While the road to a season finale usually feels pretty long and epic due to the influx of incident, the time it’s taken to get to The Wild Batch’s climax has felt extra long. While I’ll struggle to find anything to take exception to when it comes to this show, I have to say that the way Gremlins’ second season was released probably wasn’t conducive to a younger audience. A gap of around 16 months may not be an overly excessive gap between seasons relatively speaking, but that mid-season break of nearly 6 months seems a bit much to demand of a kid’s attention span these days. But while this is more of an issue I have with HBO’s streaming practices rather than anyone involved with the actual creation of the show, I guess that someone, somewhere had their reasons.
Anyway, now that I’ve got that complaint off my chest, it’s time to finally wrap up that big finish once and for all and whether or not this is the final rodeo of the animated prequel, at least it goes out on an expected high.
The water God Kung Kung has been awakened and guess what, he’s an utter prick. As he towers above the indestructible town that Chang wished into existence, the hefty deity starts gathering the vast amounts of moisture he’s going to need if he’s going to flood the Earth and rule over its submerged remains. However, even though he’s much bigger than most of the other legendary creatures and historical ghosts they’ve had to contend with recently, Sam, Elle and Sam’s family have to try and find a way to trap or stop Kung Kung before his prep time is completed. However, Sam and Elle still find themselves conflicted with the manner that they’re going to go about it with The Kid In The Hat seeking to trap Kung Kung while Elle and her enchanted mother, Margot splitting to search for the last two wishing stones in an attempt to undo everything.
However, as always, the solution to their problem arrives in the form of Gizmo and Noggin who have finally settled their differences and even have gotten to the bottom of the Mogwai’s recent freakouts. It seems that the pressure of trying to remain perfectly good at all times has been causing his magically given lust for mischief to manifest in explosions of chaos and all Gizmo had to do was let those urges out naturally. As he’s still got a lot of built up mischief to work off, both he and Noggin recklessly dive into the growing waters in order to reproduce (not with each other, you weirdo) and create a sizable Mogwai and Gremlin army to slow Kung Kung down.
But even with an untold number of big-eared creatures running rampant all over his body, what will it take to finally put Kung Kung down for good and will it still leave enough magic to free Elle’s mother from her increasingly wet curse?
After splurging their particular brand of anarchy all over the first half of the season, there was a bit of a worry that the finale was going to be a bit Gremlin light, however, with the addition of another climax featuring a giant monster on the rampage, my concerns switched to fretting that the final episode would end up feeling a little derivative. While we do get one final Mogwai rampage for good measure that comes complete with synchronised swimmer Gremlins, a call-back (forward?) to the Female Gremlin from Gremlins 2 and another outing for the flasher Gremlin, that fact that it’s playing out during another giant monster mash might suggest that after an extraordinarily innovative season, The Wild Batch might have finally been out of ideas.
Well, while the notion of a building-sized beastie standing amidst a Gremlin swarm might not seem overly new in terms of visuals, the creators of the show have instead shifted the emotional balance of the finale to hit your emotions in a slightly different way. You see, this is the first time that a horde of giggling Gremlins has actually been the good guys and how much you embrace Always Make The Hard Choice will probably stem by how cool you are with the green skins becoming the white hats. The key is the relationship between Gizmo and Nogg- sorry, Algernon – and how the two are able to co-exist despite the animosity that exists between the famous Mogwai and virtually every single evil Mogwai and Gremlin that’s ever birthed from his over taxed hide. While Gremlins purists may balk at the idea of the giggling green ones suddenly going the way of the Terminator, the Raptors from Jurassic Park and Jason Statham from the Fast & Furious movies (I certainly can’t see Stripe or Mohawk ever changing their metaphorical spots) the fact that Algernon actually does have a two season track record of rational thinking means that, in animation terms at least, making the monsters be the good guys, if only for one episode, seems fairly feasible.
As for everything else, it wraps up pretty neatly. After some unforseen small print, Margot and every other human ever enslaved by Kung Kung all revert to human form; Elle finally gets her mother back; Sam’s family accept him as an adventurer; Grandpa Wing gets a wishing stone and Cheng gets off surprisingly easy considering that his devious avarice almost drowned the world. However, while there’s a few dangling threads left, there’s a sense that this might truly be the end of the road for Gizmo’s animated adventures. If the show was truly to end here, the showrunners have seemed to prepare for it. Everyone seems to be happy and Sam’s family even head off on the Train Between World to visit New York (which incidentally is where we meet an elderly Sam in the beginning of the 1984 movie); but the revelation that Algernon has been allowed to try and start a new Gremlin/Mogwai community in Chang’s indestructible town located in the middle of the desert certainly sounds like it has potential. However, even if the powers that be shine a load of direct sunlight on the prospect of a third season and let it melt into a puddle on the floor, everyone involved should feel proud of themselves of all the things the show has managed to achieve. Whether it’s enhancing the lore of the movies and managing to invoke its tone despite toeing the line to make the thing suitable for kids; or including tons of nod to both the historical legends of both China and America; or even bringing in actors from the original movies to voice random supporting characters, the show never once fell back on its laurels and it’s voiceover cast gave consistently strong performances all the way up until Jerry Goldsmith’s score played at the very end.
The question of whether we’re ever going to get a third Gremlins movie is one that seems to be growing every day – but as a humble fan; could request that if that ever happens, could we bring in some of the writers over to give it a shot (and upping the PG13 viciousness by at least 60%) because for twenty straight episodes, they’ve shown they not only know all the usual Gremlins rules, but they’ve successfully made up a whole batch of new ones too.
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