#back on my spear of selene bullshit

[justaboot]

So, ‘till I meet you there, I’m singing

A traveling song to ease the ride

And so you know, everywhere I roam

I’ll see you on the road.

-Traveling Song, Ryn Weaver

[ramblingguy54]

Webby’s Serious Vulnerability & Need For Happiness.

The McDucks meant everything to me. Not just because of their great name, but because they were a great family. One I thought I could be apart of, but now it’s gone...Guess the name, McDuck, didn’t mean much after all...

Webby’s desire for making others happy has been her greatest strength as a character. A beckon of hope others can be drawn to, much like it was for Lena’s case being best explored. Webby even helped Penny find her place in their big crazy world of Duckberg, but what happens when she tries to help a personal matter that, as Dewey said, could only make things worse? Even though this episode wasn’t the angst trip I was speculating it to become for our second visit to Castle McDuck, it shines an interesting introspective upon Webby’s emotional vulnerability once again. Something we saw before in Lost Harp Of Mervana once Webby realized Beakly had lied to her about trusting people in general. It’s not just one part of her character, but the entirety of who she is as a person when it comes to her unwavering philosophy of hope. Webby’s newfound confidence toward facing unknown stuff after getting outta the mansion helped because of others supporting her, too. Webby feels like she owes so much of herself for what this family gave to her life emotionally because she didn’t have much of anything in a long awhile, other than Beakly, obviously. It’s no surprise Webby Vanderquack has been a pretty lonely kid as evidenced by her particular episode quote from Woo-oo, “Ehhh, my granny is a bit overprotective. She trains me to be ready for anything, but then says I’ve got everything right here...”, showing how much solitude she endured socially. Webby got this idea into her head she owes her life to Clan McDuck’s lineage, basically. Which is why she tried everything in her power to manipulate the family into making up.

Webby’s helpful friendly morality has been played up for laughs before, like in New Gods On The Block, but here Webby is very controlling attempting to force moral solutions upon a complicated situation, revolving around inheritance of who’ll become the next statue pedestal. For good measure, Webby pulls upon Dewey’s strings for being noticed as the “best child” and formulates another idea ending in more escalation upon an already feuding family. Doesn’t help Huey & Louie stumble into this room at the worst possible time for added consequences. They were both already getting on each others nerves, so it sent them into adding fuel upon this bigger fire becoming a gigantic one as an end result. All of this was moral karma for Webby’s need to make others happy, even if it meant using her own methods to force a solution. Webby is certainly Scrooge’s biggest fan alright, considering his severe need for control rubbed off on her. The kid wants people to be content she’ll go so far as to push that idea, so Webby can feel happy about herself, too. Webby’s optimism was greatly praised in They Put On Moonlander On Earth and the writers wanted to criticize why putting so much stock into an idea of, “Everyone needs to get along, so I can feel happy!”,  can also be a double edged sword in its own right. Sometimes you do need to step away from an already bad situation making things simmer down. Dewey did have a point to an extent about family fighting being a tricky situation. However, it’s not until Webby cuts all the bullshit simply to speak from her heart. No more lies or tricks, but a simple sentimental statement about why she feels the need to repay a debt to the Duck Family. Only then, could their squabbling actually stop.

I set out to preserve their history, but I destroyed it all. The past, the present, and the future...

Webby gets stricken with serious guilt seeing how much damage her meddling around has caused. Besides feeling awful about how she tried taking advantage of the situation, it made her question if they were all their name was cracked up to be. All the studying she did by herself about Scrooge’s ties and legacy are being called into suspicion. If their historical achievements are great, than it can be argued in turn this causes more harm than good for a future together. When you’re at each others necks about who will succeed whatever they’re getting handed it stirs up more issues down the road. The McDuck pride is their greatest strength, yet weakness, from what this episode study displays. Remember Dewey’s research into Della’s disappearance and questioning whether or not she was a genuinely good person? Consider Webby’s introspection as a callback to it, reflecting upon her own value, where if she has put so much faith into who they are seeing them like this, than what does that make her? I’m definitely keeping this as an important mental note for future reference in the next last batch of episodes. She keeps seeing the ugly side of how people can act, including her own family, making this poor kid question everything Webby has held true to for a lot of her life. Dewey had that exact dilemma in Season 1′s episode, The Spear Of Selene, being so terrified of the possibility Della was a self centered traitor to his family. He was scared of being related to somebody who didn’t care for her family at all, making him wonder if that too makes him bad for solely being biologically tied to Della?

