Thread by @AlexandraErin

If Twitter stays up this afternoon, I will be starting this week's Drunk Disney at around 3:00 EST. Our feature: the five episode pilot of Gargoyles, never before seen by me.

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Okay, getting ready for today's Drunk Disney! I was holding back a little last week because supplies were scarce and I also had to cook that night, but neither of those are factors today.

The way this works is once a week I pick something on Disney+ that either I haven't seen before or that I haven't seen since childhood, I drink a lot of Fireball (I mean, relative to usual) and get analytical about it (again, more so than usual).

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I don't watch in real time because of the analytical aspect, so it takes me about 6-8 hours to get through one Feature Presentation. I split it over two days so it's not my whole day.

This week we're doing the five episode pilot mini/movie for Gargoyles. I have never seen it.

I have never seen a single episode of this show. I know vaguely what it's about. I know the name "Xanatos" from TVTropes. That's my familiarity with the show.

Getting myself situated and getting the show queued up. I'm aiming to get halfway through the third episode this afternoon.

So the pilot story is apparently titled "Awakening" and the opening sequence with a New York or equivalent city and a spooky skyscraper having some kind of Occurrence up at the top and panic below is very much like something out of the boy version of Ghostbusters.

There's clouds and explosions up top and people gawking who almost get crushed by falling rocks, and ominous music. A lady cop pulls up and I think I recognize her from screenshots so I think she is A Character.

The uniformed officer she is talking to has been telling people to "get back, get back!" but he doesn't himself move from the splash zone until another wave of debris almost crushes him and all the people who had been ignoring him.

She yells again at the people to get back then softly, sadly adds "Or you'll wind up street pizza." then notices that the debris that almost pizza'd her has slash marks on it.

This is all more En Media Rezzy than I had expected. I checked twice that this is episode 1.

One of the pieces of debris hits a fire hydrant and the camera follows the water jetting up from it like it's going to do something other than be dramatic, but it's just being dramatic. Amazingly that seems to be what actually keeps people (and her) back.

I'm not saying there's something wrong with following the water for drama, just that this is being more lush with the details than most 22 minute cartoons would have been, even considering they've got five episodes to tell the story in.

The scene fades out with her wondering "What could be strong enough to leave claw marks in solid stone?" which seems like a fight fire with fire/set a thief to catch a thief thing, knowing the premise of the show is GARGOYLES.

Then we get the Gargoyles title card which is very 90s video gamey and now we're at a castle in Scotland, 994 A.D. which is where the Disney+ preview and pop culture osmosis led me to expect the show to begin.

A bunch of humans (Scotshumans, presumably) with arrows are fighting off attackers with siege engines at the castle. There's a shot of a tower with a bunch of inanimate, regular-type gargoyles and then a man with a pro wrestling mustache orders the archers to stand fast.

The archers point out that they're bringing arrows to a giant boulder fight and the mustache guy whom I reflexively want to refer to as Beardo even though he's got a mustache so I guess he's Stacho draws his sword and says they can face the catapult or him...

...though he's holding a spiked mace when he says this so the sword seems gratuitous. The archers compromise by going back towards their post and doing absolutely nothing until a boulder from the catapult destroys it.

Stacho hints that they'll have the advantage when night falls in a few minutes, and then this is elaborated on when we hear one of the attacking soldiers say "Attacking a castle full of gargoyles near nightfall is crazy".

So gargoyles are nocturnal in this universe?

The enemy leader, whose name is Hakon though I can't imagine this will be important since the story is going to jump 1,000 years into the future, says that the statues are naught but chiseled stone and if they aren't it's still worth plundering.

If you're not SURE, why risk it?

I'm assuming he had the option of attacking the castle at sunup.

So then we get a dramatic sequence of the attackers using hooks and ropes to scale the castle walls as the sun is setting, leading to... someone I recognize.

*whispers and points at the screen* THAT'S GARGOYLES.

I think that's Hakon himself who, for reasons known only to himself, climbed to the very top of the tower that's like, towering way over all of the walls and stuff he's trying to breach, moments before the stone shatters... oh, I figured it was a transformation thing.

Disney's Gargoyles proclaims that Hakon is trespassing and grabs him in one hand. Hakon swings his sword at him, which Disney's Gargoyles catches in one hand... which bleeds. So gargoyles here are flesh and blood creatures that cocoon themselves in stone.

I kind of figured they would still be stony a little bit even while they were active.

I'm learning things.

Hakon goes very quickly from "they're just stone" to "if they bleed, we can kill them" and tries to yank the winged monstrosity who was about to throw him off the tower, off the tower.

It goes better for the non-winged human than you would think! He grabs a rope. Disney's Gargoyles simply takes to the air, and so do all the other gargoyles.

There's some banter at a tower top from gargoyle characters I think are going to be important about if they're going to let the others have all the fun and a casual fatphobic joke THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE and then an Old Man Gargoyle almost gets clobbered from behind.

Old man Gargoyle has a beard and a receding hairline. I'm not super visually oriented so maybe I've only missed that the rest have hair? But he like extra has hair, in order to be balding.

UpdatE: The main gargoyle definitely has hair.

Disney's Gargoyles name is Goliath.

Sidenote: Technically gargoyles are "gargoyles" because they gurgle; they are carved faces or figures that serve as downspouts for rain gutters. Goliath is actually Disney's Grotesques.

I bring this up because folklorically the function of a grotesque (icnluding gargoyles) is to protect a building from evil spirits by frightening them off, and Disney's Gargoyles is apparently playing off that by postulating that they would physically defend a structure.

Stacho offers the theory that the richly appointed and armed brigands they're fighting tracked a train of refugees they've been sheltering, which serves to introduce the huddled masses in the courtyard, who watch the fat gargoyle bite a leg of lamb and then hit a bandit with it.

I do like that the gargoyles are benevolent protectors in this, as often modern fantasy takes the standpoint of frightening appearance = evil, as in D&D, Palladium Fantasy (where they are "sub-demons") or the Ghouls 'n' Ghosts franchise where they are antiheroes at best.

The gargoyles can make their eyes glow which helps an effect where they sometimes, through posture and affect take on a more bestial appearance and sometimes a more anthropomorphic, cartoony one.

So Hakon, who is blond and bearded and I don't know if we're supposed to read him as a viking or what, is beset by gargoyles and he bumps into a gargoyle who is very female... I guess I shouldn't be surprised they're mammals, given they can have beards?

Oh, she's Marina Sirtis.

...Goliath just called one of the gargoyles his watchdog so maybe some of them just are more bestial? Also, Marina's eyes glow red while everybody elee's seems to be purple-white so maybe this is gargoyle sexual dimorphism.

Goliath takes the cornered Hakon and tells him to be gone, throwing him into a haycart, because this is a kid's show in the 90s and even saying the word "die" is like putting a hotel on Boardwalk in terms of opportunity cost.

We get the obligatory shot of the maybe-vikings in full retreat an the archers shooting more arrows after them than they did in the entire battle, hitting no one.

...one of the archers just said to another, "Good work, our arrows made 'em run!"

I think this is more of a make-work program than anything else.

Stacho thanks Goliath who tells him "We owe you our lives every day."

