The Weird Sisters free Demona and Macbeth from their spell, and helpfully wiped their memories when they left Avalon. We haven’t heard anything from the pair since they sailed Into the Mists. Now they’re back. And in love. That’s right, this is the episode where you will see Macbeth and Demona, sworn enemies, swear their love for one another, embrace, kiss, and even…wait for it…marry. But all is not as it seems. The monster of Notre Dame Cathedral is in town, and he and Demona are no strangers. It’s up to Elisa to figure out what is going on, since Goliath is fixated on Demona’s presence. Angela is about to discover a secret about her mother. And Macbeth will discover a secret about himself.
Miss last week’s ep? Read Golem episode review.
Spoilers are in the 20/20 moments. Info from Ask Greg is in the According to Greg bits.
Season 2, Episode 29: Sanctuary
Reason(s) for existence: To explore the theme of love, and how people can still be capable of it even when they think they are not. To explore how love can be used as a weapon. To bring us up-to-date on Thailog story. To advance the story about Nightstone Unlimited, Demona, and Thailog. To introduce Angela to the idea that Demona is her mother. To explore what sanctuary is.
Main antagonist(s): Demona, Thailog
Time(s): January ?th, 1996
Location(s): Paris, France
We’re finally getting back to some of our familiar villains. According to the Previously On, we should be seeing Demona and Macbeth.
We open with Macbeth being enamored with a beautiful redhead. The voice of the woman is familiar. Though she’s speaking in a French accent, she drops it slightly at the last, and it is unmistakably Marina Sirtis. This, paired with the red hair and green eyes, leave no doubt that this is in fact Demona. But what in the world are Demona and Macbeth doing together? And they’re not just forming a truce or an alliance. They look like they’re really in love with each other. Or at least Mac is in love with Demona.
Elisa pulls into a city via one of the rivers. Upon looking around, she sees that she is in Paris. Since its day and the gargoyles are still in their stone sleep, she gets onto the street and decides to make a phone call to her parents. But before she can place it, she sees Macbeth and Demona. They split up, with Macbeth going into a building and Demona going to Notre Dame. Elisa gives chase but cannot capture Demona.
This is obviously a Paris before the utter wreck of the city that exists now thanks to the immigrants and no-go zones. Look at pictures of the city now; there’s trash all over and vagrants sleeping on the piles of garbage and mattresses. It’s quite dangerous to go in many parts of the city. This is also before the massive terrorist attack at the nightclubs.
Elisa returns to the skiff just as the gargoyles are waking up. She announces that Demona and Macbeth have formed a truce. She’s also brought a newspaper, which has a picture of a gargoyle against the full moon near Notre Dame. They called this creature the Monster of Notre Dame.
I wonder, does Xanatos know this is happening? Surely he has people around the world keeping an eye out for strange occurrences like this, especially since he knows Goliath, Bronx, and Elisa are gone. By this time Sevarius will have let him know that the gargoyles were in Scotland.
Goliath has to explain to Angela that Demona turns into a human in the day because of sorcery. To be honest, it’s not really sorcery, it’s Fey magic.
Goliath cons Angela into staying with Elisa so that Angela doesn’t run into Demona. Then he flies off to Notre Dame. Elisa agrees only half-heartedly to play the game. She thinks that Angela should know her parentage. True, Sevarius never said anything about Angela being Demona’s daughter, but it’s pretty obvious that she is.
At Notre Dame, Goliath lands on the top of the cathedral. Demona is out of view. She calls for her “love.” Come again? When she looks up from the newspaper and sees Goliath, she is enraged. Then who is she calling her love? She knows Macbeth isn’t exactly going to be flying up to the top of the cathedral. Is she bewitched again? Is Macbeth bewitched again?
Side note: Gargoyles. In Notre Dame. In a Disney show. Hahahahaha!
Side note 2: Cathedrals are where a criminal can plead sanctuary and the authorities can’t drag him out.
According to Greg:
Demona goes from calling her “love,” to threatening to kill Goliath. There’s a throwdown, in which Goliath lands some solid hits.
But who should appear but Thailog. He is in very fancy armor. It complements his red and black coloring. I’ll comment here to that the red and black are Xanaots Enterprises colors.
Now she calls HIM her love. She is a player!
Thailog also professes his love. Goliath, however, does not believe that Demona is in love with Thailog. Goliath tries to convince him that he is being conned.
But Demona is quite insistent that Goliath is the one who is jealous and paranoid. It’s funny how we see our flaws in others more clearly than any other type of flaw.
Thailog says they have no secrets. And that even though he is a clone, he knows what he’s doing.
Goliath decides he’s getting nowhere, so he leaves.
In the cathedral bell area, Thailog remarks upon the name of the company that he and Demona have set up together: Nightstone Unlimited. They are going to pool their resources to create a conglomerate with which they will execute their nefarious schemes. Demona will take the name Dominique Destine, who no one will ever see in the night. Thailog will take the name Alexander Thailog, and never be seen at all.
20/20 moment: It’s interesting that he picks the name Alexander. I’m sure that he didn’t allow Demona to pick it for him. Alexander is the name that Xanatos picks for his son. It’s the name of the great conqueror, which certainly fits Alex, son of David Xanatos.
Now, throughout this exchange, Angela was listening. When she gets back to the skiff and meets up with Goliath and Elisa, she confronts her father with the fact that he never said he was in love with Demona.
He of course never saw the point. Also, it probably wouldn’t have helped her in his mind. He is still stuck on the idea that all the Rookery hatchlings are equal descendants of the clan. Angela, being raised by humans, does not follow this rule. This is rather interesting, because that means the notion of a collective parentage in the clan is not instinctive, but learned. I wonder if all gargoyle clans have this idea, or if it’s just the ones in Scotland?
In a classic Gargoyles stall, the sun comes up and turns Angela and Goliath to stone before they can get too far in the argument. Elisa leaves to figure out what’s going on with Demona, Macbeth, and Thailog. She decides with her detective skills that Macbeth is the one who is out of the loop. It makes sense, considering he would never willingly ally with Demona. He also wouldn’t remember anything about her turning to a human, because those memories were wiped by the Weird Sisters after Avalon.
Speaking of Demona and Macbeth, they’re getting married. Yes, you heard that right. They are standing before the justice of the peace in Macbeth’s mansion. It’s reminiscent of Fox and David’s marriage.
Justice of the Peace tells them that love can be a safe haven. Love is a heavy theme in this episode. It’s so heavy, in fact, that is getting annoying. You could do a drinking game and get quite hammered if you took a shot every time they said the word love.
Halftime!
At this point the story is like a crazy fan fic by someone who shipped Macbeth and Demona. I don’t know what that would be called. Dembeth? Macmona? It’s so out there that even a fan would be hard-pressed to make it believable. I haven’t been on fanfiction looking for this pairing, though, so there could be quite a lot out there. When I go on fanfiction.net, I really only look for Owen, Puck, Fox, and / or Xanatos stories. This means I don’t find a lot to read.
This is one heck of a set-up, and I can’t wait to see what it’s all about.
Tune in Friday for the continuation, where we’ll learn who’s tricking whom, why, and how badly. We’ll also discover Macbeth isn’t the hard-nosed old man he pretends to be.
Thoughts? Comment!
“To be honest, it’s not really sorcery, it’s Fey magic.”
I’m not sure Goliath knows Puck was the cause of Demona’s transformations. I cannot think of an instance where he’d have found out.