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The Reckoning
Synopsis | Review by Juan F. Lara | Review by Todd Jensen
Overview
- The gargoyles capture Demona and imprison her in the Labyrinth.
- As they guard her, a robotic insect takes DNA samples from the gargoyles.
- Thailog breaks Demona out of prison.
- Demona and her new "clan", the clones of Goliath's clan, capture the other gargoyles. When Demona tries to protect Angela, Thailog abandons her and introduces Delila, a hybrid of Elisa and Demona's DNA.
- Demona and Thailog fight, and are apparently killed in a fire.
- The clones are accepted into Derek's Clan, where they will be reeducated.
Synopsis
by D. Taína
Act I
Goliath, Angela, and Brooklyn are watching the Golden Cup building (from Legion), guarding it from intruders. Apparently, there have been thefts of high technology in the past. Unbeknownst to them, someone (presumably Thailog) is watching them through binoculars. Brooklyn and Angela are bored, wondering how long they're going to be sitting there, and Goliath urges them to be patient. Just then, explosions erupt from inside the Golden Cup building and out comes Demona, wearing armor (reminiscent of her armor from the Gargoyles comics).
Brooklyn is the first to attack Demona, who proceeds to electrocute Brooklyn. She smacks him off and he lands on a rooftop with a sickening sound. Angela rushes to his aid, holding his face and smiling when he opens his eyes. Demona spots Goliath and shoots at him when he tries to tackle her. He dodges all her shots, but she attacks him. Angela sees what's happening and rushes to separate them. "Stop this fighting!" she urges them.
Demona says she saw her in Paris and asks who she is. Goliath tackles her out of the sky, holding on to her armor, and saying that Angela is not her concern. Demona tries to shake him off, but Goliath punches a hole in her armor, which makes it electrocute them. Goliath leaps off, but Demona loses control and crashes into a rooftop. Goliath and Angela watch her from the sky, wondering what her next move is going to be. She staggers out of the armor before it explodes, but the blast sends her flying and she lands on the rooftop, unconscious.
Goliath and Angela gather around first. He checks Demona's pulse and announces that she's still alive. Angela kneels next to Demona for a closer look. "She looks so peaceful," she says. Brooklyn, who's rubbing his aching head, sarcastically tells her to wait ?till she wakes up. Goliath says that they cannot release her. But what other options do they have? Long ago, they banished gargoyles who turned against the clan. But where could they banish her? Humans lock away their criminals in prison. Maybe they could do the same. But that is also out of the question. During the day, Demona is human and they turn to stone. The risk would be too great. However, Brooklyn knows a place.
At the Labyrinth, Demona is in a cell, lying unconscious in bed. The mutates and the gargoyles have agreed to keep Demona prisoner, next to Fang, who tried to force his way into power (in Kingdom). The mutates will guard the prisoners during the day, while the gargoyles guard them at night. Elisa asks Goliath if he knows what he's committing himself to, but he says there's no other way. They will each take turns in a nightly rotation. Elisa suddenly gasps and slaps her hand to the back of her neck. Talon apologizes for the mosquitoes (it's believed that Thailog was there and took advantage of Demona being unconscious to release the mosquito on Elisa).
Angela looks at Demona and announces that she'll take the first watch. But Goliath is nervous about that. "Perhaps... it's best if you don't," he says. Angela looks at him over her shoulder, and asks him if he thinks she's a member of his clan. "Of course, but..." He's stopped by Hudson placing a calming hand on his shoulder. He tells her to take the first watch, but to be careful because Demona is capable of anything.
Later, Angela is sitting in front of Demona's cell, watching her with sad eyes. She's startled when Demona starts to wake up. Demona gasps in horror when she notices that she's in a cell and quickly jumps out of bed. She notices Angela standing there, looking at her fearfully, and she lunges at the bars and thrashes at them. The bars won't budge, so she slides back down and to the floor. "Who are you?!" she screams.
"I'm Angela. Your daughter," she says, solemnly. Demona is furious by the accusation. How dare she mock her? She has no daughter. Angela tells her that the clan's eggs survived, and that she and Goliath are her biological parents. Can she not see the resemblance? Demona stares at her, her expression softening, and then looks down, sad. After so long, she has a daughter. Can it really be? Angela is happy by this development, quickly telling her that she' s been living on Avalon and that Princess Katharine brought all the eggs there after Castle Wyvern was attacked. Demona is furious again. They pillage the castle and steal their children. Typical human. But Angela tells her that "it wasn't like that," grabbing the bars and looking at her pleadingly. The princess saved the eggs. She's part of her clan, just like Demona.
