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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Danny Phantom Road To Reign Storm Reviews: Prisoners of Love or Danny Phantom Said Fuck The Police

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to my look at Danny Phantom and the episodes building up to my faviorite episode of all time, Reign Storm. This one’s a bit of a schedule change: I originally planned for the next one up to be Public Enemies but eventually realized it just didn’t feel quite right covering it while entirely skipping Walker’s first episode: Sure i’d skipped Skulker’s introduction despite him showing up twice in this arc,.. but with Skulker while he’s a great character and vital to several episodes, his first apperance really isn’t important to getting why he obsses over danny. He saw a powerful, unique ghost and wants to mount him on his wall. It’s not a bad motive, there’s a reason why Kraven the hunter is one of the most beloved spider-man villians and one of the villians i’ve seen the most expies of in animation by a wide margin and Skulker’s a great take on the concept that makes it wholly the shows own. But his history with Danny dosen’t really impact the story or cause any big changes. In contrast while Walker only has three starring episodes, his actions in his second with Public Enemies upend the status quo and utterly change things for our hero in a way that’s never undone entirely. And he does all of that BECAUSE of what happens in this episode, so it felt weird to just skip it so here we are: i’m adding an episode to the arc and doing two in august to help make up for it.

So with that we pick up a few episodes before last time: no real story beats to get into, so join me under the cut as our hero does a jailbreak while his dad whizzes on his sister-in-law’s rhubarb.

We open in the Fenton Lab as Danny walks in and, as he tends to do, Jack shows of his latest invention: the Specter Speeder, a flying car designed for traveling in the Ghost Zone. And for getting some nachos from the convience store at 2am when you don’t want to wake your wife for keys to the RV. It has weapons, scanning equipment and a jumbo cupholder.

But while Jack was working on his sweet ride he forgot something important: his anniversary. Maddie TRIES to clue him in on it, but this being Jack that’s about as effective as putting Garfield on a diet and she’s soon rightfully pissed at him, saying there’s more to life than ghosts.

Now normally i’d hate this kind of plot: The “I forgot our anniversary” plot is such a fucking trite cliche, especially in shows like this that have a dumbass his more attractive and capable wife. This episode however.. makes it work shockingly well. For starters, it’s couched more in character than just banking on Jack being stupid and Maddie not being stupid. Jack has a tendency series wide to get obessed with whatever new gadget he’s made to catch ghosts and really get showy with it, so him forgetting their annviersary not out of malice or stupidity but just because he was hung up on his latest neat toy makes perfect sense. Likewise Maddie has a decent reason to be angry as while it is a cliche to forget your wedding annviersary in media it dosen’t make it any less of a dick move to, and SHE remembered it despite being as obessive about their work and ghosts in general. In fact she comes in nice, it’s only when i’ts both clear he forgot and dosen’t seem to care he forgot she gets pissed and that’s fair. It’s set up realistically as this show can manage and it works.

We’ll get more on that in a second but first Danny accidently triggers the speeder during his parents fight and ends up in the Ghost Zone. We get our first good look at it too and it’s majestic and haunting: it has all the weird structures and shapes you’d expect but a nice touch that couldn’t of been easy to pull of is that it feels like the zone itself is alive: it’s always moving in some fashion, the parts don’t all feel like structures.. it just hs the unearthly, spooky feel you’d expect from an otherwordly realm filled with ghost.

It’s here Danny meets our antagonist, Walker. Walker is played by James Arnold Taylor aka...

I never would’ve guessed honestly either: the guy is a fucking chamelon when it comes to voice work and is really damn talented, and the fact he can voice a mildly whiny himbo, obi wan freaking kenobi, Harry Osborn, and so much more without sounding the same most of the time is freaking amazing. Don’t get me wrong there are still awesome va’s like John DiMaggio that have maybe two versions or Kristin Schaal and Jason Mantzokus who have about one, but can use said range or single voice in a variety of ways and contexts, i’m just saying it’s just as if not more impressive to be able to be a chameleon like James.

Walker is your standard hardass southren jailer type, and really represents most police as a whole: a stubborn, rules obessed, white faced ghoul whose willing to bend said rules to suit him and prosecute people who did nothing wrong, in this case Danny who just stumbled in. Danny wisely runs the fuck away but into more problems

Not with the plot though as this part only enhances what I was talking about: Maddie’s leaving but not because of the argument, though that helps, but because she has to visit her sister for “the divorce” and even left a cassarole. It’s also noticable that while she’s still understandably cold to Jack during this scene she’s not yelling at him any more: she knows better than to try and escalate things and that they can finish this when she gets back.

Hearing divorce scares the shit out of Danny thoguh who dosen’t have context for the fact that, unsuprisingly she’s not talking about divorcing jack, and is worried about his parents fighting. And this is the piece that truly pulls it all together: by putting poor Danny in the middle scared of his parents possible separation. It’s a relatable fear: while my parents divorce smacked me in the fucking face iwth how sudden it seemed, it’s just as likely for a kid’s parents to try and stay together for them and only make things worse, or to worry that some fighting means your parents might break up even when they really won’t.

