In the twenty-first episode of the second season of Gargoyles, I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS ARC. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Gargoyles.
I’m not ready, and it’s so great, y’all. What do I say here that I haven’t already written like twenty times prior to this? SERIALIZATION! Emotionally complex stories! Engaging flashbacks! This is a heavy story, one about loyalty amidst the kind of betrayal that’s almost cartoonishly (lol) evil. Somehow, Elisa, Bronx, and Goliath are going to play a major part in history… sort of? I haven’t quite figured out the timeline, and its possible that due to the magic of Avalon, this isn’t actually the past, just somewhere that actually lives outside of time.
Regardless, this episode was fun from the start. So much of Gargoyles deals with being an outsider, and you can see that theme in the gargoyles themselves, as well as Elisa. Each of them, because of what has happened in the past, no longer fits into the world that they live in. Tom, through the magic of Avalon, arrives in modern Manhattan, where he is promptly fought because this is a 100% canonical example of how all people are greeted in this city. (No joke: we got flipped off THREE TIMES after crossing the George Washington Bridge. THREE.) It’s a lot of fun to watch him not understand anything (and largely not care about it either), but the news he brought with him was the most important part of it all. The gargoyle eggs saved from Castle Wyvern were in peril!
Look, I didn’t even think they survived a thousand-year cycle, and there were no other gargoyles in the world. How could Tom be telling the truth? CUE AN INCREDIBLE FLASHBACK, OF COURSE. It’s a testament to the writing of this show that we can get a flashback that has none of the main characters in it at all, and yet it’s still riveting and interesting. Again, it’s a dense tale for a children’s show, but I respect that all the political intrigue still makes its way into these scripts. Here, the survivors of the Castle Wyvern attack go from one disaster to another after Constantine murders the king of Scotland (THERE’S SO MUCH MURDER IN THIS SHOW) and tries to make Princess Katherine his queen. I was pleased that Tom and his mother moved from background characters to main ones, even if that meant that I had to have my heart ripped out when they got separated.
It’s a smart move, too, because I could see how kids would relate to Tom or at least be able to see themselves in “Avalon, Part One” through his role as the Guardian. It’s clear, too, that he has remained dedicated to this position for a long, long time. (I can’t even do the math that would extrapolate how “old” Tom actually is, either, since an hour on Avalon is an hour in our world. I also don’t understand how the Archmage plays into this, since he was dead by this part of the story. But… magic? Something magic happened?
Regardless, this is a great introduction to this arc, full of tragedy, sadness, action, and perhaps my favorite cliffhanger yet. Why? Y’all, it has taken so much patience to just write a review instead of shrieking in all-caps about there being MORE GARGOYLES. THERE ARE MORE GARGOYLES. THEY’VE BEEN ON AVALON THIS ENTIRE TIME. Do they have names??? Who will be friends with me? Will they get to leave Avalon and see what happened to the world? Oh god, will they survive this arc? I have too many questions and worries, and I’m just gonna stop yelling so that I can watch more of this glorious show. Thank you so much for it, y’all.
The video for “Avalon, Part I” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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