Wes's Guide to Gargoyles: Grief

Welcome back to Gargoyles Everyone, and Welcome to Grief, or as I have nicknamed the episode “A Tale of Two Tonys” after its stellar guest stars.

We open in Egypt. You can tell it’s Egypt because we’re immediately shown the Pyramids. Okay, I promise, that’s the last time I make that joke. Anywho, we’re actually inside the Sphinx where we see our favorite Brotherhood of Body-Horror, The Pack (Sans Dingo since he bailed back in Upgrade). It seems that Xanatos helped The Pack flee the country in exchange for them doing some grunt work for the Emir. Remember the Emir? I’d be surprised if you did. The Emir was a throwaway line from all the way back in The Edge intended to demonstrate just how powerful a man Xanatos is if he’s able to keep an Arabic King waiting. The Emir was also briefly mentioned off hand back in Double Jeopardy, I just didn’t see it as worth mentioning because there was already so much cool stuff I wanted to talk about. Anyway, what this means is, whatever’s going on here, it’s something that Xanatos has been planning for some time now. The Emir himself is voiced by the always awesome Tony Shaloub, a fantastic actor who’s had many great roles over the years including Galaxy Quest and The Marvelous Mrs. Maizel but most of you probably know him as the title character in the detective series Monk. The Emir has found something that may grant Xanatos his goal of immortality, and the Pack are helping get an ancient mystic ritual set up. By the way, Hyena is still obsessed with having weird robot sex with Coyote (Jonathan Frakes, Take a Shot) despite his new form no longer looking even remotely human. Honestly, after Thailog tried to hit on his sort of sister/sort of daughter a couple episodes ago, I don’t have the energy for Hyena’s weird Robot fetish.

Meanwhile, Avalon has taken our heroes to the banks of the river Nile and Angela is excited to see the sights. However, while investigating the Sphinx, Goliath spots Coyote entering statue. Well, at least now they know why they’re here as Goliath and the others follow the robot into the temple. Back inside, the Emir is briefly seen looking at a photograph of a young child with a sad expression on his face. The Emir starts the ritual, apparently some sort of summoning, when the Gargoyles arrive in the ritual chamber. The Emir orders The Pack to deal with the intruders and a fight ensues. The Gargoyles are tough, but they don’t have their full numbers and The Pack are formidable foes even for the entire caln, so our heroes are knocked out, thanks in large part to Coyote’s new upgrades. And just in time too, since the ritual is complete and the Emir has succeeded in summoning and binding the Egyptian Jackal God of Death, Anubis. The Pack stand in awe of the captured God, with Jackal seeming to be particularly excited upon seeing the “original model.” The Emir shoos the Pack out of the room as the next part he must do alone.

Anubis is voiced by legendary actor Tony Jay (see what I meant by “A Tale of Two Tonys”) Most of you probably recognize that commanding baritone as the voice of Judge Frollo from Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, though if you’re as big a nerd for old 90’s cartoons as I am, you’ll likely also recognize the voice as that of Megabyte, the primary antagonist of the show Reboot. I just want to say this up front. Tony Jay’s performance as Anubis makes this episode for me. Every line of dialogue is the perfect blend of profundity and cynicism and Tony Jay’s very intimidating yet matter-of-fact delivery sells it perfectly. It actually reminds me a lot of the personification of Death from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Novels (which all of you should be reading). While Death in those stories was certainly a gloomy fellow, he was never depicted as evil or malevolent, just as someone with a job to do same as anyone. He was often fond of saying “There is No Justice, Just Me.” I’d like to think that Anubis here operates under a similar mentality. I want to take every one of Anubis’s lines, engrave them on a plaque and hang them on the wall in my house. That’s how awesome Anubis is. Anywho, The Emir asks Anubis for a Favor, to wich the large Jackal responds…

I GRANT BUT ONE BOON MORTAL, AND IT WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU AS IT IS GIVEN TO EVERYONE, WHEN YOUR TIME HAS COME.

It is here where we learn the Amir’s true reason for summoning Anubis. Emir could care less about Xanatos and his bid for immortality, he just wants the God of Death to restore his son back to life, his son having been taken from him in a car accident. Something that the Emir sees as a pointless death.

DEATH IS ALWAYS POINTLESS. THAT IS THE POINT

Outside the chamber, Wolf and Coyote are having their usual argument over who’s in charge and as per usual, Wolf is losing, badly. Jackal, who’s been unusually quiet during all this, volunteers to enter the chamber to “look after Xanatos’s interests.” Back inside the Chamber, Goliath and the others come to as the Emir pleads with Anubis, claiming that his son was unfairly taken from him and says that as long as Jackal is bound here, no one can die.