Then we get a celebratory feasting scene which reveals Stacho is not lord of the keep or whatever, he's the captain of the guard, and the lords don't sound impressed with him.

Apparently controlling a squad of vengeful bat demon things isn't that impressive to these two lesser mustaches.

When the queen/princess (she's a highness ,that's all I know) thanks the captain for his services, he says all credit to the gargoyles. She is apparently not a fan. Goliath and Marina But She's A Gargoyle walk in at that moment. The princess (apparently!) calls them beasts.

So three things I've learned:

1. Goliath can wear his wings like a cape. Neat!
2. Cap'n Mustache named him.
3. Cap'n Mustache never got around to reading the rest of that story.

The princess reminds the captain that the Biblical Goliath was a bully and a savage which, again, I'm not sure is the part of the story that is worth remembering, in this context.

I mean, sure part of the story was that Goliath was a feared opponent, but the one fight in particular that the captain brought up didn't go well for him.

"He's like a modern-day Goliath!"

"How do you mean?"

"Really famous for winning fights."

Goliath excuses himself very politely and the princess responds to this breach of manners by ordering that the captain stop talking to her forever.

As the captain tries to make amends and Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle snarls about humans we learn that the humans here built a castle on top of the gargoyle breeding grounds and that's why they live here?

During the day, we see the magus (who is on Team Does Not Like Gargoyles) reading a magic tome and then a white-cloaked rider who is almost definitely him rides out from the castle to Hakon's encampment to offer a bargain for the fall of the castle.

Some of the dialogue makes it sound like the gargoyles are a recent adjustment that the humans are just getting used to but other dialogue makes it sound like they came with the castle.

At night, Goliath unbandages his hand and it's completely healed. So the stone hibernation thing might not *just* be a weakness. Stacho and Marina Sirtis both want Goliath to lead an attack on the vikings, Marina to "end them" and Stacho to "harry them away". Never say die!

Goliath agrees to go chase the vikings away but insists everybody else stay behind to guard the castle. Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle doesn't want him to go alone, but he tells her she's in command, as his best fighter. He reminds her that they are as one forever. Twue wuv!

Back in the courtyard a toe-headed refugee boy asks two of the gargoyles their names, which prompts an interesting dialogue: they don't have them! "How do you tell each other apart?" "We look different." "What do you call each other?" "Friend."

The urchin's mother objects to him playing with "beasts" and she throws something at one of them. Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle objects and gets between them. The smaller gargoyles decide if they're going to be vilified, might as well play the part and go all scary eyes.

Starting to think that Goliath made a mistake in leaving the castle and putting someone else in charge of controlling the pack (flock?), as he seems to be the only one interested in diplomacy.

The refugees in the courtyard are new but there's a distinct feeling that the human/gargoyle dynamic is new and unsettled, which is hard to reconcile with the apparent age of the castle.

Oh! Turns out Goliath hasn't even left yet. He just landed in the courtyard with Old Man MacGargoyle and he sends the ones who were playing monster "down(?) to the rookery" until he returns.

Sure you want to leave, Goliath?

So when Goliath said he could take care of the vikings alone, apparently Old Man MacGargoyle is chopped liver because the next scene is the two of them in the air searching for the camp.

They spot hoofprints, which they note are unusually light for horses carrying armored men. Could it be a trap? Or maybe a trap?

So it turns out the rookery is a cave under the castle where the gargoyles lay their Yoshi eggs. Maybe they have a very long incubation period and that's how the humans built a castle on top of them without knowing they were there and only later coming to an accommodation.

So Old Man MacGargoyle expresses worry that it's too close to sunrise but Goliath wants to keep tracking the vikings. They catch up and find it's just a few men leading a train of horses away from the castle. Realizing they've been had, they race back for the castle...

...and get caught in the sunrise. We then see Hakon leading a charge on the castle.

I'm honestly not sure what the point of the diversion was. Don't have to lead gargoyles away from the castle if you're going to attack at sunrise.

Granted it worked out in that it kept Goliath from attacking their encampment, but it seems like pure luck he followed the false trail.

This time the archers are all business, but their bowstrings break. Sabotage!

And the portcullis is opened from the inside... oh, it's not the Magus who betrayed the princess, it's the captain? He apparently was disgusted by her haughtiness to the gargoyles. But the betrayer becomes the betrayee as Hakon destroys the inert gargoyles...

...or at least the ones up on the walls, which don't include Goliath and Old Man MacGargoyle or the rambunctious kids he sent back to preschool.

Goliath arrives at the castle that night and sees the devastation and goes immediately to what was probably Marina's pedestal, where he finds a handful of rocks. He cries for his "angel of the night" (no names doesn't mean no pet names?) but I'm pretty sure she recurs.

And that's the end of episode 1. On to episode 2. I'm fast forwarding through the "Next Time On Gargoyles" bit to remain unspoiled.

Oh, but the Previously On Gargoyles reminded me that the captain pushed for *all* the gargoyles to go chase the vikings... so his idea was purge the castle of unworthy humans because we are the virus and nature is returning.

So episode 2 picks up with Goliath and Old Man MacGargoyle finding the wreckage. OMMG examines a bow and realizes the string was cut.

The kids come up from the rookery. Assaying that the castle's humans were likely taken prisoner, Goliath vows to track the vikings down and get his revenge. Irony is piling up: the captain sought to protect the gargoyles and destroyed them...

...and Hakon, having been told by the captain that the territorial gargoyles would not pursue him out of sight of their breeding grounds, destroyed them anyway, prompting the survivors (and he knew he was leaving at least one alive, he would have noted Goliath's absence)...

...to follow him to the ends of the earth to avenge his slaughter.

I know from pop culture osmosis that this show gets into actual Shakespeare eventually, but this is a Shakespearean tragedy already.

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In the viking camp, we see the vikings celebrating and the refugees just kind of hanging out, dispirited. Guess they're slaves now? The little boy says the gargoyles will save them and his mother tells him they were all destroyed.

Inside we see Hakon and Stacho deciding the fate of the magus ("worth more alive than dead, barely") and the princess, whom the cap'n deems worth ransoming.

Can't say I'm impressed with his "slavers > people who are rude to gargoyles" stance.

Like, he was upset about the gargoyles being smashed but he doesn't seem super chargined or reluctant about his continued partnership with Hakon.

The magus says he'd sort them out if he had his book of spells. Hakon calls the magus a nerd and burns one (1) page of his spellbook. The princess calls Stacho a traitor and threatens to see him hang.

The shrieks of the damned interrupt them and they run out to see the vikings running for terror as the surviving gargoyles swoop down from the sky. Hakon and Stacho have a brief argument about responsibility for this turn of events.

The princess is now suddenly a fan of the gargoyles and tells Hakon he's a dead man (not that someone will KILL him, this is a kid's show) and he tells her no, she's dead (not that he'll KILL her... seriously, this is a lot of the d-word budget for one episode, though.)

We get a scene of And The Rest fighting/chasing off the miscellaneous vikings while Goliath chases after the retreating Hakon and Stacho with the princess, and then the Magus comes out to yell at them all.

