Wes's Guide to Gargoyles: The Cage

Welcome back to Gargoyles Everybody! Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be back at work, but man did I miss this. Let’s waste no further time and dive right in.

Our episode opens with family dinner with at the Maza house (Nichelle Nichols, Take a Shot). It’s here where we meet Beth, Elisa’s youngest sister. Not a terribly important character, but it’s nice to see more members of the Maza family. The Mazas are having a good time, joking around like families do, that is until the subject turns to that of Derek, Elisa’s brother. As you may recall, Derek was mutated into a winged electric tiger-monster and hasn’t been heard from since. The Maza family knows that Derek is missing but hasn’t been briefed on the whole messed up animal transformation bit just yet. Pete Maza, Elisa’s Dad, is about ready to file a missing person’s report, but Elisa acts like she’s sure that Derek is fine, wanting to spare her family further pain. During the conversation, Beth thinks she spots something with wings looking in the window.

Over at the Clocktower, Elisa confides in Goliath that lying to her family about Derek is eating her up inside, but it’s not like she can tell them the truth. Probably better they think he’s missing than find out he’s been transformed into a nightmarish abomination of science. Elisa also tells Goliath to be more careful when hanging around by her window, but Goliath says he was never at her window, and the others are all accounted for, leading Elisa to believe that it was Derek. At the mention of Derek, Goliath has some bad news. It seems that Derek and the other mutant creatures are back with Xanatos, Goliath having spotted them flying to and from the castle. Goliath opted not to tell Elisa to spare her further pain, and likely to prevent her anger from causing her to do something stupid, like head straight for the castle full of angry electric mutant tiger people. As if to prove my point, Elisa tells Goliath to bring her to the castle full of angry electric mutant tiger people.

At said Castle, we see Derek, now calling himself Talon, and the other two male mutants, who have taken the names Claw and Fang. Claw has apparently been traumatized by the transformation and doesn’t speak but Fang is voiced by none other than actor and comedian Jim Belushi, known for Saturday Night Live and the sitcom According to Jim. Talon also appers to be sporting a green and blue spandex outfit because… someone in the art department has terrible fashion sense or a sense of humor, it’s hard to tell which. Anywho, the mutants attack Goliath on sight, still harboring a grudge against Goliath for destroying their cure and killing Sevarius. Seems the mutants still haven’t been informed that the good doctor is still very much alive. The three mutants overwhelm Goliath and not even Elisa can talk her brother down. Talon is about to waste the big Gargoyle, but Maggie, who notably has not chosen a new name, intervenes. Maggie isn’t really here for revenge or anything like that, she just wants to be human again. It’s at this point that our old pal Xanatos makes his presence known (Jonathan Frakes, Take a Shot). Xanatos appreciates Talon defending the Castle, but states that Elisa and Goliath are always welcome. I admire that level of confidence from Xanatos, your worst enemy comes barging through your front door, and you offer them a cup of coffee because you know that they’re no real threat to you. That’s what life is like for David Xanatos. Anywho, Elisa tries to convince Talon and the others that Xanatos is the one who turned them into monsters, but they refuse to believe it, blaming Goliath and Sevarius for their current situation. Elisa says that Sevarius is alive and while the others don’t believe it, it does seem to get their attention. Talon states that if Sevarius is alive, he won’t be for long.

Speaking of the good doctor, later that night, we see Sevarius heading home for the evening, but as he’s about to get into his car, the shadow of a winged creature is seen and Sevarius disappears. Elisa arrives shortly after to find Sevarius’s car and briefcase, but no Sevarius himself. We soon see Sevarius deep underground in a cage where a winged creature we’re meant to believe is Talon is tormenting him and demanding he create a cure for the mutant creatures. After refusing for a while, Sevarius is eventually intimidated into attempting to make a cure.

At the castle, Talon tells the others that Sevarius is indeed alive. It also seems that he now believes that Goliath helped Anton fake his death since he’s the one who kicked the mad scientist into the eel tank. Maggie isn’t sure about that since, in her experience, it seemed like the Gargoyles wanted to help her. However, the others seem way more interested in the fact that Maggie knows where the Gargoyles live. We then see Maggie arriving at the Clocktower where Hudson is there to great her and seems quite pleased to see her. However, this is actually an ambush and the mutants quickly incapacitate Hudson and Bronx, much to Maggie’s dismay. The mutants demand to know where Goliath is, but Hudson doesn’t know. It also seems that Goliath said he’d be gone for a few nights.

