In the twenty-sixth episode of the second season of Gargoyles, the magic of Avalon takes the group to a new location, where they meet an unfamiliar friend and a familiar adversary. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Gargoyles.Â
I initially chalked up some of my confusion over “Monsters” to the fact that I had barely rolled out of bed and had consumed far less than coffee than I should have before I started recording. There’s a decent story here (and one hell of an emotional meaning behind it), but there’s also some weird shit hanging ’round. Dr. Sevarius is recognized as a villain at this point, so it was clear that the writers didn’t bother developing him beyond that. Thus, his nefarious plan is… really confusing? He wanted the genetic material between the two Loch Ness monsters so he could do… things? And he seemed utterly unaware that there were actually four of the creatures and that two of them were children, so why not go after the much-easier-to-catch of the bunch than the two most difficult ones?
Then there’s the strangeness of one of Xanatos’s henchmen, who appears to have willingly crashed his submarine into Sevarius’s sub during the climactic battle. Maybe it was an accident? I don’t know; it’s never addressed on the screen. (Though I found it cool that Goliath saved that guy from drowning in the destroyed lab without question. More on that in a second.) So, there are elements of this story that aren’t perfect or necessarily coherent in a way I’m used to.
Yet I was still able to enjoy this episode a LOT, and I’ve got the powerful message at the core of it to thank for that. The gargoyles’ duty is to protect others, so it’s second nature for them to come to the defense of the Loch Ness monsters in this episode. But I’d like to argue that there’s a deeper meaning to this story. Even if these creatures are biologically or culturally different from the gargoyles, there’s a shared pattern here. The Loch Ness creatures are referred to as monsters, even though they’re far from it. Their identity is shoved upon them by humans, who treat them either as vicious, bloodthirsty demons or as sideshow horrors meant to be catalogued or hunted. The gargoyles arrive to discover that another human is subjecting these creatures to scientific tests at great expense to their well-being, and they immediately jump to their aid.
I’d like to believe that Goliath and Bronx recognized that even if they had been separated from the Loch Ness creatures by time and distance, they still could see a common struggle. Sometimes, that’s how things work in our world, and I loved the message that we should help other people who might be struggling with something similar to our own struggles. Here, those parallels are heightened even more by the idea of family. There’s that shocking reveal that Angela is the biological daughter of Goliath and Demona, but Angela doesn’t pass this information on to her father. In the moment, it doesn’t matter; to Goliath, she is already his daughter. That’s how gargoyle culture works! It doesn’t matter who gave birth to whom. All that matters is that a clan supports everyone, loves everyone unconditionally. Therefore, the glimpse of the Loch Ness family at the end is a reward. It’s a reminder that family can be a beautiful, powerful thing.
The video for “Monsters” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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