Television 

Five Thoughts on Gargoyles‘ “Leader of the Pack” and “Metamorphosis”

By | July 16th, 2018
Posted in Television | % Comments

This week on our retrospective of Disney’s Gargoyles, we look at the first two episodes of season two, “Leader of the Pack” and “Metamorphosis,” which respectively aired September 4, and September 5, 1995. Yes, season two was enormous, consisting of 52 episodes that aired almost daily, so let’s get to it. “Leader of the Pack” sees the return of the titular mercenary gang, while “Metamorphosis” sees Elisa’s brother Derek transformed into a Gargoyle-like hybrid.

1. Prison Break

Season two opens with a bang as Coyote, the Pack’s newest member, and Dingo break out of the rest of the group (except Fox) from Rikers Island. I imagine the animation team must’ve relished doing an entire action sequence set during sunset, and it’s quite beautiful, like Michael Bay before his cinematography became a cliched eyesore.

'You are feeling very sleepy...'

Coyote turns out to be Xanatos, who unbeknownst to the Pack outside Fox, was their benefactor. It’s a perfect alter-ego for him, given the Coyote’s reputation as a trickster in Native American mythologies, and his armor’s ability to disorientate his opponents to the point they believe they’re melting is another great illustration of his deceptive character.

2. Hyena’s Crazy

I’m amazed Hyena stayed out of jail longer than Wolf and Fox because she is unhinged (must’ve been her brother’s influence). She attacks and threatens to kill a guard during her escape, and she also finds Coyote really attractive despite him not even revealing his identity yet. Later, when it’s revealed during the climax that Coyote is actually Xanatos’s robotic stand-in, she quips, “A robot? Even better.” Like I said, she’s nuts.

That said, I have to wonder if Fox is kind of worse: she only stops Hyena from killing the guard as it would interfere with her own attempt to gain parole for good behavior. Would she have intervened if she escaped with the rest of the group? Food for thought.

3. Walt Disney Animation Japan

“Leader of the Pack” is a beautifully animated episode. I wasn’t surprised to learn Walt Disney Animation Japan (which closed in 2004) was the one behind the episode, and indeed many others, because it’s so stylish, so artfully designed, that it started to resemble Akira or Ghost in the Shell (which hadn’t actually come out when this aired).

I just had to make a montage.

There are many moody establishing shots, some really expressive facial animation, and fluid looking action. The latter two come together quite excitingly when Coyote actually starts gripping Goliath’s head during their climactic battle. The stylization goes a bit overboard especially when Lex’s eyes glow to the point of resembling a fog light, but overall I really do wish the show always looked this evocative.

4. “Metamorphosis”

“Metamorphosis” is by contrast, just ok, which is rather a shame as it’s a pretty pivotal episode. It introduces the evil Dr. Sevarius (voiced by the great Tim Curry), a geneticist financed by Xanatos who turns people into panther-bat hybrids, including Derek Maza, who is slowly fooled into becoming the vengeful Talon, who blames the Gargoyles for his transformation. Unfortunately the episode falls flat: the episode spends more time on Brooklyn trying to help the female Mutate who escapes Sevarius’s lab, instead of building on Elisa and Derek’s relationship.

What should be an emotional scene winds up being pretty clunky looking.

She only discovers what’s happened to him in the end, and you wind up wishing this episode had been a two-parter. The animation is nothing to write home about, and Frakes and Curry sound bored reading their lines, which is logical as their characters aren’t actors and spend the episode deceiving Derek, but it just adds to the feeling this episode could’ve been so much more emotional and memorable.

5. Whoa Though

That all said, there’s a really graphic sequence in the episode that definitely stands out, where Sevarius fakes his death with a tank of electric eels to fool Derek into thinking there’ll be no one to cure him. Sevarius writhes around on the wet floor with the eels, as his breath audibly goes out, and Xanatos checks his pulse to verify he’s dead. It’s amazing what the animators got away with just because there’s a fake out at the end of the episode.

Continued below

Jeez.

Bonus thoughts:
– Fox reads Sartre in jail because Nietzsche is too butch.
– Xanatos flirts with Fox by comparing her to cake, and completely cements his reputation as an absolute dork.
– Sevarius’s name is totally not inspired by Dr. Pretorius from Bride of Frankenstein.
– I learned Rocky Carroll, the voice of Derek, has a daughter named Elissa.

Next week we’ll look at “Legion” and “A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time.” Let us know if you’re enjoying these retrospectives, or if you’d like us to meander less on every episode and cover more every week.


//TAGS | 2018 Summer TV Binge | Gargoyles

Christopher Chiu-Tabet

Chris is the news manager of Multiversity Comics. A writer from London on the autistic spectrum, he enjoys tweeting and blogging on Medium about his favourite films, TV shows, books, music, and games, plus history and religion. He is Lebanese/Chinese, although he can't speak Cantonese or Arabic.

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