Wes's Guide to Gargoyles: Metamorphosis

Welcome Back to Gargoyles Everyone!

Today’s episode opens in a New York back alley where a homeless women is offered a job by a mysterious stranger with a German accent. The homeless women is Maggie, named after Maggie the Cat, a character from the Tennessee Williams play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but let’s just say that the name will soon become very appropriate. The mysterious stranger is Dr. Anton Sevarius, professional mad scientist. I promised you all I would gush about the awesomeness of the voice cast of this show, but it’s time for some serious gushing because Anton here is voiced by the one, the only, TIM CURRY! THAT’S RIGHT TIM “Come up to the Lab and see what’s on the Slab” CURRY. I’M TALKING ABOUT TIM, “Do you have Prince Albert in a Can? You Do! Well You Better Let the Poor Guy Out, Wa Ha! Wa Ha! Wa Ha!” CURRY, YES, AFTER ALL THESE EPISODES, I FINALLY GET TO TALK ABOUT TIM “I’m Escaping to the One Place that Hasn’t Been Corrupted by Capitalism… SPAAAACE!” CURRY!! Every slimy word out of this man’s mouth is like a mini-orgasm in your ear. One of the greatest and most over-the-top actors on the face of that silly little dirt ball we call Earth. Getting Tim Curry on board was a hell of a coup for the show and I couldn’t be happier to have him here.

Anyway, now that I’ve derailed the entire article, let’s move on. We join Elisa at Xanatos’ airfield where her brother Derek is testing piloting one of his experimental planes. It seems the argument about Derek working for Xanatos that started in Her Brother’s Keeper is still ongoing and Derek has only grown more distant from his family since. However, Derek does apologize for missing a family dinner and the siblings make up, even doing a special “cross your heart” gesture. It’s cheesy, but it’s sweet.

We cut to Gen-U-Tech Labs, Anton’s company where… something has escaped. A real nasty something at that as it easily overpowers the guards and escapes into the night. Later, we see Brooklyn & Broadway flying overhead when they spot something that looks like another Gargoyle. Thinking it might be Demona, The Gargoyles check it out. However, it’s not Demona, but rather some Cat-like Gargoyle creature who seems terrified of the Gargoyles. It’s also clear from the voice that this is, or at least was, Maggie, the woman from the opening. Brooklyn insists that he doesn’t want to hurt her, but it’s a moot point as their soon attacked by mercenaries with tranquilizer guns. Maggie is shot and taken away and Brooklyn insists that he needs to save her. However, Brooklyn gets tranqed himself and Broadway, being the more level-headed of the two, carries him to safety. Back at the Clocktower, Broadway and Brooklyn tell their story to the others and it’s clear that Brooklyn is a little obsessed with helping Maggie even though she clearly didn’t want it. Hey Brooklyn, weren’t you the one giving Lexington a hard time for this exact same thing last episode? In any case, Broadway managed to grab Maggie’s tracking bracelet which bares the logo for Gen-U-Tech.

We join Xanatos, Owen and Derek at the Castle where Xanatos (Jonathan Frakes, Take a Shot) has just learned of a rather curious expense report from Gen-U-Tech Labs, a subsidiary of Xanatos Enterprises. While Xanatos is aware that Gen-U-Tech’s R&D team is working on something special for him, that something should not necessitate the hiring of armed mercenaries and feels he should pay Dr. Sevarius a visit, Derek insisting on coming along. At Gen-U-Tech, it seems that Xanatos hired Sevarius to create biological Gargoyles for him. Laser Robot Gargoyles are cool, but they don’t really have the best win/loss record against the genuine article. Sevarius, a brilliant geneticist, has been experimenting with gene splicing in order to yield the desired results, using the DNA of Bats and Tigers to grant the approximate the abilities of a Gargoyle. However, the energy needs of such a being initially posed a problem since, according to Sevarius’ research, a Gargoyle should need to eat the equivalent of three cows a day in order to maintain its strength. Obviously, there aren’t too many cows in Manhattan, leaving Xanatos to wonder just how the Gargoyles manage. Anton hypothesizes that The Gargoyles store solar energy during their stone sleep. Since that option is beyond the capabilities of known science at the moment, Anton has come up with another solution, Electric Eel DNA. Since Electric Eels naturally produce energy from specialized organs, then splicing in some of their DNA might just do the trick. Can we take a moment to go over how much I love this scene? Like, this show could have easily handwaved away the Gargoyles being the way they are as magic or something lazy like that, but here we have a scene attempting to explain how their biology works and what it would take to replicate it. Good stuff! However, Derek points out that while all this is pretty cool, it doesn’t answer why Anton needed to hire armed mercenaries. Sevarius says that one of his test subjects escaped but reassures Xanatos that they managed to get her back. It’s here where Sevarius reveals that he’s created three of these creatures, and instead of growing them from scratch, he used human test subjects. Xanatos is furious and ready to shut this project down, but Sevarius isn’t about to let Xanatos destroy his work and pulls a gun. Derek takes the shot for Xanatos and pounces on Sevarius, disarming him. Turns out, that wasn’t an ordinary gun, but rather a dart gun loaded with the Mutagenic formula that initially created Sevarius’ monsters. Sevarius knows how to make a cure but isn’t cooperative until the cops come knocking on his front door. Xanatos threatens to expose everything, even knowing full well that he’ll go back to prison for bankrolling the project if he does. As Servarius bullshits Elisa and Bluestone away from his lab, Derek is already showing signs of mutation.

