Wes's Guide to Gargoyles: High Noon

Welcome Back to Gargoyles everyone!

We open today’s episode in the virtual world inside Cold Stone’s head that we saw back in Legion. It seems Othello (Michael Dorn, Take a Shot) and Desdemona were victorious over the virus and, while the purgatory they now live in has no substance, they are still content simply to have each other. Unfortunately, it seems Iago survived as well but while the vengeful Gargoyle may occasionally menace his brother and sister, he no longer has any power to come between them.

Over in reality, we join our heroes in the Clocktower. In a scene I really appreciate, we see Hudson and Broadway reading the newspaper together, showing that their reading skills are clearly coming along nicely. Elisa arrives for a visit, but she can’t stay long. She’s coming off a very long and very exhausting shift and wants nothing more than to get some sleep. You can’t blame her for being tired. Between helping the Gargoyles and her regular police work, Elisa’s clearly been burning the candle at both ends lately. Meanwhile, Lexington is working on Cold Stone to see if they can bring him back online. It seems that the virus completely wiped out everything, even itself, so while nothing in Cold Stone is technically broken, nothing’s really working either. However, since the three Gargoyle souls that make up Cold Stone were put there by magic, it means they’re definitely still in there somewhere. However, working on that will have to wait as the sun will soon come up and the Gargoyles and Elisa must soon sleep.

Down at ground level, Elisa leaves the station ready to head home for a good long sleep but on her way out is passed by a large bearded man in cuffs flanked by a female officer with red hair, both of whom look oddly familiar. Suspicious, Elisa follows the two. Things take a turn for the very bad when it looks as though they’ve gone up to the clock tower. Elisa follows them up to the tower with her gun drawn only to be grabbed from behind by the bearded man, MacBeth. The big Scotsman throws Elisa against the wall, knocking her unconscious. As MacBeth gets away in his jet, his red-haired companion reveals herself to be Demona in her human form (Marina Sirtis take a shot). Demona is pissed that they didn’t just kill the Gargoyles, but MacBeth still refuses to kill a helpless opponent. Besides, they got what they came for. As Elisa wakes up, she soon learns what it was they came for, Cold Stone.

Back at MacBeth’s castle, Demona and MacBeth plan to wake up Cold Stone, but Demona thinks it’s best that they wait for sundown. If Cold Stone wakes up only to find two humans he doesn’t recognize, well, that could end badly for everyone. The sun sets and Demona reverts back to her Gargoyle form. The transformation is painful for her and MacBeth feels it too. It seems Puck’s “gifts” come with a price. Anywho, Demona inserts a floppy disc into Cold Stone, because this is the 90’s, floppy discs were magical back then, and suddenly a portal opens in the virtual world. Iago immediately flies through it, Othello and Desdemona opting not to follow, Othello reiterating his point that as long as he and is love are together, nothing else matters. Back in reality, Cold Stone wakes up and it’s clear that it’s Iago in the driver’s seat.

Back at the Clocktower, the Gargoyles are confused as to how MacBeth escaped the Weird Sisters and why he would bother stealing Cold Stone. Elisa wishes she could go with them to investigate, but she’s got to go on shift, though from what we see, she’s still very tired. At MacBeth’s castle, the Gargoyles arrive and note that breaking in seemed a little too easy, meaning that MacBeth is likely expecting them. The Gargoyles split up. Goliath and Lexington end up in MacBeth’s control room and use the security cameras to find where he’s keeping Cold Stone. Meanwhile, Brooklyn and Bronx find Demona waiting in MacBeth’s broom closet. Uh… two things. One, what was Demona doing in the broom closet? And two, we see a glimpse of MacBeth’s vacuum cleaner and the image of MacBeth vacuuming is oddly surreal and I can’t seem to get it out of my head. Anywho, Demona pounces on Brooklyn and manages to keep both him and Bronx on the ropes. Elsewhere, Broadway and Hudson have found MacBeth in the library and he starts shooting away. Seriously, what’s with the bad guys waiting in these arbitrary rooms? What is this, a game of Clue? Anywho, The Gargoyles manage to take down both of their opponents, which is pretty easy since they share pain in close proximity. The gang, with the unconscious bodies of Demona and MacBeth in tow, regroup with Goliath and Lexington in the dungeon where Cold Stone is chained up. Our heroes are understandably confused since Demona and MacBeth are supposed to hate each other’s guts, but they can worry about that later, first they need to free Cold Stone. Cold Stone grabs both Demona and MacBeth by the collar and flies up. It’s here where we reveal that Demona and MacBeth only pretended to be defeated so easily in order to get all the Gargoyles together in one place. MacBeth presses a button and the dungeon floor electrifies the Gargoyles, knocking them all out. Seriously, is there anything in this reality that isn’t electrified?

