Catch up on the review with Grief – Episode Review part 1.
Play God
The conversation between Anubis and the Emir continues. Anubis says death is fair, because it happens to everyone. The Earth cannot support so many people if no one died. True.
The Emir doesn’t care. He just wants his son back. And if Anubis will not give him his son, he will take him. How? By becoming the Anubis Avatar. No, not with a blue arrow on his head, or blue skin. He will channel the jackal-headed god into his own body, and control his will. I’m not really sure how this works. Technically, an Avatar is somewhat like a proxy and should act in the will of the one inhabiting the vessel. In this case, Anubis.
Well of course Goliath can’t keep his nose out of the matter, partly because he’s chained to the wall next to this conversation. Goliath rises to stop him, but the Emir is dead-set on getting his kid back. Who can blame it?
Goliath and Angela try to pull the ceiling down. They succeed to a point. That’s the problem with chaining gargoyles to a stone pillar that’s thousands of years old.
Seeing as they’re being such a pain in the butt, the Emir has the gargoyles removed by the Pack. Coyote has the brilliant idea of shooting the ropes off of all the prisoners and then walking them to the chamber that the Pack will lock them in. This would be like transporting a prisoner from Arkham by taking off their straitjacket first. Again, who was programming this robot?
Needless to say, there’s a throwdown between the gargoyles and the Pack. Elisa manages to throw a spear through Coyote’s middle, and he blasts a hole through the wall with his laser. The burial chamber gets trashed. So much for cultural icons. It’s odd that there’s a burial chamber in the Sphinx, but then again it may be a secret tunnel that leads to one of the pyramids. Who can say? Or maybe there’s a gargoyle buried in the Sphinx. That would be cool.
The Right to be a God
The Emir has the scroll of Thoph, which will allow him to become the Avatar. He says the magic words, which are very simple: “In the name of Osiris, Isis, and Set, let the spirit of Anubis flow into this vessel.” But as the lightning of Anubis is about to strike, Jackal butts in. Literally. He shoves the Emir out of the way and takes possession.
Now things are about to get really weird, and completely wrong. Jackal is creepy enough as his usual self, but now he’s downright horrifying. He looks like he’s taking a page out of Wolf’s book and by becoming a werecreature. He’s also elongated and toothy.
The pack comes in. Coyote finally wakes up enough from his naivety to realize that this is not what Xanatos wants. But it’s too late. Jackal accelerates time on the robot, turning him into a pile of rust.
When Hyena whines about her brother ruining yet another relationship, he turns her and Wolf into a baby and a puppy, respectively. So we know that the power can accelerate or reverse the effects of time on a body.
Jackal faces the Emir and says he will give the gift of death to the world. And then he will reunite the Emir with his son. I don’t think that’s how the Emir planned on it going.
The gargoyles and Elisa try to stop him, but Jackal accelerates time on them. Now they’re so weak they can barely stand up.
He declares that it is time to start the purge. No, not that purge, the one where he wipes out every living thing on Earth. Because apparently that’s a goal he’s had. Me personally, I ‘d want to rule everyone, not wipe them out.
According to Greg: Jackal is a sociopath. He knows how to remain human enough to further his schemes. Hyena is a total psychopath. Nowadays, there’s not much of a recognized difference between the types, according to the mental health community.
In keeping with the theme of, “is this still a Disney show aimed at young people,” he sends a black cloud across the Earth. It swoops over two crocodiles who are waddling toward the Nile. When it passes, all that’s left is bones. That’s not graphic at all!
Sing Kumbaya
Goliath begs the Emir to act. Must Goliath lose his daughter as the Emir lost his son?
Angela and Goliath gather themselves and attack Jackal. He tosses them off.
Jackal is still luxuriating in his power. “I am death!” he roars. No, Smaug, you are not death. You are the Avatar of death.
