Wes's Guide to Gargoyles: Hunter's Moon Part 3

Welcome everyone, to the final canonically recognized episode of Gargoyles. It is with a heavy heart that I begin this article as this project has meant so much to me. Let’s do this. Last time, the Hunters tracked Goliath back to the Clocktower and decided to throw caution to the wind and blow the place sky high.

We open with a flashback to Paris where Charles Canmore, the father of Jason, Robyn and John has tracked Demona (Marina Sirtis, Take a Shot) to Notre Dame Cathedral. Charles declares that the hunt ends tonight before hugging his children and donning the hunter’s mask. Demona, who has just stolen an idol called the Praying Gargoyle (if you were paying attention last episode, you’d note that this same idol was in Demona’s secret room with the tablet), engages the hunter and while we don’t see it, it’s clear that Charles gives his life fighting Demona, the three children looking on as Demona glides away, laughing.

Back in the present, the Clocktower has just gone up in smoke, Jason having used his hover jet to save Elisa from becoming collateral damage. Elisa unmasks Jason and is understandably shocked, but before she can process any of this, Jason drugs her and flies off. In the wreckage of the Clocktower, the Gargoyles all seem to have survived, Lexington having found the tracking device planted on Goliath in just enough time for them to take cover. Hudson is in especially bad shape and insists the others leave him behind. John is sitting outside the tower on his hover bike ready to blast the survivors, but hearing Goliath talk of how the Gargoyles are Clan and would never leave family behind causes him to hesitate. Goliath and the clan glide off, Goliath swearing to make the Hunter’s pay for like, the thousandth time.

Back at the Hunter’s airship, John tells Robyn that he saw no survivors, but Robyn saw the Gargoyles leave. The tracer was damaged in the blast, so they can’t track them, but Robyn has an idea. The next day, in his John Carter persona, John delivers a news report that exposes the existence of the Gargoyles and frames them for the destruction of Clocktower. Naturally, with the city already afraid of Gargoyles back when they were just an urban myth combined with the apparent fact that they’ve blown up a building, mob mentality will set in and it’s only a matter of time before the entire city is out for Gargoyle blood. While Elisa tries to convince an injured Captain Chavez, who seems to be taking the existence of mythical winged beasts in stride, that the Gargoyles aren’t responsible, it seems Bluestone has done some digging on Jason. Turns out his real name is Jason Canmore, confirming that he is indeed descended from Duncan and therefore has no excuse not to know about MacBeth. Anywho, it seems that since their father died in Paris under mysterious circumstances, Jason and his siblings have been building up quite a reputation for violence.

Meanwhile, the Gargoyles have taken up temporary residence at Elisa’s apartment (try explaining that to the super). If you thought Goliath was pissed at the Hunters before, these guys literally just blew up his home while he was still in it. He’s ready to tear out one of the Hunter’s spines and whip the other two to death with it. Elisa and the others try to talk Goliath down, but it’s not working. They’re right in that Goliath should let it go and Goliath is definitely not in his right mind, but you also can’t really blame Goliath for feeling the way he does. He knows that these Hunters are not going to leave him and his clan alone until he does something about it. Goliath has Lexington tweak the tracking devise so it can be used to track the Hunters and orders the Clan not to follow him.

Goliath tracks the hunters to a city dam where the hunters have been hiding their airship. Apparently it’s also a submersible. The Hunters attack Goliath and while the big guy does his best, he’s clearly not coping well with the numbers game. That is until Broadway and Elisa arrive to even the odds. Goliath fights Jason one on one and Elisa tries to break them up, but in the confusion, both Jason and Elisa are knocked off the edge of the dam and presumed dead, Goliath’s already deeply fragile mental state plunging even further into a need for vengeance. Goliath returns to Elisa’s apartment, the clan already aware of what happened thanks to the tracking device. An emotionally destroyed Goliath declares that the Hunters will pay for what they have done as the sun rises, a single tear remaining on Goliath’s stone cheek.

