Never Take the Tour

Never Take the Tour
Season	2
Episode	2
Broadcast Information
Airdate	October 3, 2024
Episode Guide
Previous	Always Be Ready for Adventure
Next	Never Use Double Negatives

Never Take the Tour is the second episode of season 2 of "Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai".

Synopsis

Magic has dropped our heroes short of their San Francisco destination, so now they must escape a notorious prison and its unusual guards.

Plot

Sam Wing, Elle, and Gizmo are on Alcatraz, where they are greeted by the Warden and a group of guards. For a moment, the kids think the Celestial Administrator send them to the wrong place, but the warden assures them they are in San Francisco. He quickly spots Gizmo and is immediately charmed by the Mogwai. He offers to give the kids a tour of Alcatraz, but this is actually a trap; at the end of the tour, he tricks the kids into entering a prison cell and locks them up for smuggling a pet into America. He confiscates Gizmo for himself and takes the Gremlin to his office, intending to make Gizmo his new pet. The office is filled with taxidermic animals, which were the Warden's previous pets.

Elle takes a hairpin out of her hair and begins to pick the lock. From the cell across from them, a young Chinese-American man named Chang tells the kids that escape from Alcatraz is impossible, but that not the locks but the guards are the problem. He has been here for a year now for smuggling. Sam sees Chang as a potential ally, and after Elle gets their cell door open, Sam offers Chang the chance to join them, telling him San Francisco is in danger. Chang has a hard time believing this. Elle wants to hurry along, so Sam gives Chang the hairpin so he can free himself.

The kids make their way to the room where Sam's box is kept so they can retrieve it. Elle sneaks up on the guard there and tries to knock him out, but instead, she ends up knocking his head off his body. The Guard is unfazed by this, however, and sounds the alert. Two more guards arrive. Elle tries to fight them, while one guard is impaled by a metal bar, but he shrugs it off. When all guards suddenly reveal themselves as having glowing eyes, the kids realize they are dealing with the undead and what Chang truly meant by his warning. Just as the guards are about to capture Elle and Sam, Chang, who also escaped his cell, comes to their aid and knocks the guards out by dropping some boxes on them. Chang admits he just wanted to use the kids as a distraction, but since San Francisco is in danger, he will let them tag along. Sam reminds him that they need to get Gizmo first.

Meanwhile, the Warden locks Gizmo in a cage with a sausage for food and a water bowl, leaving him alone for a while. Gizmo's condition begins to act up again, and despite his best attempts to resist the urge, he ends up sticking his hand in the water and spawns two new Mogwai: Bobo and Lucky. The new Mogwai make a mess of the office before turning their attention to the sausage they want to eat. In their attempt to get it, they free Gizmo, who throws the sausage out of their reach. Then the Warden returns, surprised to see the mess but overjoyed when he notices the other two Mogwai. As he cuddles with all three, he shows Gizmo some old photographs of himself hanging on the wall. Considering how old some of them are, Gizmo realizes something is wrong with the Warden. The Warden admits his secret; he is immortal. Just like several other guards on the island who, like him, all died on Alcatraz only to find out the island would not let them leave and resurrected them as undead. He is lonely, however, and looking for a pet that can last as long as him, so when he smelled Gizmo's immortality earlier, he seized the chance to capture him.

Gizmo and the other Mogwai escape from the Warden after Lucky bites him. The Mogwai meet up with Sam, Elle, and Chang, who are surprised to see Gizmo multiplied. They dodge the guards and go outside, where Chang claims they need to get past the wall. To make the escape easier, Sam uses one of Grandpa Wing's magic gadgets, a tornado in a jar, to move the fog currently covering the city to Alcatraz, covering the whole island in a thick fog. The group uses this fog to elude the guards and make it to the shore, where Chang instructs them to jump into the ocean at exactly the right moment. The reason for this, it turns out, is because, at that very moment, a boat was passing by, and Chang had bribed the captain with some of his smuggled liquor. The boat brings the group to the shore. There, Elle notices the building she saw in her dreams. She finally admits to Sam that she has been dreaming about her mom, and Sam believes her since prophetic dreams are the least weird thing that has happened to them.

Meanwhile, in Shanghai, Fong, Hon, and Grandpa Wing have set sail on a boat to San Francisco, but Fong is still furious with her dad and refuses to speak to him for the time being. In San Francisco, Chang takes Elle and Sam to Chinatown, but they find the place unusually deserted. That is because China Town has been taken over by Noggin and his Gremlin goons.

Cast

• Izaac Wang as Sam Wing
• Gabrielle Green as Elle
• A. J. LoCascio as Gizmo
• Will Forte as Alcatraz Warden
• James Hong as Grandpa Wing
• George Takei as Noggin
• Simu Liu as Chang
• Ming-Na Wen as Fong Wing
• Eric Bauza as Bobo
• Moujan Zolfaghari as Lucky
• Yael Grobglas as Margot
• Henri Lubatti as McDouglas

Trivia

• Grandpa Wing had a photo his group show more of his past in 1876.
• It shown that Noggin had created more Gremlins.
• Goof: when Chang jumps off the cliff and onto the boat he is still wearing his prison uniform, but when the boat drops him, Sam and Elle off on the shore of San Francisco he is suddenly wearing regular clothes with no explanation given how he got them.

Revelations and significant events

• Gizmo had created two new Mogwai (when his body begin using water to create more mogwai).
• Hon had married Fong to for almost 15 years, while grandpa living with them for 10 years.

Continuity

• This is the second time Gizmo had created more Mogwai.