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Reawakening
Synopsis | Review by Juan F. Lara | Review by Todd Jensen
Overview
by Kieran Dunn
- Demona and Xanatos brought Coldstone, Goliath's rookery brother, back to life through a mixture of science and sorcery.
- A gargoyle's reason for being is to protect.
- The gargoyles now protect the entire island of Manhattan, not just a castle or a clock tower.
Synopsis
by Leigh Ann Hussey
Act I
Snow falls over Manhattan. A crook is holding up a little store. "This is the third time this month," the shopkeeper complains. "Yeah, well," the robber says, stuffing his bag. "We live in dangerous times." Snow whirls after him as he flees down the street.
Fade to: Scotland, 994 AD, Castle Wyvern. Demona insists they should all go with Goliath to track down the vikings (cf. Awakening, Part I, Act III and Vows), but Goliath demurs. As Goliath's rookery brother offers help, the Magus berates them for being there -- if they wait much longer, the vikings won't need tracking, they'll be at the gates. The gargoyles look angrily after him as he stomps away. Demona and Goliath's brother both think they should let the vikings have the castle, as they can survive anywhere, but the Mentor (who will be Hudson) interrupts them: "A gargoyle can no more stop protecting the castle than breathing the air." Goliath urges him to come along, then bids his brother to stay and guard; "I will see you soon," he tells him. "And you, my love, I never lose sight of," he says before he and the Mentor take off. She runs to the battlement and watches them go, and that tower fades to --
-- the clock tower, under the present day's snowfall. The young gargoyles are headed off to the movies; Hudson declines to join them: "Why go out in the snow to see something that will be on Cable soon enough? Besides, someone has to stay and guard our home." To Brooklyn's objection that they live over a police station and nothing could possibly happen, he responds with the old saying, "A gargoyle can no more stop protecting the castle --" which the boys finish for him, tiredly. Goliath gives them a heavy look. "We don't even live in a castle any more," Lex mutters. They greet the arriving Elisa, then take off. Irritated with the youngsters as he is, Goliath is less than cordial to Elisa, but is intrigued when she mentions the police motto, "Protect and Serve". "Protect whom? And serve how?" he asks. "The people," she replies, "We protect them and serve them -- and we do the same for each other." "You mean the police," Goliath says, "your clan." Goliath offers to go with her on her shift, thinking he might learn something from it, and Elisa agrees. Hudson watches them go, thoughtfully, then turns back to the TV.
Xanatos Tower. Strange lights and noises, clearly nefarious schemes in the works. In a lab lit by flashes of electricity, Demona and Xanatos are (as it was once said) "in their monst'rous glory," working over a shrouded figure laid out on a table. The two bicker as Demona messes with a brazier and something powdered while Xanatos messes with machinery. The idea is that since neither his science nor her sorcery have defeated Goliath, perhaps a combination of the two will do the trick. She casts a handful of her powder over the prone figure -- which we now see has electrical leads attached to it in spots; with the sorcery complete, it remains up to Xanatos' machine to finish the job. He throws a pair of knife-switches; lightnings flash and flow all over their "patient". From the brazier, white smoke rises, becoming a blinding white light that also flows into the body on the table. A hand emerges from under the covers -- and a growl. Xanatos, classically lit from below, cries, "It's alive! Alive! ...I've always wanted to say that." The body on the table sits up, sparking leads dropping off it, and the shroud falls away to reveal a shadowed gargoyle. "As you said," Demona answers, satisfaction evident, "it's alive."
"Do you remember me?" Demona asks. With a clanking of machinery, the gargoyle nods. Its eye turns to Xanatos with a whine of servos. "This is Xanatos," Demona explains, "my servant." Xanatos gives her a dirty look but says nothing. The gargoyle slides off the table, growling, "What am I?" Demona answers, "You are cold stone brought to life." "Cold...stone," he echoes. She presses him, and he begins to remember. Demona tells him Goliath abandoned them, seduced by the humans' beliefs, as she leads him to a mirror. "It is he who has turned you into this!" The gargoyle looks and recoils in horror and rage at the half-gargoyle, half-robot thing that he now is, then smashes the mirror.
