If Twitter stays up this afternoon, I will be starting this week's Drunk Disney at around 3:00 EST. Our feature: the five episode pilot of Gargoyles, never before seen by me.

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Okay, getting ready for today's Drunk Disney! I was holding back a little last week because supplies were scarce and I also had to cook that night, but neither of those are factors today.

The way this works is once a week I pick something on Disney+ that either I haven't seen before or that I haven't seen since childhood, I drink a lot of Fireball (I mean, relative to usual) and get analytical about it (again, more so than usual).

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I don't watch in real time because of the analytical aspect, so it takes me about 6-8 hours to get through one Feature Presentation. I split it over two days so it's not my whole day.

This week we're doing the five episode pilot mini/movie for Gargoyles. I have never seen it.

I have never seen a single episode of this show. I know vaguely what it's about. I know the name "Xanatos" from TVTropes. That's my familiarity with the show.

Getting myself situated and getting the show queued up. I'm aiming to get halfway through the third episode this afternoon.

So the pilot story is apparently titled "Awakening" and the opening sequence with a New York or equivalent city and a spooky skyscraper having some kind of Occurrence up at the top and panic below is very much like something out of the boy version of Ghostbusters.

There's clouds and explosions up top and people gawking who almost get crushed by falling rocks, and ominous music. A lady cop pulls up and I think I recognize her from screenshots so I think she is A Character.

The uniformed officer she is talking to has been telling people to "get back, get back!" but he doesn't himself move from the splash zone until another wave of debris almost crushes him and all the people who had been ignoring him.

She yells again at the people to get back then softly, sadly adds "Or you'll wind up street pizza." then notices that the debris that almost pizza'd her has slash marks on it.

This is all more En Media Rezzy than I had expected. I checked twice that this is episode 1.

One of the pieces of debris hits a fire hydrant and the camera follows the water jetting up from it like it's going to do something other than be dramatic, but it's just being dramatic. Amazingly that seems to be what actually keeps people (and her) back.

I'm not saying there's something wrong with following the water for drama, just that this is being more lush with the details than most 22 minute cartoons would have been, even considering they've got five episodes to tell the story in.

The scene fades out with her wondering "What could be strong enough to leave claw marks in solid stone?" which seems like a fight fire with fire/set a thief to catch a thief thing, knowing the premise of the show is GARGOYLES.

Then we get the Gargoyles title card which is very 90s video gamey and now we're at a castle in Scotland, 994 A.D. which is where the Disney+ preview and pop culture osmosis led me to expect the show to begin.

A bunch of humans (Scotshumans, presumably) with arrows are fighting off attackers with siege engines at the castle. There's a shot of a tower with a bunch of inanimate, regular-type gargoyles and then a man with a pro wrestling mustache orders the archers to stand fast.

The archers point out that they're bringing arrows to a giant boulder fight and the mustache guy whom I reflexively want to refer to as Beardo even though he's got a mustache so I guess he's Stacho draws his sword and says they can face the catapult or him...

...though he's holding a spiked mace when he says this so the sword seems gratuitous. The archers compromise by going back towards their post and doing absolutely nothing until a boulder from the catapult destroys it.

Stacho hints that they'll have the advantage when night falls in a few minutes, and then this is elaborated on when we hear one of the attacking soldiers say "Attacking a castle full of gargoyles near nightfall is crazy".

So gargoyles are nocturnal in this universe?

The enemy leader, whose name is Hakon though I can't imagine this will be important since the story is going to jump 1,000 years into the future, says that the statues are naught but chiseled stone and if they aren't it's still worth plundering.

If you're not SURE, why risk it?

I'm assuming he had the option of attacking the castle at sunup.

So then we get a dramatic sequence of the attackers using hooks and ropes to scale the castle walls as the sun is setting, leading to... someone I recognize.

*whispers and points at the screen* THAT'S GARGOYLES.

I think that's Hakon himself who, for reasons known only to himself, climbed to the very top of the tower that's like, towering way over all of the walls and stuff he's trying to breach, moments before the stone shatters... oh, I figured it was a transformation thing.

