Gargoyles: Hunter’s Moon part 3 – Episode Review

Disney Gargoyles logo with Goliath hunter's moon 3
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Disney Gargoyles logo with Goliath hunter's moon 3


The Hunters destroy the clock tower, but the gargoyles survive. Elisa unmasks Jason, the Hunter. The stage is set for a battle of revenge, but when Elisa tries to intervene, the situation takes a turn for the worse. Will Elisa survive? More importantly, will humanity survive Demona’s latest plot?

Miss last week’s? Read The Hunter’s Moon part 2 episode review.

Spoilers are in the 20/20 moments. Info from Ask Greg is in the According to Greg bits. 


Season 2, Episode 52: Hunter’s Moon part 3


Reason(s) for existence: To wrap up this segment of Gargoyle history. To reinstate the gargoyles in the castle. To prove that Xanatos is sincere. To show how devoted to revenge Demona is. To start the Quarrymen. To further the Hunters’ story. To intro the gargs to humanity.


Main antagonist(s): Demona, Hunters


Time(s):  October 25th – 27th, 1996; September 28th, 1980


Location(s):  Paris, France; New York City, New York, USA


Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - title
Aaand we’re back in Notre Dame.

Here we go, the last episode of the season. And aside from The Journey, really the last episode in the show. I’m not covering The Goliath Chronicles; they’re physically painful to watch.

Paris, 1980

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - hunter dad
The family business: Saving people and killing things.

Young Jon, Jason, and Robyn, are with their dad at the foot of Notre Dame.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - hunters family young
Daddy’s gotta go to work, kids.

They are here to stop Demona. She’s just found the praying gargoyle statue, which is hidden under a real garg. The stone kind, I mean.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - praying gargloyle demona
Praying garg is not amused.

Good old dad goes up to fight her, but he doesn’t use any kind of safety equipment. So he dies the death of many a Disney character, plummeting over the edge of a building. This is one of the only deaths that S&P doesn’t question. Because, apparently, falling off the edge of a cliff or building or whatever to shatter every bone and rupture every organ on the ground below isn’t at all traumatizing for kids.

Boom

At the clock tower, Jason saves Elisa. She pulls off his mask, revealing his identity. But he drugs her. Yep, slipped her a Mickey.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - elisa shocked unmasked jason
Unmaskings always have this effect.

The gargoyles survive, but they are a little beat up. They dropped down into the janitor closet that’s underneath the clock tower, the one with the trapdoor Elisa has to open.

Lex found a tracker on Goliath, much like the ones Xanatos used to use. That’s what gave them the heads-up to take cover.

Jon is outside on an air bike / speeder. Somehow, they don’t hear him. He lines them up in his sights and is about to fire, but he stops when Goliath says that the gargoyles are family.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - clan in sights
Yet another villain mistake: letting them go.

It’s always better as a writer to have an antagonist with these kind of feelings. Otherwise, they might defeat the protagonist. But if you give them a flaw where they hesitate under certain circumstances or say that they already weren’t too hot on the idea of killing the protagonist, then it’s way more explainable when they give up a perfect opportunity to win.

Jon flies back to the Mothership. He tries to say that the gargoyles got away, but Robyn saw them fly off.

Nothing is said about this monstrosity of an aircraft being stealth rigged. When the Pack’s airship was first introduced, Coyote made a point of pointing out the stealth capability. So I don’t know why there are no fighters or other aircraft scrambled to take out this threat. After all, they just blew up the top of a police station! If nothing else, the authorities should be able to track them on radar.

Robyn decides they need help. She knows just where to get it. They use Jon’s connections as a reporter, even a fake one, to gin up hatred for the gargoyles, claiming that the gargoyles blew up the tower.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - jon wvrn
I don’t think he works for WVRN; I think he works for CNN! Fake news all day, every day.

Who should be watching this but House Xanatos. Owen comments that of course the gargoyles would not destroy their own clock tower. By the way, this means House X knows exactly where the gargoyles live. How long they’ve known remains a mystery. I’m assuming it’s been a while. Also, they know gargoyles don’t destroy things. Unless of course, it’s the castle.

Fox points out that the facts don’t matter. What matters is that people now think the garg’s destroyed the building. With public sentiment against them, the gargoyles will have a tough go of it.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - goliath angry
I’m digging that the whole family is in on this, and is concerned about the gargoyles.

Xanatos remains quiet but thoughtful.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - xanatos thoughtful
Don’t worry; Xanatos has a plan.

Elisa is visiting Captain Chavez in the hospital. Apparently Elisa woke up in her apartment after coming to from being drugged. She tries to explain the gargoyles did not destroy the building. The Hunters did. But Chavez says the Hunters saved her. Oh, that’s all great except that I’m pretty sure you’ve got some witnesses or camera footage that show a giant Hunter airship right outside, blowing you up.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - elisa chavez
Is that the same room they had Elisa in during Deadly Force?