His theory is that the princess is already dead (he hasn't checked) and it's the fault of the gargoyles for coming to rescue her, since Hakon and the cap'n had already decided to ransom her.

So he punishes them for the crime he imagines they unwittingly caused by utting-pay em-thay o-tay eep-slay until-way e-thay astle-cay ises-ray above-way e-thay ouds-clay.

(Magic is just saying stuff in Latin. Not sure what the book is for, to be honest?)

Maybe it's just a Scots-to-Latin dictionary and he doesn't know Latin. I'm not sure otherwise why he needed the book to do something to Hakon.

Anyway. Goliath has cornered Stacho and Beardo (Hakon has a beard, I just realized!) out on a precipice.

He is outraged to realize Stacho was the traitor. Stacho protests that the gargoyles weren't supposed to be there. Beardo tries to blame him for their destruction. They scuffle and fall off the cliff, taking the princess with them. Goliath saves her...

...then roars that he's been denied his vengeance. I dunno, man. Watching the traitor be betrayed and then cause his own destruction seems like pretty satisfying revenge to me?

Tom the little urchin boy comes to get Goliath to help his friends, who we see are now "Stone? At night?" as Goliath growls.

"What sorcery is this?" he asks, which is the kind of set-up line the actual sorcerer who did it has been waiting his whole life for.

The magus begins his angry denunciation of Goliath and then sees the princess, alive, behind him. Goliath demands that he bring them back, and I was totally going to make a joke that the page with the Latin for "Dispell Magic" was the one Hakon burned but...

The magus explains that the sleep spell will last "until the castle rises above the clouds".

I don't know, seems worth taking a trip to Rome to ask someone how to say "Gargoyles wake up now."

So Goliath has two requests: one, someone take care of the eggs in the rookery when they hatch, and two, he gets put to sleep forever, too, since he's now the last of his kind and is doomed to be forever alone.

???

Goliath. Buddy. Friend. I feel like there's a simpler solution.

So we get a dramatic shot of Goliath in stone form doing The Thinker, silhouetted in the moonlight so we know he's under the spell, and then we see the castle, much aged and by daylight. Jonathan Frakes arrives.

Seriously, my first experience with this show before today was when @moofable rewatched it and I heard it from the other room. I had known Frakes was in it but somehow I had always assumed he was like doing a voice for Xanatos, not just... talking in his normal voice.

So it was kind of disconcerting to hear it from the other room, like someone was watching a lost Star Trek episode.

Frakatos goes running through the castle up to the tower and pulls some ivy off Goliath, proclaims him "Magnificent!" and asks his manservant who sounds a bit like Maurice LeMarche doing a voice but isn't to buy it immediately.

Owen (the servant) says the locals consider the castle haunted and Frakes tells him, "Pay a man enough and he'll walk barefoot into hell."

I get that it's like a hot coals reference but as with the Goliath one I feel it kind of misses the point.

Walking barefoot into LEGO Land might have served better.

We then get a very busy scene of men with loader exoskeletons and... fumigation guns? And laser welders. Disassembling the castle and boxing it up.

There's also some regular forklifts and cranes. I think they do a pretty decent job of establishing present day but this guy has access to specialized tech.

We see Xanatos's name on the side of a helicopter back in the city, where he has reassembled the castle on top of his skyscraper, with the establishing shot establishing, specifically, that it is "above the clouds".

We see Xanatos watching the sun sink beside the horizon. He gives the statue of Goliath a sidelong glance and says "Don't disappoint me." which I guess answers the question I had about whether this was a coincidental decision on his part.

When the sunsets and nothing happens immediately, Xanatos looks angry but then after a pause for dramatic effect, Goliath's covering begins to crack and he lets out an angry roar... and we pan down and see another gargoyle hatching and...

Oh, that wasn't anger. It was stretching

They're slow to wake up this time not for dramatic effect because they have been asleep for a thousand years. That actually makes sense! And the sound Goliath made is exactly the same noise I make when I stretch, I'm surprised I didn't recognize it.

So if you showed me this screenshot and told me this was Xanatos the now-archetypal mastermind from Gargoyles and asked me to try imitate how I thought the intonation and delivery on the line reading went, I would not have guessed in a million years it's Riker doing a fist pump.

I also don't remember having seen Old Man MacGargoyle in any of the screenshots I've seen or anything so I'm kind of surprised to note he made it to the modern day. I kept expecting him to heroically sacrifice himself or be ambushed from behind or something in the past.

So anyway. The Gargoyles are awake and they're joyously reunited but then one of them notices they're not in the highlands of Kansas anymore. We see them all staring in confusion and dismay at the modern cityscape from above.

Xanatos steps out of the shadows to introduce himself... or rather to ask Goliath if he's Goliath. I guess just to make sure he brought the right castle full of cursed gargoyles above the clouds. Boy would he have some egg on his face.

We cut to inside where Xanatos is... surprisingly non-chalant about literally everything. I'm starting to see what they're going for Jonathan Frakes just being his personable self here. He tells the gargoyles they may be in for a shock and explains how much time has passed.

He explains that the magus wrote it all down in the spellbook, which is now in his possession. The eggs in the rookery are "gone", making the gargoyles here the last of their kind.

When asked why he's done this, his answer is "I wanted to see if it was true."

Further discussion is forestalled by the sound of an approaching helicopter. Xanatos (whose name hasn't been uttered on screen yet, only appeared in writing) goes off to see who his guest is, telling the gargoyles they'll be safer if they stay hidden.

The gargoyles give each other Significant Nods and then follow him anyway. We see a helicopter approach the castle and a bunch of like swat commandos rappel down from it. If Xanatos knows who they are, he's not letting on.

When the gargoyles see him surrounded, they identify these men as invaders attacking the castle and their protective instincts take hold.

So I'm guessing that the opening scene in episode 1 was the view of this battle from the ground - there were noises in that scene that sounded like they could be conventional automatic weapons fire, which was a freaking RARITY in kids' 90s cartoons.

And here we're seeing the commandos have weapons that are making muzzle flashes and gun noises but no sub-lightspeed energy bolt, which was the industry standard. They're not even drawing light tracers. You're seeing what you would expect to see from bullets; i.e., nothing.

Not sure yet if we're supposed to understand that gargoyles' non-stony hides can repel bullets (they could be cut with swords) or if the assailants' aim at unexpected monsters in close quarters is shaky.

We get to see that Xanatos can disarm and flip one of the distracted gunmen. His opponent is then distracted by a gargoyle, whom he identifies as a person in a "nice mask" and goes after with a knife.

Old Man MacGargoyle is taken out with a taser, though. Clutches his chest afterwards... did I declare him safe too early?

The one who tased him takes advantage of everybody clustering around him in concern to throw a grenade, which the smallest gargoyle catches, inspects curiously, then throws over his shoulder, leaving the group still at the edges of the blast radius when it goes off.

Nice bit!

Xanatos takes advantage of this distraction and runs to a secret passage he evidently added himself in the rebuild, which houses a very large gun.

It's apparently a cutting laser, which he uses to dump rocks on a gunman squaring off with Goliath. As with the construction scene we're getting to see that he has tech others don't - a lot of 90s cartoons just gave everybody lasers, because they're less imitable.

