Leader of the Pack
"Leader of the Pack" is the fourteenth televised episode of the series Gargoyles, and the first episode of Season 2.
- Story Editor: Michael Reaves.
- Writer: Steven Perry.
Summary
Tidbits
Originally, Coyote was to be called "CY.O.T.I.", short for "Cyber Operational Technical Intelligence", and imagined as a robotic head which could fit onto various robotic bodies of differing shapes. Both concepts were lost in the process of developing the series (though a trace of the latter can be found in Upgrade with the flying head of Coyote 1.0, which becomes a component of Coyote 2.0). Coyote's name, of course, is doubly appropriate, in light of his introduction into the series. On the one hand, it fits the "wild canid" imagery of the Pack's names; at the same time, it also recalls the Coyote of Native American legend, a celebrated trickster figure - and Coyote is playing a trickster role, both in masquerading as Xanatos (himself a definite trickster by his own admission) and in carrying out a strategy based on deception and misdirection (just what a trickster would do). This aspect would become especially prominent in Cloud Fathers, many episodes later.
Coyote also was influenced by Wile E. Coyote of Warner Brothers' animated cartoons, in his suffering from numerous cataclysmic misfortunes (being shot through the middle by Lexington, run over by a train, reduced to rust by Jackal-as-Anubis's-avatar, and being crushed by a falling set of girders).
Brooklyn alludes to Enter Macbeth when he asks Lexington, "Why is it that whenever you and I take Bronx out, we wind up [in trouble]?"
Note that Bronx suspects Coyote to be a robot from the start, singling him out for attack from the very moment that he, Brooklyn, and Lexington have their first encounter with the Pack in this episode. (It helps to have a strong sense of smell.)
Links
- Season Two Ramble
- Background Memo #1
- Background Memo #2
- Background Memo #3
- Greg's Ramble
- Extensive Synopsis and Review
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