Chavez says that Jason isn’t actually a cop. Now, how does he get a job in the New York City Police Force? This isn’t some backwoods place that doesn’t know how to run background checks. He must have had some really convincing fake ID setup. Which, even in the 1990s, wasn’t that easy to do. I guess it speaks of the Hunters’ connections and power. Kind of scary.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - file
Maybe should have done the background check before you hired him…

Robyn goes to Nightstone Unlimited, where she takes a call from Destine. She’s out of the office for a while, and she can’t be reached. She advises Robyn to enjoy life while it lasts, because it is so fleeting.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - demona destine
That collar looks uncomfortable.

In Elisa’s apartment, she’s talking to the clan. She says that they should let the law handle the issue with the Hunters. But Goliath doesn’t think that justice will be done. But is it justice, or is it vengeance?

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - goliath angry
Says a lot about his thoughts on the US judicial system. I think he’s still miffed that Xanatos didn’t get hanged or beheaded.

Thinking outside the box, Goliath asks Lex if they can use the tracker to find the Hunters. I really don’t think trackers work this way, but apparently this one does. So Goliath is able to trail the signal.

He finds the location where the Hunters are supposed to be. But they’re not there. Instead, it’s a dam. He flips the polarity switch on the tracker, which should bring the Hunters to them.

Behind him, the water boils. The airship rises.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - hunters ship
Bring the Hunters to you, he said. It’ll be fun, he said.

Now the Hunters emerge to have a knock-down drag-out. But Elisa arrives with Broadway.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - hunters vs goliath
More property damage.

There’s some fighting. Go watch the ep if you want details.

G knocks Jason off his air bike, but Jason tases him.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - elisa gets between goliath and jason
Elisa, this has gotten out of your control.

Ever the genius, Elisa gets between them, ignoring every rule about intervening in dog fights. Goliath bashes Jason in the face, but the blow throws him into Elisa. They both plunge off the edge of the waterfall. And it’s a long way down.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - elisa jason knocked off dam
What a perfect illustration of revenge: you hurt other people as well as the target.

Goliath can’t reach Elisa in time.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - goliath misses elisa
Convenient, writers, since he’s managed to catch her every other time.

The Hunters return to their ship. Jon is in a rage. If only he had killed them when he had a chance! Well, hopefully that won’t be a lesson that he needs to learn twice.

Robyn doesn’t really agree with him, though. She’s remembering her dad’s death. Sometimes when you fight a demon, it wins. She doesn’t want to lose Jon too.

Before they can get too much into the discussion of killing versus not killing, the computer signals that it has decrypted the disc Robyn stole from Nightstone. Oh, right, I meant to mention she absconded with a floppy that contained all of Demona’s critical information.

Demona has left a video log. I’m not sure why people do this in movies and TV shows and books. Normally when people want to write what they’re doing, they just type it out. And if it’s something that really only she is going to be seeing, I don’t even know why she’d bother. She knows what she’s about, after all. I guess she’s leaving it for future generations.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - demona smiles
If Demona smiles, it’s bad news for humanity.

She details Operation Clean Slate. With the magic that’s on the tablet, she will bind the D/I-7 and the CV 1000. The praying gargoyle will protect her kind from destruction, since the CV will take out all sentient life.

Disney Gargoyles - Hunter's Moon part 3 - complete global saturation
Quite the high-tech simulation.

She’s going to do the ceremony on the Hunter’s Moon at St Damian’s Cathedral, which is Holy Ground, and needed for the spell. I’m not sure what Holy Ground means. Does that mean holy to any religion? Like, could you do this at a Shinto Shrine, mosque, temple…? It doesn’t specify, so I guess it’s open to interpretation.


Halftime!

That was quite the first half of an episode! I’m pretty sure Elisa is not dead. I’m not sure about Jason, though. Probably not.

The other Hunters will  be after the gargoyles, just as Goliath is after the Hunters. He’s going to be blaming them for the fact that he knocked Elisa over the edge of the waterfall.

And what’s House Xanatos planning? Xanatos isn’t going to take this lying down.

What of the CV 1000 virus and the D/I-7? Would Demona really achieve complete global saturation with this? Would the screams of 6 billion people dying really assuage her desire for vengeance? Wesker would be proud.

And would she really be able to be Queen of the Gargoyles? She wants to take her “rightful place” among them, but this presupposes that she’ll have no rivals. Would she tell the gargoyles that she was the one to wipe out humankind? I don’t think they’d really take too kindly to this, as the gargoyles we’ve seen so far haven’t had a huge hatred for humans. In fact, most have tried to protect humans, just as the Manhattan Clan does. Perhaps she thinks they’ll forgive her if she shows them how wonderful life is now that the humans are gone.

What would the world be like without the humans? I wonder if any other intelligent life would

come around? Like the Easter Island alien guy? And the fey, for that matter? I don’t think Titania would be too happy with Demona wiping out Fox and Alex.

Tune in Friday for the thrilling conclusion of Hunter’s Moon. There’s a twist that puts a song in my heart.

Thoughts? Comment!


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