Demona just looks at her. "Humans have no place in any gargoyle clan," she tells her. Angela looks down, saddened by her statement, but Demona places a hand on her shoulder and looks at her tenderly. "If you truly are my daughter, we must always be there for one another. That is what it means to belong to a clan."
The moment is ruined when Fang cries mockingly. "I'm moved, deeply!" he says, wiping the nonexistent tears from his face. Angela tells him to mind his own business. He laughs, and says that "you chick's are better than soaps." Demona and Angela can just share unreadable looks.
The next day, Fang is counting the days he's been there, saying that another day bites the dust. Lexington is guarding Demona, never taking his eyes off her. Demona releases the mosquito from her new belt buckle. It starts flying in circles around Lexington and finally bites him on the neck. He cries out, "Stupid bugs!" Demona is just looking on, smiling.
The mosquito has a long journey from the Labyrinth to Nightstone Unlimited, where Anton Sevarius is waiting. The room he's in has five cloning tanks, two of which have bodies wrapped in something resembling a cocoon. "Ah, the prodigal bug returns," he says as the mosquito lands in front of him, "And whose DNA have you brought us tonight, my little thief?" He uses a syringe to take the DNA out of the bug. He puts it in a vial, and goes to the clone tanks. He punches in a code, a little door opens, and he places the vial in it. "Three down, and two to go," he says.
Thailog steps in from out the shadows, saying, "I just love it when everything goes according to plan." He laughs maniacally.
Act II
Five weeks later, all five cloning tanks have bodies in them, all in cocoons. Sevarius is looking at the briefcase full of money Thailog gave him. Sevarius tells Thailog that all he has to do now is decide on the programming. His advice is to keep it simple. Thailog grins and tells him that he was thinking the exact same thing. He looks at the cloning tanks and chuckles viciously.
Back at The Labyrinth, Demona and Angela are talking. Apparently, they have been talking about many things for five weeks. Claw suddenly walks in and points up. Angela nods, knowing it's dawn. She goes to kneel in front of Demona's cell, saying that she'll stay here today, and turns to stone. Demona smiles at her lovingly, and then steps back as the transformation begins. She holds her face in her hands and begins screaming as her wings disappear into her back, her skin color changes, and her hair becomes curlier. When the transformation is finished, she stops screaming, staggers to bed, and kneels in front of it, her face lying on her folded arms. Fang, who was watching the entire time, just says, "Kinky."
Two weeks pass. This night, it's Goliath's turn to guard the prisoners. Fang starts banging on the glass for attention. "Hey, yo, Goliath! How many gargoyles does it take to screw in a light bulb, eh?!" he says. Goliath just stares at him, then ignores him and looks at Demona when she goes to talk to him.
"If it isn't my judge and jury," she says. He tells her that she chose her own fate when she turned against her clan. She tells him he doesn't know the meaning of the word, but she'll teach him. Everything starts rumbling, and a blast comes from above and rubbles crashes into both Goliath and Talon, knocking them both unconscious.
Thailog swoops in, landing in front of Demona's cell. They exchange a few words, and Demona stands back, smiling. He shoots at the bars, melting them, allowing Demona to escape. She quickly rushes out of her cell and jumps into Thailog's arms. Thailog gives her a laser weapon, and she takes it, shooting Fang a hard look. He cowers back, even hiding under the blankets, saying that he always respected her as a fellow inmate. She shoots at the glass that was keeping him prisoner, shattering it, and granting him his freedom. "He's a fool, but he may be of some use," she tells Thailog. All three quickly leave.
Goliath has finally regained consciousness, and he goes over to help Talon stand up. Demona, Thailog, and Fang glide to Coney Island. Goliath and Talon follow them, noticing that they were too easy to follow. They land on one of the cars of the Wonder Wheel and watch as Demona, Thailog, and Fang go into the Fun House. Goliath tells Talon to keep watch while he goes for help. Goliath returns with the rest of the clan (except Bronx). Talon tells them that there are three ways in: a service entrance at the rear, an air vent on the roof, and the front door. Goliath orders Hudson and Talon to take the back and the trio to take the roof. He looks at Angela and says, "Come with me." Angela looks taken aback, but she follows Goliath nonetheless.
