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Hunter's Moon, Part II
Synopsis | Review by Juan F. Lara | Review by Todd Jensen
Overview
- Elisa saved Angela's life with CPR.
- The leader of the Hunters is Elisa's new partner.
- Goliath searched out and attacked the Hunters, only to be captured along with Demona.
- They escape, but the Hunters track them to the clock tower and destroy it.
Synopsis
by Adam Cerling
Act I
In the depth of a Florentine night in 1495, Demona shatters a window and enters a fire-lit study. She tears through the bookshelves there, searching for something, until she finds it: the Medicci Tablet, an ancient slab of stone covered with arcane carvings. "At last," she says, holding it up to the firelight, "after all these centuries! Revenge is indeed a dish best served cold."
Escaping through the window into the skies, she has little time to savor her triumph. A flying device straight from Da Vinci's notebooks, piloted by a man masked in red and black, assaults her mid-flight. "Hunter!" she names him, and dives to take the fight just above the Florence streets. The Hunter gives chase. A push of a lever on his glider sends a volley of spears after Demona, and she barely dodges. The combatants soar, dive, and find themselves above the river. Demona tries to scrape her pursuer off by flying beneath a bridge, but the Hunter takes the high road and cuts her off. His craft entangles Demona in a net, and she plummets helplessly into the river. Eagerly the Hunter lands his machine and wades into the river to retrieve her -- but only the shredded net awaits his retrieval. As he screams into the night, vowing that his family will hunt her another five hundred years if necessary, Demona pulls herself out of the river and takes flight, still carrying the Medicci tablet.
In present-day Manhattan, however, Demona's daughter now fights for her life, having been gravely wounded by the Hunters. Goliath and the other Gargoyles urge her to keep fighting, until dawn comes, which will heal her, but Angela is too weak. Her breathing stops. Elisa, arriving by the stairs, sees this and hurries to act; the Gargoyles look on in agonized suspense as Elisa gives Angela CPR. After an eternity, Angela gasps for breath. The Gargoyles crowd around Angela even as Goliath put his hand on Elisa's shoulder in thanks. Elisa brushes it off. "CPR. The gift that keeps on giving. What happened to her?" Goliath explains the night's attack, and Brooklyn adds to this the news that Demona still lives [cf. The Reckoning]. "They call themselves Hunters," says Goliath of the masked humans. "But soon, they will be the prey. My prey."
Exiting the police station, Matt Bluestone is ambushed by reporters eager to have the police perspective on the recent rash of Gargoyle sightings. Matt laughs it off and gushes instead about UFOs and Easter Island. Behind him, Elisa pulls her temporary partner Jason past the media interrogation and into her car. There's a crime scene to investigate. Jason jokingly suggests that Elisa is worried that the reporters might grill her on Gargoyles. Elisa can't quite laugh it off; a lame excuse betrays her preoccupation with something troubling. She drives them both to the warehouse robbed the last night.
At the warehouse, before they exit the car, Jason asks Elisa what the real problem is. Elisa reveals that "a friend" of hers was assaulted last night, and she feels overwhelmed. Jason sympathizes with her; he is all too familiar with the feelings Elisa has. He and Elisa share a moment of understanding before Elisa, becoming self-conscious, pushes Jason away, wryly telling him to go check the point of entry.
Elisa finds Owen inside the warehouse, examining the goods and taking notes. Elisa considers this evidence that Xanatos is once again in league with Demona, the one who robbed the warehouse. Owen denies it. Elisa tries to press him further, but he insists that Xanatos has no bad feelings toward the Gargoyles; in fact, he is grateful for their help saving his son Alexander [cf. The Gathering]. Elisa, still suspicious, walks out.
In front of the warehouse, Jason beckons Elisa to come examine a torn piece of steel. Four deep grooves scar its surface. Elisa denies ever having seen its like. "Looks like claw marks," Jason muses, "but... what could be strong enough to leave claw marks in solid steel?"
