#and a big part of why I'm so worried about where they're going with tory's arc if THIS is the mindset the writers are advocating for

[queencvbra]

okay I'm gonna talk about That Scene (the Tory & Sam fight that ended with her leaving). and I'm gonna be potentially ranty bc I have been thinking about this A Lot over the past few months and idr if I've said anything about it before on the dash. but I have so, so many problems with that scene and the argument the writers are trying to make here.

listen. I love Johnny to death okay? But he was wrong as hell about letting Tory fight, from every angle. I get the writers wanted the approach of "fighting through the pain" but this? This was not that. It was another form of Cobra Kai's whole "channel your anger and make it your power" thing which is just unhealthy. It has a historical basis, too; the whole idea of Cobra Kai since the first Karate Kid movie is that it is a western corruption of the traditional values of karate, and the most direct display of that is the fact that Cobra Kai karate is NOT karate at all, it's Tang Soo Do, and it was just called karate because karate was a marketable term in that time period, no respect given to the actual art other than how it could be turned into profit.

It's all based on an old mindset that largely cropped in the martial arts scene after western militaries (largely the United States) started incorporating various east asian martial arts techniques into their military training. That part of the show where they have Kreese learn Tang Soo Do while stationed in Korea is somewhat accurate (minus the dramatic special ops shit obviously), and my own family has actual experience with this, as this is actually how my uncle's father learned Taekwondo in the first place; he was stationed in Korea during the Vietnam war and taught martial arts. In a lot of cases these "hardass" (sarcastic) military guys would come home and take that "karate" and completely commercialize it, stripping away all of the actual ideology behind it to replace it with western militaristic ideals. Which of course fostered extremely toxic environments when the point of these martial arts was always supposed to be balance and discipline, not just an outlet to beat the shit out of people when you're angry, and that's why that mentality is present and still exists to this day, because it became *that* prevalent. This is literally the basis of Cobra Kai and part of the writers' thesis in this show was supposed to be deconstructing that, yet it seems they keep backpedaling and making it seem "cool" when they need it to be because it appeals to a certain demographic.

And yes, this stuff being in the show and reflected in a positive way DOES affect what people will do in real life, and there is empirical evidence to support that. Seeing martial arts on screen is enough to inspire people. There was a spike in the popularity of martial arts after the original Karate Kid movies. There was a spike in popularity after Bruce Lee became a star in the west. There is currently a spike now because of things like Cobra Kai and the UFC becoming so popular. But not everyone comes in with a healthy, learning mindset, and that happens a lot more when the *unhealthy* mindset is advertised and encouraged on screen instead of challenged. My uncle has kicked students out before because it was easy to tell that all they wanted to do was beat people up and try to mimic their favorite MMA stars. I think Stingray is genuinely the perfect caricature of that phenomenon irl and the writers really cooked when they wrote him, because there really are people who act like that, who want to learn martial arts to feel "cool" and "powerful" for all the wrong reasons.

And I think, from the standpoint of the writing itself, it's a detriment and unfair to Johnny's character that even after all this time, he still hasn't unlearned this mindset and is actively advocating for it when the whole point over the course of this show was supposed to be showing that this is a horrible and unhealthy mindset; it's clear they regressed him to that again just to put him into conflict with Daniel once more and sow more dissent into the group again and give Tory a reason to walk out. In a martial arts setting, you should never take out your anger on another person, and a sensei especially should never allow or advocate for that to happen. I don't care if this is just a show, this is such a stupid argument to make from a writer's perspective and also potentially harmful for any impressionable dumbasses who think they can just go learn martial arts so they can enact their violent fantasies on others as an anger outlet. Mutual trust is such an important thing to have with anyone you spar, and these people join with the intent to purposefully abuse that trust so they can feel like they're a bunch of tough guys. Focus is such an important aspect in martial arts training and discipline, too, and if your head is clouded (especially by that much anger) you are more likely to not only hurt your sparring partner / opponent but also yourself. Allowing that would have been pure negligence and unhealthy for those students in more ways than one.