The littlest gargoyle asks his opponent - the one woman on the team - if she's a viking. The older gargoyles conclude that their opponents are sorcerers, hence their magical weapons. Xanatos decides to "take the gloves off" and is immediately socked from behind...

...making his laser beam go wide, causing the waves of destruction we saw back at the start of episode one.

So this is where we came in. The lady cop just pulled up. The action switches back upstairs where we can see the grenades wreaking more havoc. Goliath gets knocked off the castle and has some difficulty righting himself.

Back upstairs, one of the intruders makes his way to entrance to the skyscraper proper and fries the electric lock with a goober while everyone else is fighting.

One of the commandos uses a gas grenade to distract the gargoyles, they send up a signal flare...

...and are extracted by helicopter before the defenders can regroup.

The gargoyles have a brief discussion about the weapons and the "flying creature" or "dragon" that carried the invaders off, which the smallest one identifies as a machine. Xanatos offers no explanation beyond he's rich and therefore has enemies. Goliath is... suspicious.

Xanatos pushes hard for a formal alliance but Goliath tells him they're through trusting humans, though he agrees that since the castle is their home they'll still stay there and protect it.

Back on the street, the lady detective vows to find out what the heck even happened.

And that's the end of episode 2. I'm going to get partway through episode 3 and then call it for the day.

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So at the start of episode 3, Owen is trying to fob the detective off with a story about a generator in the castle exploding, "a most unfortunate accident".

She's sure that she heard automatic weapon fire and offers to come back with a warrant and eve nmore cops.

Upstairs in the castle - I guess Xanatos didn't just want it for the gargoyles, he's also going to live in it? I mean, I would. I just figured he already had a much more comfortable penthouse in its basement - Xanatos admits the generator thing is a cover story for the press.

He tells her that he and his men repelled an invasion by a business rival. She scoffs at his wording, reminding him he's a private citizen, not a sovereign country. He agrees to disagree.

Goliath watches their conversation from the shadows and the younger gargoyles explore the kitchen... so if I'm following and this is still the castle, Xanatos has had it modernized with elevators and fancy Star Trek doors and modern kitchen appliances and a walk-in freezer.

They get in some comic mischief that relies on the assumption that the freezer door requires the might of more than one supernatural being to open, which prompts Owen to interrupt the interview out on the parapets before more hijinks ensue.

As Xanatos is excusing himself to Detective Maza (her name's come up before but in noisy scenes, I missed it), she hears a noise and looks up to see Goliath watching impassively.

"That stone gargoyle, I thought it moved."

Do we usually qualify gargoyles like that?

Owen's "This old place is rather spooky at night, I've thought the same thing more than once." is smoother than his attempt to sell the generator story.

He walks her to the elevator to see her off, but like a rookie, he turns and walks away as soon as the door closes. She stops it and gets out to poke around unaccompanied.

Exploring the castle by penlight, she muses if Dracula will show up. This is what the kids on TVTropes call Wrong Genre Savvy.

I have to say the animation of the flashlight exploring the spooky ruined interior of the castle is very well done, as is this shot of her emerging from an obvious exit onto the parapets.

But she has attracted the attention of the dog-gargoyle, the one most likely to create a tragic misunderstanding! Realizing she is being followed by someone (not rationally expecting someTHING) she draws her gun and orders him to show himself.

Goliath reveals himself silently to crush her gun and forestall a tragic misunderstanding, ironically causing one as she backs away in fear and tumbles off the parapets.

Commercial break cut and he's sailing down to catch her.

He catches her and glides down not far over and in view of the crowd of cops and bystanders that are still hanging out in the street, landing on the side of the building.

He questions what she was doing in his castle. She counters by asking his name. He explains his kind have no names but humans call him Goliath. She asks "So there's more than one of you?" and he gives the best animated expression of "This is a sore point." I've seen.

He further explains he can't fly her back to the castle because he only glides on air currents, which is interesting. Wasn't super obvious but also doesn't contradict what we've seen so far?

When she says he needs to either take her back up to the castle or down to the street, he sighs and rolls his eyes and proceeds to carry her up the side of the hundred-plus story building acting like he's going way out of his way when the street was like one story down.

There's "I don't like humans" and there's "I just climbed higher than the actual clouds themselves to have a reason to complain about humans," Goliath.

Back on the castle parapets, Goliath and Maza are debriefing each other (and she gives him a look that suggests she would like to debrief him) when the other gargoyles stroll out from their kitchen hijinks and see them talking, and swarm over them.

Goliath introduces her as Elisa Maza (she has a first name!), a "...detect...ive?" She explains that detectives find people who do wrong things. There's a brief philosophical exchange about the nature of right and wrong, which ends with Goliath not being impressed by humans again

He notices the sun is coming up and tries to hurry here away, presumably because in a world where people don't know about non-stone gargoyles, their sleep cycle is a secret vulnerability and having it be a known one didn't work out so well for him.

She insists on meeting him again so she can learn more about him and teach him how the modern world works (and possibly "what means this, kiss?" to judge by her hair tossing and facial expressions and hey, I get it, he's a surly sulking monsterboy who saved her)

He redirects her from meeting them at the castle in the afternoon to meeting at a nearby rooftop after dark, emphasizing that she still hasn't explained why she was infiltrating the castle beyond saying she can't trust anybody, and neither can he.

And she leaves and the gargoyles remark to each other how much has changed and they must learn the ways of the world and that's about halfway through the miniseries so I'm going to stop watching there.

Time for some stray observations!

This really is about as much different from everything that came before it as Gummi Bears was from anything before it, which might seem like a weird and random comparison if you never saw it or didn't understand its place in the annals of Disney animated television.

Basically none of the main characters are what I expected based on what little I knew of the show. It's... it's an oddly quiet show? All three of the youngsters are somewhat conventionally cartoony and rambunctious but Xanatos, Elisa, and Goliath feel like live-action drama.

I don't know how shippy things get between Goliath and Elisa (though I'm aware there's a fandom) but it honestly feels a bit like a children's Beauty and the Beast, and I don't mean the Disney cartoon movie.

I know the pilot has barely dipped its toes into the Xanatos character but I think the decision to have Frakes play him as an adult human being and not a cartoon supervillain was probably wise. It lends a maturity to the show that helps carry it.

Like, the 10th century Scotland scenes felt much more uneven compared to the modern day New York and I think it's because they lacked so much of the grounding. Bad Scottish accents and a fantasy version of the past, fine for cartoons.

Anyway. Not fully what I expected, interested to see where it's going.

Will pick this back up tomorrow at same bat-winged gargoyle time, same bat-winged gargoyle station.

If you got something from this, please give something back.

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They really pushed the envelope! Though still with a lot of circumlocution about agency for actual death - talking about someone "will be dead" and then "thought they killed you".

And Xanatos mentioned literal hell, in a metaphor, instead of swearing.

https://twitter.com/eriexplosion/status/1252324518342737922

The bar for talking about actual hell is lower than the bar for using it as a curse word, hence why Maleficent was able to say it in Sleeping Beauty back in 1959. And Xanatos was talking about figuratively sending people there. Double layer of insulation.