Act II
That afternoon, Demona, in her human guise [cf. The Mirror], introduces Robyn to biogeneticist Dr. Sevarius. Demona tells Sevarius that the "tailored biological" must be ready by Hunter's Moon, and Sevarius tells her that it's already done. He puts a picture of the biological on a monitor and begins explaining it, in technical terms, to the two women. Robyn interrupts him; she recognizes it as a virus. Sevarius explains that it is only a carrier virus, intrinsically harmless. Demona says it could carry a cure, but Robyn knows it could carry a disease as easily. "Either way," she says, "it seems a most profitable endeavor." Demona smiles. "I think you're going to fit in just fine, Robyn." Demona takes a container of the prepared carrier virus and places it in a vault beside an identical canister. Beside these rest the Praying Gargoyle and the Medicci Tablet.
With a day of sleep comes healing, and at the clock tower, Angela is left only a bit tired. "The ones who attacked you will suffer," says Goliath gravely. "I will see to that." Angela follows his from the tower. "We both will." The entire clan disperses from the tower, with orders from Goliath that any who discover the Hunters are to return and report. The fight will be Goliath's to finish.
Elisa pokes her head into the tower and sighs to find it empty. She returns to her car, where Jason meets her. He asks after the health of her "friend." Elisa says she thinks a good night's sleep helped. Jason continues to probe. "Are you all right?" "Sure," Elisa replies, "don't worry about me. I'm a rock." She opens her car door. "Well," Jason says lamely, turning to go. "See you later." Elisa takes the opening. "Hey... you wanna have dinner?"
"Hope you don't mind... I just wasn't up to a crowded restaurant," Elisa tells Jason as they enter her apartment. "Besides, I've got one of the best-stocked refrigerators on the East Coast. With friends like mine," she adds to herself, "it's safer." Cagney greets Jason cordially enough to force Elisa to take the cat out of her guest's arms. As Elisa sets Cagney down, Jason stands behind her quietly, turns her around gently; they kiss. And Goliath, peering through the window, draws back behind a wall, surprised and hurt... but he remains there, unable to pull himself away.
"Wait... we shouldn't." Elisa pushes Jason away and turns her back to him.
"What's wrong?"
"Well... for one thing, were partners."
"Temporarily! In a week you'll be back on night shift, with Bluestone."
Elisa pulls away from the hands she feels on her shoulders.
"There's someone else," Jason realizes.
"Yes... No, not really." She sighs. "...I mean, there's someone I care for
deeply... but... it would be impossible to get involved with him."
Goliath, watching through the window (can he hear her?), turns at last and
takes off into the night.
Jason apologizes. He feels lonely, he begins to explain... but he gives up.
Elisa is silent, not knowing what to say, as he leaves the apartment.
Goliath soars through the night, his features like chiseled ice. He happens upon the Hunter hovercraft, gliding in plain sight high above the streets of the city. Goliath plunges after it in anger. Brooklyn and Lexington see and intercept him. "I thought you were going to get Elisa," Lex comments as Goliath slows his flight. "She," Goliath rumbles, "wasn't available." Brooklyn asks whether they'll go back to the clock tower for the others, now that they've found the Hunters. "No," Goliath says angrily, "we take them now!"
In the cockpit of the craft, John tells Robyn that he thinks the hovercraft is bound to attract too much attention. Robyn knows it will. That's the point.
"This doesn't strike you as a tad reckless?" asks Brooklyn after he, Goliath and Lexington break into the hovercraft. Goliath growls. He leads Lex and Brooklyn deeper into the ship. In one corridor, they surprise Demona as she pulls herself through a conduit, laser rifle in hand. Goliath quickly jumps her and flings the rifle aside. He demands to know whether she is in league with the Hunters. Demona denies it and hurls Goliath away. Brooklyn and Lex tackle Demona. "We're all in danger here!" she cries. "I do not believe you," replies Goliath. Demona struggles; she and Goliath reach for her rifle. Laser fire blackens the floor before their hands, and John the Hunter enters behind it. Robyn drops into the corridor behind the Gargoyles. "Believe her," she says, leveling her weapon.
