The Last Lullaby

**The Last Lullaby** is the eighth and final episode of the second season of *Centaurworld* and the 18th episode overall.

## Official Synopsis

*Horse leaps into the Nowhere King's mind and learns his haunting backstory. Meanwhile, Rider and the herd come up with a plan.*

## Plot

The episode picks up where the previous one ended as Horse uses her backstory magic to leap into the Nowhere King's mind, freezing him and his Minotaur army. In his mind, she's surprised to find a dark void and that's she's been restored to her old appearance.

Meanwhile, Wammawink has realised that Horse has sacrificed herself to buy them time, and she & the rest of the herd grieve for her, Rider asks if there's any way for them to rescue her, but Waterbaby explains that none of them have the right magic and that Horse is the only one who can get herself out. Upon hearing this, Rider resolves to make Horse's sacrifice count and to defeat the minotaur army while they're frozen.

Back in the Nowhere King's mind, Horse hopes that she's saved her friends and reflects on her journey with them, shortly after she encounters a talking Elk, who is part of the Nowhere King's mind and unexpectedly is able to see her. He relates to Horse being trapped, frightened, and missing her loved ones as he has felt the same way before; he then takes her to see a memory of himself being freed from captivity by the Woman, who urges him to run away as soldiers are after him.

Elsewhere, the Woman & Beartaur break into her former castle (now occupied by the Nowhere King's army) to retrieve her key. On the battlefield, Rider instructs the herd in how to kill minotaurs but the others are hesitant to kill them while they're defenseless, especially Durpleton as Stabby was once one of them (though Stabby claims it's fine since minotaurs regularly friendly fire each other). Unfortunately, nobody has any alternate ideas to deal with them. As this is happening, the Elk shows Horse a memory of the Woman being married to the General while the Elk watches, heartbroken. Horse sympathizes with him but points out that the Nowhere King is a monster and nothing he has shown her so far explains how he became what he is now.

As Rider loses patience and prepares to start killing minotaurs, the herd elects to toss them into the moletaur's holes so they land in Centaurworld's moletaur prison instead, thanks to the dimension-cutting properties of holetaur holes. However, the Nowhere King starts to overpower Horse's magic and the minotaurs begin to wake up. One attacks Rider, but she is saved by Stabby just in time for the war that is about to begin.

The Elk shows Horse a memory of when the area outside of Centaurworld's side of the rift was a bustling seaside community, and he was an elktaur tasked with keeping the rift in working order, but wished he could be a human and be taken seriously. One day he meets the Woman, who was once a princess of the human world. He is immediately smitten. She promises to tell her father, the king, about how hard he worked to get her safely home. Eventually a royal party is held in his honor. The Princess takes him aside at the party to spend time with her in the garden, where the Elktaur shows her two pieces of a device meant to permanently stabilize the rift and the Princess demonstrates her knowledge of Centaur magic, including that it requires respecting both halves.

Despite this, the Elktaur believes that she could never love him the way that he is and starts work on a way to become human. He designs and constructs a device that the key can connect to, capable of separating the human and non-human sides of a centaur. After testing the device out on a rutabagataur (which splits into a human baby and a normal rutabaga vegetable), he uses it to split himself into the Elk and a human man who would later become the General.

Meanwhile, the herd plus Waterbaby & Rider are doing their best to fight the minotaurs, when the centaur army joins the fight, as does Comfortable Doug (under the pseudonym Flat Dallas) who leads his own miniature army, consisting of the tiny clones the centaurs' magic creates and the hatchling birds the birdtaurs use to send messages. In the sky, the birdtaurs are reunited with Bayden, who still recognizes them, while Gebbrey trips and falls into Glendale's portal where he finally finds his long-lost missing jacket before being pulled out (and realizing he's now too warm).

The Nowhere King breaks free and the minotaurs begin to overpower the centaurs when the human army appears and joins the fight, with the General leading a team with Rider & Wammawink. However, Horse learns that the General is not what he seems when the Elk show her a memory of him meeting the man; having realized that splitting themselves was a mistake, that they should not have assumed the Princess would not have loved them as they were, and that he belongs nowhere, the Elk implores the General to fix their mistake.

