Review: THE DRAGON PRINCE Season 6 is the Best Yet

A few weeks ago, the sixth season of The Dragon Prince launched on Netflix. Like previous seasons, this one had nine seasons. The series was created by Aaron Ehasz and Justin Richmond and is produced by Wonderstorm.

For full disclosure, I was provided a free month of Netflix so that I could watch the season for the purposes of this review, but all thoughts below are my own.

I have another confession to make. I apparently forgot to watch season five of The Dragon Prince when it came out, which means that I ended up binging seasons five and six when I went to write this review. I will try to keep this to season six, but there might be some of season five leaking into this. Now for the spoiler free review.

I really liked The Dragon Prince season six. It does an excellent job of bringing everything together, tying up a number of storylines, and making me love some characters even more.

This was much more coherent than season four which I appreciated, but I never felt like I was missing out on any given story. Unless I missed something (always a possibility) then we are only getting one more season and I’m very interested to see how they completely wrap things up in a single season. Season six has intrigue, combat, romance, jokes, and more. I daresay that it could be the best season of The Dragon Prince yet.

Yes, the animation is still the same slightly choppy style, but at this point it is clearly an artistic choice and not a budget concern. Right!? If you’re a fan of the show, I think you are going to love this season of The Dragon Prince.

The official spoiler alert is up and so now I can talk about more of what I liked. A decent chunk of season six is focused on the Sunfire Elves politics. Queen Janai was having to deal with her banished brother Karim who was being a jerk too stuck in tradition.

He had gathered a small army to rebel against Janai with the promise of the backup of the powerful ex-Archdragon Sol Regem. We do get the wedding between Janai and Amaya although tensions are high with the threat of Karim’s army. I’ll be honest, this plotline was my least favorite and felt dragged out. However, the ending of it was very satisfying.

I did appreciate the small twist of Sol Regem turning on Karim and not showing up to save his insurgent army as Janai’s five armies arrive to presumably quell the uprising with little problem.

The second main storyline is of course focused on Claudia and Terry. I continue to love Terry! Claudia has a bit of an identity crisis after Viren leaves to turn himself in to the powers that be in Katalos.

She starts questioning much of what her future holds and starts to realize the toll that dark magic has had on her as a human. Terry of course is trying to show her that she doesn’t need dark magic (although he could maybe be less passive about things) and that he does care for her.

This story culminates in her being manipulated by Aaravos to set him free. I really appreciate that Terry sees through what Aaravos is doing and saying and points it out to Claudia. I genuinely wonder how this will ultimately impact their relationship as she doesn’t seem to listen to him at this point.

The third main storyline is the quest that Rayla and Callum go on to try to find a way to destroy Aaravos. There’s a lot of awkward tension in this storyline but fans are eventually rewarded with the long awaited kiss.

The pair do meet the Skywing Elves and we learn quite a bit about them and the Startouched Elves. We also have an interesting bit of storytelling in “Moment of Truth” when Kosmo (a Skywing Elf) is presented with the dilemma of whether or not to tell Callum a hard truth.

For this part, everything goes black and white to show the possible outcomes, but then it all goes back to full color as we learn what actually happens which involves Kosmo not unveiling the truth.

At the end of this storyline, Rayla is faced with a difficult decision and she ends up freeing Runaan from his coin and helping her parents, Tiadrin and Lain, pass on to the afterlife. It is a bit of an emotional moment.

Now that I’ve given the briefest of synopses for the three main storylines, I want to talk about Viren. At the beginning of season six (or maybe the end of season five?) Viren arrives back in Katalos and pleads to basically be thrown into prison.

He has fully come around on realizing that he has been unjustified in how he’s been using dark magic and he’s ready to accept the consequences. For the rest of the season we see him in prison and in “Moment of Truth” (crazy how this episode has come up again) we learn how he was set upon the path of dark magic and it gives us a glimpse into Soren’s childhood.

It’s a very touching story and makes me love Soren even more. As part of his penance, Viren is writing this history down in a letter to give to Soren who has been (understandably) cold to Viren since his return. In the end, Viren chickens out of giving the letter to Soren though and burns it.

This is already pretty good and very touching, but then Viren’s redemption becomes one of my favorites in all of television and film.

Remember how I mentioned Sol Regem abandons Karim? It’s because he goes and attacks Katalos. During this one-dragon siege, the people are in danger and things are desperate. Soren makes the tough call to ask his father to use dark magic to protect the citizens of Katalos and when informed that a human heart was needed for the spell, offers his own.

However, Viren is already haunted by seeing the path Claudia is on and instead casts the spell, sacrificing his own heart for the spell and saving the people of Katalos. It’s a little unclear to me if it’s a matter of Soren not knowing that Viren was going to sacrifice himself or just Soren being surprised that his father did follow through on it, but for now it doesn’t matter.

The point is that this redemption was not rushed and it was well done. We saw seeds for redemption back in season four and the team let that mature. Viren didn’t immediately turn good. He didn’t immediately do some big sacrifice or grand act of redemption.

He reflected on things, aimed to atone via imprisonment, and after going through so much in his journey for redemption was given the opportunity for that great sacrifice. And it felt so good!

There’s another moment that I felt was so incredibly well-done and that is when Claudia and Callum are casting their spells. These spells appear to happen simultaneously and the way that it is presented is phenomenal.

The spells are almost identical, but there are a couple of differences highlighted. Callum is truly doing this out of love for someone whom he loves. Claudia is being manipulated (she did find Viren dead before this) by Aaravos and while she thinks that she’s tapping into love, it’s fairly clear that she’s using more of a twisted form of love.

This is something that Terry tries to explain to Claudia, but she doesn’t listen. I’m not doing the scene justice if I’m honest, but I do promise that it is incredibly well-done.

The season ends with Katalos in ruin, Aaravos free, Runaan free, Karim and the rebels seemingly wiped out, and Terry and Claudia’s relationship changing to something closer to “It’s Complicated.”

All jokes aside, I do genuinely wonder how/if The Dragon Prince can be given proper closure in a single season. To me, it definitely feels like a 2-3 season deal to wrap up considering that our heroes have no idea how they could defeat Aaravos.

On the bright side, Callum and Rayla do have the last quasar diamond and I would be shocked if it was not a big part in the equation.

I know that I haven’t touched on everything, so please share your favorite things from season six and other thoughts about The Dragon Prince in the comments below. You can stream all six seasons of The Dragon Prince now on Netflix. This will definitely be a hard season to top.