Webbigail, no doubt, feels a similar weight of seeing an uglier truth she’s afraid to accept. That not everyone means well in their intentions all the time. She got a taste of that back in Impossibin with Beakly’s extremist behavior about preparing for FOWL’s inevitable threat upon their lives. Now, yes, Beakly did mean well, but she showed a type of ferocity Webby is used to seeing her direct at their enemies, instead of the girl’s general direction. It terrified her for that period of briefness watching Beakly not pull her punches, at least until the end anyway. Factoring in all those variables showcases Webby’s greatest obstacle, her unconditional faith. Although, save for what happened in Mervana, Webby’s not one to doubt people often, since she was quick to forgive Beakly’s oversight a couple of episodes ago. The scary thing though is Webby did doubt everything these McDucks stood for in this moment and that’s very concerning for what they’re foreshadowing in her future conflicts, particularly with Beakly.

That girl believes the best in people, especially Merpeople. If she finds out they’re lying, she’ll be devastated.

When you’ve got her crumbling up a deeply cherished photo Webby held dearly to heart, that’s a big red flag going up there in my mind. If Webby’s already going that far in how hard she’s taking harsh reminders of stuff, then Beakly’s secrets are gonna destroy her emotionally. Food for thought to consider. Mirroring this picture with Beakly’s line from the Lost Harp episode really puts it into perspective about how truly sensitive Webby is to facing an unkind world.

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Della Arc Reviews: The Great Dime Chase!

Welcome back all you happy people, to my look at the series first arc! I covered the pilot last week and this week i’m going full speed ahead with two more review for this arc, one more for the Lena arc all leading up to BOTH finsihing up next week for DUCK WEEK, my huge celebration of the final episode of Ducktales 2017. So with all that in mind when we last left off the kids moved in, webby gained friends, Donald and Scrooge made the first steps to patching up.. and Dewey found out his mom was also invovled with their adventures setting this arc off. 

This is also where the airing order reshuffling started as this episode was pushed up by two replacing impossible summit as the third episode... and where said order reshuffling for both this arc and the Lena arc really bit Disney in the ass by giving fans the wrong idea about the series pacing. See the original idea was to have a few episodes as a buffer, since this arc itself is only about 5 episodes long, so the pacing would be more spread out and fans while likely getting impatient for the della mystery to be resolved, would expect it to take about that long after a while. The same was clearly planned for the Lena arc. 

The problem is Disney didn’t give one shit about proper airing order, story pacing or any of that at the time despite their most popular show at said time having the same pacing structure and having been aired in the right order. So as a result and as most of you already know, season 1′s structure was a mess: The globetrotting adventure episodes were off ballance with ones set in Duckburg itself, Scrooge sometimes felt like a supporitng character in the first half due to his two focus episodes being crunched to the back for holidays... it was bad. And it was worst here as by having both the Della and Lena arcs progress pretty quickly in the first 6.. it was thus jarring and grating that there was zero progress for either in the rest of the first half, and they had to move the spear of selene up a few episodes when they came back just to make up for it.. which still messed with pacing as that arc wouldn’t be picked up until the final three episodes solving nothing. This made fans blame the creators for sloppy pacing and for taking too long to get to the Della thing when they’d done nothing wrong and HAD staggered it out. It wasn’t till Frank later revealed the order was a bit bungled we got the message and until a few months into the series being on Disney Plus we got a proper order for the series. And again, the arc has pacing issues we’ll get to without this.. but they were made so much work by Disney blatantly disrespecting and ingoring their creative team. 

