Wes's Guide to Gargoyles: Leader of the Pack

Welcome everyone, to our first foray into season two of Gargoyles. If you’re familiar with the show, then you know what this means, we finally get the version of the theme song that the show is most famous for! It’s the same theme as before, but this time, we get Keith David’s sweet narration.

“One Thousand Years Ago, Superstition and the Sword Ruled

It Was a Time of Darkness, It was a World of Fear, It Was the Age of Gargoyles

Stone by Day, Warriors by Night,

We Were Betrayed by the Humans we had Sworn to Protect.

Frozen in Stone by a Magic Spell for a Thousand Years

Now here in Manhattan, The Spell is Broken, AND WE LIVE AGAIN!

We Are Defenders of the Night

WE ARE GARGOYLES!"

Oh Yeah, that’s the good stuff. Keith David’s voice can make just about anything sound cool, he’s like a modern-day Rod Serling.

Anywho, we open at Riker’s Island prison where a man in high tech dog-like armor is climbing up the side of the building. You’d think someone would see that on the security camera but whatever. Our mystery man breaks in through the window where and is stopped by one of the guards. However, mystery man seems undeterred and blasts the guard with some kind of mind scrambling ray, making the guard think that their fingers are melting. So, who’s this armored weirdo here for? Why, our old friends The Pack of course! Speaking of, we join Wolf and Jackal in their cell where Jackal is brooding and Wolf is doing some one armed pushups. Dingo, who’s apparently working with the masked man, helps bust them out using some exploding gel. Elsewhere, we join Fox and Hyena in their cell where Hyena is shooting wadded up pieces of paper at cockroaches while Fox is reading John Paul Sartre. When Hyena asks why Fox reads that stuff, she answers “Because Nietzsche’s too butch and Kafka Reminds me of your little Cockroach Friends over there.” There is nothing I could possibly add to that line even if I wanted to, but it was important to me that you all heard it. The masked man arrives, introduces himself as Coyote, blows the door and even hands Hyena her claw gloves. Well, he gave her a means to murder people, so Hyena is immediately smitten. Hyena is about to put that into practice on a nearby prison guard, but Fox stops her and much to Hyena’s surprise, refuses to go with them, wanting to serve her time and pay her debt. Hyena suggests wasting Fox, but Coyote insists that there’s no time and they both leave her behind. Coyote then escapes by blasting his way through a wall and and, with Hyena in his arms, jumping through the hole and landing on his feet after what had to have been at least a three-story drop. As the two regroup with the rest of The Pack, Coyote then tops his previous feat by ripping a massive steel door off its hinges and tossing it to the side like a piece of cardboard. Damn! Coyote summons a jet from the ocean and the pack escapes.

At the Clocktower, the Gargoyles are seen waking up in a beautifully animated and beautifully scored sequence. However, Elisa is already there with some bad news, The Pack have escaped from prison. Hearing this sends Lexington flying off the handle, the little guy still apparently harboring a grudge against The Pack from back in Thrill of the Hunt. I know that Lex’s anger at the pack is meant to be serious and is part of his arc for this episode, the animation, combined with Lexington being so small inadvertently makes it come across as comical. In any case, Lex is ready to take on The Pack all on his own and flies off towards Pack Media studios, Brooklyn and Bronx coming with him to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. Goliath and the others on the other hand decide to investigate things from a different angle, going after The Pack’s secret benefactor, Xanatos.

Back with The Pack, it seems that Coyote has declared himself the group’s new leader, but Wolf objects and gets ready to attack. Now, I’m sure that when you look like the jacked-up love child of Wolverine and Kevin Nash you’re used to winning most of your fights, but this guy is in a high tech suit of armor equipped with a vertigo ray and not one hour ago you saw him tear an enormous steel door off its hinges without breaking a sweat, and you’re wearing a wife beater and a pair of prison pants. Wolfie, I gotta tell you, this course of action seems unwise. To the shock of no one, except I guess maybe Wolf, Coyote makes embarrassingly quick work of the big idiot. There’s no question that Coyote is the strongest one here, but the rest of The Pack still want to know who he is before they start following orders. Coyote removes his helmet, and, to the genuine shock of everyone, it’s Xanatos himself (Jonathan Frakes, Take a Shot). Jackal and Hyena are ready to kill him, but Dingo stops them, likely to prevent them from ending up like Wolf. Xanatos seems hellbent on destroying The Gargoyles, something we know to be out of character for him, meaning that he’s definitely got some kind of angle, but The Pack don’t know that and jump at the chance for revenge.

