Episode #07 - Home, Bitter Home
Original Airdate - May 15th, 1998 - Second Season Premiere

Chapel steps onto Al Simmon's territory and the two have an encounter that shakes the alleyways. At Wynn's office, Terry Fitzgerald is working late trying to figure out some shipping discrepancies.

Media and Review by Bird Boy
Credits
Written by Larry Brody, John Shirley, John Leekley & Rebekah Bradford
Directed by Jennifer Yuh
Music by Shirley Walker
Animation by Mad House, LTD., D.R. Movie

Voices
Keith David as Spawn
Richard Dysart as Cogliostro
Michael Nicolosi as Clown, Amos
Dominuqe Jennings as Wanda Blake
Victor Love as Terry Fitzgerald, Bobby
John Rafter Lee as Jason Wynn
Michael McShane as Gareb, Minister
Ruben Santiago-Hudson as Jess Chapel
Kath Soucie as Cyan
Screen Grabs






Pans



Sound Clips
Todd McFarlane Intro (MP3, 386kb)
Chapel and Spawn Talk (MP3, 176kb)
"Al?" (MP3, 703kb)
"I'm not..." (MP3, 337kb)

Review: I don’t know if there are any words to describe how much I love this episode. Perhaps it’s just from hearing Spawn actually straight out curse and be a bad-ass towards Chapel or maybe it’s because this is the start of a great season.

This season picks up almost exactly where the last left off and this episode starts out as an intro to Chapel killing Simmons with a flame thrower. It’s a brutal scene and one we see repeated later on throughout the episode as Spawn and Chapel fight.

In addition to the superb Spawn / Chapel fight, this episode plunges deeper into the plot point threaded in season one and the story that will cover most of season two (and even bleed into season three). Terry’s found some discrepancies in the shipping sheets for Wynn’s weapons ordinance. Of course, Wynn knows all about this and ends up ordering a hit on Terry. But that’s all in a future episode.

Let’s get back to the main event in this one: Spawn vs. Chapel! There are no words to describe how much I absolutely love this scene. From the “Jess Chapel” echo and on, even the music in this scene is awesome. There are a few really neat movements with Spawn’s chains and cloak along with the dialogue in the scene. Keith David really gives a knock out performance; while it was odd hearing the voice of Goliath say “fuck,” David completely owns the role of Spawn. Once you get passed that Goliath oddness (though if you aren’t a fan of Gargoyles or haven’t seen much of it, you won’t have that feeling to begin with), you’ll soon grow to appreciate David’s portrayal of Spawn—it’s the only voice I hear now when seeing the action figures or reading the comic.

Overall this was a superb season opener. There was a bit of repeated animation that got a tad annoying, but for the most part it was all flat-out awesome. The ending with Chapel going crazy and screaming and sliding down the wall, leaving a trail of white face paint behind…it was nothing short of awesome.

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