I will give credit where it’s due though: Disney learned from it. While Season 2 had a few episodes shuffled around, this time it was due to trying out that binge airing strategy they were doing to get shows on Disney Plus faster, airing DuckBombs (Woo-Ooo!) frequently, so they wanted the airing to flow properly with that without screwing up the flow fo the season more than they absolutely had to. They were being careful and delberate this time not to make the same mistake and with season 3, they simply havent’ shuffled the airing order at all> The only two episodes aired out of order were holiday episodes purposefully made to air at the right time and detached from the season as a whole. This stretches to other shows too: Amphibia is two seasons in and Owl House got through it’s whole season with at worst minimal changes to the airing lineup and the arcs all being properly spaced and aired as intended. I give Disney a lot of shit, rightfully so, but I will give them all the credit when they learn from their mistakes and they REALLY did here, learning to trust their creators to know when to actually make an episode and simply having them set aside holiday episodes if they want one. 

Otherwise not a lot of lead in for this one: It introduces a bunch of the supporting cast, reintroduces the board in full, and in general is a pretty good episode. Find out why under the cut. 

We open with the introduction of the shows go to Show Within a Show Ottoman Empire. And what I’d forgotten was Louie wasn’t always into it but there’s a subtle arc to it: he gets into it, slowly obesses over it, by the end of the season he’s got his brothers into it, it’s not a huge thing but it’s a little detail I can’t help but enjoy a hell of a lot.  But him not liking it is part of a larger problem Scrooge has picked up on: Louie’s laziness has reached godlike new levels: he’s opened about 7 cans of PEP! and only taken a sip from each, won’t change the channel because the remote, which is right next to him and would only take him hopping slightly to the left to get to it or incnching over a bit is “too far”. Scrooge finally blows up at the sight when Louie tosses his phone away for not being charged and assumes he can get another one because “We’re rich”. Scrooge corrects him “I”m rich!” and then drags him off by the hoodie with him to the office so he’ll learn the value of a hard day’s work. And really.. the scene is a good showcase for Scrooge: Louie is acting like the embodiment of all deadbeats and Scrooge is still VERY patient with the boy until it’s very clear he needs a wakeup call. Given Scrooge has a temper on the best of occasions it really shows he’s trying with the boys, and only really snapped when it was clear Louie NEEDED someone to snap at him and snap him out of his bullshit. 

Meanwhile Dewey sneaks into Webby’s room to read her secret file on the McDuck family only to LITERALLY be caught red handed as she put glitter on her outside.. because it looks pretty. And as a security measure. Given she lives with a trained spy who likely has riffled through her stuff at least once, or would at least solely try to check her files just to make sure their secure, and lives in a place that gets broken into or nearly blown up, both by Glomgold, on a regular basis, i’d expect no less. But she also points out the obvious once he explains he’s looking for information on his family: He could’ve just asked. As we saw back in Woo-ooo! like yours truly webby will gladly go on about things she’s obsessed about at the drop of a hat and has likely been dying for someone to share her vast conspiracy board with. As for why he didn’t do the obvious, keep in mind he doesn’t know Webby well this point, so he dosen’t know what questions he asked might set her off and also doesn’t know WHY his uncles don’t talk about her, so he’s being cautious and it’s a nice foreshadowing for his secret keeping throughout the arc.. and how it’s an inherently dumb and selfish idea that only slows down his investigation. 

So naturally given the sequel hook at the end of the pilot, he asks about Della. And after drawing the curtains and making sure Scrooge isn’t around to listen Webby asks what HE knows. Naturally given this is a whole story arc he only knows what she looks like from an old photo of her dunking donald’s head in his birthday cake, and Webby.. knows even less. No one talks about Della and the last time anyone did, a mailmain brought some junk mail with her name on it, Scrooge bought out the post office and they never saw that mail man again. Webby naturally thinks Scrooge murdered him... and while I don’t think he went THAT far, I pity that poor shcmoe and whatever ice floe he’s been banished to. And not a small villiage in the arctic mind you like an actual ice floe scrooge left him on with a lifetimes suply of beans.

