The Reckoning

"The Reckoning" is the sixty-first televised episode of the series Gargoyles, and the forty-eighth episode of Season 2.

• Story Editors: Brynne Chandler-Reaves & Gary Sperling
• Story: Lydia C. Marano
• Teleplay: Gary Sperling
• Director: Dennis Woodyard

Summary

Demona allows herself to be captured and imprisoned in the Labyrinth in a scheme to clone the gargoyles and convert Angela. Goliath and the Manhattan Clan are lured into a trap, by Thailog and the Clones. But, realising she does indeed love Angela, Demona turns on Thailog and the two seemingly perish in a blazing inferno.

Tidbits

The Reckoning was originally intended as being a two-part season finale, but was later on shrunk down to a one-parter after Hunter's Moon became the season finale. (Goliath's "new beginning" line would certainly have fitted this setting, but on the whole, I think that Hunter's Moon was a far better season finale, in that it resolved far more issues in Gargoyles than The Reckoning did, including Goliath and Elisa's feelings for each other and the feud with Xanatos.)

The Golden Cup Bakery Building suffers its second gargoyle attack in the series when Demona breaks into it at the beginning (the first time being Coldstone's raid on it in Legion). This marks its third appearance in the series, since it was also the site of Goliath and Xanatos's opening battle in Vows.

The names of the male clones, of course, are Los Angeles-based parallels to the New York-based names for the trio and Hudson, originating out of the question that the "Gargoyles" production team had asked itself out of amusement: "What if the gargoyles had been awakened in Los Angeles rather than New York?" (It obviously helped that Greg Weisman lives in Los Angeles.) No explanation is given in the script, however, for precisely why Demona would choose those names for the Clones; there was never any indication in the series that Los Angeles had any particular meaning for her. Greg Weisman has suggested that she was making fun of the names the Trio chose for themselves. (The scene where she reveals their names also evokes a scene in the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon where Shredder, having produced four mutant frogs to battle the Turtles, names them after his favorite historical figures - Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, and Rasputin - as a counterpart to Splinter's naming the Turtles after his favorite Renaissance artists.) Delilah, of course, was named after the biblical betrayer of Samson; the "bad girl" connotations of that name would clearly have appealed to Thailog.

Although Thailog is not heard from again in the remainder of this season, he did survive the roller-coaster fire. He returns at the end of "Invitation Only" as a very unwelcome guest at the Labyrinth. He is presumably there to reclaim the Clones, but will find Delilah absent, as she accepted Goliath's invitation to the Xanatos family Halloween party shortly before Thailog's arrival.

(In The Goliath Chronicles Thailog appeared in only one episode, Genesis Undone, where he succumbs to a virus and is turned - apparently - permanently to stone.)

One of the regulars in the projected Gargoyles 2198 spin-off was a namesake descendant of Delilah's - who would, naturally, be a member of Samson's team.

In the episode as originally aired, when Fang watched Demona change into human form he said, "Kinky." In later airings, Toon Disney has censored this line.

Fang would have eventually broken out of prison from the Labyrinth again - and this time would have been forced by the Director and Robyn Canmore to become part of the Redemption Squad in Bad Guys. No doubt he would have been its most reluctant member (and judging from his general loud-mouthed nature, the rest of the Squad would definitely have had a far from enjoyable time in dealing with him). He would certainly have been able to provide much comic relief for it, of course.

Links

• Greg's Ramble
• 2003 Radio Play Script

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