At the studio, Lex and Brooklyn are looking for The Pack and Lex is still chomping at the bit to get his hands on them. Brooklyn tries to talk Lex down, but Lexington clearly doesn’t have his priorities straight. The Pack arrives in their sweet new jet and Lex flies off the handle again. The Gargoyles are tough, but they’re still outnumbered, and with Coyote now in their ranks, Brooklyn, Lex and Bronx are overwhelmed and taken captive. Later, Goliath and the others are investigating the studio, having been lead there by Owen in an earlier scene. Speaking of, Owen calls the Studio, knowing that the Gargoyles are there and says that The Pack are holding their comrades on an offshore oil rig.

On said oil rig, Lex is fuming about being taken down by The Pack and Brooklyn is having none of it. Topside, The Pack are waiting for the Gargoyles who waste no time showing up and kicking ass. While Broadway focuses on freeing the others, Goliath and Hudson engage The Pack, leading to a really cool moment where Hudson is surrounded by Jackal, Hyena and Dingo and doesn’t even flinch. The whole thing comes across like a stand off from an old spaghetti western, I love it. Broadway finally frees his brothers, with a little help from Hyena flying into him, and the fight is now even. Goliath goes after Coyote, but when Coyote’s laser misses it’s target, the oil rig goes up in flames. Xanatos has apparently been working out as he’s now able to toss Goliath around effortlessly as the rig burns. Bronx pounces on Coyote, and after using his head as a chew toy for a little while, it’s revealed that this isn’t Xanatos at all, but rather a Xanatos android. Good thing too, if Coyote were a person, then Bronx literally biting his face off would never have gotten past the sensors. Also, Hyena being turned on by the fact that Coyote is a robot is pretty damned creepy and spoiler alert, it’s only going to get creepier in subsequent appearances. Anywho, Lexington, using one of The Pack’s laser rifles, blasts a hole through Coyote’s chest and Goliath kicks his head off. The Gargoyles turn their attention to the rest of The Pack, but when it becomes clear that the rig is about to blow, the bad guys retreat, Coyote’s head also escaping via a rocket booster in its neck. Lexington has a chance to blow The Pack out of the sky, but, after a moment of tough deliberation, opts instead to save an unconscious Brooklyn from drowning, Lexington thanking his rookery brother for helping him get his priorities straight as the Gargoyles glide home.

At the prison, for her overall exemplary behavior and for aiding the guard and staying to serve her time during the escape of her former accomplices, Fox has been granted an early parole. Fox leaves prison and is helped into the backseat of a limo where who should be waiting but Xanatos, the real one this time, and it’s immediately made clear that Fox doesn’t just work for Xanatos, she’s also his girlfriend. Turns out that everything, Coyote, the prison break, the showdown on the oil rig, all of it, was part of an elaborate plot to get Fox a shot at an early parole. Yeah, that’s right, Xanatos went to all the trouble of building an android replica of himself equipped with a brain scrambling ray and a state of the art high tech battle suit, breaking a bunch of mercenary psychopaths out of prison, luring them into a fight with a clan of legendary winged beasts from medieval Scotland and blowing up an oil rig, all because he missed his girlfriend. I can’t decide if that’s romantic, deranged or a bit of both. In any case, Fox asks if Xanatos still plans to get revenge on the Gargoyles, but Xanatos feels that revenge is a sucker’s game. He can build a thousand robots and each can be easily replaced, but true love, that’s much harder to come by.

This episode is awesome. It was really cool to see The Pack in full force again and the addition of Coyote to their ranks makes them far more of a threat than they were back in Thrill of the Hunt. While it came off more comedic than the writers likely intended, Lex’s obsession with The Pack and Brookyln’s reactions to him were pretty good as well. Finally, this episode officially establishes the relationship between Fox and Xanatos, one of my favorite couples in all of fiction. We’ll learn more about their dynamic later on but suffice to say that they’re truly perfect for each other and together will prove a force to be reckoned with for their enemies. Anywho, while Xanatos feels that revenge is indeed a sucker’s game, he still hasn’t quite given up on having his own personal army of Gargoyles. Next time, Xanatos approaches this goal from a new angle and a legendary actor joins the cast in Metamorphosis.