Disney's Gargoyles proclaims that Hakon is trespassing and grabs him in one hand. Hakon swings his sword at him, which Disney's Gargoyles catches in one hand... which bleeds. So gargoyles here are flesh and blood creatures that cocoon themselves in stone.

I kind of figured they would still be stony a little bit even while they were active.

I'm learning things.

Hakon goes very quickly from "they're just stone" to "if they bleed, we can kill them" and tries to yank the winged monstrosity who was about to throw him off the tower, off the tower.

It goes better for the non-winged human than you would think! He grabs a rope. Disney's Gargoyles simply takes to the air, and so do all the other gargoyles.

There's some banter at a tower top from gargoyle characters I think are going to be important about if they're going to let the others have all the fun and a casual fatphobic joke THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE and then an Old Man Gargoyle almost gets clobbered from behind.

Old man Gargoyle has a beard and a receding hairline. I'm not super visually oriented so maybe I've only missed that the rest have hair? But he like extra has hair, in order to be balding.

UpdatE: The main gargoyle definitely has hair.

Disney's Gargoyles name is Goliath.

Sidenote: Technically gargoyles are "gargoyles" because they gurgle; they are carved faces or figures that serve as downspouts for rain gutters. Goliath is actually Disney's Grotesques.

I bring this up because folklorically the function of a grotesque (icnluding gargoyles) is to protect a building from evil spirits by frightening them off, and Disney's Gargoyles is apparently playing off that by postulating that they would physically defend a structure.

Stacho offers the theory that the richly appointed and armed brigands they're fighting tracked a train of refugees they've been sheltering, which serves to introduce the huddled masses in the courtyard, who watch the fat gargoyle bite a leg of lamb and then hit a bandit with it.

I do like that the gargoyles are benevolent protectors in this, as often modern fantasy takes the standpoint of frightening appearance = evil, as in D&D, Palladium Fantasy (where they are "sub-demons") or the Ghouls 'n' Ghosts franchise where they are antiheroes at best.

The gargoyles can make their eyes glow which helps an effect where they sometimes, through posture and affect take on a more bestial appearance and sometimes a more anthropomorphic, cartoony one.

So Hakon, who is blond and bearded and I don't know if we're supposed to read him as a viking or what, is beset by gargoyles and he bumps into a gargoyle who is very female... I guess I shouldn't be surprised they're mammals, given they can have beards?

Oh, she's Marina Sirtis.

...Goliath just called one of the gargoyles his watchdog so maybe some of them just are more bestial? Also, Marina's eyes glow red while everybody elee's seems to be purple-white so maybe this is gargoyle sexual dimorphism.

Goliath takes the cornered Hakon and tells him to be gone, throwing him into a haycart, because this is a kid's show in the 90s and even saying the word "die" is like putting a hotel on Boardwalk in terms of opportunity cost.

We get the obligatory shot of the maybe-vikings in full retreat an the archers shooting more arrows after them than they did in the entire battle, hitting no one.

...one of the archers just said to another, "Good work, our arrows made 'em run!"

I think this is more of a make-work program than anything else.

Stacho thanks Goliath who tells him "We owe you our lives every day."

Then we get a celebratory feasting scene which reveals Stacho is not lord of the keep or whatever, he's the captain of the guard, and the lords don't sound impressed with him.

Apparently controlling a squad of vengeful bat demon things isn't that impressive to these two lesser mustaches.

When the queen/princess (she's a highness ,that's all I know) thanks the captain for his services, he says all credit to the gargoyles. She is apparently not a fan. Goliath and Marina But She's A Gargoyle walk in at that moment. The princess (apparently!) calls them beasts.

So three things I've learned:

1. Goliath can wear his wings like a cape. Neat!
2. Cap'n Mustache named him.
3. Cap'n Mustache never got around to reading the rest of that story.

The princess reminds the captain that the Biblical Goliath was a bully and a savage which, again, I'm not sure is the part of the story that is worth remembering, in this context.

I mean, sure part of the story was that Goliath was a feared opponent, but the one fight in particular that the captain brought up didn't go well for him.

"He's like a modern-day Goliath!"

"How do you mean?"

"Really famous for winning fights."

Goliath excuses himself very politely and the princess responds to this breach of manners by ordering that the captain stop talking to her forever.

