City of Stone Part Three
"City of Stone" Part Three is the twenty-fourth televised episode of the series Gargoyles, and the eleventh episode of Season 2. It originally aired on September 20, 1995.
- Story Editor: Michael Reaves
- Story: Michael Reaves
- Teleplay: Brynne Chandler Reaves & Lydia Marano
Contents
Summary
Continuity
Travis Marshall makes another guest appearance, delivering a news report on the mysterious events of the previous night.
The woman that didn't turn to stone and tries to tell Travis Marshall this looks very similar to the woman who worked at the Diamond Exchange in "Her Brother's Keeper". Greg Weisman has stated, "I don't think it was the same woman from the Diamond Exchange. The voice here was Rachel Ticotin's."[1]
The man pleading with the Weird Sisters (in their policewoman disguise) to explain to him about his "lost night" looks very much like Billy and Susan's father from "The Thrill of the Hunt".
"City of Stone Part Three" provides the only scene in Gargoyles where one of the Weird Sisters acts separately from the other two, when Seline gives Macbeth the glowing ball that will bring about Duncan's doom, while informing him that Duncan had employed Gillecomgain to murder Findlaech. (Since Seline represents the Weird Sisters' vengeance aspect, it is appropriate that she should be the one to take on this role.)
Macbeth is crowned upon the Stone of Destiny (also known as the Stone of Scone), according to ancient Scottish custom. The Stone is mentioned again in "Avalon Part One", but does not reappear until "Pendragon". The coronation itself would be shown again in flashback in both "The Rock" and "Rock and Roll", though on both occasions, depicted as outdoors rather than indoors, to better fit real Scottish coronation ceremonies.
Xanatos's remark that "mixing magics is dangerous" is another hint about Owen's true identity (the "mixing magics" part deriving from the fact that Puck's magic comes from his being one of the Third Race, while Demona's spell came from a source of human magic, the Grimorum).
In this episode we finally learn the circumstances in which Macbeth gave Demona her name, previously mentioned in "Enter Macbeth".
The revelation that Demona's magic spell has a "termination clause" harks back to "Awakening Part Two", in which the stone sleep spell has a similar clause.
Tidbits
Duncan's red-haired second-in-command is left nameless in the dialogue, but called "Macduff" in the ending credits - a reference to the "Macduff, Thane of Fife" in Shakespeare's play who slays Macbeth.
Macbeth and Gruoch's son Luach is introduced in this episode. In actual history his name was Lulach (which was somehow lost during the creation of "City of Stone"), and he was really Macbeth's stepson, the product of Gruoch's first marriage to Gillecomgain. Greg Weisman has mentioned seeing Luach's actual parentage in the Gargoyles Universe as uncertain; his father might have been Macbeth, or might have been Gillecomgain, but nobody knows for certain.
Macbeth anachronistically calls the Weird Sisters "three old bedlams"; the word "bedlam", associated with madness, derives from the mental hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem - which did not become a mental hospital, however, until 1547, a little over five hundred years after Macbeth's victory over Duncan. Since all of the City of Stone flashbacks took place in a Gaelic-speaking period of Scottish history, this might be counted as an anachronistic translation rather than a true anachronism.
Duncan's fiery death was designed to provide some variety from the "falling off a great height" deaths that had already befallen Hakon, the Captain of the Guard, Findlaech, and Gillecomgain, while still being acceptable to Standards and Practices (in the way that Macbeth running Duncan through with a sword would not). Ironically, in his death-throes, Duncan falls off the ledge upon which he and Macbeth were standing; apparently some habits are hard to break.
Links
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