Demona is about to perform the ritual that will magically bond the CV 1000 virus to the chemical D/I-7. The sorcery will turn this into a plague that will destroy all of humanity. The Hunters aren’t about to let her commit genocide, however. But when the clan shows up, the Hunters have more on their plate than they bargained for. Will their feud and lust for vengeance give Demona the advantage she needs to wipe out humans once and for all?
Miss last week’s? Read The Hunter’s Moon part 3 episode review.
Spoilers are in the 20/20 moments. Info from Ask Greg is in the According to Greg bits.
Shockingly, Jason and Elisa survive. After all, falling hundreds of feet down a waterfall is totally survivable. Yep. If you’re in a Disney show, anyway.
Demona goes to St. Damian’s Cathedral. So do the Hunters. They ram their aircraft through the front, crashing halfway into the building.
The gargoyles investigate, but somehow all the citizens of New York City look up and see them. They’ve been flying around for years, and no one batted an eye. Even after the NYers thought that gargoyles were robots, they didn’t seem to care when every now and then they’d glimpse winged creatures above. Which was rare. Now everybody seems to have their eyes on the skies. They see the gargs go to St Damian’s.
Well, looks like it’s going to be a big face off. Except that Demona slinks away while the Hunters and the Gargoyles tangle. The Hunters are wearing exo armor. It’s nowhere near as cool as Xanatos’s or even Dingo’s, though. But it is pretty impressive. Rather, they use it impressively.
Meanwhile, outside, the media shows up. Travis Marshall leads the charge. The cops have cordoned off a perimeter, with Morgan and Matt present. The SWAT team has arrived too.
Angela and Robyn fight, with Angela swinging a giant log / pillar. This knocks Robyn out for the moment.
In an upper-level, Demona is setting up her little project. But Brooklyn appears.
Goliath punches Jon and starts ripping up his armor.
Suddenly, Elisa and Jason show up.
Jason has come to his senses, thanks to Elisa. Yes, a little while with her has caused him to ditch a 1000-year grudge. He knows that the gargoyles are not the enemies. But Demona most definitely is. The Hunters and gargs need to stop her now, before she destroys them all.
Check out some deleted scenes from this episode:
But Jon isn’t convinced. He’s gone from thinking maybe he shouldn’t kill them, to wanting them all dead. He wants his revenge, big time. He tries to shoot Goliath, but Jason jumps in the way. Sorry, but if I have time to jump in the way, you had time to jump out of the way.
The blast hits Jason in the gut. There’s no blood or anything, and there’s no gore – typical for a Disney show – so it’s not sure what kind of damage is done.
Jon flips out. He flips out so much, he quotes Demona: “What have I- What have they done!” This is typical of people who hurt others through the desire for revenge. It’s always someone else’s fault. In a way it makes sense, since they wouldn’t have been seeking revenge if the target hadn’t screwed them over. But of course it’s a lie.
While Elisa and Robyn see to Jason, Goliath goes to stop Demona, who has disabled Brooklyn. Goliath roars about this being SORCERY. You got it, big boy.
Demona explains that if she shatters the vial of bonded D/I-7 and CV 1000, all humans on Earth will be wiped out. But the praying gargoyle will protect the gargoyles.
Goliath promptly destroys praying gargoyle. What now, Hotshot Demona?
She tosses the vial into the air, which gives her an opportunity to escape. I wonder what would happen if Goliath hadn’t caught it? Would she have been destroyed with everyone else? After all, she would have inadvertently killed Macbeth. For that matter, if she released the vial of virus at all, she would kill Macbeth. This would in turn kill her….unless the praying gargoyle would protect him, since “when one lives, both live.” Maybe the Weird Sisters’ spell / prophecy meant that she has to do it more directly, like stabbing him or something. But it’s a mute point, because Goliath completes the pass.