Back with the Hunters, John is not handling the death of his brother very well. Up until this point, John has been the most quick to question if what their family has done all these years is right and was also the one who chose to spare the Gargoyles. Now though, John is on an even bigger warpath than Goliath if that’s possible. He wants to wipe out all of the Gargoyles, and he wants to do it now. Things are definitely looking bad, but they’re about to get a whole hell of a lot worse. Robyn has finished encrypting a disc she stole from Night Stone and it reveals Demona’s master plan that’s been in the works for over five hundred years, and it’s a doozy. It’s called: Operation Clean Slate. Using the spell inscribed on the tablet she stole in Italy, Demona will bond the DI-7 chemical to Sevarius’s super virus, creating a pathogen that will wipe out all intelligent life on earth. However, the praying Gargoyle idol that Demona stole in Paris will ensure that Gargoyles will be the only sentient life to survive this plague. Since the ritual must be performed on holy ground, Demona has chosen St. Damian’s Cathedral as point zero.

As the Hunters head for the church, The Gargoyles are in pursuit. When the Gargoyles are spotted, an angry mob forms outside the church, demanding the police do something about the monsters, Bluestone doing all he can to stall the NYPD and prevent a riot from breaking out. The Hunters crash into the church and attack Demona in their own fancy high-tech suits. Xanatos’s are still cooler, it’s vitally important that I point that out. The rest of the Gargoyles show up and engage the Hunters, Demona slipping away in the chaos. It’s a knock out drag out brawl between the two forces, all while the angry mob outside grows harder and harder to quell. The Gargoyles are getting their asses kicked by the hunters until Angela smashes Robyn with one of the church pillars. John meanwhile is hellbent on killing Goliath and avenging his brother, but Goliath overpowers him and disables his suit. Goliath is about to deliver the killing blow until Elisa arrives and talks him down. Goliath is overjoyed to see Elisa alive but wonders how it’s possible. Turns out Jason saved her life. Jason, who not two episodes ago said “The Only Good Gargoyle is a Dead Gargoyle” has done a total character one eighty off-screen and is now convinced that hunting the Gargoyles is wrong. This is… really dumb. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he’s a good guy now, and he’s right about how the hunt will only bring his family further ruin, but you mean to tell me that Jason had his big change of heart that caused him to question everything he’s ever believed in for his entire adult life OFF SCREEN!? Come on! At least John’s abrupt character change made sense as he was mourning the supposed death of his brother. This? This comes right out of nowhere with no build up and makes the episode feel rushed. Anywho, Jason tries to talk John down, but John is beyond reason at this point. John tries to blast Goliath, but Jason intercepts it, severely injuring himself in the process. John then utters some very familiar words. “What have I… what have THEY done.” In his bid to destroy Demona, John has inadvertently become Demona, a being consumed with vengeance and blind to his own culpability. John declares that he will have his revenge and flies off.

This just leaves Demona, who’s moments away from completing the ritual to spread her plague. Goliath tries to talk sense into Demona, but there’s no reasoning with her, there never was. All Demona knows is vengeance, and all vengeance brings is further misery. Goliath knows that now. So, Goliath chooses to destroy the praying Gargoyle, meaning that the plague will kill Gargoyle kind as well. Enraged, Demona throws the virus cannister into the air, allowing herself to escape. Fortunately, Goliath catches the cannister, but there’s another problem, the crowd outside has become impossible to contain and Matt has no choice but to order the police to take in the Gargoyles, though makes a point to tell them to bring them in alive. It looks like our heroes are screwed until help arrives from the most unexpected of sources, my favorite and yours, David Xanatos (Jonathan Frakes, Take a… I’m sorry, I’m getting a bit choked up here, let me start again. Jonathan Frakes, Take… the Final Shot of the Gargoyles Drinking Game. If you survived, thank you for playing.) Anywho, Xanatos arrives in his helicopter and offers the Gargoyles a ride. Goliath, seeing no alternative, takes his former foe up on his offer.