 This also admittedly answers a question i’ve been griping about for some time that turns out had a logical answer: I thought he’d somehow wiped her out from public record and the internet and then magically put her back. I was wrong and simply hadn’t rewatched this episode and connected the dots. He likely didn’t do.. any of that, but the triplets likely never thought to internet search her with Donald because as far as they knew Donald was an average person, and thus their mom would be too and looking her up wouldn’t tell her anything about them. It still leaves the plot hole of how they knew about Scrooge and not the Della search, I have no answer for that one, but hey sometimes these things happen and it’s a good enough show I can ignore it. Point is they had no reason to research her before then and Donald likely went out of his way to hide anything about her when they visited places.  Likewise Scrooge was likely so miserable and consumed with his search, and once that was called off his failure, he likely pulled every archive and artifact for his own personal collection to pour over them in sadness and loss and simply put most of it back into the public once the boys helped him heal by the end of the season and the truth was out there. Likewise while the internet info was likely there after this episode too Dewey, as foolish as he can be, likely wasn’t stupid enough to look up his mom’s name on his uncle’s wifi. While Scrooge likely isn’t tech savy, given how paranoid he is and how much of a sore spot this is, it’s not a stretch to have him ask gyro to monitor his wifi for certain key words. So yeah i’ll admit when I was wrong and there was a logical explanation, if still with some holes, all along.

Anyways Webby has one place she hasnt’ been able to get into that might have the answers: Scrooge’s Personal Archives. And as it turns out, both parties are heading to the bin: Scrooge since, much like the comics, that’s where his office is, and Webby and Dewey for the same reason The bin being Scrooge’s buisness center, where his office is where he has meetings where a lot of his emoployees are is very accurate to the comics, as while the layout was never entirely consient apart from “Scrooge’s office is the only way in and out of the bin itself” and said office having a very consistent and iconic look that the series didn’t change. But as we’ll see they added two extra parts to it that in the comics scrooge would Balk at the expense of but this scrooge, whiel still probably not happy about the extra money, knows are vitally necessary. 

Speaking of which the plot splits in two pretty cleanly once we actually get to the bin: Scrooge has no real issue with the kids going to the archives and no glimmer of their real intention, so the plots don't’ meet up again outside of when Louie’s literally crashes into Dewey and Webby’s for a second. There’s some thematic connections, cutaways and an intercut montage, but nothing outside of that. So as is tradition for me i’m covering them seperatly and since it’s both the reason why i’m covering this episode and our B-Plot, let’s start with the archives Webby and Dewey in The Mad Archivist of Scrooge McDuck!

Webby and Dewey head to the archive where we meet Quackfaster. In the comics she’s scrooges long suffering secretary, emphasis on suffering. He barely pays her, takes expenses out of her paycheck and she generally seems once minute away from a nervous breakdown at any given time. What i’m saying is the character and the “gag” have not aged well in any way shape or form so instead here she was revamped. Frank and Matt leaned on Scrooge’s love for adventure more than his greed at first, and had his thrill-seeking be his vice more. It does make sense as greed isn’t nearly as good as it was to people in the 40′s and especially the 80′s, but they eventually clearly realized they made it a bit too subtle, as it’s still an iconic part of the character and played it up a bit more in seasons 2 and 3, to the point two of his worst moments in backstory, both revealed in season 3, come from his greed. They found a nice ballance and I do think having his adventuring also be a vice was a nice change of  pace.  As such, they came up with the idea that he’d hire people who like him are exceptionally talented but also a bit reckless and unhinged. The kind of people most employers would unfairly shut the door on but Scrooge sees their true talent and worth and treats them with the respect they deserve. People who in most other works would be super villains, but here are kept from that by being given honest jobs for their talents and a boss who has no intention of ripping them off or undermining them. IT’s a great concept and I wish we’d saw more than two people hired with that in mind, but the two we got are great.