Act III
Because Robyn thinks all three Hunters should be present for the coup de grace, she and John imprison Demona, Goliath, Brooklyn and Lex in an electrified cell. Goliath listens now to the explanation Demona offers after the two Hunters leave. Demona reveals that this family has hunted her for a thousand years. They killed the last Gargoyles of Scotland. Demona is present for the same reason the others are: to put an end to the Hunters' vendetta. Goliath strengthens Demona's resolve with the news that the Hunters nearly killed Angela. Demona agrees to help them escape. "I do not want escape," says Goliath. "I want vengeance!" "Perhaps," Demona says, "You can have a little of both." "There is no such thing as a little vengeance." "At last," Demona smiles, "you're thinking like a true Gargoyle." She does, however, emphasize that escape is the key option now. Goliath is reluctantly persuaded. Demona and Lexington use Demona's gold armband to short out the electricity to the cell. An alarm sounds, and the two Hunters come running. The four Gargoyles subdues them quickly, this time; the Hunters are electrocuted during the fight, and fall unconscious to the floor. The gargoyles believe them dead. Goliath is not sated; he wants their leader. Demona, however, tells him that she has waited one thousand years for vengeance. He can wait two nights.
"You did well, Goliath," Demona tells her former mate as they soar through the Manhattan sky. "Perhaps you and I are not so different after all." "Perhaps not," Goliath admits. Demona departs on her own way. "Goliath!" Brooklyn is appalled. "You're letting her go?" "She was not our enemy tonight," Goliath reasons. Brooklyn reminds Goliath of Demona's recent robbery, but Goliath only pushes that out of his mind. They head back to the clock tower.
The leader of the Hunters, in costume and mask, returns to the hovercraft only to be greeted by his empty-handed siblings. He is furious. Robyn defuses him with an explanation that there are new Gargoyles now. Showing him video of Lex and Brooklyn, she says that any number could be hiding in New York. The third Hunter doesn't care; he's ready to exterminate all of the new Gargoyles as well. John argues against this. He listened in on the conversation in the cell, and he thinks the new Gargoyles were enemies of the "Demon" prior to the Hunters' attack on "the big one's daughter." And still the third hunter is unpacified. He pulls off his mask in anger--it is Jason. He rants about their father's vow and their own to hunt the Demon a hundred years if needed. Robyn then smooths his anger. "We let them go so that we could follow them back to their lair. We'll destroy them all at once."
Goliath, Lex, and Brooklyn return to the clock tower to meet the others. Goliath reports that the Hunters "have been dealt a major blow." Lex and Brooklyn look at each other uncomfortably.
The Hunters direct their hovercraft in pursuit of a tracking signal emitted by a device Robyn planted on one of the Gargoyles. Jason asks Robyn why she didn't plant it on the Demon instead. Robyn says it wasn't necessary -- she already knows where to find the Demon. "You almost have to admire them," Robyn remarks as they reach the clock tower. "Hiding in plain sight above the police station." Jason's eager to go in and take them out, but Robyn has other plans. She begins aiming missiles. "You can't do this!" objects John. "That's a building full of people!" Robyn brushes aside his protest. "I'll make sure it's a surgical strike." John reasons further that, should they wait until daylight, it will be easy enough to go in and shatter the Gargoyles. Robyn counters with her ace in the hole: the true identity of Dominique Destine, the human, as Demona, the gargoyle. Robyn argues that Demona could have shared this sorcery with the other gargoyles, so that they could all walk among humans during the day. Jason makes the final decision. "Do it." He and John head out on sky bikes to make sure there will be no survivors.
As he and John fly toward the clock tower on the bikes, Jason glances down at the street. He sees Elisa step out of her car and enter the police station. "No, not now!" He plunges in pursuit of her.
"Twenty seconds." Robyn opens a small cover amidst the missile controls.
Jason's bike bursts through the glass doors of the police station. People dodge desperately out of his way as he pilots the bike through the halls. Elisa turns around just in time to gasp.
"Ten seconds." Robyn's slim fingers hover over the launch button.
Inside the clock tower, Goliath tells of the night's encounter with the Hunters. "Two of them have paid for what they did to you, Angela," Goliath tells his daughter and the others, but Lexington exclaims, "Goliath!"
"Fire."
Two missiles streak forward from the hovercraft and strike home. The clock tower is obliterated in a burst of fire and deafening noise.
Review
by Juan F. Lara
The middle episode of the season finale was the best part, IMHO.
Good Points
I was very impressed by how they handled the conflicts Elisa felt over her feelings. Part 1 didn't really give any reason for Elisa falling for Jason, beyond superficial ones like how good looking and supercompetant Jason was. But Jason began to show some depth in Act 1, when he talked about his own feelings of frustration to make Elisa feel better. Elisa and Jason found some common ground in that scene, making Elisa's attraction to him more believable.