Jazz asssures Danny he dosen’t have to worry but assumes Jack will do nothing and make it worse before it gets better. I... SO do not miss pre-my brother’s keeper jazz. I talked about this in my Bitter Reunions review, but she’s so fucking insufferable: I don’t MIND her having an ego and getting knocked down a peg by the fact she really DOSEN’T know everything, but the series did it far better once it stopped being her only character trait most of the time.

Thankfully this one is about her having a mental breakdown from the fact she’s WRONG: Jack is in fact rushing to go see Maddie and fix this... which from experince sometimes not letting a problem breathe IS an issue.. but this one was caused by Jack not being attentive or seeming to care about maddie, so rushing to her with a thoughtful gift in a big romantic gesture is a genuinely smart move. It also helps this work: unlike a lot of sitcom husbands who’d scramble to save their ass for saving asses sake, Jack GENUINELY cares he fucked up and wants to fix it, and is willing to go to great lengths to do so, AND already had a thoguhtful gift for her planned he just forgot about it. So he didn’t forget the annviersary all together, he just forgot it was today.

Danny decides to try and compensate by cleaning the house, leading to Jazz going to study at the library. Granted he’s vacuming on the ceeling but still he means well. He hits the lab next and finds it a wreck as you’d expect and after accidently hitting a thing with the ghost ray into the trash can, realizes he can use his rays to move stuff easily and just finger guns his way through it: it’s a fun sequence and clever too. Naturally though as you’d expect he accidently messes up and knocks a present into the ghost portal he left open because shut up and finds it was Jack’s. Oh boy.

Danny’s still rattled the next day at school, Tucker not helping by saying if they said divorce then it’s a problem though his attempt to walk it back after realizing they DID say it is hilarious “Did they say it twice?” It’s just so delightfully half assed. He decides that after school he HAS to go in after it.

So before we get to that it’s time for the subplot of Jack and Maddie in the south which as I tend to do when the two plots of an episode don’t intersect till the end, i’m going to cover all of now: We meet Maddie’s sister for the first and sadly only time. I won’t lie it is kinda disapointing we not only never see her sister again, but that Alicia is the ONLY family of the Fentons we see. It’d be intresting to see what say Jack or Maddies parents or any other siblings or any of their kids would think of the ghost stuff. It dosen’t help that Alicia is pretty one note: your standard bitter divorced woman who don’t need no man sterotype whose trying to convince Maddie her husband sucks. What’s telling is that despite Jack’s inesntivity she still loves him and defends him from her sister.. and shows that the ghost obession isn’t at all just jack as she attacks a sheet thinking it’s a ghost only to find jack just got caught.

This segment is admitely the weaker part of the episode: while i’ts NOT without good stuff, including a running gag about whizzing on rubarb tha tprimarly works because rubarb is a funny word, it’s just kinda flat with Alicia again being a pretty common and annoying sterotype and the runtime being padde dwith Jack having to pee instead of talking with his wife. Just.. putting them in the south isn’t as funny as the writers thought it was is what i’m saying. Not a bad subplot, I just feel it could’ve been bettter and feels like wasted poteitial that the one time we see the Fenton’s extended family... i’ts Maddie’s sterotype of a sister in the generic backwoods complete with tabacco spitting.. though to their credit they DO combat the bad teeth stertoype by havnig one of the guys at the local corner store chastise anothe rwith them for making them look bad. It’s just weak stuff.’

So in the plot people actually care about, Danny decides to go into the unknownnnnn to find the gift, with Sam and Tucker working as mission control and Danny on headset, a setup we’d see a lot after this.

So Danny goes in and we get a better look at how awsome the place is and also find out a key characteristic when he opens a door: There’s near infinite realms here, which makes his quest daunting until Tucker, fiddling with the controls, finds out the Crusier has a “real world item” detector and uses it to help guide danny.

It’s here he finds out another key and wonderful characteristic: most of the realms are in fact the personal domains of various ghosts, where they go when he throws them back in. It’s a nice addition to the lore: it makes sense they wouldn’t just float around and it makes the ghost zone that much more dangerous: there’s no telling if he could run into one of his most dangerous eneimes where they have home field advantage. Thankfully instead he finds MY BOY The Box Ghost. Seriously I fucking love this guy, from Rob Paulsen’s doofy voice for him to his lame but endearing gimmick to his longshoreman outfit. He’s just an awesome example of the kind of c-list villian you’d scrape up from the bottom of marvel, but with the same endearing charm a lot of marvel’s c listers have.

Naturally the box present ended up in BG’s domain, but before danny can get it he’s caught off guard as some ghost cops pick Box Ghost up.. and then danny with some restraints, with Walker arresting him and taking his headset.

