Todd Jensen writes...

After having read your ramble on "City of Stone Part One", I thought that I'd give my own response on it.

I've already given a previous comment on "City of Stone" focusing more on Demona and Macbeth than on the gargs, and how while I usually don't like episodes of a series that focus mainly on the antagonists and leave the protagonists to one side, this occasion was different, and why I believe that to be. So I'll move on to other matters.

1. About the Eggs: To tell the truth, I honestly hadn't given their fate in the series any real thought (beyond the fact that I did believe that Princess Katharine, the Magus, and Tom had taken good care of them) for this simple reason: the thousand years between the Wyvern Massacre and the present day. I didn't think it likely that gargoyles naturally lived for a thousand years (and of course, we now know that they don't and that Demona's only managed it because of the Weird Sisters' help), so I assumed that the eggs had long ago hatched, and the young gargoyles grown up, lived out their lives, and died long before Xanatos ever relocated Castle Wyvern to New York. I hadn't anticipated the possibility of a place such as Avalon where time moved slower. So I simply hadn't given any thought to the eggs having any impact on present-day events in the Gargoyles Universe.

2. The first set of flashbacks, the one to the Wyvern Massacre of 994, felt very effective to me - I particularly find Demona's grieving farewell to a stone Goliath extremely moving (and the musical accompaniment fits it very well). You'd have to have a heart of stone (pun not intended) to remain unmoved by it, as well. And the "What have I - what have they done?" moment is a memorable and chilling point for me. (One thing that I've noticed is how often Demona comes close to realizing her error and turning around for the better - and then she rejects the opportunity and the moment passes. Kind of sad, really).

3. I must confess that the subtle hints about Owen's true nature slipped past me; I hadn't equated the "tricky" adjective with "trickster" as in "Puck the trickster". I was just assuming, I suppose, that Demona was considering Owen the more cunning of the two (which I mentally disagreed with since I don't like to imagine Xanatos as less smart than Owen).

And I'd also noticed the way that Demona magically overpowers Owen at the same time that she's reading the spell, and felt a bit puzzled by it. It seemed to me almost as if she was casting two spells at once.

4. The 1020 flashback: The big thing that I thought that I'd say about the Macbeth flashbacks here (for the entire four-parter, actually) is that I do feel that I was better prepared for the differences between the "Gargoyles" Macbeth and the Shakespearean Macbeth than most of the viewers may have been, since I'd read up on the historical Macbeth already. So I knew a good deal of the data about him that showed up in "City of Stone". I knew that Gruoch was the real name of the historical Lady Macbeth (and so I could immediately guess as to the role of the character Gruoch in "City of Stone" when she was first introduced). I knew that Macbeth was, in actual history, a much better king than Duncan was, and that he had overthrown Duncan in battle rather than murdering him in his sleep. I knew about Duncan's son Malcolm being nicknamed Canmore (the name that "Gargoyles" used for him). So I felt quite prepared for the story that "City of Stone" used.

The one case where the Shakespeare version did throw me was when, in the course of watching this episode for the first time, I thought "Findlaech being given as the name of Macbeth's father? But I thought that it was Sinell." (The name of Macbeth's father in the play). But then that evening, I happened to be reading something up on the historical Macbeth, and discovered that his father was indeed named Findlaech - which quite amazed and impressed me. (I also spotted Gillecomgain on Macbeth's family tree as Gruoch's first husband, and was astounded to discover that the first Hunter was a real historical figure thereby; I had known before, however, that in actual history Gruoch had been married to somebody else before Macbeth, and about Luach/Lulach).

5. The bits at the end with Owen, Fox, and Elisa turning to stone were very chilling to me; I'd known that something nasty was going to happen from Demona's spell, but not what, and when we actually saw it take place, it definitely felt spooky. And it's certainly a great cliffhanger, as you said (and I hadn't even noticed that the cliffhanger was directed more towards Xanatos and his associates than to the protagonists).

6. I had indeed believed, for a while, that Demona's spell was how she survived - though by the end of Part Four, I knew otherwise.

At any rate, I thought that it was a great episode, and a great beginning to the second season's first multi-parter. Thanks for the ramble, Greg.