Manhattan streets. Elisa stops the car outside the burgled store. Matt broods; he knows the shopkeeper and wishes they could protect him better. Elisa stays outside while Matt crunches over the snow into the shop, then hails Goliah over a tiny mic attached to her collar. Goliath answers, saying he could hear everything perfectly, then asks why the man doesn't leave and give up keeping the shop open. Elisa replies that the dying neighborhood is not worth a big store's attention, and if he closes, the neighborhood won't have a place to buy food. "That's more important to him than hiding in his own little castle." "His community needs him," Goliath muses.
Suddenly there's a radio call: all units, code 3 to Times Square. Matt runs out and they're off. On arrival, Officer Morgan tells them, "Whatever it is, he says, "it's big -- and it's mad." Elisa and Matt confront it with guns drawn, and Elisa is shocked to see a gargoyle shape through the spray of an uprooted fire hydrant. It hoists up a car, poised for a moment, and they shoot at it, but the bullets spark and bounce off. Elisa gasps; she and Matt back away.
Act II
Matt and Elisa take to their heels as the gargoyle heaves the car at them -- Goliath swoops down to grapple with the gargoyle as Elisa and Matt dive clear of the car. The gargoyle flings Goliath away and he dents a bus next to Elisa. "What is that?" she demands. The police turn their car spotlights on it and we get a clear, full-length view of Coldstone (as he named himself) for the first time. "It is...an abomination," Goliath answers. Coldstone gets a good look at Goliath. "Rookery brother? You betrayed us!" He flings out his arm to point at Goliath and a blaster pops out of his forearm and fires on Goliath and Elisa. Coldstone looks down at his own arm in amazement: "What sorcery is this?" As he gawks Goliath attacks him with a flying kick. Coldstone quits wondering at his new weapon and just uses it, burying Goliath under a pile of stone. Elisa moves to help, but Matt restrains her.
Goliath and Coldstone wrestle, Goliath realizing, "You are my brother!" "And you are my betrayer!" Coldstone retorts, letting off another blast, which hits the theatre where the boys are watching their movie from the deserted balcony. "That surround sound sure is great," Broadways says around a mouthful of popcorn. Lex answers, "I don't remember any explosions in Bambi!"
Meanwhile, a fall of building stone knocks Goliath down and out; Coldstone picks him up, vowing, "Now you will pay for destroying me and our clan!" A curious discus whizzes through the air out of nowhere and strikes Coldstone's arm, setting off sparks. Broadway's enraged voice: "Put him down, ugly! And I mean now!" Lex pounds a second tire so that its hubcap flies off into the hand of Brooklyn, who flings the cap like a frisbee at the astonished Coldstone, who drops Goliath. "Goliath," Brooklyn asks, "what is that thing??" "It is one of us...or used to be." Coldstone targets them all and raises his blaster.
Xanatos watches his Coldstone-eye view from a monitor in his office, commenting to Demona, "Looks like our boy is having trouble making friends."
"Why are you attacking us?" Goliath demands. "You betrayed, the clan, destroyed it!" Coldstone answers. Goliath returns, "We were all betrayed." "Too true," comes Demona's voice from above, and down fly she and two steel clan garg-bots, one silver, one red.
"You told him these lies," Goliath realizes. He cries, "I lived for my clan!" "And they died for you," she retorts, "smashed to dust by the humans you trusted." Matt and Elisa, meanwhile, wonder what can be done.
Demona tells Goliath, "You have your clan, and I have mine." "You have no clan!" he shouts. "You don't know the meaning of the word!" Her response is only, "Destroy them, Coldstone." But Xanatos forestalls her; "I want them alive!" She rejects this. "Destroy them and we will survive!"
"Survive?" Coldstone repeats. "Like this?" Demona continues to rant. Coldstone pauses. Goliath interjects, "There has been enough death. There are so few of us left, my brother." The moment is broken by the arrival of the press, and Elisa murmurs into her mic, "Goliath, you don't want this on the 11 o'clock news." Goliath, saying, "I'm sure you can communicate through your robots," suggests to Xanatos that perhaps they all should move to somewhere a little less fragile to prevent any further damage to his city. Xanatos agrees -- Elisa hears through her link where they propose to reconvene, and promises to be there with help. They all take off -- Goliath and the boys after climbing a building -- and Matt remarks, "It's over? Just like that?" Elisa responds, "Not hardly."