I can imagine either there were some negotiations there or the line was written in such a way to pre-empt objections, for the plum prize of being able to have the mature adult villain matter-of-factly say "hell" on a Disney afternoon show.

Heck of an establishing moment.

Going to be getting drunk(er) and watching the second half of Gargyles: Awakening (the rest of episodes 3, 4, and 5 of the pilot miniseries) starting at 3:00 Eastern today.

Find the head of the thread here:

https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1252243452437368832

Okay! Gearing up to continue my Drunk Disney tweeting of Gargoyles: Awakening! I left off about halfway through the third and middle episode yesterday.

Here's how it works: I drink, I watch, I tweet. If you enjoy reading along, you can tip me food money.

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So we left off, Goliath was musing about the need to learn about the world in which they have Gargoyles: Awakeninged and the humans who rule it.

Sidenote: Last time I was thinking it was weird that Xanatos was apparently just going to live in the gargoyles' castle, but he didn't 100% know the gargoyles would come alive, and also they didn't live *in* the castle back in Scotland, it was always a human castle.

As we pick up, Goliath is paged to Xanatos's office by Owen. Xanatos explains that it's dawn soon so he must rest, but Xanatos says "This won't take long."

Given Xanatos's crafty reputation, I suspect he wanted to force a short conversation to avoid questions.

Xanatos explains that the invaders earlier stole a box containing "three of these hard disks". They're 3.5 inch floppy disks, which come in a hard plastic case, which isn't the same thing as a hard disk. The captioner chose to omit the word "hard" in what I assume was protest.

Goliath's response to being handed the device is to say "Disks?" I'm guessing his confusion is that it's roughly square when disks are round, but Xanatos tells him it's like a magic talisman containing hundreds of spells.

Little condescending. I would have gone with like a book.

I mean, we've already seen that Goliath knows a book can contain powerful instructions, and Xanatos knows he knows that, and what a disk contains is information/instructions.

Xanatos says it's vitally important that the gargoyles retrieve them. Sounds like a you problem, buddy. Goliath counters that he should consult a "detectIVE", proudly using the same kind of emfahSIS that Adora used when pretending to be a scholEUR in the Dreamworks She-Ra.

Xanatos appeals to Goliath's distrust of humans by suggesting if he brings police in, they'll be discovered and locked up for study. This scene is a bit unevenly written, I feel like the writers have not (yet?) really captured what smooth manipulation sounds like.

If I were Xanatos in this scene, I would be saying that of course normally I would go to the police but I have to keep the gargoyles' secret, which leaves me with no recourse. Heck, don't even ask the proud Goliath to help. Just lament that you can't retrieve your lost disks.

Xanatos shows Goliath a VHS cassette video of the rival company's headquarters. Goliath is astounded and compares it to a living tapestry. Xanatos says "Your naivety is refreshing," which is definitely the thing to say to a superhuman being you're trying to con.

Oh, the data ARE held. Fancy!

It's going to turn out that he staged the robbery to get the gargoyles to commit industrial espionage ,isn't it?

So the three disks are in a skyscraper built in the bay, an underground hideout, and a SHIELD helicarrier.

I'm getting flashbacks to the pilot minserieseseses for GI Joe, which both concerned a race for scattered plot coupons that powered a MacGuffin.

Xanatos explains that if one location is hit before the others, the alarm will prevent retrieval, and they must be retrieved before the disks are decrypted/"the spells are translated".

Goliath's question was "why should we help?"

This is why I think Xanatos shouldn't have asked, but made a show of how bereft he is that dangerous information will be revealed to dangerous people because he dares not act himself.

When Goliath says he cannot risk his people's lives for something that isn't even protecting the castle, Xanatos at least gets in some false teaming by telling him "our enemies will use this information against us", and asks him to consider it.

As Goliath leaves, either a poorly disguised secret door or a poorly designed regular door slides open to reveal... Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle, in shadows that do nothing to conceal who she is but leave her colorless. I thought she was statue'd and had to rewind.

She definitely moves, though, and Xanatos explains that everything is going according to plan.

We see daylight and then the sun setting and the transformation/cocoon breaking sequence. The red one with hair (I hope they get their names soon, I'm not terribly visual and I have a hard time internalizing the differences with And The Rest) starts to take off...

...and Goliath challenges him, only to be reminded he's the one who said they should be learning about the city. Goliath gives And The Rest leave to explore.

Goliath then goes to meet Detective Elisa Maza on the nearby rooftop for their afore arranged assignation.

"Why were you hiding back there?" she asks, which would make more sense if he wasn't a giant bat-winged monstrosity.

"I wanted to make sure you were alone."

Old Man MacGargoyle interrupts her flirty response by dropping onto the roof behind her, ambushing her to make sure that she's not ambushing him.

Xanatos's aw-shucks Rikarisma makes more and more sense, given the gargoyles' layers of mistrust.

Detective Maza says they're "paranoid even for New York" and asks Old Man MacGargoyle what to call him.

His response is to huff that naming things gives them limits and ask "Does the sky need a name? Does the river?"

She informs him the river is called The Hudson.

Goliath's expression is kind of a proud smirk, like, "You just got done saying the humans have a name for everything, that one's kind of on you, buddy."

Old MacGargoyle has a name! E-I-E... he's Hudson now! I hope this means And The Rest will come back from their fieldtrip with names and I can start referring to them as DUMBO, Battery Park, and Tribeca.

This show has some of the most expressive humanoid faces and hands in western animation outside of The Simpsons.

Detective Maza wonders how she can show them around without attracting attention and Goliath suggests they stick to rooftops. When she wonders how THAT will work, he scoops her up in his arms and she throws an arm around him and remember what I said about expressive animation?

The 80s GI Joe line started as a SHIELD vs. Hydra adaptation!

https://twitter.com/Angnor_NMW/status/1252681047797493760

Goliath asks "...Hhuuuhd...sohn" if he's coming but he can see what's happening (WHAT?), even if they don't have a clue (WHO?) and he excuses himself, now that he knows Goliath isn't in any danger.

Goliath asks Detective Maza to show him what dangers the city holds for his kind, and then as he takes off into the air what is not even subtly a love theme starts up.

This show really went all in on the monsterfucking in the pilot movie, didn't it?

Ms. "I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me." Detective meets an eight foot bat-winged ogre man and is immediately cool with re-enacting Aladdin where he's Prince Ali and the magic carpet.

Goladdin, for his part, is pretty impressed with New York. "Stone streets, finer than those the Romans built." New Yorkers feel free to weigh in on this one.

Detective Maza is definitely a New Yorker.

"You know, it's funny how you can live here for years and never do tourist stuff like gliding over Times Square in the rippling muscled arms of a clawed behemoth from a distant age."

Back at the castle, Hudson and Scooby Dargoyle have stumbled upon a tiny stone cell that Xanatos has converted to a TV nook. Hudson is impressed by the advances in upholstery technology and inadvertently discovers the recliner.

Can I also say I admire the chaotic energy that went into this? Xanatos finds a room that's too small to be anything else so he puts a TV in it, along with a chaise longue and a Barcalounger.

And a tiny coffee table just exactly too far from either to be useful.