Because what would have happened if they let Tory fight Sam like that? Nothing good. It wouldn't have helped her. It wouldn't have made her feel better. Her mom fucking died. That much grief and anger and sadness is not something you can just punch away. Sure, if you're angry and you show up to class upset, you can take it to the bag and let out some steam, but that is NOT the same thing as directing that towards another person. She would have hurt Sam. (She was already hurting Sam and they were barely into the match!) Worst case scenario, she could have potentially *killed* Sam. Do you know how easy it is to critically injure or even kill someone by accident? You could put out an eye, break a jaw, give them a concussion, hell you could even get brain damage from something like getting choked out for too long. This is why you train for *safety* first, and everything else is secondary. That's always been my problem with how much shit gets allowed in the show. And I don't mean Johnny's silly OSHA violations. Like, it's goofy, it's funny to see on television, I don't mind *that*, but after so many seasons it's kind of a nuisance to see when it gets taken THIS far, beyond the jokes and funny scenarios and into something serious where the same mindset carries over.

Ultimately, from the standpoint of what actually would have been the right thing to do in that situation, this is not a "different perspectives" thing. There is *no* argument to make here, and the writers trying to pull the same "well they both have a point" bullshit again is wrong, because no they fucking don't, and I'm tired of this being the basis of every single conflict between Johnny and Daniel in the series. Sometimes things ARE just black and white. And also, purely from the perspective of Tory's character development and arc? She doesn't need yet another person telling her to hold on to her anger and center her karate around those emotions. She needs someone to show her that it's okay to let it go.

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - “Beaks in the Shell!”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Bob Snow

Written by: Ben Siemon

Storyboard by: Sam King, Kathryn Marusik, Stephan Park, Emmy Cicirega

Directed by: Jason Zurek

We go virtual!

The episode begins with GizmoDuck and Huey chasing after Gandra Dee, who just stole a cube that causes shockwaves. While he does end up grabbing the massive short circuit-causing cube before it drops into Duckburg's water, Gandra Dee ends up getting away in the end. He wasn't really too competent in this quest, either, as he got caught in a trap and he had to be told by Huey that he can fly out of them. Huey's like someone who yells at the TV when a plot hole happens. Whether this failure is because GizmoDuck is still not as competent as he wants to be or something else is not too obvious, but anyone who watched the previous major Gandra Dee episode can guess that something would have affected his crime fighting when it comes to Gandra Dee.

Back in Gyro Gearloose's lab, Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera has another project in the works that is a secret from everyone: a new virtual reality cloud space that is both a space for scientific collaboration and a potential romantic destination. Let's just say that it may as well have been that something else, and that something else is hidden from everyone else, including his own M'Ma, about as well as his secret identity. Not that he was going to tell his special someone that they didn't buy it.

We go into the aforementioned virtual reality cloud space, where Gandra Dee is already generating beakers full of green chemicals, the universal sign of science in children's cartoons. They can also kiss under the happy little pixelated trees, because they are still an item despite Gandra Dee's record of blinding children and threatening to short-circuit all of Duckburg. Fenton is almost ready to share this scientific breakthrough to the world, but Dee doesn't want to do that because she thinks people would shut it down because of all the purple glitches. This plot point made me wonder if there was going to be something more than just "oh, Gyro can fix those", like if they were going to be a major part of the plot, or that it was supposed to represent that this romance is not going to last.

We later learn that this cloud is also important because they can do dangerous experiments without worry of injury, and, combined with their ability to generate anything they can imagine, this could be a good set-up to an interesting creativity vs. creativity battle. Maybe the purple glitches will come to life as monsters, or maybe FOWL will find out what's going on here and invade it with their own creativity. I mean, who else would have the idea to invade this Gizmotopia?

Fenton: (putting his arms around his one true love) This is going to be...

Mark Beaks: ...the greatest scientific achievement in his-zizz-tory!