The General refuses and attempts to drown the Elk, only stopping when he begins to drown himself, as their lives are connected and what happens to one will happen to the other. Instead, he calls several soldiers to ambush and imprison the Elk who spends the next ten years in a cramped cell. Horse is horrified by the revelation that everything she was raised to fight for has been a lie and looks for an exit, but there is still more to see.

She's shown a montage of memories as the Elk's attempts to create a family for himself by using the key to fuse humans and animals into the first minotaurs, turns into the formation of the minotaur army, with each misuse of the key gradually corrupting the Elk into the Nowhere King, so named because he belongs nowhere. During the final confrontation between the Nowhere King and the General, the Woman appears, knowing what has happened and what needs to be done, she destroys the device, which explodes. The resulting blast breaks the key apart and severs the connection between worlds; the woman and five of the six pieces are sent into Centaurworld, while the General is sent into the Humanworld along with the final piece, and the Nowhere King is trapped inside the rift.

Horse acknowledges that his story is sad, but recognizes that he's caused too much harm for her to truly feel sorry for him, and prepares to leave. However, the Nowhere King knows she's now in his mind, and attempts to trap her; telling her that she, like him, does not belong in either world, but Horse counters that she belongs with her friends and continues moving towards the door through the crumbling landscape. When the Nowhere King destroys the door, the Elk transforms into a new one, telling her to finish what he could not, and Horse finally escapes. She flies out of his mind, back in her Centaurworld form, and is allowed out of the shield bubble that Wammawink and Waterbaby are containing the Nowhere King with.

She runs to Rider and informs her that in order to end the war they need to kill the General, however, Rider does not believe her, so Horse decides to use how the humans see her to her advantage and attempts to kill the General herself, but is stopped. Rider rushes within range of the Nowhere King and prepares to shoot him with an arrow, when the General stabs her and leaves her for dead.

Horse runs to Rider's side and holds her close while the rest of the herd continues to fight: Wammawink using her shields to protect the others, Glendale leading the coldtaurs and using her cache of stolen weapons, Durpleton & Stabby working in tandem, Zulius fighting alongside Splendib, and Ched using his tulip stepping skills (as well as earning the respect of a tulip stepper he admired). Meanwhile, the General has reached the Nowhere King who confirms that they will remain locked in their struggle forever.

The Woman then appears, riding Becky Apples, though the General claims he's loved and been waiting for her all this time, she recognizes the harm he's done and when he still tries to win her over, she and Becky chase him down and send him over the cliff, which also fatally wounds the Nowhere King who falls after him. The Woman climbs down to where they are and uses the key to merge them back into the Elktaur. She confesses to him that she would have loved him as he was, before transforming the key into a spear and putting both of them out of his misery.

With the war finally over Horse and Rider share a moment of joy at their newfound freedom before the severely injured Rider falls limp.

### Epilogue

A short time later, the two worlds are at peace and have begun to heal, but there is still some work to do cleaning up, including finding and rehabilitating the remaining minotaurs. Rider is shown to have survived and become part of the herd, which is currently aboard Waterbaby's flying houseboat and en route to a meeting with the shamans, where Waterbaby says that they'll need somebody to help the two worlds navigate their newfound unity and offers Horse the position.

    Though surprised, Horse agrees and becomes the sixth shaman, while Rider's hair suddenly grows fluffy and purple, signifying the start of her own Centaurwold transformation. The herd then returns to the valley and fully dismantles the dome around it while a montage shows many other characters finding happiness: the Shamans are able to have fun together, more minotaurs have transformed and found a new place, Comfortable Doug visits the boy & girl Rider encountered, Gebbrey has published a self-help book, Baydenbeast has returned to his home with the birdtaurs despite his transformation, and the Woman has moved back in with the Beartaur (bringing Becky with her) who welcomes her friendship.

The herd begins traveling on the houseboat, knowing that whatever awaits them, they will face it together.

## Cut scenes

During production, a few scenes were cut from the finale due to time constraints.

### The Elk and the General's shared dreams/memories

According to series creator Megan Nicole Dong , scenes that were cut for time included the Elk and the General occasionally having shared dreams that allowed each other to know what the other was doing.

### The Elk encountering human world animals

Another scene in the human world was cut ; it would have shown the Elk failing to connect with the non-sapient animals he encountered there.