Look at that window. You'd turn this into a reading nook, obviously. Xanatos is a twisted genius.

Hudson picks up the remote and on instinct hits the power button on his first try (I guess he might be just hitting them in order?), then beats a hasty retreat from the grim specter of rock and/or roll as MTV blares from the TV speakers.

We cut to a yuppie straight couple driving a surprising beater of a car that breaks down in a dimly lit street. The woman mocks the man for "only paying $40k" for the car. He tries to call for assistance on his very fancy state of the art car phone (pictured) but no signal.

Margot sounds like she's also voiced by Marina Sirtis here.

Her partner gets out to check under the hood and is accosted by an ISO Standard Multiethnic Street Gang, as was common in the 90s.

...I kind of figured this scene was us catching up with And The Rest who would intervene and make things worse, but Goliath just zipped overhead and Detective Maza stepped out of the shadows.

She identifies herself as police and the white guy says "We're very impressed" but does not sound impressed. She offers them a fun, mischievous warning and then sprints down the dark alley for them to give chase.

Goliath reveals himself with the glowy eyes trick. One of the muggers yells "It's a monster!" and another yells "Trash it!" which... is not the imperative statement I expected to be yelled? Points for willing, I guess, if not brains.

Quick comedic curb-stomp of muggers follows. Yuppies Brendan and Margot witness part of it and run screaming into the night. Goliath is not impressed with their idea of gratitude, but Maza is very impressed with his idea of being a giant muscly monster.

Then we finally catch up with And The Rest, who are perched on an architectural setback among some stone gargoyles remarking on how many amazing and really hard to draw wonders they have witnessed since the animators last drew them.

The smallest one (the one who recognized a helicopter was an artificial device) spots a motorcycle and swoops off to "see how it works". We have a consistent characterization!

The Littlest Gargoyle accidentally reveals himself to the biker, causing him to crash and then run off, abandoning his vehicle. Thus the Littlest Gargoyle learns an important lesson about the dangers of letting humans see him: you get a free motorcycle!

He then learns a valuable lesson about operating machines you don't know how to use: you immediately lose your free motorcycle!

WHOA WHOA WHO SAID COUPLE WHY DO YOU HUMANS INSIST ON NAMING EVERYTHING? DOES THE SKY NEED A NAME? DOES A CASUAL THING BETWEEN TWO FRIENDS NEED A NAME?

As Goliath bemoans that humans in any era are violent, Detective Maza tries to counter by explaining how sometimes they're nice to children, and then the corporate raiders from the night before seriously undercut her point by shooting him with a dart.

They take him down and then politely explain to the NYPD detective who witnessed their attack on Goliath that they're here to tie up loose ends, leveling a gun at Goliath and that's the end of episode 3!

Also if Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle was the only female gargoyle in the clan does that mean that she laid all the Yoshi eggs in the rookery?

Are gargoyles sequentially hermaphroditic?

...and if Goliath was her mate, did he fertilize all of them personally?

I mean, it would make sense that they're sequential hermaphrodites if there's only one female in the clan *at a time*. But it also might be more like a queen situation where only one of the eggs develops into an egg-bearing organism at a time.

Also I identify them as mammals yesterday but they're oviparous, which means they might be a rare example of a surviving European monotremes.

Anyway! I'm going to use the restroom and get yet more drink before we push on to Episode IV: A New Gargoyle. If you're getting something out of this, please give something back.

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The commandos attacking Goliath isn't making me less suspicious that they're a false flag. Xanatos's pitch to Goliath depended on the idea of him seeing the rival company as a threat to him and his family as much as they were one to Xanatos.

Also realizing that if Xanatos has been working with Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle then his gamble in buying the castle "to see if it's true" is less of a longshot than advertised.

Anyway. Starting episode 4.

Oh, yeah, the lead commando openly taunts the drugged-up Goliath that he's going to hunt down the others as soon as he's "out of the way" (they used up a lot of their Dead budget in the early episodes).

Detective Maza helps Goliath escape from some truly tragically bad shooting, and it's like. The genre/age conventions and the demands of the story would dictate that they *don't* get shot with bullets trying to escape anyway so it's hard to gauge if this is the plot?

Meanwhile, And The Rest are getting ready to head home, but The Littlest Gargoyle compalins that his wings are tired. What wings? He's got armpit membranes, he barely has to do anything but angle his arms compared to the others.

The red one who has hair observes a human hailing a cab with a characteristic gesture and cry of "Yo Taxi!" and tries it for himself, causing a cabbie to go into a spin that becomes a u-turn and peel off into the night.

Back in the park, Detective Maza removes the tranq dart from Goliath and then finds a homing bug attached to him with "some kind of manufacturer's logo" - okay, why would the corporate raiders have bugged the monster they weren't expecting to fight during the fight? I am suspect.

Detective Maza sticks the tracking bug on a convenient street mutt and they limp off.

Back at the castle, Grandpa Hudson has figured out the TV thing and is channel surfing like a pro.

(It's the circle of brand awareness!)

Noting the sky is getting light, he heads up to the roof as And The Rest glide in for landing, still tragically undernamed.

Down in the park, Goliath laments the coming of the dawn and warns Elisa he'll be helpless. His lack of an actual explanation is excusable as he's still drugged.

Good way to advance their relationship without a lot of back and forth about trust, putting him in this situation.

She leads the corporate raiders away from his hiding place by bolting out into the open, and they chase, supposing they can track him later.

Look! It's the fountain from Friends!

Detective Maza manages to steal a gun and SHOOT ONE (it appears his armor saves him, though he's still knocked down) and then gives them the slip by ducking into a boat house and then jumping into the water as their fire ignites some gas cans.

Oh! The most competent goon, the token female member (this was also a thing in 90s cartoons!), isn't fooled, so Maza has to take her down specifically before she can make her further escape, thus blowing her "not dead" cover.

The lead commando tracks her to a dead end beneath a rocky ridge, where she decoys him with her jacket on a branch and subdues him before going back to hang out and protect her boyfriend the (presumably) big-dicked lawn ornament until he wakes up. That's dedication!

And Goliath makes explicit what was implied when his hand healed in episode 1 - their sleep is a healing hibernation. He's 100% recovered from the attack.

He's impressed that she spent her whole day guarding him, and as he's leaving to go stand his people down from their expected freak-out, she says hopefully, "Uh... later tonight?" and he gives her a nod.

Back on the castle parapets, Grandpa Hudson is reassuring And The Rest that Goliath will be okay, then they spot him. His answer to where he's been is "We appear to have enemies."

Cut to: Xanatos and Owen watching on a monitor. Xanatos announces he's ready for him.

So, yeah?

Goliath addresses Hudson as Hudson, prompting confusion. "Aye, it's my name," Hudson answers, like what, you don't have one? Everybody has names now. They even call the wind Maria.

The others agree to choose names that reflect their new home. Red hairy one is Brooklyn. The flying fat joke is Broadway, haha, get it? He's way broad! Because he's eating in every scene! And the Littlest Gargoyle is Lexington.

Brooklyn names the dog gargoyle "Bronx", who grumbles and stalks away in a manner that suggests he wanted to be Manhattan or something.

