Season five of Welcome to Night Vale will fondly be remembered as the season that Night Vale really just went for it. It began normally enough, but by the end of the season we were in multiple timelines and realities and it was just all kinds of fun. Season five of Welcome to Night Vale finally answers the question of “Who is Huntokar?” and begins to explain some of the odd timeline occurrences throughout the series. As the barriers between alternate Night Vales begin to break down, Cecil and all of Night Vale try to grapple with their new reality. What is causing this to happen? Can it be fixed? Will things ever be the same?

Honestly, I think this season of Night Vale is probably my favorite season to date. Almost every episode is a really strong one, with a few exceptions, of course. This season continues the arc of Hiram McDaniels’ execution by introducing his sister, Hadassah McDaniels, and an array of other dragons who have come to Night Vale in order to secure the release of Hiram (as human laws should not apply to dragons, in their eyes). Unfortunately, this doesn’t exactly go as planned as Hiram breaks out of jail, his Violet head being killed by Sheriff Sam in the process. Hadassah, naturally, is enraged by this, and her and the dragons destroy much of Night Vale – but, let’s be real, how often is most of Night Vale destroyed only for it to not be destroyed again by the next episode? This is a fun plotline, but, really, all of the plotlines around Hiram are usually pretty fun, and this is no exception.

Meanwhile, Old Woman Josie’s health has continued to rapidly deteriorate. Her daughter, Alondra, reluctantly comes to town to take care of her. Throughout the first half of the season, we learn more about Old Woman Josie’s past, which makes her death later in the season all the more tragic. The worst part is how mundane it is. She doesn’t die by some odd supernatural event or anything; she just dies of old age. And it’s sad, and the episode when it happens is sad. Cecil sounds so defeated. From there on, the season follows the angels as they try to obtain legal recognition as beings from the government so they can inherit what Josie wanted to leave them. Alondra fights against this, though, as Josie left no will/nothing written stating that the angels were to get anything at all. This, too, is a fun plotline. It’s nice having the angels take a more active role in the story than they have in the past. It’s all too sad how realistic their struggle to gain recognition from the government is, and it’s a clever bit of social satire that Fink and Cranor deliver through it.

On the romance front, Cecil and Carlos finally get married!  In the 100th episode of the series, fans were surprised by an episode that featured every voiced character that had ever appeared in Night Vale all gathering together to celebrate the wedding of Cecil and Carlos. Before this episode, the series had made no hints that a marriage was imminent. No announcement of a proposal from either character, no discussion about weddings at all. It was a wonderful surprise and a wonderful episode. There’s something so pure and joyful when Cecil refers to Carlos as his husband. I just love them both so much and I’m so happy the show decided to have them get married.

The other major plotline is the resolution of the Huntokar story. Huntokar was introduced in season 1 as the god of the civilization underneath the bowling alley. As season five progressed, Huntokar kept appearing in various episodes, leading up to the revelation that the civilization underneath the bowling alley was actually an alternate Night Vale, and Huntokar was the cause of its destruction. We learn that Huntokar actually created Night Vale – and she is a God, along with the Glow Cloud, the Distant Prince, and the Woman From Italy. In 1983, when Nulogorsk underwent that nuclear test, both the US and Nulogorsk thought it was real, and blew each other up. Huntokar wanted to protect Night Vale, her creation, so she pulled it out of the timeline, and in doing so caused all the timelines in Night Vale to collapse. For years, she was able to keep Night Vale mostly balanced and okay, but after the events of the past few years, the balance was off and all the Night Vales were combining into each other and falling apart, causing all of those timeline oddities (like Cecil having a brother yet not remembering said brother). I won’t spoil how it ends, but it’s pretty rad, and I’m really interested in seeing where Night Vale goes from here.

Overall, season five of Welcome to Night Vale was awesome. Fink and Cranor really pushed the boundaries on what the show is and what it could do, and it resulted in a really strong, cohesive, and enjoyable season of this podcast. Their characters continue to be interesting and unique and fully developed, and the world building that this season underwent brought both a sense of clarity and even more mystery to the town itself. It’s really just a wonderful season of a wonderful podcast and I’m looking forward to all that will happen next season.

I give Year Five of Welcome to Night Vale five out of five wands.