As the captain tries to make amends and Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle snarls about humans we learn that the humans here built a castle on top of the gargoyle breeding grounds and that's why they live here?

During the day, we see the magus (who is on Team Does Not Like Gargoyles) reading a magic tome and then a white-cloaked rider who is almost definitely him rides out from the castle to Hakon's encampment to offer a bargain for the fall of the castle.

Some of the dialogue makes it sound like the gargoyles are a recent adjustment that the humans are just getting used to but other dialogue makes it sound like they came with the castle.

At night, Goliath unbandages his hand and it's completely healed. So the stone hibernation thing might not *just* be a weakness. Stacho and Marina Sirtis both want Goliath to lead an attack on the vikings, Marina to "end them" and Stacho to "harry them away". Never say die!

Goliath agrees to go chase the vikings away but insists everybody else stay behind to guard the castle. Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle doesn't want him to go alone, but he tells her she's in command, as his best fighter. He reminds her that they are as one forever. Twue wuv!

Back in the courtyard a toe-headed refugee boy asks two of the gargoyles their names, which prompts an interesting dialogue: they don't have them! "How do you tell each other apart?" "We look different." "What do you call each other?" "Friend."

The urchin's mother objects to him playing with "beasts" and she throws something at one of them. Marina Sirtis But She's A Gargoyle objects and gets between them. The smaller gargoyles decide if they're going to be vilified, might as well play the part and go all scary eyes.

Starting to think that Goliath made a mistake in leaving the castle and putting someone else in charge of controlling the pack (flock?), as he seems to be the only one interested in diplomacy.

The refugees in the courtyard are new but there's a distinct feeling that the human/gargoyle dynamic is new and unsettled, which is hard to reconcile with the apparent age of the castle.

Oh! Turns out Goliath hasn't even left yet. He just landed in the courtyard with Old Man MacGargoyle and he sends the ones who were playing monster "down(?) to the rookery" until he returns.

Sure you want to leave, Goliath?

So when Goliath said he could take care of the vikings alone, apparently Old Man MacGargoyle is chopped liver because the next scene is the two of them in the air searching for the camp.

They spot hoofprints, which they note are unusually light for horses carrying armored men. Could it be a trap? Or maybe a trap?

So it turns out the rookery is a cave under the castle where the gargoyles lay their Yoshi eggs. Maybe they have a very long incubation period and that's how the humans built a castle on top of them without knowing they were there and only later coming to an accommodation.

So Old Man MacGargoyle expresses worry that it's too close to sunrise but Goliath wants to keep tracking the vikings. They catch up and find it's just a few men leading a train of horses away from the castle. Realizing they've been had, they race back for the castle...

...and get caught in the sunrise. We then see Hakon leading a charge on the castle.

I'm honestly not sure what the point of the diversion was. Don't have to lead gargoyles away from the castle if you're going to attack at sunrise.

Granted it worked out in that it kept Goliath from attacking their encampment, but it seems like pure luck he followed the false trail.

This time the archers are all business, but their bowstrings break. Sabotage!

And the portcullis is opened from the inside... oh, it's not the Magus who betrayed the princess, it's the captain? He apparently was disgusted by her haughtiness to the gargoyles. But the betrayer becomes the betrayee as Hakon destroys the inert gargoyles...

...or at least the ones up on the walls, which don't include Goliath and Old Man MacGargoyle or the rambunctious kids he sent back to preschool.

Goliath arrives at the castle that night and sees the devastation and goes immediately to what was probably Marina's pedestal, where he finds a handful of rocks. He cries for his "angel of the night" (no names doesn't mean no pet names?) but I'm pretty sure she recurs.

And that's the end of episode 1. On to episode 2. I'm fast forwarding through the "Next Time On Gargoyles" bit to remain unspoiled.

Oh, but the Previously On Gargoyles reminded me that the captain pushed for *all* the gargoyles to go chase the vikings... so his idea was purge the castle of unworthy humans because we are the virus and nature is returning.

So episode 2 picks up with Goliath and Old Man MacGargoyle finding the wreckage. OMMG examines a bow and realizes the string was cut.