Owen sticks his head out onto the parapets and catches Goliath's eye... oh, I thought this was a kind of artless attempt to make another run at Goliath for the plot coupon robbery but Xanatos's move is reuniting him with Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle.

Sidenote: I keep almost calling her Marina Sirtis But She's A Vampire and now I want that show.

She greets him "Goliath, my love!" and there's a really intense close up on her face before the commercial fade, where her expression is... interestingly sinister. Like, it's already been obvious she's going to be an antagonist. But it's interesting.

She tells Goliath that they owe their reunion to David Xanatos... David? That's what they're going with? So this is like a grim and gritty reboot of Davy and Goliath? Okay. Moving on.

Marina Sirtis But She's Not A Vampire's explanation for her survival is that she had followed Goliath into the woods and got lost, then had the magus cast the same spell on her.

Davy says he acquired her statue form separately and brought her to the castle after freeing Goliath

She suggests they help Davy X out because they owe him for their reunion, leaving him to add that it will help get the hunters off their back himself. So Davy's ways are a little more subtle than they first seemed.

They decide to split up into three teams: Marina and Goliath will take the helicarrier, Grandpa Hudson and the dog will take the underground fortress, and and the gargoyles formerly known as And The Rest will take the tower.

I guess I understand what they're doing with the teams but tactically I kind of expected Goliath to pair each of the younglings up with one of the older veterans. I mean, there's three young gargoyles and three mature ones. And a dog.

I know a city's got a lot of updrafts but Goliath's approach to the helicarrier suggests that his flight capabilities are greater than advertised? After struggling in the rotor wash he flaps his wings to regain altitude.

Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle responds to Goliath's comment about the disk being guarded by suggesting they allow the guards to "throw away their useless human lives" (see again: cavalier talk about killing, without saying "we'll kill them"), which gets a look of concern.

They are intercepted by two guards whose outfits look nothing like the commandos from earlier (suggestive but not definitive). Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle says they won't dare fire their guns inside the airship... awful lot of familiarity with their weapons for a newbie.

She charges them with a slightly indirect pounce and as they fire we hear a bunch of pinging ricochets... she was probably right about the guns. I guess the company (it said "CYBERBIOITICS" on the side) didn't think their interior security through because flying fortess.

And the second shot fired by the second guard hits a pipe which depressurizes in a blast of steam.

Yeah, they should really be using low velocity bean bag rounds or something. Maybe frangibles if they want the stopping power?

I will say that I fully buy that no one but the gargoyles could have realistically breached their security because they have clearly never had to shoot anyone in here.

The corridor filling up with steam works entirely to the advantage of the big scary monsters who can move freely in three dimensions and the guards are taken out.

Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle attempts to throw them overboard. When Goliath stops her, she says "The centuries have made you weak."

The centuries did nothing to him. He was a statue the whole time. Really suspect she woke up ahead of him, that she's not thinking that.

Meanwhile, the kids have landed on top of the skyscraper in the harbor and have encountered basically no security except for being the top of a skyscraper in the middle of a harbor. Their directions to the disk are down from the top.

They muscle their way into an elevator shaft, slide down the rope to the disk's floor, and muscle it open, dialogue indicating they don't understand how elevators work or what the rope is for.

Broadway comments how easy it is and I expect the rope to start moving...

...but instead we get the sound of many, many guns cocking and the camera pulls back to reveal more yellow jumpsuited guards aiming at them.

That's the end of episode 4!
]
Going to take a few minutes to get some veggie straws and more Fireball and then start the fifth and final part! Remember, Drunk Disney tweets and me having veggie straws are made possible by viewers like you!

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Episode 5 starts up right where episode 4 ended. Having guns pointed at them really emphasizes how much the phalanges on the tips of the gargoyle wings just look like they're raising their hands in perpetual surrender?

Brooklyn makes a "wrong floor" crack and they duck back in.

Displaying some impressive lateral thinking, the Gargoyle Kid Trio goes up one floor and then punches their way down into the heavily guarded lab's chewy caramel center, where the unarmed scientitians offer no resistance. They get the disk and escape out a window.

That's one of the theoretically simultaneous heists completed! In the underground fortress, word has just reached the commander that a hysterical security team at the tower has reported a breach by "monsters". The commander orders a general increase in security.

Hudson spots a camera and a giant steel door and lets himself get caught on camera trying to break in then surrenders... and when they open the doors to bring him in, Bronx attacks from shadows and they use the element of surprise.

Hudson is craftier than he lets on.

Interestingly, Lexington the techie-minded gargoyle knew which button to press to get the disk, and Hudson scowls at the console and then hammers it with his fist, which also ejects the disk.

Hudson and Bronx make a leaping escape from the underground lab just ahead of a closing security door and then evade more of the yellow jumpsuits in the tunnels.

The lack of anyone like the commandos on the Cyberbiotics security payroll really is apparent.

They escape by hopping on a train, and Hudson gets the two of them airborne by spreading his wings and using the braking action for lift.

Up on the helicarrier, the gargoyles have just reached the bridge moments behind the report of the two other breaches.

Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle gets the disk and then manually reroutes a power conduit into the mainframe, filling the bridge with error messages and smoke.

Goliath protests leaving the humans to their fate as the helicarrier begins to wobble in the air.

He's dragged away, though, and we watch the rotors explode and the craft crashes onto the city... oh, wait. They manage to set in down in the river and the crew jumps out alive!

It's like a miracle. Does a miracle need a name?

Detective Maza is drawn to the disaster in time to witness Goliath and his partner sailing overhead, which she notes with concern. Because he was involved in a crash, not because she's jealous or anything. Look, it's complicated, okay?

Back at the castle, they give the disks to Xanatos who promises to put them to use for the benefit of all. Again, digging the Jonathan Frakes delivery... no ominous chuckle, no gloating tone, no forced irony. Not what I expected but well played.

Goliath says he has to go meet his human friend Elisa Maza, which Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle objects to, not because she's jealous but because they can't trust humans, any humans, except for Xanatos, her friend from work, and why are you looking at me like that?

As she declares blood must pay for blood, he notes that the centuries have changed her more... which, again, probably shouldn't have happened if she was asleep all this time, Goliath? He declares he cannot make war upon the world and then flies off to see his friend.

Xanatos, watching on a monitor, declares Goliath is too hard to control. Biggest drop of the villain mask yet, I think, and they waited until about 98 minutes into the series.

I have a hard time imagining what it would have been like to watch this as a kid with no prior pop culture knowledge of the name Xanatos. I wonder to what extent they pulled this off for the intended audience.

When Goliath catches up with Elisa, she says she's been searching for him because Cyberbiotics was robbed by "creatures" and she saw him fleeing the scene. He protests he was just taking back Xanatos's property, but she reveals the tracking bug was made by Xanatos Enterprises.

That's kind of a shock? I had already figured the commandos were hired by him but I had figured he would have used Cyberbiotics gear to help sell the deception. When the bug turned out to have a logo on it, I thought she would follow it back to them.

Elisa helps Goliath to the conclusion that Xanatos played him, then entreats him to choose her over Xanatos in a way that's not even remotely subtle.

