[8.0/10] I appreciate Gargoyles taking the time to fill in Demona’s backstory a bit. We’ve seen the events of 994 Scotland from Goliath’s perspective, but not hers. Seeing the way it all went wrong from her perspective, the way she couldn’t face her own guilt for having a hand in the destruction of her brethren, only to then find the man she loved frozen in stone is powerful. It humanizes Demona (no pun intended). We see her reasoning behind trusting the captain of the guard, her frustration at Goliath not playing along, and her anguish when it all goes wrong.
It heightened her reasons for mistrusting humans. The type of prejudice she experienced already stoked those flames, but watching the ones she trusted seem to double-cross her, resulting in the near-obliteration of her clan, would turn anyone sour. It’s not just cool from a plot standpoint to get more detail about what her and the captain of the guard’s machinations were, but it helps us to understand one of the show’s chief antagonists better, which is an even more worthy cause.
At the same time, I like getting to dabble in a little more palace intrigue with the flashback to 994 and beyond. Maybe I’ve just been conditioned by Game of Thrones, but watching rival fiefdoms and warlords go after one another so as to clear a path to the ultimate throne definitely maintains a cool factor. We only get a quick thumbnail sketch of a young MacBeth, his dad, his betrothed, and her father, but the archetypes are familiar and so it’s easy to latch on to the world and the story.
Plus, there’s some pretty good action. I like that the random farmhand Demona strikes in her misplaced anger becomes “The Hunter.” He’s someone who seems to hate gargoyles based on his encounter with Demona (not unreasonably) and symbolizes the cycle of hate and prejudice that emerges from these types of situations.
Plus, his antics make for some pretty cool action scenes. The Hunter emerging from nowhere to do Duncan’s bidding and take out MacBeth’s father, followed by father and son trying to fend off the attacker with some improvised wordplay, makes for a thrilling scene. I appreciate Demona zooming in at the last minute, not out of a sense of altruism but rather in an “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” sort of way. Her losing her quarry to help imperiled humans shows that Demona didn’t lose all of her compassion, but the way her sympathies cost her the kill may only heighten her disdain for our kind.
It’s also just neat to see Demona continuing to live beyond 994. We see how she avoided death or the Magus’s spell, and get a strong hint of how she survived all these years. But we also get to see her aging before she discovers the spell to give her more time, scrounging and thieving with others of her kind, barely scraping by. That too helps tell her story and fill in the gaps of what she’s been doing all these years.
Last but definitely not least, I appreciate the presence of what I take to be the three witches from MacBeth, interfering and disappearing in both past and present. Demona’s plot to use Xanatos’s infrastructure to turn all humans into stone makes for some poetic revenge from her perspective, but something tells me those shape-shfiting witches will have something to say about it. Importing those witches in a MacBeth-heavy episode is a nice touch.
Overall, this is an exciting start to the show’s first multi-part story since the series premiere, and I’m enthused to see where it goes from here!
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-07-08T18:54:25Z
[8.0/10] I appreciate Gargoyles taking the time to fill in Demona’s backstory a bit. We’ve seen the events of 994 Scotland from Goliath’s perspective, but not hers. Seeing the way it all went wrong from her perspective, the way she couldn’t face her own guilt for having a hand in the destruction of her brethren, only to then find the man she loved frozen in stone is powerful. It humanizes Demona (no pun intended). We see her reasoning behind trusting the captain of the guard, her frustration at Goliath not playing along, and her anguish when it all goes wrong.
It heightened her reasons for mistrusting humans. The type of prejudice she experienced already stoked those flames, but watching the ones she trusted seem to double-cross her, resulting in the near-obliteration of her clan, would turn anyone sour. It’s not just cool from a plot standpoint to get more detail about what her and the captain of the guard’s machinations were, but it helps us to understand one of the show’s chief antagonists better, which is an even more worthy cause.
At the same time, I like getting to dabble in a little more palace intrigue with the flashback to 994 and beyond. Maybe I’ve just been conditioned by Game of Thrones, but watching rival fiefdoms and warlords go after one another so as to clear a path to the ultimate throne definitely maintains a cool factor. We only get a quick thumbnail sketch of a young MacBeth, his dad, his betrothed, and her father, but the archetypes are familiar and so it’s easy to latch on to the world and the story.
Plus, there’s some pretty good action. I like that the random farmhand Demona strikes in her misplaced anger becomes “The Hunter.” He’s someone who seems to hate gargoyles based on his encounter with Demona (not unreasonably) and symbolizes the cycle of hate and prejudice that emerges from these types of situations.
Plus, his antics make for some pretty cool action scenes. The Hunter emerging from nowhere to do Duncan’s bidding and take out MacBeth’s father, followed by father and son trying to fend off the attacker with some improvised wordplay, makes for a thrilling scene. I appreciate Demona zooming in at the last minute, not out of a sense of altruism but rather in an “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” sort of way. Her losing her quarry to help imperiled humans shows that Demona didn’t lose all of her compassion, but the way her sympathies cost her the kill may only heighten her disdain for our kind.
It’s also just neat to see Demona continuing to live beyond 994. We see how she avoided death or the Magus’s spell, and get a strong hint of how she survived all these years. But we also get to see her aging before she discovers the spell to give her more time, scrounging and thieving with others of her kind, barely scraping by. That too helps tell her story and fill in the gaps of what she’s been doing all these years.
Last but definitely not least, I appreciate the presence of what I take to be the three witches from MacBeth, interfering and disappearing in both past and present. Demona’s plot to use Xanatos’s infrastructure to turn all humans into stone makes for some poetic revenge from her perspective, but something tells me those shape-shfiting witches will have something to say about it. Importing those witches in a MacBeth-heavy episode is a nice touch.
Overall, this is an exciting start to the show’s first multi-part story since the series premiere, and I’m enthused to see where it goes from here!