Act III
The tower. Hudson sees the news report on TV. "Looks like trouble, boy." Bronx is eager to help and Hudson gets up, but immediately arrives at a quandary: "If we go, there'll be no one to guard the tower!"
A blockaded bridge under construction. The gargoyles arrive first, on one of the towers. A laser beam blasts down among them from above, knocking them every which way. "Remind me to be fashionably late next time," Brooklyn remarks. Demona and the others attack. Demona fires on Brooklyn, who dodges, then drops on her from above, knocking the cannon away and saying, "Got any spells to save you now?" (cf. Temptation). Struggling, they land hard and are knocked senseless.
Broadway slaloms through the suspension cables with the red garg-bot in hot pursuit; Goliath and Coldstone grapple on a tower, Goliath unwilling to hurt his brother, who insists, "You already have!"
Lex disposes of the other robot with some fancy manoeuvres that make it fly into a wall. "They always fall for that trick!" he exults. Just as the red robot, having trapped Broadway by snapping some of the bridge cables, which whip around him and suspend him spread-eagled, is flying down with blaster at ready, Lex hurtles down on top of it, driving it off course to fall onto the bridge. Lex lands to check on Brooklyn as the robot totters around then screws off its head to reveal Xanatos underneath, to the gargoyles' surprise. Just then, there's a cry overhead and Coldstone and Goliath plummet into the icy river.
As they sink slowly, Hudson's proverb echoes... "protect..." and Goliath reaches out once to grip Coldstone's wrist; then his hand falls away. An unreadable look crosses Coldstone's face, and suddenly his hand lunges to grab Goliath's wrist.
The boys, working to free Broadway, see Coldstone rocket out of the water with Goliath. "He lives," Coldstone tells them. Which is more than Demona plans for them. She thanks Coldstone for saving Goliath for her. Coldstone says, "You say that destroying my brother is the only way to survive. Is that all there is for us? Mere survival?" "Isn't that enough?" she asks. "No!" Goliath answers. "Gargoyles protect. It is our nature. Our purpose. To lose that is to be corrupt, empty ... lifeless." "And what do you protect?" Coldstone demands, but Demona interrupts them with a laser blast; Coldstone leaps in front of Goliath and takes the shot meant for him. He falls with a cry, arcs running over his body, back into the river. Goliath dives in after him at once.
The boys watch from the rail -- Demona is about to gun them all down, but a blast from the side drives the cannon from her hands. "I told you before," Xanatos says, blaster retracting into the forearm of his armor, "I want them alive." Just then, baying like the Hound of the Baskervilles, Bronx charges up and attacks Xanatos, knocking him down; Hudson and Elisa are not far behind him. "It's over, Xanatos," she says. "I don't think so," says he, and firing his booster, takes off from under Bronx. Scooping up an outraged Demona on his way, he makes good his escape.
Everyone looks gloomy. Elisa asks, "Is everyone okay? What happened to the monster?" "He was not a monster. He was family," says Goliath, stiff with anger and grief, streaming with river water, "and now he's gone." Looking at the boys, he takes a deep breath and unbends. "Let's go home."
On the bridge tower, Lex and Brooklyn ask Goliath, "What do we protect?" "The clock tower," Hudson answers grandly. "No," Goliath says. "That is merely where we sleep. This island: Manhattan. This is our castle. From this day forward, we protect all who live here, human and gargoyle alike." Elisa asks him, "Are you alright? Is there anything you need?" "Yes," he answers, "I need...a detective." They fly home.
Daylight; the same crook from Scene 1 bursts into the same store. "Aw, not again!" groans the shopkeeper. But the crook says he's not there to rob, as he pours the money out of his bag. "Do me a favor, willya? Call the cops so I can turn myself in." "Wha-- ? Why?" "Coz six monsters just told me to," he answers, cringing under the counter.
On the roof of a brownstone across the street, Elisa looks down from amidst the stone Goliath & Co. "You know what, guys?" she says. "The city feels safer already."
Review
by Juan F. Lara
This episode had plotholes, but I still liked it a lot becaused it focused on some intriguing aspects of gargoyle culture.
