There’s still time in the night. Demona is hot on the tails of her ex boyfriend and her ex mentor/clan leader. How much of this is about gaining control of the clan, and how much of this is about wanting revenge on Goliath?
In the meantime, we have to finish Hudson’s flashback.
By the Power of Grayskull!
All three gargs troop into a cave that is horribly illustrated. Like, they animators weren’t even trying. Hudson makes a torch. I thought gargoyles had great night vision? I guess they need a little light; they’re not bats.
Then the gargoyles encounter Grayskull’s little brother.
In the claws of an angry gargoyle, the Archmage is toast. Yet he manages to blast Hudson in the left eye. Now we know how he lost his eye.
He suffers the fate of many a Disney villain: falling off a cliff after he charges them. There’s a thump after he passes into the darkness of the depths. Ick.
20/20 moment / According to Greg: The thump is actually the Phoenix Gate opening, so says Greg. I think that’s a major retcon. You’d see the fire from the gate down there.
The Archmage was going to be a one- shot villain. But the voice actor, David Warner, was so good that the writers decided they could use the Archmage later. Do they ever! He’s the impetus behind the initiation of the Avalon story arc.
In the real world, Demona finds her prey – who promptly jumps out down a waterfall and into the water faaar below.
They wind up in a cemetery. She’ll kill both of them here, assuming Hudson refuses to join her side. She gives the ultimatum again: join her or die. Surely she knows neither will accept the offer. But now she can feel better about herself after she kills them.
Demona is the classic jilted girlfriend. She’s taken violent action against the new girlfriend, Elisa, and now she’s after the ex. She’ll make him suffer. Even if she doesn’t kill him, Elisa will have died or nearly died. Again. I’m pretty sure that she knew about Elisa’s GSW. The whole town seemed to know about it! Demona was probably laughing her tail off when she heard.
The fight goes from ranged to melee in moments of Demona locating the boys.
Hudson makes a fine showing with his sword, cutting a statue in half. Good job, destroy cemetery statuary.
Somehow, though, he doesn’t cut her gun in half as they whack at each other.
According to Greg: the idea behind her using the gun as a club is that she just lost her cool. The gun still worked; she just would rather beat her foe to death.
They say that the method of murder indicates how much emotion was in the murder. Poisoning is the least emotionally involved. Then it’s distance shooting, close-range shooting, stabbing, strangling, and lastly is pummeling. So if a person beats their victim to death with fists, there was some heavy anger at work. A club is pretty close to that.
Just as Demona thinks she has the upper hand, Hudson reveals he’s been using Bilbo’s trick of waiting on the dawn. The sleep will heal Goliath, which will land Demona in a heap of angry gargoyles.
The sun rises. What’s interesting is how Demona’s gun turns to stone with her. Hudson’s sword does too usually. The gargs’ clothes/loin cloths turn to stone as well. I don’t understand this, since According to Greg, the gargoyles changing to stone is biological, not magical. That doesn’t explain the inanimate objects turning to stone. Do the gargoyles produce a…substance that flows over the objects they’re touching? The ground they stand on doesn’t turn.
Indeed, the sun sets and brings Goliath back at full Hit Points.
Demona knows she’s done. But she has a consolation gift: She announces that the poison she shot Elisa with doesn’t have an antidote. Elisa will die.
As Demona flies away, Hudson and Goliath remark it’s better that Demona thinks Elisa is dead.
If Demona is as smart as she seems, she’ll follow the papers or even stalk Elisa’s apartment to see if she’s dead. Heck, if nothing else, Demona would want to cut out the obituary and frame it. So it’s doubtful this faked-death will help Elisa for more than a few days. Will Demona attempt to kill her again?
20/20 moment: Demona will be back in The Mirror to wreak more havoc with Goliath and Elisa’s relationship.
Demona has lost the plot a bit. Does she want allegiance from the clan, or does she want to take out Elisa? Seems to me, the clan will be less willing to follow Demona if she takes out their friend the detective. Then again, gargoyle society functions differently from humans’.
This scheme was actually quite good. She’s killed Elisa, , or so she thinks, but in a way that will hurt Goliath and lead him into a trap. Demona has the chance to lord her skills over old Hudson while tempting him to kneel to her in order to survive. The contingency plan is that Elisa is dead either way. This proves that Demona is focusing heavily on the Goliath/Elisa ‘ship. If she can sink it, she’ll be happy. It’s the usual ex move of being a dog in the manger: if I can’t have it, nobody can.
Demona is operating on the base function of vengeance. Kill, maim, destroy. The excuse of winning the clan’s loyalty is really a facade. Does she even still believe that’s her motive? Or is she able to delude herself? She repeats the offer of life in exchange for loyalty numerous times this ep. Is it for Hudson’s benefit, or is it to convince herself that’s her true motive?
I don’t know how gargoyle society functions. Do ex significant others take revenge like this? I’m assuming it’s not the usual course, as none of the clan remarked, “About time she began the Right of Torturing the Ex.”
At the moment, protags and antagonists are both happy. Aw, it’s just like in The Edge! But that was real and lasting. This will leave Demona with a heck of a reality hangover in a few days. All that effort for nothing! But she did get to shoot Goliath and chase him and fight Hudson, so that’s something.
On the note of shooting Goliath, if she’d truly been about taking over the clan, she would have just shot him at full power and gotten it over with. If she can blow up wooden crates and blast holes in the cement with the laser, she can turn his chest cavity to toast or jelly or…great, now I’m hungry.
Deep down, I she misses him. She wants Goliath back at her side like in the old days. She’s been away from him for a thousand years, yet she still holds a torch. That’s impressive. Or maybe obsessive? I wouldn’t call it real love, though, as real love would understand his side of the matter. At the least, real love wouldn’t kill his girlfriend, shoot him in the chest, and chase him through the city.
Final Thoughts
While I don’t like this ep, Demona is always fun to watch. We get slightly more on her motives and drives, but only slightly. This ep was for Hudson, not her. While cat and mouse plots can be interesting, this one was no-frills. There wasn’t even a twist. We know from the get-go that Elisa isn’t poisoned, so the ticking clock feature doesn’t exist other than for the boys to reach sunup. At least in Temptation we had the mystery of how to get Goliath back to normal without magic. This was a plain “let’s investigate the trap” plot.
Throwing the flashbacks in felt…forced. Sorry. They paralleled the current plot in that the Archmage used a poison dart for revenge.
Hudson has the same revelation as Goliath and Xanatos did about themselves in The Edge: he hasn’t gone soft. Unlike David and Goliath, though, he’s facing the threat of old age’s effects. It’s not that he’s losing his edge and can regain it; it’s a question of if he’s still useful. There’s not really any going back or boning up on his skills. Can he use his wisdom to compensate of the age that helped bring it? Yes, he can.
Demona’s fighting skills in this ep were all right, but they were a bit lacking. Her marksmanship skills were terrible. Even her club skills could use work. Hudson just knocks her back.
Next episode we have a treat. It’s Her Brother’s Keeper, another favorite of mine. Get ready for Xanatos at his charming best, an update on Fox, and the character development of Derek Maza.
About the “gun and clothing turning into stone” bit: In one ask Greg he explained it with some ancient magician using a “decency” spell on the Gargs so their “personal belongings” turn to stone with them.