Robyn, who’s carrying Jason, arrives with Elisa. They’ll distract the cops long enough for the gargoyles to get away. They’ll have some splaining to do. Robyn will be arrested.
The gargoyles climb outside, but the cop chopper is waiting.
They get to the other side of the roof – only to find another chopper. But it’s not a cop chopper. The door slides open to reveal Xanatos. Rather than attacking them, he invites them aboard. They don’t have time to be picky, so they hop in.
Side note: As the gargoyles pass David on their way into the chopper – that bird must have some massive lift if it can handle that much weight – he puts his hand on Angela’s back. No other gargs, just her, Goliath’s daughter. It might just be an addition from the animation department that makes the scene smoother, but it still makes me smile.
Elisa visits Jason in the hospital. Robyn is arrested. Jon and Demona are still hunting each other. The family’s been torn apart.
According to Greg: Greg planned a spinoff for the never-made Team Atlantis spin-off that would have included elements from “Hunter’s Moon”. Demona would have met Fiona Canmore (a great-great-aunt of Jason, Robyn, and Jon) in Paris in 1920. There the Praying Gargoyle would be revealed as an Atlantean talisman. Fiona would stop Demona from using the Praying Gargoyle to animate the gargoyles of Notre Dame and ordering them to kill the humans of Paris. Sort of like a Hunchback of Notre Dame gone wrong. Though Demona would have failed, she would’ve stashed the praying gargoyle in a secret compartment in Notre Dame.
He asks about the gargoyles. Elisa says they’re safe, at least she hopes so.
We cut to Elisa and Xanatos ascending the stairs to the highest tower of the Eyrie Building. David reassures her that of course the gargoyles are safe. The feud is over between House Xanatos and the clan. (Note that he uses the word “feud,” the same word used to describe the Hunters and the gargoyles’ struggle.) Goliath not only saved the world, he’s saved, more importantly to David, Alex. The gargoyles can stay here and treat this as their home just as they had before. There’s no catch and no strings.
When Elisa and Goliath reunite, we get what we’ve been waiting for the entire series: they kiss.
The sun comes up, freezing Goliath in an expression of amazement, pleasure, and relief.
According to Gargwiki: “A few more scenes were deleted from this episode for time considerations. The most important of these (see below) was a meeting between Elisa and Jason Canmore at the ruins of the clock tower, in which Elisa urges Jason (in vain) to give up his feud with the gargoyles. She finally asks him what caused the feud in the first place, and Jason has to admit that he doesn’t know; his family has been at war with the gargoyles for so long that they can’t remember how it began. (A deleted line in the flashback had Charles Canmore telling his children that “We can no more stop hunting gargoyles than breathing the air”, another echo of the first season.) Also, in the original script, Demona and Charles Canmore’s battle did not end at Notre Dame; instead, Charles pursued her from the cathedral to the catacombs of Paris, where she killed him. (Bad Guys #3 drew on this original concept, here having the three young Canmores pursue Demona to the catacombs after their father’s death.) Finally, a brief scene with no dialogue was originally planned that showed Robyn Canmore under guard and leaving Jason’s hospital room moments before Elisa’s final scene with Jason. This scene would’ve been a bit of a lead in to the Bad Guys spin-off.
“Robyn Canmore was to initially face prison for her attack on the police station, but the mysterious Director would see to it that she would lead his Redemption Squad instead, resulting in her becoming one of the regulars in the SLG comic mini-series Bad Guys spin-off. Robyn, the only member of the team who would have contact with the Director, would recruit a number of other “semi-reformed antagonists”, consisting of Dingo, Matrix, Fang, and Yama, taking them on one secret mission after another; in the process, she would enter into a stormy relationship with Dingo.