Coldstone: You said that destroying my brother is the only way to survive.
Is that all there is for us, mere survival?
Demona: Isn't that enough?
Goliath: No. Gargoyles protect. It is our nature. Our purpose. To lose
that is to be corrupt. Empty. Lifeless.
So gargoyles have apparently made their job of protection one of their most important values. The episode mainly focused on how Goliath felt about that value. He was troubled by having nothing to protect during the first act, and I thought Keith David's acting and the artwork for Goliath's facial expressions made his feelings very vivid. Then he had those two dramatic arguments with Demona in Act 2 and Act 3. I admired Goliath's sense of principle in those scenes.
The other Gargoyles had their own attitudes toward this value. Hudson kept repeating his saying, but thought of it more literally than Goliath ("But what do we protect?" "The clock tower.") The young gargoyles meanwhile thought about it only superficially ("We don't even live in a castle anymore.") (I wonder how this value got extended to protecting humans. Probably out of a partnership humans and gargoyles once formed in order to survive.)
"Her Brother's Keeper" forshadowed "Reawakening" somewhat in that there Goliath noted to the young ones that they were rookery brothers and that he lost all his own brothers. I'm speculating that maybe the parents gather all their eggs in a rookery and then the hatchlings are raised communely.
Some Specific Points
Hudson: A gargoyle can no more stop protection the castle than breathing the air.
Goliath stated that the cold didn't bother gargoyles. Hence no need to change clothing. I wondered then if the cold of the river wasn't a problem for Goliath and Coldstone, but they were in danger of drowning instead.
The creators were specifically parodying the '30's movie "Frankenstein" in the scene of Coldstone's revival, complete with Van de Graff generators that shoot out lightning. The effects looked great because of good animation, but the scene felt a little out of place in the "Gargoyles" reality. Magic may be frequently used in the series, but bringing back the dead felt like a stretch.
Xanatos: IT'S ALIVE!!! ALIVE!!!! ....I always wanted to say that.
(Later:)
Demona: As you said, it's alive.
(Funny scene, but I wonder if the joke wasn't too cheap to use Xanatos for.
He might've been just kidding, but his exclamation still felt very
jarring.)
We just had a string about Eliza not dressing more warmly for winter. Here she often complained about the cold weather, even though she added only a scarf to her outfit. Brother. :-)
I wonder how Coldstone wound up in Times Square. Did he fly out of the lab in a rage and just wound up there by chance? Or did Xanatos and Demona drop him off there telling him to get Goliath's attention by trashing the place? ( Either way, I guess Times Square is the place for men to go to find places where they can release their frustrations. :-)
Coldstone himself didn't have much to do besides fight and save Goliath, and he was disoriented by his new Steel Clan parts. So he had little personality development. But I'm hoping to see him again next season, and find out more about his character. (BTW: Was anybody else reminded of Taurus Bulba in the DWD episode "Steerminator".)
Eliza called out Goliath's name in front of Matt. So she'll have to explain that to him. I wonder exactly how she ditched Matt to get to the bridge.
Broadway: Boy, that SurroundSound sure is great.
Lexington: I don't remember any explosions in "Bambi".
(ROTFL :-D)
I thought that Xanatos had a partnership only out of convenience with Demona. He needed her spells and background. But most of the time, Xanatos had to keep her on a short leash else she ruin everything.
Lexington: (After the robot crashed into the bridge. ) They always fall for that trick. ( Xanatos really has to work on the maneuverability of his robots. :-)
I'm so-so about the scene underwater. That scene had great background music. I liked the expression on Goliath's face, and Coldstone suddenly grabbing him. But I was confused by that scene. The reason for Coldstone saving Goliath after just trying to kill him was unclear, but I guess his brotherly love for him and doubts about Demona made him change his mind. What the Hudson saying was referring to was also vague to me.
Coldstone suffered the traditional comic-book convention of being aparently killed but his body not being found. :-) I'm certain he's still alive, though, and so I await future appearances of him next season.
The episode finally set up the Gargoyles as crimefighters. I liked how Goliath's decision flowed from the theme of "gargoyles protect". But they left plenty of other threads unresolved until next season.