The kids come up from the rookery. Assaying that the castle's humans were likely taken prisoner, Goliath vows to track the vikings down and get his revenge. Irony is piling up: the captain sought to protect the gargoyles and destroyed them...

...and Hakon, having been told by the captain that the territorial gargoyles would not pursue him out of sight of their breeding grounds, destroyed them anyway, prompting the survivors (and he knew he was leaving at least one alive, he would have noted Goliath's absence)...

...to follow him to the ends of the earth to avenge his slaughter.

I know from pop culture osmosis that this show gets into actual Shakespeare eventually, but this is a Shakespearean tragedy already.

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In the viking camp, we see the vikings celebrating and the refugees just kind of hanging out, dispirited. Guess they're slaves now? The little boy says the gargoyles will save them and his mother tells him they were all destroyed.

Inside we see Hakon and Stacho deciding the fate of the magus ("worth more alive than dead, barely") and the princess, whom the cap'n deems worth ransoming.

Can't say I'm impressed with his "slavers > people who are rude to gargoyles" stance.

Like, he was upset about the gargoyles being smashed but he doesn't seem super chargined or reluctant about his continued partnership with Hakon.

The magus says he'd sort them out if he had his book of spells. Hakon calls the magus a nerd and burns one (1) page of his spellbook. The princess calls Stacho a traitor and threatens to see him hang.

The shrieks of the damned interrupt them and they run out to see the vikings running for terror as the surviving gargoyles swoop down from the sky. Hakon and Stacho have a brief argument about responsibility for this turn of events.

The princess is now suddenly a fan of the gargoyles and tells Hakon he's a dead man (not that someone will KILL him, this is a kid's show) and he tells her no, she's dead (not that he'll KILL her... seriously, this is a lot of the d-word budget for one episode, though.)

We get a scene of And The Rest fighting/chasing off the miscellaneous vikings while Goliath chases after the retreating Hakon and Stacho with the princess, and then the Magus comes out to yell at them all.

His theory is that the princess is already dead (he hasn't checked) and it's the fault of the gargoyles for coming to rescue her, since Hakon and the cap'n had already decided to ransom her.

So he punishes them for the crime he imagines they unwittingly caused by utting-pay em-thay o-tay eep-slay until-way e-thay astle-cay ises-ray above-way e-thay ouds-clay.

(Magic is just saying stuff in Latin. Not sure what the book is for, to be honest?)

Maybe it's just a Scots-to-Latin dictionary and he doesn't know Latin. I'm not sure otherwise why he needed the book to do something to Hakon.

Anyway. Goliath has cornered Stacho and Beardo (Hakon has a beard, I just realized!) out on a precipice.

He is outraged to realize Stacho was the traitor. Stacho protests that the gargoyles weren't supposed to be there. Beardo tries to blame him for their destruction. They scuffle and fall off the cliff, taking the princess with them. Goliath saves her...

...then roars that he's been denied his vengeance. I dunno, man. Watching the traitor be betrayed and then cause his own destruction seems like pretty satisfying revenge to me?

Tom the little urchin boy comes to get Goliath to help his friends, who we see are now "Stone? At night?" as Goliath growls.

"What sorcery is this?" he asks, which is the kind of set-up line the actual sorcerer who did it has been waiting his whole life for.

The magus begins his angry denunciation of Goliath and then sees the princess, alive, behind him. Goliath demands that he bring them back, and I was totally going to make a joke that the page with the Latin for "Dispell Magic" was the one Hakon burned but...

The magus explains that the sleep spell will last "until the castle rises above the clouds".

I don't know, seems worth taking a trip to Rome to ask someone how to say "Gargoyles wake up now."

So Goliath has two requests: one, someone take care of the eggs in the rookery when they hatch, and two, he gets put to sleep forever, too, since he's now the last of his kind and is doomed to be forever alone.

???

Goliath. Buddy. Friend. I feel like there's a simpler solution.

So we get a dramatic shot of Goliath in stone form doing The Thinker, silhouetted in the moonlight so we know he's under the spell, and then we see the castle, much aged and by daylight. Jonathan Frakes arrives.