So with all this Quackfaster was reinvented with this idea in mind to someone entirely different but infinitely more entertaining: She’s now a ham of the highest order, not literally, and slightly unballanced. She also refuses to help Dewey until he completes some challenges for her, sorting out a code in the dewey decimel system

And in sorting the books to get to know the archives. Webby is all for it naturally as this is a dream for her: she’s likely tried to access the place for years and couldn’t as a non-relative, something Scrooge hopefully relaxes in the future, so a giant pile of books about adventuring, Scrooge (including an apparently 7 volumes on his favorite smells one of which Webby gives a happy “I knew it” upon finding out it was fresh baked cookies), and places he’s been, including a sly nod to Plain Awful. This is a hallmark of the show making smaller nods to the past incarnations without going into them or doing those adventures again and while I was at first disappointed those tales already happened in some form, I now get they simply wanted to tell NEW ONES, and were a big as fan of the olds ones as most of you reading this and myself. Though between you and me I was never a big fan of the square eggs story. Good idea just a weird and not all that funny execution. 

Dewey however has the patience of a coked up ferret who also took some shrooms and being Dewey tries simply demanding she tell him. Naturally yelling at the weird hammy lady intrusted to guard the private library of someone whose a certified badass.. is not a smart or correct move and Quackfaster decides if they can’t respect the archives they’ll become PART OF THE ARCHIVES and pulls out a crescent shaped sword to apparently murder them. 

So a chase ensues with the two trying to simply throw books at her, escape her and only narrowly doing so for a minute when Louie pops up being chased by a giant robot made by a smaller robot using a giant change machine. I love this show. 

Eventually their backed into a corner while Dewey defiantly demands info on his mom. And his impatience and anger is understandable: this is the first time in his ten or so year old life he’s had ANY chance of learning anything on her.. and he’s having to do various fetch quests. While he could use some tact, may not get him stabbed so much, his viewpoint is understandable. 

Thankfully it turns out Quackfaster was just doing a Mr.Miaygi and secretly testing them, having chased them to the book Dewey wanted, and said code she had them find earlier is the login for the vault. Granted it also has them put away some books (”How much of this is us just doing your job for you?” “About fiffttty perceeennnt”), but she works for scrooge. While he thankfully pays her a living wage here he still can’t be paying her much. Still they find their way to a secret vault and Dewey gets stabbed a bit to verify he is a mcduck.. and let into Scrooge’s secret room, full of treasures Della likely gathered. As I said, he DID put them aside somewhere, and likely just wanted them to cry over and donald didn’t fight it since the last thing he wanted was the boys learning their legacy. D

The telling part here though, despite accusations later.. is that Dewey’s first instinct upon finding this is  to tell his brothers.  Keep in mind Dewey’s all consuming need for attention and validiation, all of which he could possibly get and only have to share with Webby. He has every selfish reason for not telling them.. but he wants to. He knows they deserve to learn to. The only wrinkle is webby finding a note saying “Scrooge i’m taking the spear of selene, i’m sorry”. He decides to hide it for their sake right then and there. But while part of this as we’ll get into later in the week is him simply being afraid of what he’ll find personally.. it’s fair to NOT want to tell them. To try and protect them from the horrible truth whatever it may be. He has no way of knowing the betryal was nonexistant here and neither did we. It’s not the right course of action, awful truth or no they deserved to know too and both would say as much later, she’s their mom: good person or bad they know.. but like his uncles he’s not hiding this out of malice but because the truth might genuinely hurt them.. and as we’ll learn.. it will.. oh boy will it ever. But more on that next week and more on the arc itself later this week. What about the rest of the episode?

Louie in The Great Dime Chase! and Scrooge in The Boardroom Full of Heartless Assholes!

Winding back a few hours, Scrooge drags Louie up to his office, where the boy is genuinely impressed.. before naturally trying to take a swim in the money while Scrooge tries to tell him about his number one dime. Scrooge stops him before head injury occurs explaining that yes, even the money thing requires proper training: Louie would’ve just cracked his skull open and this would’ve either gotten really dark really fast or turned into a horrifying and hilarious child death version of weekend at bernies. It’s what Louie would’ve wanted. Scrooge can do it because he’s built up the muscle and resistance over time, strong enough and skilled enough to travel through the solid metal and dive into it. It’s a nice nod to life and times: While Scrooge didn’t necesarily train to swim in money, he bathed in it at first and when he needed to during an adventure discovered he could swim through it going from one barrel of his cash to another. So tweaking that slightly to an earned skill, and one Louie will have leanred by the end of the season, was a billiant move..and a way of silencing all those head injury jokes. 