Hudson and Talon go into the service entrance and almost immediately encounter Fang, who quickly takes out Talon with one powerful lightning bolt (curiously, his bolts are now a fiery color, while Talon's are the usual blue). Hudson prepares to attack, but Fang tells him they have a special surprise for him. He's shocked when this negative copy of him, except younger and wielding what appears to be a metallic club, charges at him. He tries holding him off, but the clone is too strong for him, and he's eventually overpowered.
Brooklyn, Lexington, and Broadway drop in from the air vent and Broadway goes in a different direction. Brooklyn opens a door, and a green monster pops out, roaring. They gasp in horror and get ready to attack, but soon they realize it's a puppet. "Very funny," says Lexington. They hear a loud growling, and when they look over their shoulders, they see two gargoyles that look just like them, except with inverted colors. "They're clones, of us!" screams Lexington, just before he's thrown into another wall by his clone. Brooklyn's clone throws him into the floor and proceeds to elbow him in the gut. The scene ends with Brooklyn screaming in pain.
Broadway is exploring one side of the Fun House and passes by two of those fun mirrors. He gets a distorted version of his reflection on each one. "Looks nothing like me," he says. Then he sees his clone, who proceeds to put him in an unbreakable hold.
Goliath and Angela step into what appears to be a torture chamber. They watch for a moment, and then turn their heads when they hear a gun cocking. It's Thailog, who has his laser gun trained on them. Angela is shocked when Demona appears next to them, also holding a laser gun. "You think you've won, Thailog? But it isn't that easy!" says Goliath.
"Oh, really," says Thailog as he pushes a button and reveals the rest of his clan, and Talon, lying unconscious in an adjacent room. "I hope you weren't counting on them to rescue you." Goliath balls his fists and grits his teeth, while Angela just looks numb. Demona goes to stand next to Thailog, and the rest of the clones gather around. "Face it, Goliath. My clan can beat your clan any day of the week." He laughs maniacally
Act III
The entire clan has been either chained or placed in the torture devices. Lexington is in the electric chair, watching rats scurrying about. Brooklyn is in the stockade, Goliath, Angela, and Broadway are in chains, Hudson is trapped in the rack, and Talon is tied to the wheel. Demona walks up to Goliath, taunting him, even holding his chin. "What do you think of my new clan?" she says, "That's Brentwood, Hollywood, Malibu, and Burbank." They're the clones of Lexington, Broadway, Brooklyn, and Hudson, respectively. "I named them myself."
Goliath tells her that if she considers them clan, then she's sunk even lower than he imagined. Thailog steps forward, shaking his talon as if scolding him. He tells him not to insult his friend's genetic makeup, even though they' re a bit primitive. He's programmed them to obey him because that's all they really need to know. Goliath looks disgusted by this. "It's time to get rid of all of you," he says, walking up to Angela and aiming the laser gun at her. Her eyes widen in horror. "Starting with her!"
But Demona rushes to stand in front of Angela, guarding her with her body, saying that she belongs to her. Thailog just shakes his head, and tells her that she's always known that she was her daughter, even before they staged her capture, but she failed to turn her. Angela is stunned, demanding to know if she 's known the whole time. Demona looks at her, looking vulnerable, saying that she had to make her understand. But Angela understands perfectly. Demona staged everything to turn her against her father and to trap and destroy her clan. "You are capable of anything. I hate you," she says, her eyes glowing briefly. Thailog was watching them the whole time with an unreadable look (maybe because the situation is very similar to that of Double Jeopardy, where Thailog told Goliath that he hated him).
Demona stares at her, shocked, then looks down and leaves, looking heartbroken. Thailog tells her that she's better off without her, and moves in to shoot her. Angela closes her eyes, bracing herself, while Goliath struggles with his chains, trying to free himself. Demona tries not to look, but she just can't tear her eyes away from her daughter. She rushes to Thailog and, catching him off guard, makes him miss the target.
Thailog elbows her, sending her flying, and goes to stand over her. He's disappointed in her. But fortunately, he's prepared. He calls out, "Delilah!" A door opens and out comes Delilah, a gargoyle version of Elisa Maza. She refers to Thailog as her "master" and comes running when Thailog calls her over. He combined Demona's DNA with that of the human, Elisa Maza, to create Delilah. She's the perfect programmed companion, obedient, lovely, who would do anything for him. Demona is furious.
He orders her to destroy them. She goes to pick the laser gun Demona dropped, and goes to stand in front of Angela, ready to shoot her. Demona rushes to push the button that will open Goliath's shackles. Thailog tries to stop her, but she's too fast for him. "Goliath, save our daughter!" she screams. Goliath quickly pushes Angela out of the way, before Delilah can shoot her. Goliath swats the gun out of her hands, which somehow frees Talon and the rest of the clan. Demona tackles Thailog through a wall, snarling in wrath. Goliath quickly goes after Demona.