Seriously, my first experience with this show before today was when @moofable rewatched it and I heard it from the other room. I had known Frakes was in it but somehow I had always assumed he was like doing a voice for Xanatos, not just... talking in his normal voice.

So it was kind of disconcerting to hear it from the other room, like someone was watching a lost Star Trek episode.

Frakatos goes running through the castle up to the tower and pulls some ivy off Goliath, proclaims him "Magnificent!" and asks his manservant who sounds a bit like Maurice LeMarche doing a voice but isn't to buy it immediately.

Owen (the servant) says the locals consider the castle haunted and Frakes tells him, "Pay a man enough and he'll walk barefoot into hell."

I get that it's like a hot coals reference but as with the Goliath one I feel it kind of misses the point.

Walking barefoot into LEGO Land might have served better.

We then get a very busy scene of men with loader exoskeletons and... fumigation guns? And laser welders. Disassembling the castle and boxing it up.

There's also some regular forklifts and cranes. I think they do a pretty decent job of establishing present day but this guy has access to specialized tech.

We see Xanatos's name on the side of a helicopter back in the city, where he has reassembled the castle on top of his skyscraper, with the establishing shot establishing, specifically, that it is "above the clouds".

We see Xanatos watching the sun sink beside the horizon. He gives the statue of Goliath a sidelong glance and says "Don't disappoint me." which I guess answers the question I had about whether this was a coincidental decision on his part.

When the sunsets and nothing happens immediately, Xanatos looks angry but then after a pause for dramatic effect, Goliath's covering begins to crack and he lets out an angry roar... and we pan down and see another gargoyle hatching and...

Oh, that wasn't anger. It was stretching

They're slow to wake up this time not for dramatic effect because they have been asleep for a thousand years. That actually makes sense! And the sound Goliath made is exactly the same noise I make when I stretch, I'm surprised I didn't recognize it.

So if you showed me this screenshot and told me this was Xanatos the now-archetypal mastermind from Gargoyles and asked me to try imitate how I thought the intonation and delivery on the line reading went, I would not have guessed in a million years it's Riker doing a fist pump.

I also don't remember having seen Old Man MacGargoyle in any of the screenshots I've seen or anything so I'm kind of surprised to note he made it to the modern day. I kept expecting him to heroically sacrifice himself or be ambushed from behind or something in the past.

So anyway. The Gargoyles are awake and they're joyously reunited but then one of them notices they're not in the highlands of Kansas anymore. We see them all staring in confusion and dismay at the modern cityscape from above.

Xanatos steps out of the shadows to introduce himself... or rather to ask Goliath if he's Goliath. I guess just to make sure he brought the right castle full of cursed gargoyles above the clouds. Boy would he have some egg on his face.

We cut to inside where Xanatos is... surprisingly non-chalant about literally everything. I'm starting to see what they're going for Jonathan Frakes just being his personable self here. He tells the gargoyles they may be in for a shock and explains how much time has passed.

He explains that the magus wrote it all down in the spellbook, which is now in his possession. The eggs in the rookery are "gone", making the gargoyles here the last of their kind.

When asked why he's done this, his answer is "I wanted to see if it was true."

Further discussion is forestalled by the sound of an approaching helicopter. Xanatos (whose name hasn't been uttered on screen yet, only appeared in writing) goes off to see who his guest is, telling the gargoyles they'll be safer if they stay hidden.

The gargoyles give each other Significant Nods and then follow him anyway. We see a helicopter approach the castle and a bunch of like swat commandos rappel down from it. If Xanatos knows who they are, he's not letting on.

When the gargoyles see him surrounded, they identify these men as invaders attacking the castle and their protective instincts take hold.

So I'm guessing that the opening scene in episode 1 was the view of this battle from the ground - there were noises in that scene that sounded like they could be conventional automatic weapons fire, which was a freaking RARITY in kids' 90s cartoons.

And here we're seeing the commandos have weapons that are making muzzle flashes and gun noises but no sub-lightspeed energy bolt, which was the industry standard. They're not even drawing light tracers. You're seeing what you would expect to see from bullets; i.e., nothing.

Not sure yet if we're supposed to understand that gargoyles' non-stony hides can repel bullets (they could be cut with swords) or if the assailants' aim at unexpected monsters in close quarters is shaky.

