- Story Arc Tony Dracon and the Turf War
- Characters: The Manhattan Clan, Elisa Maza, Owen Burnett, Captain Chavez, and Tony Dracon
- Enemy(ies): Tony Dracon
Broadway watches a Western and becomes enamored with guns, even going so far as to start playing with Elisa's (loaded!) gun. He accidentally shoots her with her own firearm, and she nearly dies. Ashamed of his actions, Broadway runs and hides, and Goliath is convinced that Elisa's wounding is due to the criminal she's been pursuing, mob boss Tony Dracon.
Tony Dracon returns in the episode "The Silver Falcon."
This Episode Contains the Following Tropes:
- Aborted Arc: At the end of this episode, Owen says that 37 of the stolen guns were missing, probably sold on the street. Originally, Greg meant to have Broadway seek out and destroy them all, but that idea never came to fruition. On the other hand, this does explain where the various criminals and villains get their laser guns in future episodes.
- An Aesop: Guns are NOT toys! They are serious, deadly weapons and should be treated as such.
- Asshole Victim: Tony Dracon barely avoids becoming this trope when Broadway arrives to confess what happened to Elisa Maza.
- Audience Surrogate: Broadway fulfills this role for this episode. He has a naïve fascination with guns (much like many of Gargoyles younger viewers), but then learns in a horrific fashion that firearms are not toys.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: While Broadway is usually the comic relief of the team, one unfortunate mugger finds out the hard way what happens when he's in a mood so angry that it makes Goliath look calm.Broadway: What's this, a new kind of gun?! A new way to KILL PEOPLE?! (crushed gun in his bare hands as if it's a toy) Where did you get this? WHO GAVE IT TO YOU?
- Big Eater: Broadway helps himself to a big bag of popcorn at the movie theater and flies by Elisa's apartment for steaks.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Especially by Disney standards, as the pool of blood proves.
- Death Glare: Goliath shoots one at Broadway when the young gargoyle is relieved that their friend is alive that just says, "No thanks to you, Stupid!"
- Declaration of Protection: Goliath is seen stroking Elisa's hair briefly when he vows to hunt down her attacker, showing that he already feels strong affection for her. Greg Weisman says that
gargoyles kiss by stroking hair. - Deconstruction: Of theoretical laser guns. In many children's programming, lasers are frequently used as a substitute for real firearms and portrayed typically as having only stunning or knocking down those on the receiving end. As shown when Dracon and his men were testing out their newly acquired laser guns by blowing up rocks and shooting gaping holes through trees, you would definitely not want to be on the receiving end of a shot from these "family friendly" laser guns. Especially if you're a gargoyle who turns into rock at day.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The Western film "Showdown
" seems to be a Modern day Black and White movie. - Double Aesop: For Broadway and Elisa. One, firearms are not things to be fooled around with; they are weapons that need to be handled carefully and with respect. Two, loaded or not, firearms should not be left lying around for any reason.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Matt Bluestone makes his very first appearance in this episode as one of two officers, along with Chief Maria Chavez, who attempt to trail Dracon to his base of operation.
- Elisa's parents, Peter and Diane, and her brother, Derek, also make their first appearances, and her sister Beth is mentioned and also obscurely shown in a family photo.
- Family-Friendly Firearm: Played straight and subverted. Elisa's weapon is a regular police-issue handgun with ordinary bullets, but the guns stolen from Xanatos Enterprises by Dracon are the science-fiction laser weapons of the sort usually seen in children's shows, and the weapons that aren't recovered provide an explanation for all future instances of this trope in the show.
- Flatline: This happens to Elisa, and a Magical Defibrillator saves her life.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Subverted. As seen in the page image, Eliza falls to the ground with some blood pooling around her after being shot, but the actual wound isn't shown.
- It's All My Fault: Both Broadway and Elisa feel at the episode that Broadway blames himself for playing with Elisa's gun and wishes he never picked it up in the place but Elisa makes clear she is to blame as well because she should have known better and kept her gun locked in a safe place.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Broadway pulls this on Dracon's goons, holding them in the air (Glasses was dangled by his head) and screaming at them until they told him what he wanted to know. The fact that he's a six-foot-tall gargoyle certainly helps his performance.
- Karma Houdini: Tony Dracon is strongly implied to have been this throughout his life at the time of his first appearance. He came up with ways to hide his involvement with various crimes and thus never had to stand trial. Subverted at the end when Goliath and Broadway have him and his cohorts captured and with evidence of their arms dealing in plain view in order to incriminate them, thus ripping up his Karma Houdini Warranty.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Elisa is revealed to own a cat named Cagney.
- Mistaken for Murderer: Mistaken for Attempted Murderer in this particular case. Goliath
mistakenly believes Tony Dracon or one of his subordinates to be responsible for the shooting of Elisa Maza. Broadway eventually explains what happened just as Goliath was about to enact his own form of justice on Dracon. - Must Make Amends: Broadway, after unwittingly shooting Elisa, goes about to atone for his reckless action by (1) carrying her down to a gurney at an emergency room and (2) going after Dracon to ensure that no more firearms wind up in the hands of criminals. Though Elisa by her own admission acknowledges that she also made a mistake in not having her gun put on safety and in the appropriate place.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Broadway after accidentally shooting Elisa in which he spends much of the episode beating himself up for being so childishly stupid, and then tracks down the gangsters Goliath is also after.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Before Elisa is shot, Hudson musing that television and movies make it hard to tell what is real and what is fantasy in the modern world. It's hard not to watch this as an adult and see Broadway as not a large monster, but the small child watching the show for the first time.
- Oh, Crap!: Broadway's reaction to Goliath's statement, "We have much to talk about." Just from his face, you just know Goliath is going to bawl him out something fierce.
- Reckless Gun Usage: The basis for the Double Aesop. Elisa is at one point seriously injured when Broadway accidentally shoots her while playing with her gun. Elisa, a New York police detective, had left her sidearm, holster, and gun belt unattended in another room from where she was (she admits later that she should have known better). Notably, she's much more careful for the rest of the series.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Goliath goes on a (semi-undeserved) one on the gun smugglers. He's only stopped from killing Dracon when Broadway confesses he's the one who shot Elisa. This throws Goliath into a momentary Heroic BSoD.
- Special Aesop Victim: Elisa. To show the importance of gun safety and how dangerous they are, she ends up getting accidentally shot by Broadway who was playing around with her gun and almost actually dies.
- Status Quo Is God: Notably Averted. Elisa is on crutches for the next two episodes. And the next time Broadway visits at her place, she's seen unloading her service weapon and properly storing it in a gun safe.
- Tears of Remorse: After accidentally shooting Elisa, Broadway flies her to the hospital, and then sits alone on a building and sobs.
- Very Special Episode: This is a gun safety episode in which Broadway accidentally shoots Elisa while playing with her gun, and then has to deal with the consequences. It becomes a Double Aesop and an aversion of Ignored Aesop for both of them thereafter.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite the very serious nature of the episode and its mature handling, a minor point of humor among the fandom is speculating who turned off the oven Elisa was cooking steaks on when she was shot. Even a famously talkative God doesn't have a great answer.
- Two equally reasonable possibilities: The burning steaks could have set off a smoke alarm and alerted the other residents (or the fire department) to check the apartment and turn off the stove. Or, the police (who must have searched the apartment in order to find Elisa's gun and dust it for prints, as Captain Chavez confirms to Sergeant Maza) could have turned it off if it was still on.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Broadway finds a real gun and treats it like the ones he's seen on TV and in the movies. The episode goes out of the way to make what happens next as horrific as possible without actually killing Elisa.