Oh, it's Mark Beaks advertising a new Waddle phone update that partially fixes a bug that makes the phones explode into flames. Granted, there's no hint that there's going to be any convergence between these two plots besides Beaks coincidentally finishing Fenton's sentence, with an extra "zizz", but, really, it's inevitable.

Now, Waddle only has one investor, and the investor tells the CEO that he has to come up with an original idea, which he simply can't do as every idea he can come up with, like coffee cups with apps, was already taken. This isn't really the episode's B-plot, and, as said before, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that he's just going to give up and attempt to steal whatever Gyro or his intern are doing. One other thing that's a bit confusing is that nobody seems to recognize Mark Beaks anymore despite being the CEO of a company that apparently still makes phones a lot of people use. It could work as another sign that his company is going down, and that's why he seems so desperate here.

Meanwhile, Huey ends up barging into Fenton's office with a new discovery about Gandra Dee that could lead to her capture, only to see Fenton doing a kissy face while wearing his GizmoDuck helmet. He puts two-and-two together and realizes this must be some sort of virtual reality cloud space. Fenton tries to get him away from that by saying that the GizmoDuck helmet only works on his head, and he just does not have any additional VR headsets for guests. Manny the Headless Horse makes his appearance in this episode with a bunch of VR headsets, apparently hearing that excuse as a request for those, and Huey comes into the world to marvel at all of its wonders, including that very special guest.

Gandra Dee: What...the...f...

Huey: FOWL?!

I see what they did there. Gandra has to generate a weighted blanket to calm Huey down after that revelation. At first, I was going to make some joke about how this is a really bad way for the Duke of Making A Mess to go out, but it makes sense. Stress will be one of the major parts of Huey's part of the plot, and weighted blankets are a good way to relieve that. It's also another reminder that this is a world where ideas can come to life, even if it's just a virtual one. I would question how a virtual weighted blanket would work, but this episode does seem to go with the "one's mind makes it real" scenario.

As Huey keeps asking questions on why Gandra Dee is working with Fenton, we get the little sad backstory on Gandra Dee courtesy of her generating a flashback of her losing a science fair to someone making that one volcano experiment. People just don't understand that she wants to push the boundaries of science with...okay, I'm not sure what that is supposed to be, but it does shoot a dangerous death ray. Because of her experiments need for danger, she can only do experiments on herself, which is why she happens to be a cyborg, and the only people who would fund her work happens to be people like the evil buzzard bent on world domination. She adds an additional comfort to Huey that she already plans to quit FOWL for good after using their resources to make this. After making puppy dog eyes at the little kid like a little kid makes puppy dog eyes at their parents, Huey accepts this for the sake of both science and love.

This leads into our actual B-plot: Huey trying his hardest to keep a secret, and his anxiousness and stress is really getting the best of him even in the beginning. One of the first people he has to confront is none other than Fenton's M'Ma, who, despite Fenton's words to Gandra Dee, did not buy that his project was not some sort of romantic exploit. This leads to an interrogation scene. Crackshell then shows up before M'Ma could actually interrogate him further, and Huey has to try to motion to him what exactly his lies were. It's the usual set up for plots like this, the guy gets caught up in the lie, and he tries desperately to keep the secret a secret. There's not a lot that I haven't seen before, but I can not say this is bad, either.

One creative thing they do end up doing is the very next scene where, after Huey "goes to the bathroom", Huey comes in a room with confidence to answer the big question on why Fenton would keep secrets from his own M'Ma. Eventually, he has to bail again after hearing that one of the secrets is that Fenton is GizmoDuck. Why? Because that was actually Louie playing the part of Huey, and somehow, the schemer of the three nephews is the last person in Duckburg to know GizmoDuck's secret identity. He tries to go back only for M'Ma to ask "Huey" about "Louie's Kids", that fake charity he had in The Other Bin, and Louie cracks under pressure and reveals Huey put him up to it. Huey runs to Fenton's house to essentially yell out that he can't take hiding this secret about the GizmoCloud anymore, thinking the only person in there is a still-in-the-GizmoCloud Fenton. He has no reason to believe there's any desperate CEOs hiding in the wastebasket.