Back at the Clocktower, Elisa is worried sick about her friends. She really needs some sleep but she can’t sleep knowing that they’re still out there. It’s at this point that Demona arrives, reverting to human form as the sun comes up. Elisa, seeing that Demona is now human, tries to arrest her. Good idea Elisa, I’m sure a mass murderer who turns into a super strong winged blue monster at night will do great in the prison system. I’ll chalk that one up to the sleep deprivation. Besides, Demona says that if Elisa arrests her, she’ll never know where her friends are. Demona gives Elisa an Ultimatum. Meet her and her allies at high noon in central park to save her friends. If she comes, she’ll stand no chance against a veteran Gargoyle warrior, an immortal Scotsman with centuries of combat experience and super powerful undead Gargoyle cyborg and she’ll surely die. If she doesn’t, it will show Goliath that human loyalty isn’t worth anything. Either way, Demona wins. Well look at Demona trying to put together her own little Xanatos plan. You go girl! Also, I love how Demona was able to walk through a police station wearing nothing but a single strap crop top and a loin cloth before hailing taxi. I mean, this is New York City, this probably isn’t the weirdest thing they’ve seen in the past two hours but still. As Elisa watches Demona leave, her friend Officer Morgan walks up and can see that Elisa is looking exhausted and needs to get some sleep. For a brief moment, Elisa wishes she could just go to sleep, and when she wakes up, she could just live a normal life. No Gargoyles, no eccentric billionares with crazy schemes, no zombie cyborgs, no immortal Scotsman, no mad scientists turning her brother into an electric flyin tiger, just a normal life. You can’t blame her for wanting this. Sure, the Gargoyles are her friends, and she’d do anything for them, but fighting alongside them takes its toll as well. But then, if Elisa wanted an easy life, she wouldn’t have put on the badge to begin with.

At Central Park, Demona, MacBeth and Cold Stone have the Gargoyles chained up in their stone form. In Cold Stone’s head, Desdemona feels that doing nothing to help the others is not the Gargoyle way, but Othello insists that they are no longer Gargoyles, merely shadows. But then, who should show up but our friends The Weird Sisters in the form of three Desdemonas trying to rally Cold Stone to action. Elisa arrives in the park and Demona tries to blow her away, but when Elisa says she’s unarmed, MacBeth goads Demona into fighting Elisa hand to hand. While Elisa wouldn’t stand a chance against Demona in Gargoyle form, Demona’s not quite used to fighting as a human and Elisa manages to kick her ass for most of the fight. I will say, I enjoy Cold Stone and MacBeth just standing there watching. I’d like to think MacBeth is really enjoying seeing Elisa clean Demona’s clock. Back in Cold Stone’s head, the Sisters convince Othello and Desdemona to take action and together they fly into the portal and wrestle control of Cold Stone away from their evil brother. Once Othello takes control, he quickly turns on MacBeth and Demona and MacBeth calls for his airship so the two bad guys can retreat. Cold Stone helps Elisa free the Gargoyles before leaving. See, as long as the Iago personality is still hanging around in his head, Cold Stone knows that he’ll remain a danger to the others, so he must leave until that issue can be dealt with. Anywho, after having successfully saved her friends, an exhausted Elisa leans against the stone statue of Goliath and takes a much deserved nap.

The question still remains however, why were MacBeth and Demona working together. Well, as we join MacBeth and Demona back at MacBeth’s castle, they seem just as confused about it as we do. It seems stealing Cold Stone and kidnapping the Gargoyles was all a diversion so that MacBeth and Demona could steal the Grimorum Arcanorum, The Eye of Odin and The Phoenix Gate. See, if they’d stolen them outright, the Gargoyles would have noticed, but by using the whole Cold Stone thing as a distraction, now it’ll be weeks before Goliath even realizes they're gone. However, why they stole these items, how they knew where to find them and why they’re even working together in the first place seems to be eluding MacBeth and Demona, who also suddenly remember that they’re supposed to hate each other and attack. Fortunately, before they can come to blows, MacBeth and Demona are frozen in place. The Weird Sisters arrive to comment that the spell they cast on them is starting to wear off. However, they managed to get what they needed and proclaim that these items will be useful in “The Coming Battle.”

This episode simultaneously serves as an epilogue to our last big tentpole multi-part episode as well as something of a teaser for our next one. While City of Stone answered many of our burning questions, it still left us with several more. The presence of the Weird Sisters in City of Stone indicated that Demona and MacBeth being bound together was part of someone playing a much larger game, and this episode shows us that that game is not over yet. However, the real star of this episode is Elisa. It was nice to see her take center stage this time, especially because, due to Demona’s curse, she was forced to sit out most of the events of City of Stone. I liked that we see how working with The Gargoyles has taken a physical and mental toll on her. Obviously, we know that she’d never abandon her friends, but the scene where Elisa admits that she sometimes wishes she had a normal life feels very human. Still, ultimately, Elisa’s loyalty to her friends wins out over her exhaustion as she bravely faces impossible odds to save her friends, proving that even though she’s just a human, she’s still every bit as brave and as tough as Goliath. Anywho, anyone remember Cyberbiotics? Do you think they’re still holding a grudge against the Gargoyles for stealing their shit? Well, find out next time when we cover Outfoxed.