At Xanatos’s office, Xanatos has been informed of Sevarius’s kidnapping and believes that Talon is responsible. Speaking of, Talon bursts through the door and reads Xanatos the riot act for not telling him that Sevarius was alive. Xanatos quickly saves his own skin by spinning some cock and bull story reinforcing Talon’s belief that Sevarius and Goliath were in it together. Ordinarily, I’d call Talon a moron for believing such an obvious lie, and he is, but this is still David Xanatos, Master Bullshit Artist, we’re talking about. This is a man who could tell you that the sky is orange, something demonstratively untrue, but say it in such a way that, even as you stare directly at the clearly blue sky, you’d still need to take a minute to consider that he might be telling the truth. I guarantee you that if Xanatos’s head ever found itself in a guillotine, all he’d need to do is talk for two minutes and the executioner would put his own head in the guillotine and kindly thank Xanatos as the blade fell. Xanatos tells Talon to release Sevarius, but Talon doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about.

Back at the Clocktower, The trio return home, only to be amushed by the other mutants. The Electric flying tigers are tough, but the trio manage to overwhelm them and free the others. Brooklyn tries to convince Maggie that he’s on her side, you know, the same song and dance from back in Metamorphosis, but much like in that episode, Maggie is having none of it. Maggie refuses to believe that Xanatos is evil since she sees him as her one chance to be human again. In an attempt to prove that the Gargoyles can be trusted, Brooklyn lets Maggie and the others go, and hopes to himself that they eventually figure out what Xanatos is really like.

Back at Gen-U-Tech, Elisa is looking at the security footage from Sevrius’s kidnapping. Turns out it wasn’t Derek who took Sevarius at all, it was Goliath, as we clearly see down in the underground lab where Goliath is forcing Sevarius to make a cure. Xanatos and Talon have seen the footage as well and Xanatos uses it to further convince the big cat man that Goliath and Anton are in cahoots. Owen also deduces that the only abandoned laboratory that Goliath would know about and be able to gain access to would be the old Cyberbiotics underground research facility from all the way back in Awakening. At the mention of the location, Talon storms off the others mutants following.

At the abandoned lab, Goliath is breathing down Anton’s neck to finish the cure. Elisa arrives and is not pleased to see that Goliath has kidnapped a man, even a creep like Sevarius. Goliath says that he couldn’t stand seeing Elisa in so much pain over her brother and felt that this was the best course of action. Plus, he worried what would happen if Talon got to Sevarius first. Elisa thinks that Goliath’s heart was in the right place, but this is wrong and more to the point, there’s no way they can trust Sevarius to actually make a working cure since they have no one to test it on. Elisa seems to get through to Goliath and the big guy agrees to release Sevarius. As Sevarius declares that he’s finished the cure, Talon breaks down the door, enraged at seeing his sister working with his enemies. Elisa tries to tell Talon what’s really going on, but he’s beyond reason at this point and attacks Goliath. In the scuffle, Sevarius tries to run for it, but he’s stopped by Fang and the others. Talon orders the others to bring Sevarius to him so he and Goliath can die together. Anton tries to use his cure to barter for his freedom, but Talon no longer seems to care about being human again, instead opting to give the cure to Maggie. However, when Sevarius tries to convince Talon to take it instead, Talon begins to suspect that it’s not a cure at all, but poison. While everyone argues, Xanatos arrives flanked by several Steel Clan robots. Xanatos’s presence finally tips Talon off to the fact that Xanatos was working with Sevarius all along. Talon is obviously pissed as all hell that he trusted Xanatos and he turned him into a monster. Xanatos apologizes that things turned out the way they did, but he’s not about to let Talon kill Anton. He may be a pain in the ass, but Sevarius’s brilliant scientific mind still incredibly useful to Xanatos and Xanatos is never one to waste a valuable resource. Once Xanatos and Sevarius are gone, Maggie is still hoping that the cure is for real but Talon stops her from drinking it, saying something about how if they must live as monsters, at least they’ll be together. Goliath offers the mutants a chance to join they’re clan, and while Talon is accepting of Goliath’s friendship, he instead decides to form his own clan with his fellow mutants. Our episode ends on a happy note with Elisa’s parents being taken to see Talon. While they’re scared at first, they ultimately accept their son’s new form and the Maza family is whole once again.

While it was nice to follow up on Metamorphosis, this episode felt a bit unfocused and all over the place. The whole bit with Brooklyn and Maggie goes nowhere, Talon comes off like a moron a lot of the time, the episode repeats itself a lot. I liked Goliath doing the wrong thing for the right reasons by kidnapping Sevarius, but the episode could have stood to spend more time on it. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, even a bad episode of Gargoyles is better than a good episode of some others shows, but this one just didn’t do it for me. Anywho, there have been a lot of questions that have been nagging at us for a while. What became of Demona and MacBeth? What was the Weird Sisters’ true purpose in binding them together and what does it have to do with the three magical items MacBeth and Demona stole on their behalf? Who is the puppet master who’s been playing this long game? And whatever became of the eggs in the rookery that Princess Catherine agreed to care for back in Awakening? Well, next time, we start to answer these questions as we kick off the three parter, Avalon.