Eliza: Are you all right? Is there anything you need?
Goliath: Yes, I need...a detective.
(Great closure with the premiere episode.)
Michael Dorn played Coldstone, and so we had a mini-ST:TNG reunion in the lab. :-) Tom Wilson played Matt Bluestone and Charles Halahan played Travis Marshall.
It was perhaps foolish for the Gargoyles to deal with that crook at dawn, as that left them stone far away from home. Did Eliza have to stay with them all day to protect them?
Curious observation. Hudson took the "gargoyles protect" credo more literally than anyone else. He said he was guarding "the clock tower", although anyone attacking the tower would be after the Gargoyles instead of the tower. That contrasts a bit with his attitude in "Enter Macbeth", where he acknowledged that the castle was "just a place of stone and wood."
(Actually, with Xanatos lurking about, the tower did need to be guarded, from Xanatos. So the young ones were a bit naive in thinking that nothing could happen.)
Brooklyn: Got any spells to save you now? ( Neat "Temptation" reference)
Owen was nowhere to be seen in this episode. I guess he finally got a night off, and I'm sure Xanatos learned to appreciate him after dealing with Demona. :-)
Goliath: This island. Manhattan. This is our castle. (Oh, great. Something new for the Manhattan Borough President to brag about. :-)
Commentary/Review
by Todd Jensen
This episode concludes the first season of "Gargoyles", and does so in a very effective fashion. Not only does it re-unite the team of Xanatos and Demona from "Awakening", but it also serves as a turning point for the clan, as it finally finds a new purpose in the modern world.
Throughout the first season, the gargoyles' adventures had focused mainly around surviving the immediate threats that were directed at them from their various adversaries: Xanatos, Demona, the Pack, and Macbeth. They had occasionally embarked on a little crime-fighting beyond that (Goliath saving Brendan and Margot from robbers in "Awakening Part Three", Goliath and Broadway battling Dracon and his men in "Deadly Force"), but had focused on preserving their own lives and liberty, and making sense of their new surroundings. But, as we look inside the clock tower near the beginning of this episode, we see that that may not be enough. Once, they had protected Castle Wyvern and its inhabitants from Vikings and other marauders; now they merely live in a deserted room at the top of a clock tower, which everyone other than themselves (and Elisa) ignores. They no longer have the purpose of defending their home that they had had a thousand years before, and while the trio and Hudson do not appear greatly concerned over it, Goliath clearly is.
When Elisa alludes to the police motto of "Protect and serve", Goliath is immediately intrigued (particularly, no doubt, thanks to the first word in the motto), and decides to follow her on her patrol, to find out more. When she and Matt visit Mr. Jaffe's grocery store (which was robbed in the opening scene of the episode - and, it turns out, twice before in the same month), Goliath (in a manner almost evoking his earlier questions to her about the city in "Awakening Part Three") asks Elisa why the storekeeper chooses to remain in such a crime-heavy neighborhood. After Elisa explains that Mr. Jaffe does so in order to provide a place where the locals can buy food - which is more important to him than merely staying safe - Goliath nods thoughtfully, saying, "His community needs him."
In the meantime, in a very dramatic scene (one of my favorite moments in the episode), Xanatos and Demona have brought back to a semi-life the shattered remnants of one of the gargoyles from the Wyvern Massacre (in Season Two, we will find out that the "shattered remnants" aspect was much more complicated), augmented by mechanical parts, producing the cybernetic gargoyle whom Demona christens "Coldstone". (The sequence is handled as a hommage to the movie "Frankenstein", complete with Xanatos shouting out at the climax, "It's alive! It's alive!" - then immediately adding, in a typically Xanatosian fashion, "I've always wanted to say that.") Demona quickly convinces Coldstone that he has been reduced to his current distorted condition through Goliath's treachery. Coldstone promptly responds by heading out into the city in a rage, to wind up facing Goliath and the trio, first at Times Square, then at the George Washington Bridge, assisted temporarily by Xanatos (in his gargoyle armor once again), Demona, and a Steel Clan robot. Goliath, initially repelled by Coldstone's bizarre condition, quickly changes his mind when he discovers his new opponent to be one of his old rookery siblings, and reaches out to him. Coldstone remains hostile for a while, but at last comes to understand the truth, and even saves Goliath's life twice - first by rescuing him from the river, and then taking a shot for him from Demona's laser cannon, that seemingly sends him to his death in the river (though it will turn out in Season Two that he survived).
