'Miracle Workers: Dark Ages' Episode 6 Review: Al and Maggie fight while Chauncley hosts music festival
Maggie (Lolly Adefope) has always been a stellar friend to Al (Geraldine Viswanathan), standing up for her even during her disgrace as a fraud medical practitioner. At the start of episode 6, we have a flashback to one year earlier when the two gal pals were running through town and getting up to mischief. They discover their rooftop perch above the town square and decide that it would be "their" spot.
Back in the present day, we see unemployed Al despondently chugging some mead alone at the spot when she sees Maggie in her nun habit with her other "colleagues" from the convent. When Maggie joins Al a little later, she tells her about all the work she has been up to at the convent and her hijinks with new bestie Trish. To busy to hang with Al, she takes off to help Trish with "inventory".
Unsurprisingly, Al feels lost without her best friend and when she meets Prince Chauncley (Daniel Radcliffe) a little later, she tells him the town sucks. Prince Chauncley, who now has a full-blown crush on her approaches his dad, King Cragnor the Heartless (Peter Serafinowicz), about what they can do to make the peasants happy. Chauncley makes it clear that he has one particular, brown-haired peasant girl in mind thanks to a Freudian slip of the tongue.
But King Cragnor, predictably, poo-poos the idea and crushes a skull, just to show what he'll do to any whiny peasants. So Chauncley gets the mega rock star, Percival Forthwind (Fred Armisen) to hold a rock concert for a "fortune". Lord Vexler (Karna Soni) is a bit miffed about the money they are handing to this aging rockstar, but Al goes skipping to Maggie with the news, thrilled about something cool finally happening in town.
Maggie, who has become quite devoted to her job has to attend a "board meeting" where the nuns bang their heads with wooden boards as penance. But she decides to take a personal day to accompany Al to the concert.
When Al realizes Maggie has invited Trish too, she has a jealous hissy fit. What's worse is that Percival acts like an utter douche, complaining about how he is an artist having to play for "The Man", even his assistant squeezes more money out of the ever-polite Chauncley.
When Lord Vexler complains, the prince says it is best to take the high road and comply with all of Percival's requests. Fred Armisen is delightful as the obnoxious rockstar, banging pots and the mike with a stick, calling it his "new" songs. The crowd is restless for "Who, Who, Who", his big hit, which he refuses to play.
When Maggie leaves in a huff at Al's behavior and Chauncley sees Al's dejected face at the terrible concert, he finally loses it. He goes on a skull-crushing rage-fueled takedown of Percival, who immediately gets his act straight and gives the concert the crowd has been waiting for. Al apologizes to Maggie and tells her about feeling left behind and being a bad friend. Maggie, being the sweetie she is, forgives her and the two, with Trish in tow, go back to the concert.
Percival's song is pretty catchy, but Chauncley is distressed that he is just like his father. Lord Vexler reminds him that while the king gets angry at the peasants, the prince gets angry for them. Chauncley is visibly cheered by his words and is even more thrilled when Al asks him to dance.
By the end of the concert, Al is also giving Chauncley the lovey-dovey, side-eye. It seems the two will finally hook up and get up to more shenanigans in the next episode. While this episode was not big on laughs, it is great to see Al and the prince bonding and a friendship-focussed episode. The piece-de-resistance is, of course, the always-funny Fred Armisen as the guest star. We hope we get more cameos like this one!
'Miracle Workers: Dark Ages' airs on Tuesdays on TBS at 10:30 pm ET.