We get to see that Xanatos can disarm and flip one of the distracted gunmen. His opponent is then distracted by a gargoyle, whom he identifies as a person in a "nice mask" and goes after with a knife.

Old Man MacGargoyle is taken out with a taser, though. Clutches his chest afterwards... did I declare him safe too early?

The one who tased him takes advantage of everybody clustering around him in concern to throw a grenade, which the smallest gargoyle catches, inspects curiously, then throws over his shoulder, leaving the group still at the edges of the blast radius when it goes off.

Nice bit!

Xanatos takes advantage of this distraction and runs to a secret passage he evidently added himself in the rebuild, which houses a very large gun.

It's apparently a cutting laser, which he uses to dump rocks on a gunman squaring off with Goliath. As with the construction scene we're getting to see that he has tech others don't - a lot of 90s cartoons just gave everybody lasers, because they're less imitable.

The littlest gargoyle asks his opponent - the one woman on the team - if she's a viking. The older gargoyles conclude that their opponents are sorcerers, hence their magical weapons. Xanatos decides to "take the gloves off" and is immediately socked from behind...

...making his laser beam go wide, causing the waves of destruction we saw back at the start of episode one.

So this is where we came in. The lady cop just pulled up. The action switches back upstairs where we can see the grenades wreaking more havoc. Goliath gets knocked off the castle and has some difficulty righting himself.

Back upstairs, one of the intruders makes his way to entrance to the skyscraper proper and fries the electric lock with a goober while everyone else is fighting.

One of the commandos uses a gas grenade to distract the gargoyles, they send up a signal flare...

...and are extracted by helicopter before the defenders can regroup.

The gargoyles have a brief discussion about the weapons and the "flying creature" or "dragon" that carried the invaders off, which the smallest one identifies as a machine. Xanatos offers no explanation beyond he's rich and therefore has enemies. Goliath is... suspicious.

Xanatos pushes hard for a formal alliance but Goliath tells him they're through trusting humans, though he agrees that since the castle is their home they'll still stay there and protect it.

Back on the street, the lady detective vows to find out what the heck even happened.

And that's the end of episode 2. I'm going to get partway through episode 3 and then call it for the day.

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So at the start of episode 3, Owen is trying to fob the detective off with a story about a generator in the castle exploding, "a most unfortunate accident".

She's sure that she heard automatic weapon fire and offers to come back with a warrant and eve nmore cops.

Upstairs in the castle - I guess Xanatos didn't just want it for the gargoyles, he's also going to live in it? I mean, I would. I just figured he already had a much more comfortable penthouse in its basement - Xanatos admits the generator thing is a cover story for the press.

He tells her that he and his men repelled an invasion by a business rival. She scoffs at his wording, reminding him he's a private citizen, not a sovereign country. He agrees to disagree.

Goliath watches their conversation from the shadows and the younger gargoyles explore the kitchen... so if I'm following and this is still the castle, Xanatos has had it modernized with elevators and fancy Star Trek doors and modern kitchen appliances and a walk-in freezer.

They get in some comic mischief that relies on the assumption that the freezer door requires the might of more than one supernatural being to open, which prompts Owen to interrupt the interview out on the parapets before more hijinks ensue.

As Xanatos is excusing himself to Detective Maza (her name's come up before but in noisy scenes, I missed it), she hears a noise and looks up to see Goliath watching impassively.

"That stone gargoyle, I thought it moved."

Do we usually qualify gargoyles like that?

Owen's "This old place is rather spooky at night, I've thought the same thing more than once." is smoother than his attempt to sell the generator story.

He walks her to the elevator to see her off, but like a rookie, he turns and walks away as soon as the door closes. She stops it and gets out to poke around unaccompanied.

Exploring the castle by penlight, she muses if Dracula will show up. This is what the kids on TVTropes call Wrong Genre Savvy.

I have to say the animation of the flashlight exploring the spooky ruined interior of the castle is very well done, as is this shot of her emerging from an obvious exit onto the parapets.

But she has attracted the attention of the dog-gargoyle, the one most likely to create a tragic misunderstanding! Realizing she is being followed by someone (not rationally expecting someTHING) she draws her gun and orders him to show himself.