A fierce battle ensues between original and clone and the two mutates. The clones clearly have the upper hand since they have all been aged to their prime. Fang tries to escape, but Talon goes after him. Delilah tries to grab the gun, but Angela kicks it away from her. The clan needs room to fight, so they quickly leave the Fun House to fight outside. Angela is left alone with Delilah.
Outside, Fang and Talon are flying and exchanging lightning bolts. One of them catches the roller coaster (research has shown that this roller coaster is in fact Thunderbolt) and starting a fire. Talon shoots a lightning bolt at Fang, which catches him in the neck and sends him plummeting.
Thailog throws Demona down on the roller coaster. She sits up, but he pushes her down with his foot. She can just stare at him, helpless, unable to move since Thailog's ready to shoot. "It would seem that the love has gone out of our relationship," he tells her, smiling. Just then, Goliath appears and tackles Thailog into the air, making him crash into another part of the roller coaster. Goliath tries to hold him down, but Thailog kicks him away and makes him crash into one of the support columns.
Demona appears, saying, "You are mine, Thailog!" She grabs Thailog by the shoulders and glides away with him. Meanwhile, the clan is fighting the clones, splitting up and taking them one by one. After a long chase, Hollywood flies into one of those "test your strength" towers. Burbank and Brentwood crash into one another and plummet to the street below.
Demona lets Thailog go in mid-air, sending him plummeting to the roller coaster and crashing through several tracks. The roller coaster is now almost entirely engulfed in flames. Goliath appears, urging her to watch the fire. "I told you to save our daughter!" she says, and Thailog takes advantage of her distraction to slam her into one of the support columns, sending the structure above crashing. Goliath reluctantly glides away to avoid being hit by the falling fiery debris. He can't leave her alone, so he glides in circles around them, trying to figure out what to do.
Meanwhile, Lexington is being chased by Malibu. He glides to the Wonder Wheel and Broadway, who'd been hiding in one of the cars, opens the door just in time for Malibu to slam into it and knock himself out, landing on top of another car.
Goliath lands next to Talon, who was standing over the fallen Fang, and asks him if he's seen Angela. They both see a shadow emerging from the smoke. When Delilah emerges, they both look terrified. But she's in chains, and Angela is behind her, pushing her along.
Goliath rushes to Angela and ask her if she's all right. Angela tugs on Delilah's chain, making her shoot her a hateful look, and says that she's been better. She asks where Demona is. They realize that Demona is still on the rol ler coaster, which is now ablaze, fighting with Thailog. Demona finally pushes Thailog down, his foot getting caught in the track. "Do you wish to perish?!" he says.
"My vengeance is all you've left me!" she says, her eyes glowing with hatred. She does not attempt to escape, only holds him down as the roller coaster begins to collapse into the flames. Delilah calls out for her master, while Angela tries to run to her aid, but Goliath holds her back. Finally, the roller coaster collapses, and Demona and Thailog are both lost to the flames. Delilah looks numb, while Angela just breaks down in her father's arms.
Brooklyn emerges with the clones, who are all tied up. Without Thailog, they don't know what to do or where to go. Lexington doesn't want to take them to the Clock Tower, since they give him the creeps. Talon looks thoughtful for a moment, and then says that the clones can come live at the Labyrinth, with his clan. He'll teach them how to think for themselves, and "use verbs."
Angela is inconsolable. Goliath kneels next to her, holding her comfortingly. She tearfully asks him if she's really gone. He looks at the flames and the fallen roller coaster. He doesn't know the answer to that. "The last thing I said to her was ?I hate you.' But she sacrificed herself for me. How can it end this way?"
"She knew how you truly felt," he said, holding her, "And Demona's love for you was the first goodness she has shown in a long, long time. For her, it may have been a new beginning. A new beginning for us all."
Review
by Juan F. Lara
This time, we got a very involving episode that featured what could be big turning points for some of the characters.
Good Points
I loved how "Demona" cared for Goliath and Angela in "Future Tense". But I never expected her to act that way in the real world. So I felt a strong rush when Demona jumped in to rescue Angela. Her pleas for Goliath to save/protect "our daughter" reminded me a lot of her characterization in "Tense". I also liked how Goliath found himself feeling sad for Demona at the end.
