Disenchantment Season 4 Ending Explained: Family Is What You Make Of It
Matt Groening and Josh Weinstein's animated fantasy-comedy "Disenchantment" is back on Netflix for Part 4, and these 10 episodes will change things in Dreamland forever. At the end of the third season, Princess Tiabeanie, or "Bean," was crowned Queen of Dreamland after saving it from destruction yet again. Bean (voiced by Abbi Jacobson) is not a perfect ruler by any means, but she truly does care about her subjects, including her strange little elf buddy Elfo (Nat Faxon) and her personal demon, Luci (Eric André). Unfortunately, the trio split up at the end of last season, and things looked especially bad for Luci, who was dead and stuck in Heaven with a bunch of boring angels.
Part 4 sees Queen Bean reunite with her mildly-insane father, Zøg (John DiMaggio), as well as with her evil mother Queen Dagmar (Sharon Horgan). Over the course of the season, the characters all learn about the many ways family can shape us, and embrace the importance of the families we've created for ourselves.
SPOILERS for Part 4 of "Disenchantment" from here on out!
So Elfo is Half-Ogre?
One of Part 4's biggest reveals was Elfo's parentage. The odd little elf has never felt like he belonged among his tiny brethren, and his father Pops (Billy West) hasn't told him much about his mother. In episode 2, "The Good, The Bad, and the Bum-Bum," Elfo discovers that his mother is actually the Queen of the Ogres, Grogda (Tress MacNeille). Some fans guessed as much based on the characters' skin tones and similar nose, plus Grogda's interest in his name in previous seasons, but the theory was finally confirmed. Apparently, Pops and Grogda had an affair and raised young Elfo together before the gnomes attacked — and Pops believed Grogda was dead. When reunited, Grogda's current husband, the King of the Ogres, forces Elfo and his brother Junior to fight to the death, but Elfo refuses. The King of the Ogres dies in an accident, and the happy (if unusual) family is allowed to finally flourish.
Zøg's Three Odd Children
At the end of last season, the deposed King Zøg was a wandering madman, capable only of honking. He stumbles across a monastery and learns the power of inner reflection, becoming a much more enlightened man. After returning to Dreamland, he decides to reconnect with his lost love Ursula the Bear Woman (Jenny Batten). The two have a friendly reunion and things appear to be looking up for Zøg when she tells him that she has a secret. It turns out that Zøg and Ursula have a son together, whom Zøg semi-affectionately calls "Bear Boy." After Ursula falls to what sure looks like certain death, (though with this show anything is possible), Zøg takes Bear Boy back to his castle to try and do a better job parenting his youngest. He forces the bear-hybrid to share a bed with his middle child, Derek (MacNeille), which introduces instant sibling rivalry and causes a lot of problems. Though Zøg is a pretty terrible father, he's really trying and has been trying to be better to Bean and Derek for a while now. Imagine fathering a bucktoothed badass like Bean, a whiny underwater wimp like Derek, and a freaking bear kid. At least he's trying, which is more than can be said for Bean's mom Queen Dagmar. Derek's mom is a busy pirate queen now, but even she shows up to help out mid-season. If there's one certainty in Part 4, it's that Dagmar is a royal pain.
What Happened in Hell?
Speaking of Dagmar — it turns out that she arranged some kind of marriage between the Queen of Dreamland and the Devil, and she drags Bean down to Hell for the world's warmest wedding. Bean manages to use a bit of quick-moving (and quick-thinking) to marry her mother to the Devil instead, slicing Dagmar's hand and putting it on the scroll to seal the deal before mommy dearest can stop her. This turns Dagmar into the Queen of Hell, a role she both deserves and seems to delight in once she realizes the potential to torture her poor daughter even more.
Bean tries to use reverse-psychology on the Devil prior to their wedding and he actually becomes a bit intimidated by her. It turns out that she learned from the best: her mother. The next time we see Satan, he's practically begging Bean to help him figure out a way to get away from his new wife. "I don't think I can survive an eternity married to your mother," he tells Bean, and as weird as it is to think of Dagmar as scarier than the devil himself, she's proven herself to be truly terrible. She even pushes an unconscious Bean over the castle balcony and leaves her for dead at the end of the season, taking Bad Bean's severed head with which to create some kind of Bean puppet or disguise. Wait, I've gotten ahead of myself, haven't I? At the end of the season, Bean does battle with a "bad" version of herself that's been living inside her head, and Bad Bean makes it out into the real world through some wacky Dreamland magic. The doppelganger goofiness is both a lot of fun and a great metaphor for Bean's journey throughout the series as she's overcome her greatest enemy: herself.
So There's Two Beans Now?
Well, not exactly. Bad Bean existed because of her mother's machinations, and that version of her had the screws installed in her head for the ridiculous crown that Bean is cursed to wear as the bringer of the apocalypse, as foretold by Dagmar. Bean doesn't want any of that, and she certainly doesn't share her alternate self's desire to destroy Dreamland, so she cuts off Bad Bean's head with a clean sweep of her sword. The real problem comes when Dagmar arrives on the elevator from Hell, hoping to be meeting Bad Bean for a celebration. As much as our hero tries to pretend to be her evil twin, she fails, and Dagmar ends up chucking her unconscious body into the ocean. It turns out that with Tiabeanie, like the Highlander, there can only be one.
At the beginning of "Disenchantment," Princess Bean was selfish, boorish, and contributed very little to anything other than the royal family's bar tab. Through her friendships with Luci and Elfo, and her increased closeness to her father, she has started becoming a better person and a better ruler. She even found love this season in the form of a mermaid that may or may not have kissed her father once. Bad Bean tries to break her better self down by explaining all of the things that Bean has done to hold herself back, and instead of tearing her down, it lifts her up. Bean can still be a messy, troubled person, but she's stopped trying to be apathetic and cool and has started really caring, making her a better Bean, and one capable of defeating her own doppelganger.
Is Everyone Going to Be Okay?
A lot of big events happen in "Disenchantment" Part 4, and the finale ends on a whole slew of cliffhangers. We know that Bean's not dead, as she falls into the arms of her mermaid romantic interest and they kiss, but just about everything else is left up in the air. Bean's brothers, father, and a few other unusual residents of Dreamland are being held captive in a freak show in Steamland after being kidnapped near the end of the season; Luci and Elfo don't know that Bean even fell; and now Dagmar's back with the Devil in tow! Things aren't looking great for Dreamland, but as long as Bean, Elfo, and Luci can stick together and use their special brand of friendship, maybe things will turn out okay in the end. Part 5 of "Disenchantment" has yet to be officially announced, but if the series does well over the next few weeks we should see a renewal. After all, leaving us all in suspense over these lovable weirdos forever would just be cruel.
"Disenchantment" part 4 is streaming exclusively on Netflix.