Back at the castle, Xanatos says "I'm afraid the gargoyles have outlived their usefulness." Wow, mask all the way off. I hope affable Davy's not completely gone. He's got a bunch of dropcloths draped over conspicuuosly gargoyle-shaped forms as he talks about replacing them.

Owen sensibly points out that if they wait three hours the gargoyles will be asleep, but Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle appeal to Xanatos to take the opportunity to test his replacements, which gets an interested look from him.

*sigh* Listen to Owen, David.

Out on the parapets, we see the Gargoyle Kid Trio adjusting to the 20th century life: Brooklyn has cool shades, Lexington has a laptop or something, and Broadway has a lot of takeout.

I just want to point out there's nothing wrong with one character eating a lot of food and there's not even anything necessarily wrong with that character being the fatter character, especially as the gargoyles in general have differing body types; Hudson's kind of portly, too.

But Broadway's been the subject of some truly baffling fat jokes, jokes that don't work on any level except "Haha, we're pointing out that you're fat and eat a lot!"

Can't just be that he enjoys food because he has some joie de vivre.

Anyway, his Chinese food is blasted out of his hand by... Scourge the tracker, and his huntsmen the Sweeps? Seriously, these guys look like they were designed by G1 Unicron.

(This is a compliment.)

The roboliaths have jet thrusters and use their wings for steering, which seems like a distinct advantage even before you add in weapons systems.

They hector the trio with a barrage of laser fire, and Brooklyn looses his mirror shades, which sadly would only make him more vulnerable to laser fire.

Xanatos watches the robots take Broadway down and brags to Owen what an improvement they are "Steel instead of stone, don't sleep during the day, can fly" ... I get he needed the disks which means he needed the biogoyles but this comparison still seems a little weird.

Like, you had the gargoyles nominally on your side for about three hours, total, and you only wanted them to complete your robots. This isn't an upgrade to your existing gargoyles. This is you making robot gargoyles because you wanted robot gargoyles.

One thing the show is being more consistent about than the fly/glide distinction is that Goliath is the only one who can sustain altitude easily while carrying someone. Hudson got some lift from "braking" the velocity he gained coming off a train in his escape scene earlier...

...but couldn't stay aloft with Bronx, and Brooklyn tried to rescue a wounded Lexington in this scene and immediately struggled, but Goliath carried Elisa around like Superman earlier and he takes over the Lexington rescue effortlessly.

So Broadway and Lexington are out, Brooklyn is regrouping after having lost altitude... oh, I forgot Hudson wasn't in this scene. He runs out onto the parapets to see what's the dang ruckus in the middle of his stories.

...Bronx manages to ground one of the roboliaths by playing fetch and I did not see that coming. Hudson finishes it off with a pointy death from above leap and we get a pretty brutal POV shot of the robot's camera going dark.

Detective Maza runs in through the lobby, right past the security/reception desk with a shout of "Police business!"

Up in the air, Goliath has figured out that the robots can't shoot him if he's on their back, and he steers one into another.

They're apparently down to one bot.

The gargoyles use their combined strength to push a wall over on top of it. Brooklyn adds "dude" to his already "cool" 90s way of talking and Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle appears with some kind of BFG rocket launcher kind of thing, alongside David with his laser.

So, yes, her earlier familiarity with modern weapons was an in-universe slip on her part rather than one on the writers'.

She takes the first shot, just in case her insistence on this fight scene didn't sufficiently establish her hostility.

She doesn't score a direct hit on anybody, but the tower crumbles and the supporting gargoyles wind up in one hit and Goliath in another. When they try to go to his aid, Xanatos covers them with his laser because he wants to see how this plays out.

She reveals she was in on the plan with the captain, back in the day, that her job was to get the gargoyles away from the castle so the vikings could sack it and then they'd have the castle to themselves.

Marina. Marina. You just. You just admitted you had one job.

Goliath left her in charge. All she had to do was let him and Not-Yet-Hudson get a good lead and then round up the others and have them follow. Say she felt something. Say Goliath was in trouble. Heck, was any gargoyle even around when he ordered her to stay?

She's talking about how she stayed alive because she's never trusted anyone, not even the captain who said he'd protect them.

I think her actual villain motivation, though, is knowing it's her fault the clan died, both because she went in on the plan and because she failed.

Like how many times do you think she's started to think, "Wait, I still could have gotten everybody out of there, Goliath wasn't there to stop me." and then angrily doubled down on "NO IT'S THE HUMANS FAULT THAT MY BETRAYAL OF MY OWN KIND LED TO THEIR DESTRUCTION!"

Ohhhh, yeah. Goliath just pointed out that there's good and evil in everybody, and she should know it since "None of this would have happened if it weren't for you." and she DOES NOT like this at all.

We are the virus.

She prepares to kill him, first telling him that the humans gave her a name "long ago" (instantly wondering how long she's been awake and how long gargoyles live... NB: wondering, not asking): "Demona".

You know, I thought her name was something like that? Pop culture osmosis.

This whole time I've been calling her Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle, in addition to wanting to call her Marina Sirtis But She's A Vampire, I've also been wanting to call her Desdemona.

...and I had actually forgotten, with all the drama on the roof, that Detective Maza had entered the building. She runs out from the elevator area to coldcock Marina Sirtis But She's Demona just in time to spoil the point-blank shot.

The stray shot destroys another tower, dropping a ton of debris, around Davy X and hitting him with a rock just big enough to knock him out.

A bigger piece of the tower crumbles the parapets out from underneath Demona and Maza...

...setting up a classic Riddler's Dilemma for Goliath, who saves the falling Elisa and then howls in grief and frustration for Demona and then goes to take it out on Xanatos, dangling him over the edge as he taunts that Goliath owes his restored life to him.

Grandpa Hudson and Maza urge him to #BeBest and make a different choice than Demona would have, and he throws Davy down at the detective's feet instead of letting him go splat.

We get a scene of Xanatos being put in a police car down on the street level and then back up at the castle they briefly debate if Demona survived.

Brooklyn finds his glasses, which comically shatter as soon as he puts them on and Broadway laments that he's hungry an hour after eating Chinese food... did that "joke" fall all the way out of currency finally? The first two decades of my life it was obligatory.

As the sun rises, Elisa tells Goliath that she will always be his friend, and invites him to a Giants game, prompting fear and confusion from him and shocking him out of doing his cool "Thinker" pose in time.

Aaand that's the show. Ended just in time because speaking of solar occurrences this is the exact moment the sun angles through my window in such a way that I can't look directly at the monitor with the show on it. BRB, closing curtains.

So that was Disney's Gargoyles, or the first five episodes of it. I will probably watch the rest of it in my own time, offering stray observations the way I did during my Breaking Bad re-watch, but I can't see myself livetweeting seventy some episodes of anything.

I've been trying to balance nostalgic revisitings with new-to-me things for Drunk Disney, and it's been a few new things in a row so next week I'm going to tweet that made-for-TV fever dream from 1986, MR. BOOGEDY!

If you have enjoyed my Drunk Disney tweets, please support their and my continued existence. We're buying groceries and supplies for our house and our nearest relatives during these the Quarantimes, often with delivery charges and tips.

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