We cut back and forth between this plot and the "Gandra Dee not wanting to open the GizmoCloud" plot, and it turns out to be more about her than anything else. We get the lines about how she doesn't want the world to think of her badly, and how he doesn't care what they think about her, and this heartfelt moment doesn't last too long. Mark Beaks may not be a creative man, but he at least knows how to hack into things. Honestly, it seems like this world didn't have that much security to begin with.

Mark Beaks shows up, locking them in a hashtag captcha before Gandra Dee can defeat him with the combined power of a Terry Bogard power wave and a Rolling Stones reference, and he decides he's going to use his new "WaddleCloud" to steal other people's ideas without anyone telling him. Fenton can still use his creativity powers, and he tries to do that to summon the GizmoDuck suit...only for Mark Beak's stealing powers to take it right from him, giving him the power suit and the ability to add Waddle logos to all the buildings in the skybox.

Fenton Crackshell can still use his creativity abilities to sneakily motion his hands to tap Morse code for help. By the way, yes, he is comatose. It's just like Sword Art Online or that one episode of Black Mirror. Also, how lucky that the one person taking a stress rest in the room, Huey, happened to know Morse code. He tries to take the VR headset out of Mark Beak's head, only for it to give him an electric shock, and the computer displays a little Mark Beaks head telling him that, "ah, ah, ah, you didn't say the magic word." I'm not going to give any hate on this episode for lazy references. If anything, this joke is perfectly fitting for Mark Beaks.

All of this convinces Huey that he doesn't need to keep the secret anymore, which pretty much ends the B-plot with him just randomly yelling out to a mail carrier about how Mark Beaks hacked into the GizmoCloud. He then says he's going to find people who can actually help. It's like he's aware what he did made no sense. Before GizmoDuck can use his finger lasers to delete Fenton and Gandra from the program, or whatever that would entail, his world is suddenly invaded by Huey, M'Ma, and Gyro. How did they manage to get in this hostile cloud takeover when it's implied Mark Beaks put Dennis Nedry-levels of security on it? Pineapples. Well, or Gyro helped them. Either way, it's not really explained.

It may seem like I didn't like this episode that much, so I'll say one thing I did like a lot besides the Louie scene: the weekly final fight scene all of that buildup led up to. The people all use their creativity in a pretty cool way here that I won't entirely spoil here. I also like how Mark Beaks' lack of creativity fits into what he does in it; he just combines everyone else's ideas into a super robot form. I was expecting him to fall over due to so many conflicting ideas, but they end up doing something else that was also pretty funny. Funny by Mark Beaks standards, anyway.

It's not much of a spoiler to say that the good guys win, but there is a little bit more to the ending. Namely, there is a major cliffhanger at the end of the episode. While it's a good cliffhanger, It does feel a little disappointing that a character that was built up in this episode essentially becomes a mere damsel in distress. Then again, I felt the same way about Lena in The Other Bin before the big revelation about her in The Shadow War. We'll just have to see what happens.

How does it stack up?

There's some good scenes here and there, like the blanket, the Louie scene, and the final fight scene, but with everything else, I just found it mediocre by DuckTales 2017's high standards. I'd put it below New Gods On The Block, which has a fight scene similar to this one, and I didn't really love that one either. I can see people disagreeing with this one, especially if they were really into Gandra Dee or Mark Beaks, and I'm sure the last minute of the episode is going to lead to somewhere fascinating. I really debated on whether or not this should be the first two Scrooges episode of Season 3, and I originally gave this a 2 just because I didn't think it was as great as everyone else thought it was. However, I then thought about some of the episode I would give a 2, and I think the good scenes in this episode are just too good to give the whole package a two.

Long story short, Three Scrooges.

Next, we meet some friends for life, through thick or thin, with plenty of tales to spin.

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