Angela was much more interesting here than in "Turf" because of the more compelling conflicts she had to face here. She and Demona had a memorable confrontation in Act 1. I felt bad for Angela for the hurt she seemed to feel from Demona's ranting. Likewise, her regrets about her "last words" to Demona were very moving.
Thailog was his usual entertaining self, calculating and sadistic. His characterization made Demona all the more sympathetic when she turned against him. It was cool to see her pin Thailog on that roller-coaster near the end. :-)
The creators found a use for Fang, who was so obnoxious in "Kingdom", as a mild comic relief. His mockery of Demona and Angela in Act 1 was a good break up of the tension of that dramatic moment. Jim Belushi also seemed more restrained than in "Kingdom".
One problem about the ending, though....
Bad Points
Everyone, including Goliath, knows that Demona can't die on her own. So the cast members' uncertainty about Demona's fate didn't make any sense. While I still was moved by Goliath and Angela's mourning, I couldn't stop thinking about this important point.
Likewise, Thailog has survived big disasters before. But if Thailog really did die in that fire and the others confirmed his death the ending would have had a stronger impact even with the confusion about Demona. They should've had someone pulling bodies out of the wreckage for this ending to be truly notable. But instead the ep ended with another ambiguous-disappearance.
Miscellaneous
The "nega-clan" were nothing more than plot devices, and I wouldn't be surprised if they never become characters of any consequence. But their fight with the good guys in Act 3 was very well choreographed.
Actually, I thought that Demona's rage at Thailog had as much to do with his betrayal of her as with concern for Angela's life. When Demona returns, I bet she'll show a strong love for Angela but still try to turn her to her views of humanity.
Demona's change of heart in Act 3 reminded me a lot of the climax of "Return of the Jedi". :-)
Quotes
Fang: Man, you chicks are better than soaps.
Sevarius: All you have to do now is decide on the programming. My advice. Keep it simple. You don't want to end up with another you.
Brooklyn: It's all over you...forgery.
Thailog: Do you wish to perish!
Demona: My vengeance is all you left me.
Angela: The last thing I said to her was "I hate you". Then she sacrificed herself for me.
Even with the confusion about Demona's mortality I found "The Reckoning" one of the more compelling episodes of this season.
Commentary/Review
by Todd Jensen
With the gargoyles reunited in New York, Demona and Thailog (who had last been seen - if you don't count "Future Tense" - in "Sanctuary") now re-emerge and become a fresh threat. Things become all the more complicated as Demona becomes aware of her relationship to Angela and takes a strong interest in her, hoping to convert her daughter to her cause. And she and Thailog are also eagerly creating their own "replacements" for Goliath's clan, in the form of the Clones - though with a secret surprise on Thailog's part.
The emergence of the Clones fits one aspect of Demona's character; she wants the gargoyle race to survive, but on her terms. The fact that she is not only willing, but eager, to have Goliath and his clan disposed of and replaced by four cloned gargoyles kept deliberately ignorant of everything except total, unquestioning obedience to their masters (so ignorant, in fact, that they talk in the simplest form of English, without any verbs) indicates that Demona, for all of her desire to save the gargoyle race, seems more ready to save it on the physical or biological level than on the mental level (in a manner almost evocative of the form of Weston's attempts to save the human race in C. S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet); she wants to preserve her species, but by stripping it of everything on the inside that makes it truly "gargoyle-ish". Complete extinction would be a kinder fate for the gargoyle race than that. (To be perfectly fair to Demona, of course, we don't know how much of the Clones' design was her idea, and how much of it was Thailog's. For Thailog is not motivated by a corrupted ideology like Demona; he merely wants a team of mindlessly loyal flunkeys to do his bidding.)
What complicates the situation is Angela. Demona at first seems to look upon her daughter as merely another potential recruit for her cause, and therefore allows herself to be captured as much in order to try winning the girl over as to obtain Hudson and the trio's gene samples. Fortunately, Demona is unable to make any headway with Angela (the fact that Angela has had such strong positive experiences with humans, in the form of her foster-parents on Avalon and Elisa, outweighs whatever she might have encountered in the form of human prejudice in the outside world); although Angela remains intrigued by her mother, wanting to reach out to her, eagerly calling Demona part of her clan, she does not accept Demona's philosophy at all. (One nice touch comes up during their conversations; when Angela talks about how Princess Katharine took the eggs to Avalon and safety, Demona contemptuously views it as an act of kidnapping.) Yet Demona is unwilling to give up on Angela as a lost cause (as she has clearly done with the rest of the clan) even by the time that the gargoyles have been all captured at Coney Park, protesting the moment that Thailog pronounces Angela's death sentence. And in the end, Demona's genuine concern for Angela's safety - concern that feels based on love rather than just a futile hope that someday she could bring her daughter over to her point of view - is what saves the clan from death, and gives Goliath hope, for the first time in a long while, that maybe, just maybe, Demona can be cured of her hatred.