But their soon interrupted by the board, who Scrooge dosen’t recall having a meeting with and likely pull this kind of shit all the time when they can get Scrooge. It makes even more sense after the Della reveal, as he likely has to be forced into dealing with the men who, while as far as he knew were trying to help him, still pulled him away from Della.. and in one case, had a shit eating grin about it. Seriously Bradford you smirked evilly about your nemesis not being able to rescue his daughter how do you NOT get that your the bad guy?

The meeting ends up being boring with Louie asleep and Scrooge almost there, as let’s face it most board meetings probably are, until Gyro barges in! It’s our first apperance of 2017 Gyro and a lot of people were upset by how much more of an ass he was. Me, while I like the kind and gentle original, like the more mad sciency version here and feel Jim Rash did a good job with it, and  I only really hate it when he’s around Fenton, and the show eventually addressed how fucked up that was in Season 3 after downplaying it in Season 2 by having them barely interact and have Gyro genuienly show some pride. Otherwise I like my insane prideful version even if I get why some don’t like it as it is nothing like the comics, but as we see with Donald not being a lot like the comics version isn’t a bad thing. 

IT’s one hell of a character establishing moment, as he barges in, is rude to everyone and has to read cue cards to properly intro his latest invention Little Bulb, Gyro’s most iconic invention whose made here to help people not do work. The Board is skeptical though as most of Gyro’s inventions have turned evil, a nice nod to the fact that most of Gyro’s robots in the original series, who are in fact on a list of previous inventions.. turned evil and tried to kill people. IT also shows his warmer side as he insists they aren’t evil just misunderstood, or at least half were anyway, and tries to cover for Little Bulb shaking his fist at them and doing a throat slitting gesture... which while Bradford plays dumb about what that means.. he’s worked in organized Villainy for at least 55 years. He knows what that gesture means. It’s Heron’s favorite. And even if he didn’t he’s also worked with Scrooge for around 30. It’s also Scrooge’s favorite. So it’s rejected though Scrooge encourages Gyro who vows they’ll understand one day and they’ll all pay. Really should save that for outside. 

Scrooge vouches for the board to Louie who questions such a slam dunk, pointing out he trusts their judgment.. mostly because he dosen’t know they’ve been embezzling from him to fund an evil spy orginzation the whole time but still, he usually trusts them. He would’ve found a way to fire them if he didn’t on the Della thing. But sometimes they overstep and they undermine that statment by suggesting cuts to the Bin’s budget, starting with Magical defenses “Do you know how many curses I have on my head?”. And props to the creators as they apparnetly had the whole Bombie idea in mind this far back, and as Bradford later shows towards the end of next season when he lures Louie into cutting it, he KNOWS where that money goes. He just was trying to feign ignorance to get Scrooge killed if he could. Clever bastard. 

So Louie goes to get a drink, and naturally scrooge’s drink machine in his office not only charges but requires an extra ten cents. Louie assumes the dime in his office is an emergency Dime only to walk in on Scrooge giving the full story. As you all likely know, it’s his number one dime, with the origin taken straight from life and times: He was a poor shoe shine, and he worked hard to clean off a ditchdigger’s muddy boots, working himself to the bone.. only to get an American dime which inspired him both to work harder and smarter than anyone and to go to America to seek his fourtune. There’s some extra steps in the original material, and another bit that the show would also adapt later that we’ll get to next week, but point is it’s his symbol of all his hard work.. that Louie just sent into the vending machine.  So said great chase insures as Louie follows the dime, as it’s emptied from the vending machine.. by a gull janitor we only see this season. And he’s a really likeable guy I wish we’d learned more. He then faces his and Charles Xavier’s greatest enemy THE STAIRS. There’s a runner about Louie having to constnatly run up and down the massive amount of stairs the bin has as someone else takes the elevator and by the climax it’s been taken out entirely. It’s pretty great.  So Louie’s seemingly screwed and instead looks up how to pick a lock on YouTube.. no really. That’s what he does. Frank outright mentioned this in an interview, pointing out they wanted the kids to act like a kid would.. and props to him that’s what a kid would do. Hell that’s what I would do if I were locked out of a place and time was of the essence. Either that or look up a step by step instruction on google. He then runs into Gyro though, and gets the idea to use LIttle Bulb, convinces Gyro he has money and would like to invest and just needs to borrow the little guy and Gyro is happy to agree to it. 