Elisa then had excellently written lines in her scene with Jason in Act 2. Her attempt to have a relationship with Jason forced her to acknowledge out loud that she did care for Goliath more than as a friend, but she still tried to dismiss her feelings as she's done before. Even so, we saw Elisa undergo a major turning point in her life, and Salli Richardson's lines and acting expressed her conflict in a sophisticated manner.
Demona had a more active role here than in Part 1, and so had more interesting things to do. The multiparter continued its reversion to "Awakening" in having Goliath and Demona work together as willing partners. In the cage scene in Act 2, she acted like she was just another member of the clan, staying in control for the most part and helping out in their escape. (She even ironically advised Goliath that he was letting his emotions cloud his judgement.) Also, her comments that Goliath was "at last" acting "like a true gargoyle" were some of the multiparter's most chilling moments.
I also liked Jon's characterization in Part 2. His open-mindedness about the Gargoyles was a good counterpoint to Jason's fanaticism. Jon also acted very insightfully many times. He deduced the Gargoyles' enmity with Demona from their conversation, and that the clan had only around six members from Xanatos.
Bad Points
I wasn't sure about Goliath's new streak of vindictiveness. He was so single-minded that he came off as one dimensional. I would've expected him to start showing signs of regret once Demona started comparing him to herself, for instance. Likewise, his flying off the handle after seeing Elisa and Jason felt cliched.
I thought that it was contrived to have Angela hold out for all those hours, which were made to sound like a very long time in Part 1, and then slip away just before dawn and just when Elisa arrives to save her.
The animation was good overall. But head movements got noticibly warped in several instances.
Miscellaneous
Along with Goliath and Demona's cooperation, Part 2 had this reference to "Awakening": "What could be strong enough to leave clawmarks in solid steel?"
Elisa: CPR. The gift that keeps on giving.
Matt: Huh, don't believe them. Now UFO's. Do you know that Easter Island statues were modelled after space aliens?
Demona: For 1000 years they've hunted me. Why, I have no idea.
Commentary/Review
by Todd Jensen
Part Two opens with a flashback to Florence during the Italian Renaissance (complete with a glimpse of the famous Brunelleschi dome). Demona steals an ancient tablet, only to be pursued by another Hunter, this one riding a flying contraption that looks as though it was designed by Leonardo da Vinci. However, she eludes him (the Hunter does come across as looking a little daft when he's merely standing there fuming about how she's escaped him, when Demona is climbing out of the river with a smirk on her face, only a few yards away - he must have had poor powers of observation to have not noticed that).
We return to the present, where Elisa comes upon the gargoyles and learns what has happened, in time to save Angela's life via CPR (to the awe and wonder of the entire clan), but not in time to prevent Goliath from heading down the road of vengeance. For now the feud has begun. Goliath is determined to strike back at the Hunters in full fury, and his anger grows all the while. As a particularly effective touch, we see Lexington and Brooklyn, who accompany Goliath on his counter-attack on board the Hunters' airship, growing increasingly concerned over his actions, both his recklessness in charging into battle with only two other gargoyles rather than the entire clan to assist him, and then his berserk fury as he apparently kills Robyn and Jon. (We find out afterwards that the Hunters were protected by their insulated suits, but Lex and Brooklyn don't know that at the time.) The most effective moment comes when the three of them return to the clock tower, and as Goliath reports to the rest of the gargoyles his "victory", we see Brooklyn and Lexington silently exchange a troubled look. And the Hunters' own retaliation is only a few minutes away.
Goliath's anger is fueled all the more by the developing triangle between himself, Elisa, and Jason, a triangle taking shape all the more strongly in this episode. When the two of them visit the wrecked warehouse together, Elisa tells Jason about how a close friend of hers had been attacked and almost killed the night before, and shares with him her feelings of anger and helplessness over the event. Jason lets her know how much he empathizes with her, saying, "I've been there. I'm still there." The two of them stare all the closer at each other, realizing what common ground they have, before Elisa hurriedly snaps back to business. (The scene carries with it the brilliant irony that Elisa has no idea that her friend's assailant was Jason, and that Jason equally has no idea that Elisa's friend was the gargoyle whom he had nearly slain the previous night.) That evening, when Elisa invites Jason back to her apartment for dinner, the two of them briefly exchange a kiss - unaware that Goliath is watching, and absolutely devastated by what he sees. The knife makes another twist in the wound when Elisa, in response to Jason's statement that she's clearly not at ease about their feelings for each other, admits that there's someone else in her life, but that it would be impossible for them to get together. Goliath bows his head in grief and glides off - now so filled with sorrow and anger as to be all the more motivated to make his reckless invasion of the Hunters' airship.