The next night, Brooklyn is ready to fly off after Maggie, but Goliath insists that he and some of the others come along so he doesn’t do anything stupid. Boy this is sounding familiar. Once they get to Gen-U-Tech, Goliath finds Maggie’s Cage and breaks her out while the poor woman cowers in fear of the massive purple monster. The Guards break in and Maggie is once again hit with a Tranquilizer in the chaos. The fight spills into the room where Sevarius is working on the cure. In the scuffle, the vial containing the cure is destroyed and Sevarius is knocked into the electric eel tank where he’s apparently shocked to death, meaning that any hope of a cure is now gone. Derek now blames The Gargoyles for his situation and vows revenge.

Back at the Clocktower, Maggie wakes up and reacts like any rational human being would upon waking up in a room full of winged monsters watching you sleep. Brooklyn tries to insist that she’ll be safe in the Clocktower, but Maggie is having none of it, claiming that she doesn’t want to be safe with the Gargoyles, she wants to be human again. Dawn is coming, but Goliath promises Maggie that once night falls, they’ll find the cure even if it means confronting Xanatos personally.

That night, Derek and the other mutant creatures, including Maggie who escaped the clocktower shorty after sunrise, appear to have taken refuge in Xanatos’ Castle and are quickly adapting to their new forms. Xanatos seems pleased, having found something even more awesome than Laser Robot Gargoyles, Electric Tiger Gargoyles! The Gargoyles swoop in, but it seems Derek, who has taken the new name of Talon, blames the Gargoyles for their condition and has convinced the others of the same and so a fight breaks out. The Gargoyles are tough, but the mutants are more than a match, especially when that eel DNA has apparently given them the ability to shoot beams of electricity from their hands. Elisa arrives, having learned earlier of Xanatos’ connection to Gen-U-Tech after investigating the attack on the lab and tries to talk Talon down, however, when Derek imitates the cross my heart gesture from earlier in the episode, Elisa is overcome with horror to realize that this massive winged tiger monster is her own brother. Derek, not wanting his sister to see him like this, flees the castle with the other mutants. Elisa all but declares war on Xanatos before storming off in a rage.

Later, Xanatos is visited in his office by Sevarius, looking much younger and now speaking with an English accent. Wait a minute, why? I get faking your own death, but what was the disguise for? This has bugged me for years and to this day I cannot think of a plausible explanation for why Anton put on a wig and pretended to be German. Anywho, as you’ve probably come to expect with Xanatos, this whole thing was a setup. He knew all along what Sevarius was up to and it was all part of Xanatos’ plan. Hell, he probably already had this in mind from the moment he hired Derek. While the mutants have escaped, they are all still under the impression that the only way to cure themselves is through Xanatos, which will keep them under his thumb once they return.

I have mixed feelings about this one. The idea of Xanatos turning humans into Gargoyle-like creatures is an interesting one, even if it does seem a bit cruel even for Xanatos, and I like the design of the Mutant creatures. That said, I found the some of the plot to be a little confusing and Brooklyn’s obsession is really annoying, especially after he was the voice of reason in the previous episode. However, there was still a very huge bright spot in the form of our lord and savior, Tim Curry! Speaking of, let’s talk about Anton Sevarius. In many ways, Anton is the anti-Xanatos. While Xanatos seems to defy a lot of the tropes of your typical cartoon villain, Sevarius revels in them. He is a mad scientist through and through and makes no apologies and I love every second of it. Anywho, since we’re on the subject of twisted abominations of science, our next episode sees the return of Cold Stone in Legion.