Later, Elisa visits Jason in the hospital and while he’s going to pull through, it seems he’ll never walk again. Elisa appreciates all Jason has done, but she has to be honest, there’s someone else in her life who must always come first. Jason understands. Over at the Castle, it seems that Xanatos has finally seen fit to bury the hatchet. Afterall, the Gargoyles saved his son’s life as well as the entire world. The least Xanatos can do is allow them to return to their ancestral home of Castle Wyvern, no deceptions, no schemes, no strings attached. The feud is over, Xanatos no longer sees the Gargoyles as his enemy and hopes that this gesture will help in making that sentiment mutual. The Gargoyles are, of course, overjoyed to be back in the Castle as Goliath and Elisa discuss how things have come full circle. Goliath and Elisa share a tender moment where they finally openly admit their feelings for one another, culminating in the two sharing a kiss, Goliath’s smile remaining etched in his stone face as the sun rises over the city one last time.

So, the final episode of Gargoyles. I almost feel bad saying I have mixed feelings about it. I mean, there was a lot of good stuff in this episode, but I honestly felt it was lacking in a lot of key ways, especially for a season finale. I think my main issue here is the lack of buildup. Think about it. With the obvious exception of Awakening, all the big Multi-Part episodes had seeds planted throughout the series to set them up. City of Stone, The Gathering, even Avalon for all its flaws, all felt like the culmination of something we’ve been building to for a long time. This though, we were given virtually no build up for the hunters. We obviously knew about the original hunter, but we were given little to know hints that the line of the masked hunter didn’t end with Canmore back in medieval Scotland. We could easily have had Goliath encounter one of the Hunters during the World Tour Arc or something, but we got nothing. The Hunters just feel like three randos who just come out of nowhere and shit in everyone’s cornflakes. Speaking of buildup, we don’t even learn about Demona’s magical anti-human super virus until part three, and even then, the Gargoyles don’t even learn about it until the last five minutes. Don’t you think that the impending extinction of the human race deserved a little more attention that it actually got? This is part of why I say The Reckoning, the originally planned final episode, would have been a better choice. It wouldn’t have been perfect, but it would have felt like more of a finale. A dark mirror of the clan threatening the city, a villain with the combined strength and cunning of both Xanatos and Goliath who’s outsmarted both in the past. Demona, finally being forced to realize that her lust for vengeance has gone too far, achieving a small redemption but only at the cost of her very life? It has finale written all over it. Like I said, it wouldn’t have been perfect and would have needed a lot of tweaks to the story of the actual episode we got, but it would have at least felt like the finale we deserved. But then, maybe the lack of buildup was intentional. This episode ultimately wasn’t meant as a finale of all that’s come before but rather a lead in for the next chapter. That chapter, the dreaded Season 3.

So, let’s talk about season 3. Well, John comes back to act as the main villain for the rest of the show. He starts calling himself John Castaway for some reason and returns with a different personality, a different accent and even a different voice actor. If one didn’t know any better, they’d swear he was a completely different character. John remains a constant threat throughout the season while we’re treated to filler episodes that, frankly sound like the Family Guy parodies of bad Disney sequels. Goliath has to testify in court, Broadway becomes a celebrity chef, Bronx befriends a little Amish boy, it all sounds very “Aladdin 4: Jafar Needs Glasses” if you ask me. Hell, there’s actually an episode where Hudson needs glasses. I’m not saying season three was all bad. We had a couple good moments like Hudson’s blind friend Robbins finding out that Hudson’s a Gargoyle and being cool with it and Lexington finally letting go of his grudge against Fox, but couple that with the unceremonious death of a great villain like Thailog, a sequel episode to The New Olympians that no one asked for the trade in of complex and nuanced antagonists like Xanatos and Demona for a bunch of dime store Ku Klux Klan schmucks, I think the bad outweighs the good. Well, I hate to end this project that has meant so much to me on such a downer note, which is why we’re not done yet. We’ve covered a grand total of sixty-five episodes of Gargoyles and we’ve had a lot of fun doing it. But of all those episodes, which were the best. Well to find out, join me one last time as we finally put an end to Wes’s Guide to Gargoyles by counting down the Top Ten Episodes of the series.