Resuscitating a dormant franchise from its hibernation can often be a double-edged blade with more rules and pitfalls than opening one of the titular Mogwai themselves, with die hard purists insisting (often correctly) that maybe the series in question might have been better left well alone. On the other hand, over the last ten years, countless dormant franchises have been springing back into life due to the insatiable hunger of studios desperate to generate revenue from properties with huge nostalgia appeal and I have to say, Gremlins: Secrets Of The Mogwai has been nothing more than a complete and utter treat.Well, we’re in the Endgame now and all that’s left for this superlative show to do is land its finale with style as it attempts to wrangle handless sorcerers, giant Gremlins and a burning Shanghai into a big finish worthy of a delightful first season.
Consider it done
When we last left the city of Shanghai, it was experiencing something of a disaster as the threat of a full scale Gremlin invasion was only topped by the leader of the marauding monsters, Madame Claw, zapping herself with the Knife of Creation and super-sizing herself to Kaiju proportions and rampaging through town in search of little Gizmo. However, for those of you who something thought that this disaster was somehow one bad-guy short, essence swallowing wizard Riley Green has escaped (despite the loss of both his hands) and is plotting revenge on… well, everyone.
However, Claw’s desperate search for Gizmo proves to be noticably different than the single minded destruction of Stripe from Gremlins of the proclivity for torture shown by Gremlins 2’s Mohawk. No, Claw’s destructive shenanigans are a result of her wanting to profess her Annie Wilkes-style love for the adorable, little Mogwai and she’ll trample anyone under foot – human and Gremlin alike – in order to sate her curious kink.
To bring a semblance of order to the city, Sam, Elle and Gizmo race to figure out how to wrestle the magical, reality bending knife from the grip of a Gremlin the size of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, but their plan immediately hits a snag when Claw immediately check-mates them by swallowing the knife, but Gizmo, despite his size isn’t one to musically croon die. But while he hurls himself literally into the jaws of danger and retrieves the knife, Riley makes his comeback felt and starts wrecking everyone’s day further by regrowing his digits and thwarting Sam and Elle’s plans.
However, if there is a way to pit Green’s gargantuan ego against Claw’s similarly huge size, then our heroes need to find it, but even if they do, there’s still a city full of Gremlins to neutralise.
Cinematic payoff rarely happens in every day life as it’s usually too neat and convenient an occurrence to credibly exist on a day to day level, however, when it’s done right on screen, there’s seldom anything as emotionally satisfying. Emotionally satisfying is also a fitting description for Secrets Of The Mogwai’s finale that succeeds in mixing and matching its multiple threats in a way that’s exciting, decisive and surprisingly doesn’t pander to its younger, intended audience.
Obviously I’m about to rudely boot open the doors of the Spoilers hotel and book a palatial suite as I pick apart this tenth episode and the most noticable thing is that while the warm-and-cuddly looking show has never been afraid of racking up a body count, Never Ever Expose Them To Bright Light refreshingly gives its villains unexpectedly final fates, rather than copping out and leaving their adventures frustratingly open-ended. Claw’s rampage-o-love us brought to a melty halt when Riley opens a portal to a part of the world that isn’t bathed in moonlight and graphically melts her down into a gooey skeleton while Green himself gets a worthy comeuppance after the kids get into his head and cause him to accidentally turn himself into a cockroach – who gets summarily cut in half by the tumbling Knife of Creation. For someone who spent the better part of the 80’s watching Skeletor, Megatron and Cobra Commander hot-foot it to the hills once their plan goes tits up, watching the twin big bads – as thoroughly fun as they were – recieve well thought out and well deserved deaths feels downright mature in a world full of connected universes scared to kill anyone off.
As for the good guys, well, everything turns out rosy with Sam finally growing a pair, holding his nerve in the face of unimaginable pressure and using the knife to turn the rest of the Gremlins back into their far more cuddlier forms. Elle gets validation from Sam’s disapproving mother, who’s apparent death last episode was greatly exaggerated, everyone who had been injested thanks to Green’s Pearl Magic gets released and as for Gizmo? Well, after finally getting his big moment (fighting Gremlins inside the mouth of Claw is pretty badass no matter which way you slice it), Giz selflessly keeps the continuity intact by volunteering to stay in our world with his new friends. It would gave been easy (and predictable) for the writers to simply leave everything open wider than a Goblin Shark’s morning yawn, but the fact that the season has an honest to God ending -especially considering that season 2 is apparently all but completed already – feels so very, very right.
Actually, “so very, very right” is something that can be used to described Secrets Of The Mogwai completely as, if anything, the show has wildly over delivered on my expectations, serving up a near-perfect balance of old and new with laser guided franchise references that not only gave long time fans something extra to look out for (flashing Gremlin!), but it also heavily riffed on Chinese culture as a whole to delirious effect. While season 2 has some intriguing in-roads to explore (George Takei’s Noggin Gremlin is still on the loose as is the incapacitated, jar-based Puke Gremlin and we never really found out the deal with Radish), it’s going to be a tough act to follow – however, I’m supremely confident that Tze Chun and his massively talented gang of scribblers will pull it off.
In closing, if I had to give Secrets Of The Mogwai a final parting compliment, it would be this: not only did this show make me want to immediately break out my copies of Gremlins 1 & 2 (not that hard to do, actually), but if it has even half the understanding of the material the animated series has, it makes the prospect of Gremlins 3 a positively dizzying premise.
Did Secrets Of The Mogwai just get my expectations wet? Because they just multiplied….
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