The black cloud wipes out an entire city. It doesn’t just kill everyone, it actually ruins the buildings, making them look as if they’ve been sitting vacant for a thousand years. Doesn’t that hit the news somewhere? Or do they figure it was just some sort of bombing? It’s Egyptian, so maybe they wrote it off to a terrorist attack, or maybe a warring country. Who knows, maybe they were able to shut it up totally.
Goliath tosses the Emir the papyrus that’s sitting on the altar. He reads the spell and puts the spirit of a Anubis into himself as it should have been. He looks like a rounded feline.
He says that now he understands. I’m not sure why becoming the Avatar makes him understand and it did not make Jackal understand. Maybe it just heightens what is already in a person, like the Eye of Odin.
Side note: what would you do if you had power over life and death for the whole world?
He says that while he cannot undo what is done – he cannot restore the dead, so that town and those crocs are SOL – he can restore the energy, and by that he means make the gargoyles and Elisa young and Hyena and Wolf old again. Well now, that’s rather interesting. He could in theory put a spell on a person so that their energy is constantly going back to them. Maybe. It might only work that way if he caused the energy change. But doesn’t he? If he’s the god of death and all?
All this magic nonsense causes the Sphinx to crumble on the inside. Energy is gathering around the Emir, telling us that now is a good time to leave.
The gargoyles and Elisa evacuate. The Sphinx glows and smokes, then settles down. They don’t know what happened to the Pack or the Emir. G says if there is any justice in the world, the Emir will be reunited with his son. I don’t know how this Justice is supposed to exist, or who is supposed to administer it. He apparently sees it as a force kind of like gravity. Except that instead of falling flat when you try and jump off a building, you get to rejoin your dead son in the afterlife.
Elisa asks how Goliath and Angela were able to tackle Jackal while they were old. He says that garg-os age at half the speed of humans. They don’t age when they sleep, and that’s why they awoke after a thousand years just as they had when they went to sleep. I’d like to not age while I sleep…
According to Greg: This aging thing was a cheat.
Final Thoughts
I’m sure Xanatos was watching this, or will be watching this. How will all of these developments and revelations change how he lives? Will they? How much will he believe? When one knows about an afterlife, or at least believes in one, their day-to-day living should change. If there is no afterlife, then it matters not what we do here. If there is, however, an afterlife, you’d better watch your step. You’d also better ally with the right deity. The ancient Vikings thought that Valhalla belong to the warrior, and thus they lived as such. Many Muslims believe that if they die a martyr, they will get virgins in heaven. Thus, they commit numerous homicide bombings. Other religions believe that if you are good, you will get rewards and go to heaven. Thus they try to be good.
Xanatos believes in himself primarily. He does not want to die, meaning that he thinks this life is far superior to whatever will comes after.
20/20 moment: He really doesn’t change it all in his living. If anything, he ramps up his attempts at immortality by trying to capture yet another Fey. You think he’d learn his lesson. Stick with the Fey you have and be grateful for him. What changed was his relationship with the gargoyles, and that was only after they played a critical role in saving his son from Oberon and Titania, who wanted to take him back to Avalon. I’m still wondering if to Titania would have allowed this if Goliath hadn’t stepped up, since she had arranged all of this for the sole purpose of allowing her daughter to keep her grandson, the gargoyles to act as his guardians, and Puck to stay in the human world.
I’d like to know how Xanatos and the Emir came to work together. How do you recruit someone to work on summoning Anubis? Xanatos must have heard about the man’s interest in the occult, perhaps because the Emir made some controversial claims. I don’t doubt that the Emir losing his son was something David played on. It’s this desire for a life, rather than for a death, that makes the Emir an unexpected and welcome antagonist. He’s not after vengeance, he’s after the life of his son. It’s still selfish, though, since bringing his son back would force the boy to eventually die again, and likely experience the pain of losing his father.
Next week we’re going to the dogs. The Hound of Ulster is on the loose! So is the Banshee.
Thoughts? Comment!