“Jason and Jon’s fates, however, would be incorporated into further episodes of Gargoyles itself. Jon adopted the new alias of “John Castaway” (following the Canmore tradition of using surnames beginning with a hard C as part of their assumed identities) and, with secret funding from the Illuminati, took advantage of the public’s fear of gargoyles to start up a new version of the Hunters known as Quarrymen (a sort of Gargoyles Universe version of the Ku Klux Klan). Jason would eventually find out Castaway’s true identity (he does so in “Estranged”), and make a number of attempts to turn him away from his destructive course; Greg Weisman also considered making him Elisa’s date in the Double Date story (eventually issues #3-#5 of the “Gargoyles” comic book), but gave the role to Officer Morgan instead (though Jason has a cameo in “Invitation Only”).”
Final Thoughts
I absolutely love the ending of the Gargoyles TV series. Why? Because my favorite characters, and antagonists, win! That’s right, House Xanatos emerges the big victor here. He has what he’s always wanted: the gargoyles are back in his castle, with them acting as protectors. He didn’t have to force them or cajole them or manipulate them to do it either. And he gets to feel good about himself for doing it, too! He doesn’t have to explain away being a good guy, either. It’s just repaying a debt, as well as getting some great defenders for the kid. Win-win. And for the record, I think he considers the “feud” to be one sided, namely the gargoyles side. He’s never held a grudge against them.
Since there’s no mention of the cops or media beating down the Eyrie Building’s doors, evidently NOBODY noticed the Xanatos Enterprises chopper returning to the Eyrie Building after swinging by St. Damian’s. Behold, the power of the Illuminati. Still, it’ll be interesting to see how this goes down. We follow it in the SLG comics. (I may go over the comics and review them. I have a link to the online repository.)
Demona is still out and about. There’s really no way to kill her. We’ve gotten through this entire series, and she hasn’t learned a darn thing about the futility of revenge. She still won’t admit that the grudge has destroyed lives. Considering she’s over 1000 years old, and old dogs usually don’t learn new tricks, she’s probably past the point of no return. Then again, the future is not yet written… As an antagonist, she doesn’t have to change. It’s almost unthinkable that she would change. If Goliath couldn’t change her, and if Angela couldn’t change her (and perhaps even made things worse), nothing will. Sad. She will forever remain alone.
The world knows about the gargoyles, or it thinks it does. We’ll follow that up in The Journey.
Tune in Monday for The Journey. It’s part of The Goliath Chronicles (yuck!), but it follows Greg’s vision, so we’ll take The Journey.
Thoughts? Comment!
“As an antagonist, she doesn’t have to change. It’s almost unthinkable that she would change. If Goliath couldn’t change her, and if Angela couldn’t change her (and perhaps even made things worse), nothing will. Sad. She will forever remain alone.”
What I find interesting is that so many of the fandom’s old guard assumed that Angela would change Demona. I was often the odd one out on that one, I didn’t think so.
Now many newer fans (I’m not sure when you got into it, but I am defining old guard as the people that were around in the early days of the fandom, attended the early cons, wrote the early fics, etc) come in and easily see that Angela likely won’t change Demona. It barely occurs to them that she might.
I started watching Gargoyles in the late ’90s, so I’m old guard. Problem was, I started at The Gathering, so I didn’t know who Demona was. When I watched her and Angela interact, I was just trying to figure out who this new female was. Since I’d had the ending “spoiled,” when I watched through from the beginning, I knew she wouldn’t change, so there was no “will having a daughter melt Demona’s heart of stone?” question.
Honestly, I would have felt a little annoyed of Angela had succeeded. It would have felt cliched. It’s more realistic that Angela wouldn’t change Demona, considering who Demona is and what she’s done throughout her life. Demona’s refusal to change also offers a nice counterpoint to the transformation of Goliath and Xanatos via their respective offspring. (Goliath became more forgiving and also changed how he thought of clan hatchlings.)
It’s interesting that newer fans don’t consider Angela as being capable of changing Demona. Why is that? A more pessimistic/realistic outlook?
Thar is interesting. I winder if thrre were any fics thst showed Demona changing within, say, fifty years?