Thailog is as scheming and thoroughly villainous as ever; he shows how, despite being Xanatos's "son" and taking after him in cunning and machiavellian qualities, he's much more malevolent than his "father" in his eagerness to slaughter the entire clan at once (in contrast to Xanatos, who would certainly not deal out death to Goliath and the other gargoyles so lightly - not out of compassion but simply because Xanatos knows that living gargoyles are far more useful to him than dead gargoyles are). Furthermore, he's already decided to "dump" Demona - and has secretly made her replacement in the form of Delilah, who, to add insult to injury, is a combined clone of Demona and Elisa! (The fact that Delilah has apparently been programmed with the same subservient attitude as the rest of the Clones, even constantly addressing Thailog as "Master", shows again how much he differs from Xanatos, who values Fox as an equal.) Thailog does display a slight lapse in judgment in letting Demona find out about Delilah before killing Goliath and his clan (one almost feels tempted to wonder if it's a desperate stratagem on the part of the writers to save the protagonists so that the series doesn't come to an abruptly unhappy end), though one could point out that he was aware that he'd have to reveal to her that he was phasing her out eventually, and that he hadn't expected Demona to go to the lengths of actually freeing the clan.
The Mutates return, though only Talon and Fang have significant roles this time. Fang continues to play the comic relief villain, this time as a sidekick to Demona and Thailog, and gets some entertaining lines in the process, such as "Some of my best friends are half-human half-gargoyle babes with bad attitudes!" or, after Demona tells Thailog how Fang is "a fool, but he might be useful to us," "I can live with that." (Wildest of all is when he watches Demona change from gargoyle to human form and comments appreciatively, "Kinky" - of course, he should be grateful that Demona wasn't in the same cell with him at the time!) He and Talon renew their struggle, though with Talon ultimately winning again. More significantly, after the Clones are left wondering what to do with Thailog apparently dead (though see below), Talon offers to give them a home in the Labyrinth, where they can be taught to "think for [themselves] and to use verbs". Unfortunately, this event comes so late in the season that we never get to see how well Talon and his fellow Mutates will fare in their educating the Clones. (Let us hope that the upcoming comic book will remedy that.)
Sevarius also gets a brief appearance, growing the Clones in his new laboratory at Nightstone Unlimited (presumably, he and Xanatos have parted ways since "Monsters", though we are never given the details). He and Thailog, surprisingly, get along well this time, with mention made of Thailog's earlier attempt to kill Sevarius (alongside Goliath and Xanatos) in "Double Jeopardy"; presumably Thailog recognizes that he needs Sevarius on this project and is willing to hold his desire to dispose of his "fathers" in check long enough to achieve his ends. (One of the most amusing scenes in the episode comes when Sevarius advises Thailog to keep his programming for the Clones simple: "After all, you don't want to end up with another you", a sentiment to which Thailog agrees with a chuckle.) The first Sevarius scene, incidentally, provides a brief foreshadowing of Delilah, when he says, "Three down, and two to go" - informing us that there's another Clone to be created besides those of Hudson and the trio.
"The Reckoning" ends effectively with Demona and Thailog's great battle on the roller coaster, both disappearing in a fiery blaze, while Angela grieves for her mother and Goliath consoles her with the thought that Demona's love for her daughter may mean that there's hope for her yet. A small hope, perhaps (Demona still hates humans with a vengeance, as we shall see in "Hunter's Moon"), but a hope all the same.
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. (The scene where she reveals their names also evokes a scene in the first "Teenaged 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 nemesis 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 would have survived the roller-coaster fire just as Demona did, and continue to be a threat to the gargoyles; indeed, Greg Weisman intended him to be one of the main antagonists for the third season. (Instead, the new production team for the "Goliath Chronicles" chose the Quarrymen for that role, and gave Thailog only one episode, "Genesis Undone", where he succumbs to a virus and is turned - apparently - permanently to stone.)
Greg Weisman had many plans for the Clones, although the only one of these that he has spoken of yet was for Delilah to accompany Goliath on the never-made "Halloween Double Date" story. However, 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.
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.