomings remain. Hopefully, as the primary narrative maintains a dramatic presence, the series will reach the same high points as it did in its first three seasons. Let’s hope the show’s final two seasons provide the emotional impact needed for it to go out with a bang.