Awakening Part Two

"Awakening: Part Two" is the second televised episode of the series Gargoyles, and the second episode of Season 1.

• Story by Eric Luke & Michael Reaves
• Teleplay by Michael Reaves

Summary

Goliath and the other survivors, seeking revenge, attack the Viking camp, but are robbed of their revenge when both Captains fall from a cliff to their death. The Magus blames the gargoyles for what he believes is Princess Katharine's death, and casts a spell that turns them to stone "until the castle rises above the clouds." Everything now taken from him, Goliath convinces the Magus to freeze him in stone alongside his clan. A thousand years later, David Xanatos takes what remains of the Castle - including the gargoyles - to the top of the Eyrie Building in Manhattan, breaking the spell. Later, they repel an attack on the building by a group of commandos, but Detective Elisa Maza, hearing the battle from a distance, vows to learn what's going on.

Tidbits

Hudson acquires his sword during the fight with the Vikings in their camp at the start of this episode; however, occasional animation errors would portray him as already having it in scenes set before this battle.

As Hakon burns the page from the Grimorum with the counter-spell on it, he comments sneeringly, "Magic spells, hah! Makes me glad I can't read!" It is tempting to wonder if this line of his (linking his pride in his illiteracy to the act which will ensure the gargoyles' entrapment in stone sleep for the next thousand years) could have originated, in part, out of Greg Weisman's well-known belief in the importance of literacy (which would come, of course, to the fore in "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time").

In the original version of "Awakening", it was the Magus who made the offer to place Goliath under the sleeping spell, as the best way of making amends that he could think of. Gary Krisel, one of Greg Weisman's higher-ups, argued against this, suggesting that instead Goliath, as a result of his absolute devastation over being alone now, should make this request of the Magus. Greg and his colleagues at once accepted this suggestion, realizing that this dramatically improved the story.

Greg Weisman makes a brief "voice-actor cameo" in the episode as one of the commandoes, uttering the line "Nice mask".

This detail was most likely unintentional, but Xanatos' remark, "Pay a man enough, and he'll walk barefoot into Hell", is immediately succeeded by a close-up of the feet of one of the workmen dismantling the castle (though they're in shoes rather than bare).

Xanatos' surname is derived from the Greek word "thanatos", meaning "death". There is a certain ironic appropriateness about it, since we will learn in Season Two that one of Xanatos's chief goals is to defy death by attaining immortality.

Links

• Greg's Ramble
• Extensive Synopsis and Review

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