In the sixteenth episode of the second season of Gargoyles, WHAT THE FUCK, Y’ALL, HOW DOES THIS SHOW GO SO HARD. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Gargoyles.Â
Trigger Warning: For discussion of consent
Hey, remember that tiny plot point ages ago that had no bearing on anything JUST FUCKING KIDDING, DR. SEVARIUS AND XANATOS USED GOLIATH’S BLOOD TO MAKE A CLONE OF HIM. Remember when I repeatedly told y’all over the last billion years that I love serialization and how it rewards the reader/watcher? This show appears to have been made just for me and no one else.
It’s so cool to discover it alongside all of you, of course, who have been hounding me kindly for years to watch Gargoyles. I have arrived, and this show has fucked me up. Where do I even start, y’all? This episode is so tragic, so sad and wistful that I don’t know how kids watched this in real time. Y’all, Goliath got a son, except his son was perfectly fine with manipulating and murdering him for… MONEY. Money! Why would a gargoyle ever need or want money?
Oh, let’s allow this tragedy to go even deeper. It wasn’t enough that Dr. Sevarius and Dr. Xanatos were able to create a gargoyle in the laboratory. See, Dr. Xanatos is so much more evil than his demeanor lets on. I can’t ignore that he is interested in power and control. The more of it that he has, the better. And in this particular case, he couldn’t merely “own” a gargoyle. That gargoyle had to be a philosophical twin of himself. Now, the writers don’t go into any of the details as to how this was possible, and frankly, I don’t care. The show’s use of science is so intermingled with fantasy that I’m fine with over-the-top proclamations and claims. Thailog, Goliath’s clone (OH MY GOD IT IS HIS NAME SORT-OF SPELLED BACKWARDS), was brainwashed. It’s the only way I can describe this properly, but I still feel like it’s not enough. Thialog never got to develop their own mind or personality during their “growth” as an individual. Instead, Xanatos plugged their mind with the sort of self-serving worship of capitalism and power that he believed in, and there are simply not enough words to convey how horribly fucked up that is. It shows us undoubtedly (as if there were any doubt about how gross Xanatos is) that he wanted to possess a gargoyle, to have one all to himself.
The irony is that Xanatos’s and Dr. Sevarius’s work backfired on them, and the very sense of selfishness that they gave Thialog is what helped him set-up a three-way con. He became an individual in spite of what these two men did to him. Of course, because this is Gargoyles, there’s not a joyous solution to this. Thialog doesn’t run into his “father’s” arms, and he doesn’t join the clan of gargoyles that already exists. No, he chooses himself, and Goliath is gifted a “son” as fast as he is taken away.
I DID NOT EXPECT THIS. I didn’t expect the double cross. I didn’t expect the show to take such a dark path, though I should have. This show has consistently been willing to go the distance with its characters, which means that I definitely believe that Thialog isn’t dead. HE’S GOING TO COME BACK, I KNOW IT.
Lord, what an episode. I can barely fathom this show being real, y’all. THANK YOU FOR IT.
The video for “Double Jeopardy” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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