The battle at the George Washington Bridge also brings to its denoument Goliath's musings over the new direction for the clan in his argument with Demona; where Demona is concerned only with the survival of her kind, under any form (so long as it matches her vision as to how the gargoyles should live), Goliath points out that there is something more than mere continuing for his species: "Gargoyles protect. That is their nature, their purpose. To lose that is to become corrupt, empty, lifeless." After the battle is over, he elaborates further to Elisa and the rest of the clan, with the understanding that he has gained that the gargoyles indeed have a new castle to protect - the island of Manhattan. From now on, they will protect the inhabitants of the island, which translates, of course, into crime-fighting. It makes an effective touch (and one of the things that caused "Gargoyles" to stand out so) that the gargoyles took up this function not just out of the standard attitude of the protagonists of an animated series, but as an organic development from their original lives in the 10th century.
The episode contains its usual display of excellent animation, desperate battles, and fine touches of characterization and even comic relief. (Highlights that I have not yet mentioned include Demona introducing Xanatos to Coldstone as her servant - followed by Xanatos immediately delivering her a dirty look, Coldstone operating his laser cannon for the first time in his battle with Goliath and then staring at it in horrified confusion, and the trio watching "Bambi" during Goliath and Coldstone's battle outside.) There are also many strong echoes of "Awakening" to give the feeling of "coming full circle" (a technique that would be re-used in "Hunter's Moon"): Xanatos and Demona as allies again, another flashback to 994 (showing us Coldstone in his original condition, alongside the familiar elements of the Magus's prejudice towards the clan, Demona's answering bitterness, and Goliath's love for her before her fall), and Goliath's "Awakening" pronunciation of "detective" (alongside the already-mentioned concept of "Goliath accompanies Elisa about the city in order to learn from her more about it").
There are only two weak points in an otherwise fine episode. One is that Xanatos and Demona reach Times Square with amazing haste; one moment they are watching the battle there on Xanatos's monitor in the castle, then, just a couple of minutes later, they arrive on the scene, with Xanatos already suited up in his armor. The other is that it is unclear why Xanatos is trying to capture the gargoyles (from his statement to Demona, "I want them alive", we can tell that his objective was to capture rather than to kill them). It is hardly likely that he could seriously believe that Goliath could be duped into working for him again, or that the gargoyles could be forced to serve him against their wishes, after all that he had seen of the clan already. So what would he do if he caught them? It feels almost as if the writers were having Xanatos pursue the gargoyles simply because he was the main antagonist in the series; fortunately, Season Two would handle this better, by making Xanatos's "direct attacks" on the clan (such as in "Leader of the Pack") turn out to have an ulterior motive, and including only one occasion of an actual gargoyle capture, in "The Price", where Xanatos does have a convincing use for a gargoyle. (Of course, one could argue that Xanatos's real goal was trying out Coldstone before using him for other errands - such as the raid on the Golden Cup Bakery Building at the beginning of "Legion".) At least this does not detract from the greatness of "Re-Awakening".
And so we say farewell (for a time) to our heroes, resting in their stone sleep after having gotten at least one thief to turn himself in, with Elisa saying happily, "The city feels safer already"....
Tidbits
"Re-Awakening" was originally entitled "Awakening", but that name was later on applied to the series opener instead. The final title, of course, serves as another link to "Awakening".
Travis Marshall and Officer Morgan have cameos in the episode, and Mr. Jaffe (who would reappear in "Eye of the Beholder" and "Protection") is introduced.
In a nice continuity link to "The Edge", Goliath continues to assume that the "red-armored Steel Clan robot" is only that, and when he addresses Xanatos, does so believing that Xanatos is at home directing the operations through a remote communications link and receiving Goliath's message through it. It is not until Xanatos removes his helmet in the battle at the George Washington Bridge that the gargoyles discover the truth.
Brooklyn again displays his grudge against Demona from "Temptation", during the battle at the George Washington Bridge.