### The Elk raising an army

Another scene that was cut for time  would have shown the Elk staying in the human world to eventually raise an army of both humans and various animals that he recruited from the forests. The latter would explain the many animals seen locked up in cages within the Nowhere King's castle.

### Glendale's parents inside the portal tummy

Series creator Megan Nicole Dong mentioned during interviews  that a scene cut from this episode would have revealed Glendale's parents inside their daughter's portal tummy waiting for her to "return". Her parents may not remember how they got there, nor realize that they are in another dimension entirely.

## Features

### Locations

* Centaurworld
	+ Rift town
	+ Shaman training ground
* Human world
	+ The Nowhere King's castle
	+ Princess' castle (formerly)
* Nowhere King's mind
* Glendale's portal tummy

### Songs

* Who Was She?
* Elk Tour Suite, Pt. 1 & 2
* Once Shattered, Now Whole
* Digging Friend-Holes
* Elk Tour Suite, Pt. 3 & 4
* Elk Tour Suite Pt. 5
* Elk Tour Suite Pt. 6
* The Legend of Flat Dallas
* General's Battle Song
* Battle Round
* Last Lullaby, Pt. 1
* Last Lullaby, Pt. 2
* Start Over-Stabbleton Intervention
* The Next Thing

## Trivia

* This episode, unlike others, has a runtime of 1 hour and 14 minutes, making it the longest Centaurworld episode to date.
* On Netflix, this episode is mistakenly titled "The Last Lullably".
* Glendale's chainsaw accidentally decapitates a minotaur offscreen. Its head can be seen rolling on screen a moment later.
* Ched confessing that he ate Horse's hair "like spaghetti" may be a reference to the main character of *Crazy Ex-girlfriend* singing about slurping up a female rival's hair in the same fashion.
* While Horse was inside his mind, the Elktaur kept going back to food memories because according to series creator Megan Nicole Dong in an interview , food memories are his mental safe space that he uses to escape the more traumatic ones.
* Near the Rift during the Elktaur's flashback, a birdtaur can be seen using an egg in much the same way as the birdtaurs in *All Herd All the Terd*.
* The gophertaur workers' fascination with queso is a callback to the previous episode as their dish of choice to bring to the Hootenanny.
* The human who briefly spoke with the Elktaur during the rift workers song can be seen carrying a wheelbarrow full of merdude eggs.
* A poster in Stabby's room inside Glendale's portal tummy features "The Backleg Boys" and is a direct reference to a poster of the boy band The Backstreet Boys.
* The King of Leaves is seen again inside Glendale's portal tummy dimension. He is surrounded by other plantaurs while proclaiming that once again it is his birthday. This implies that the day Wammawink first met Glendale falls on the same Centaurworld calendar day as the final battle against the Nowhere King.
* Notable items seen inside Glendale's portal tummy dimension include:
	+ the sled Rosebud from *Citizen Kane*
	+ the elusive Maltese Falcon statue
	+ the famous painting Mona Lisa
	+ Robby the Robot from the film *Forbidden Planet*
* The boat launched from Glendale's portal tummy is named the "S.S. Stole't" ("stole it") and waves a flag bearing Glendale's head shape.
* In the end credits, Comfortable Doug monologues to the viewer about how the whole show is finished and that it was actually a story about his life. A unique version of *The Hero of My Story* plays alongside the credits.
	+ After the credits, the usual Sketchshark Productions logo is replaced by a custom variant. It features Comfortable Doug replacing the shark and saying "Goodbye!"
* **Items stolen by Glendale:** Gebbrey

## Gallery

### Production art

The General drowning, color design by Kimberly Knoll, art directorA production drawing of Durpleton by Red Dog Culture HouseThe S.S. Stole't design by Bill Cleveland, Prop designerHOLES (centaurworld boards)Storyboard animatic by Louie Zong, storyboarder
### Screenshots

"The rift worker's work is never done"Who wants to be *deadleton*?"*Too* warm??"Tiny versions attackGot your helmetWho wants cake?Hello, black mirrorPortal tummy limit break

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 https://youtu.be/7fiesC\_ey2Y
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://youtu.be/0sbnV6JMH4g