Danny of course isn’t pleased by this: his parents might get divorced, he’s going to jail, and he’s with a comedy character whose great to me but I can get would be a lot to put up with. THen he finds out the rest of his Rogues so far, Skulker, The Lunch Lady, Technius and Deserie are all there. The latter two don’t talk.. with Desriee I get it as her actress likely costs a decent amount , but Rob Paulsen is on the main cast so I don’t get why Techinus dosen’t.

Regardless Danny is processed with Walker generally being the smug controlling dick you’d expect and not you know, letting him simply take what’s rightfully his out despite the contraband being a problem., even making it illegal simply because it suits him. It shows who Walker REALLY is: like far too damn many real people in law informcent and the prison system he’s not in this for good reason, to keep dangerous people off the street or help the innocent.. he just wants to lock people up because he feels the Ghost Zone has no order, and someone has to impose it wether they want it or not. And the Ghost Zone HAS a natural order: each ghost has their own realm and genuinely sticks to it when their not bothering earth. If he really was a true student of order he’d of been rounding up the ghosts THERE and then imprisoning them. But he couldn’t give less of a shit about earth: all it does is give hi ma pretext to do what he’d do anyway: lock away any ghost he finds so he can have a sense of control. Just like so many corrupt assholes lock people away and use the fact they did something, even if it was an accident or a mistake, to abuse the shit out of them. I’m not sure if the commentary on prison or the police was intentional but boy does it feel fucking relevant even today and boy is it sad things have changed so little it’s still relevant.

So while this is going on Tucker decides Screw it, we need to go in after him and Sam is cautious, given how dangerous the ghost zone is.. but the prospect of Jazz wanting to go over her own personal notes convinces her right quick. The two procede to wonder around till the scanner picks up the present though we get a nice bit of them running into the dragon princess from the third episode.

Meanwhile Danny gets thrown in with his Rogues, who prepare to do what you’d expect and pummel him.. except Danny points out the obvious: He’s not the enemy here. Sure he put them back in the ghost zone.. but Walker’s the one who put them in jail. Beating up Danny won’t change that, but working with him will.. THEN they can get him next time or go to earth to get him. Skulker agrees to this, which I like: it shows while he may be an obessive hunter he’s not a moron. It’s also likely tied into said obessive nature: he could get Danny in here: but there’d be no challenge and he woudln’t get to KEEP danny’s remains to mount proudly. It’d be pointlness.

So they do indeed team up, with Skulker and Danny faking a fight so Danny can get the guards near him, then Danny takes one of their capture batoon things and uses it, and proceeds to cause a riot, an awesome sequence where our protagnists plow through these assholes and eventually escape. Danny still has to go back for the present though, and finds himself against Walker.. who easily flattens him, showing off WHY he’s been able to capture anyone and clearly intent to kill.

I kid... it is last minute but this is set up as Sam and Tucker accidently phase thorugh the prison wall> It’s also clever: the two’s arrival reveals that in the ghost zone Humans and Human objects take on ghost traits: not all the powers mind you just phasing. And while they likely can’t control it Danny’s had a month or two to practice and thus simply switches into human, grabs the present and stays intangible with it while Walker impotently grabs at him before heading out, having wrecked the prison, Walker’s sense of control and his day. Sadly though.. this is only the begning and while Walker swearing vengance isn’t NEW for a villian of the week.. how he does so will have massive effects on Danny’s life.

But first the wrap up. Danny arrives as Jack gives an earnest heartfelt speech to maddie about he am who he am but he does love her and is sorry, and in time to save his ass with the present. He also gets double allowance for this and gives teh donald duck esque reaction of “I had an allowance.

Danny thankfully also finds out the Divorce thing was not his parents getting a divorce: it’s merley his mom and the locals celebrating the 10th anniversary of his aunt’s divorce. Everyone celebrates, the present has been hollowed out by the box ghost, with Maddie and Jack naturally accepting that and we end on another whiz joke when Jazz offers Danny some rhubarb pie. Good stuff.

Final Thoughts:

Prisoners of Love is a Solid Episode> While the subplot is just okay, it’s not bad and has one or two good gags, and the emotional core is excellent. Danny’s struggle with divorce, Jack being genuinely repentant, Maddie showing she genuinely loves and is comitted ot jack> it’s all great. I do wish we could’ve gotten more with Danny’s other foes so far, they mostly focused on Skulker and Lunch Lady, but what we got was a classic all the same

Next Month on Road to Reign Storm: Walker returns and makes good on his revenge with a scheme that destroys Danny’s life as ghosts are outed to the public.

Next Time on This Blog: it’s Donald Duck’s birthday so we’re having another special! Everybody Dance!

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#danny phantom #danny fenton #jack fenton #maddie fenton #jazz fenton #walker #skulker #the lunch lady #the box ghost #desriee #technius #road to reignstorm

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