Goliath reveals himself silently to crush her gun and forestall a tragic misunderstanding, ironically causing one as she backs away in fear and tumbles off the parapets.

Commercial break cut and he's sailing down to catch her.

He catches her and glides down not far over and in view of the crowd of cops and bystanders that are still hanging out in the street, landing on the side of the building.

He questions what she was doing in his castle. She counters by asking his name. He explains his kind have no names but humans call him Goliath. She asks "So there's more than one of you?" and he gives the best animated expression of "This is a sore point." I've seen.

He further explains he can't fly her back to the castle because he only glides on air currents, which is interesting. Wasn't super obvious but also doesn't contradict what we've seen so far?

When she says he needs to either take her back up to the castle or down to the street, he sighs and rolls his eyes and proceeds to carry her up the side of the hundred-plus story building acting like he's going way out of his way when the street was like one story down.

There's "I don't like humans" and there's "I just climbed higher than the actual clouds themselves to have a reason to complain about humans," Goliath.

Back on the castle parapets, Goliath and Maza are debriefing each other (and she gives him a look that suggests she would like to debrief him) when the other gargoyles stroll out from their kitchen hijinks and see them talking, and swarm over them.

Goliath introduces her as Elisa Maza (she has a first name!), a "...detect...ive?" She explains that detectives find people who do wrong things. There's a brief philosophical exchange about the nature of right and wrong, which ends with Goliath not being impressed by humans again

He notices the sun is coming up and tries to hurry here away, presumably because in a world where people don't know about non-stone gargoyles, their sleep cycle is a secret vulnerability and having it be a known one didn't work out so well for him.

She insists on meeting him again so she can learn more about him and teach him how the modern world works (and possibly "what means this, kiss?" to judge by her hair tossing and facial expressions and hey, I get it, he's a surly sulking monsterboy who saved her)

He redirects her from meeting them at the castle in the afternoon to meeting at a nearby rooftop after dark, emphasizing that she still hasn't explained why she was infiltrating the castle beyond saying she can't trust anybody, and neither can he.

And she leaves and the gargoyles remark to each other how much has changed and they must learn the ways of the world and that's about halfway through the miniseries so I'm going to stop watching there.

Time for some stray observations!

This really is about as much different from everything that came before it as Gummi Bears was from anything before it, which might seem like a weird and random comparison if you never saw it or didn't understand its place in the annals of Disney animated television.

Basically none of the main characters are what I expected based on what little I knew of the show. It's... it's an oddly quiet show? All three of the youngsters are somewhat conventionally cartoony and rambunctious but Xanatos, Elisa, and Goliath feel like live-action drama.

I don't know how shippy things get between Goliath and Elisa (though I'm aware there's a fandom) but it honestly feels a bit like a children's Beauty and the Beast, and I don't mean the Disney cartoon movie.

I know the pilot has barely dipped its toes into the Xanatos character but I think the decision to have Frakes play him as an adult human being and not a cartoon supervillain was probably wise. It lends a maturity to the show that helps carry it.

Like, the 10th century Scotland scenes felt much more uneven compared to the modern day New York and I think it's because they lacked so much of the grounding. Bad Scottish accents and a fantasy version of the past, fine for cartoons.

Anyway. Not fully what I expected, interested to see where it's going.

Will pick this back up tomorrow at same bat-winged gargoyle time, same bat-winged gargoyle station.

If you got something from this, please give something back.

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They really pushed the envelope! Though still with a lot of circumlocution about agency for actual death - talking about someone "will be dead" and then "thought they killed you".

And Xanatos mentioned literal hell, in a metaphor, instead of swearing. https://twitter.com/eriexplosion/status/1252324518342737922

The bar for talking about actual hell is lower than the bar for using it as a curse word, hence why Maleficent was able to say it in Sleeping Beauty back in 1959. And Xanatos was talking about figuratively sending people there. Double layer of insulation.

I can imagine either there were some negotiations there or the line was written in such a way to pre-empt objections, for the plum prize of being able to have the mature adult villain matter-of-factly say "hell" on a Disney afternoon show.

Heck of an establishing moment.