[7.4/10] I can’t quite put my finger on why, but this is my favorite outing for Dr. Sevarius. Part of it is just that the legendary Tim Curry is having so much fun! His turn from “I already told the clones I couldn’t be bothered to help them” to “Oh the poor cloned gargoyles! Every life is sacred!” when Goliath threatens him is hilariously delivered. And I like that he’s a good schemer here! Even if things don’t work out for him, his using the California Clones sickness to build his own gargantuan gargoyle son/enforcer to ensure he doesn’t get strongarmed again is weirdly understandable given how both Thailog and Goliath were leaning on him here.
At the same time, I like the nobility of the Gargoyles here. They’re not exactly enamored with the California Clones given that their genetic material was taken against their will and used to make these beings who attacked them. And yet, they recognize that the clones have been peaceable since Talon took them in, and that they are living creatures too. The team’s willingness to again submit themselves to Dr. Sevarius’s methods in order to try to save their counterparts, and the way they even go to the trouble to effectively look after their clones is admirable.
Plus, eff me, I like the big ridiculous giant gargoyle. It’s some B-movie sci-fi shtick for sure (again, appropriate for Tim Curry given his Rocky Horror bona fides), but I kind of love the silliness of the whole thing. (Granted, Anton’s arrival suggests the usual toyetic impulses for the show, but still.) Him calling Dr. Sevarius father, him suffering from the same mega-dose of the clone virus that petrified the rest of the clones, and Goliath lamenting that he too had to lose his life through no fault of his own makes him goofy but sympathetic.
That said, I don’t know how I feel about Thailog’s involvement. There’s something a little ridiculous in the twists-upon-twists here, where first the gargoyles are leaning on Dr. Sevarius, but then Dr. Sevarius is double crossing them, but then he’s doing it on behalf of Thailog, but then he’s double crossing Thailog too, but then Thailog planned for that an is double crossing him. It’s…a lot.
What’s more, god help me, it’s hard to mourn Thailog too much when he gets the clone virus. The guy has been a malevolent and manipulative rat bastard every time we’ve seen him. I know he’s kind of like a son to Goliath, but it still felt a little tonally off when the show gives him a big poignant quasi-death.
Still, I appreciate the bittersweetness of what the usual crew does with the rest of the California clones. The way they place them on a tower, having been unable to save them, but wanting to be some place they belong is oddly moving. No matter how the clones started, our heroes have a respect for their lives that persists even in difficult circumstances, and that remains noble. And Goliath’s final pronouncement, that they themselves went a thousand years between breaths but came back to life, is a hopeful note to end on.
Overall, this is a big and ambitious episode, and one that gets a little silly and convoluted in places, but it’s also one of this season’s best.
Shout by WaterTrooperBlockedParent2024-05-18T03:14:04Z
Well this was a sad episode.