ON THE CONTRARY, DEATH IS THE ULTIMATE FAIRNESS RICH AND POOR, YOUNG AND OLD, ALL ARE EQUAL IN DEATH. YOU WOULD NOT LIKE TO SEE THE JACKAL GOD PLAY FAVORITES. THINK WHAT YOU ARE DOING. ALL OVER THE WORLD, THERE IS BIRTH BUT NO DEATH. OUR PLANET CANNOT SUPPORT SO MANY LIVES AT ONCE.

When the Jackal God refuses his request, The Emir pulls out his ace in the hole, an ancient spell to transform himself into the avatar of Anubis, essentially becoming the God of Death himself. Goliath warns the Emir that this is a mistake, but the Emir is thinking only of the son he lost and not the long term consequences of what he’s doing. Goliath and Angela struggle to break free of their restraints, but nearly bring down the whole temple in the process. The Emir orders The Pack to dispose of the Gargoyles and our heroes are led into a burial chamber where it’s time for round two. As per the rules with a Pack episode, the fight is cool as hell, including a particularly awesome moment where Elisa takes down Coyote with a spear.

The Emir recites the incantation that will merge him with Anubis, but Jackal intercepts it merging with Anubis himself. The result… well, look at that thing! It looks like five different Disney villains merged together to form some kind of fucked up megazord. To give you the scope of this situation, we now have a sociopathic mercenary cyborg who has been granted all the abilities of an extremely powerful fay creature that was worshipped as a god by the ancient Egyptians and possesses full power over life and death. Screwed does not even begin to cover it. Also, kudos for whoever had the idea to double up the voices of Matt Frewer and Tony Jay. It’s the perfect unsettling cherry atop the nightmare fuel sundae that is uber jackal here. Coyote tries to blast Jackal, but gets turned into a pile of rust for his trouble. Hyena is angry at her brother for ruining yet another one of her relationships. Okay Hyena, creepy robot fetish aside, I’d think you’d be less mad about that and more mad about the fact that, oh I don’t know, YOUR BROTHER HAS USURPED THE POWER OF A DEATH GOD AND IS PROBABLY GOING TO DESTROY THE WORLD!! It doesn’t really matter since Jackal uses his powers to de-age Hyena and Wolf into a baby and a puppy respectively. Not sure how the latter works since Wolf wasn’t born a gene spliced animal hybrid, but hey, it makes about as much sense as Jackal becoming an Egyptian Death God, so whatever. Goliath and the others get their turn and Jackal rapidly ages them. However, Jackal is growing bored of these petty squabbles and wants to use his new powers to attempt something he’s always wanted to try, kill everyone on the planet! Well, at least he’s ambitious. Jackal starts by draining the life from an entire nearby village.

In the midst of the chaos, Goliath pleads with the Emir to stop this madness. He sympathizes with the Emir and how he lost his son, but clearly this evil has gone on long enough. It’s worth noting that while he’s trying to get the Emir to act, he acknowledges Angela as his daughter for the first time. The aged Gargoyles attack the Jackal while he’s distracted while the Emir reads the incantation and absorbs the spirit of Anubis into himself, restoring Jackal to his usual insane self. It seems merging with Anubis has granted The Emir some clarity. The balance of life and death must remain constant and what is dead and gone must remain so. However, he is nice enough to undo the damage from Jackal’s power trip, restoring everyone to their original state. The temple starts crumbling and the Gargoyles run for it, the Emir staying behind to ensure that Anubis’s power doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. And so our episode ends with Goliath taking solace in the fact that The Emir has likely been reunited with his son in the next world as the sun rises over the pyramids.

This episode is amazing. The setting was unique. It was cool to see The Pack again, especially since this will be the last time we’ll see all of the remaining members together. The fight scenes were cool as hell. Tonys Jay and Shaloub were both welcome additions to the cast and brought their A-game to this single appearance, especially Mr. Jay. And finally, Jackal’s Death God form was absolutely terrifying. To my knowledge, Jackal in this episode is the greatest threat the Gargoyles ever actually face. While they’ll face more powerful adversaries in the future, no villain in the show ever attempts mass murder on this scale, not even Demona, and at least with Demona it’s for a misguided purpose. Jackal basically just wanted to kill everyone for fun. Great stuff all around in this episode. We’ve been having a lot of fun on the world tour, but I’d say it’s high time we checked back in with our pals in Manhattan. Next time, we see how Brooklyn is adjusting to leadership in Goliath’s absence in Kingdom.