The Hunters' double identities are now fully revealed, even as tensions hinted at in Part One come fully to the surface here in Part Two. Jason is as filled with vengeful fury as Goliath, desiring to wipe out the entire gargoyle race without quarter. But Jon is less certain; while he sees nothing wrong with the hunt for Demona, he is aware that not all gargoyles are like her, and shows himself to be ill at ease over the war with Goliath's clan. (Unfortunately, Jon backs down all too easily, which will become more significant - tragically so - in Part Three.) Robyn is more interested in simply getting the job done, and serves as a mediator between the two. The argument is left unresolved by the end of Part Two, but will reach its climax, in a very dramatic fashion, in Part Three.
And all the while that the war between the gargoyles and the Hunters is heightening, Demona is proceeding with her own plans. Having finally secured a canister of Xanatos's industrial-strength detergent at the end of the last episode, she now receives a carrier virus that she has commissioned from Sevarius (who is as delightfully over the top as ever, gleefully referring to his laboratory as "my chamber of horrors"), a virus designed to be bonded with either antigens or pathogens and spread swiftly across the face of the globe. Dominique claims to Robyn that it's for the purpose of creating "a cure as contagious as any disease", but it's clear enough, as she stores the sample that Sevarius gave her in a secret chamber alongside the stolen canister, the tablet that she had taken from Renaissance Florence in the flashback, and a small gargoyle sculpture, that her motives are far less altruistic.
The even more significant Demona scene in Part Two, however, comes when she and Goliath meet on board the Hunters' airship and she becomes aware of his vengeful wrath. Indeed, her response to Goliath's murderous fury is just as much a sign that something is seriously wrong with him as Lexington and Brooklyn's responses are. She watches with approval as Goliath makes it clear just what his intentions are towards the Hunters, commenting delightedly, "At last you're thinking like a true gargoyle". After they leave the airship, Demona comments that perhaps they're not so different; Goliath merely says, "Perhaps not", without betraying any sign that he is aware that being like Demona is something to be concerned about. (For that matter, he does not even pursue the issue of Demona's raid on Xanatos's warehouse, having become too obsessed with his vendetta to care about her actions; Brooklyn, while far from objective where Demona is concerned, is the one who correctly points out that they ought to be addressing that matter, but Goliath simply replies, "We'll deal with that later." It is hard to imagine Goliath, under normal circumstances, shrugging off one of her activities.)
Things reach a climax as Part Two nears its end. Goliath, unaware that the Hunters let him escape so that they could track him back to his clan's lair, has returned to the clock tower. The Hunters, after a heated argument over what course of action to take, prepare to open fire; however, Jason, just as he gets into position, sees Elisa arrive at the police station and hurriedly swoops down to get her away from there (a crucial decision on his part, for many reasons, as we shall see). Lexington spots the tracking device on Goliath, almost too late. Robyn pushes a button on the control panel before her, and missiles launch out of the airship into the clock tower....
But that is not the end; the dramatic conclusion remains to be told.
Tidbits
The deliberate echoes of the first season, and particularly "Awakening", continue. These include:
Jason's question, "What could be strong enough to leave clawmarks in solid steel?" (echoing Elisa's similar query at the beginning of "Awakening Part One").
Goliath and Demona joining forces on board the Hunters' airship (as a parallel to Goliath and Demona on board Fortress One in "Awakening").
Goliath again has a tracking device slipped on him, as in "Awakening".
When Matt Bluestone is being grilled by Jon Canmore in his reporter's guise, he tries changing the subject to the stone heads on Easter Island, as a reference to "Sentinel" (evidently Elisa told him about a few of her World Tour adventures).
A deleted scene from this episode (cut for time considerations) had the door to the Hunters' airship, after being wrenched off its hinges by Goliath during his break-in, land on the sidewalk below in front of a startled Vinnie.