Naturally though, Louie’s laziness and a volatile machine who only likes one people just like his daddy, do not mix and Louie leaves sorting the coins to it while he watches Ottoman Empire, actually getting really sucked into it. IN fairness he did start with the Glomgold episode. Little Bulb meanwhile shows just how awesome he is by turning himself into a giant coni sorting mech by rewiring and reconfiguring the coin sorter.. and naturally given who made hi going mad with power. So while he did get the dime out.. he’s not horrifyingly obessed with chasing it and the real great dime chase begins. 

Back at the meeting Scrooge continues to debate the Buzzards who now want to cut staff, both of whom Scrooge rightfully defends. While Gyro is a bit unhinged, his inventions have likely made the company millions and saved them billions, and while Quackfaster is the same as we just saw, there’s a method to her madness and her laziness. And given Quackfaster works two additional jobs to afford a nice retirement, it’s clear that while he pays them decently he’s likely still not paying them gobs. With the power of hindsight i’ts very clear Bradford just wants to try if he can to eliminate two sources of chaos and backup for Scrooge and when Scrooge sarcastically suggests just getting rid of the bin, Bradford goes with it with a shit eating grin, but it’s very clear by that and Scrooge’s frustration this is a non starter, and Bradford’s likely doing it just because he frankly knows it’ll piss Scrooge off. 

So Louie runs for it working harder than he has in his whole life, with Gyro eventually trying to talk little bulb down, to no avail.. though we do get a nice moment of it registering him as father. Awwww. So the chase naturally eventually leads to the bin and Louie stuck in it, slowly swimming across, until Gyro gets to LIl Bulb, and realizes he’s in the wrong time of wattage and has literally gone mad with power and puts him back in his tiny old body fixing the problem. Gyro also crashed in with the bulb mech earlier, and while it disproves Scrooge’s point he’s stable.. he simply rolls with it and points out his staff is dangerously insane, and would likely swear vengeance on the Board if they were fired. And while he dosen’t say this part of it directly given Scrooge treats BOTH Quackfaster and Gyro exceptionally well, he knows they’ll know EXACTLY whose idea it was.. probably even tell them. So the board agrees to keep things as is to not die horribly as supervillains or not they have limits. 

So the day is one, Louie finds the dime, replaces it and passes out with Scrooge none the wiser. it also turns out the Dime isn’t even the real deal, to Louie’s frustration. But Scrooge is proud he clearly worked hard, and gives him the fake dime as his own number one dime, a nice setup for their bond and a nice showing that Louie really has the potential to be as rich as his uncle one day, and it’s clear by this setup there was a lot of potential here for an arc.. which is why we got one. More on that some other time. Louie accidently spends it while Gyro ends realizing if he put himself int he robot it wouldn’t go mad with power.. and thus Project Blatherskite is born. And we all know where this is going. 

Final Thoughts: All in all a decent episode. It has great pacing, some excellent world building, and some really good gags. While the series would do better episodes as it went, for an early episode helping set things up including Louie’s charcter arc, Gyro, Gizmoduck and the board as proper characters, it’s still very good and one of the series early standouts. 

Next Time on Della: Donald is forced to confront his adventuring past when he runs into his old sorta friend THE INCREDIBLE STORKULES, Scrooge is forced into games of the gods by their resident Douchebag Zeus, and Dewey is forced to confront his own fear of whatever it is his mom did. Confront this review later this week. 

Next Time on This Blog: It’s Lena’s Dark Night of the Soul as she and Webby head into “The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck!” 

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[ramblingguy54]

DuckTales Season 3 Hype/Speculation

Soooo, how badly do I want Bradford and the other two buzzards to be in DuckTales Season 3 on a scale of one to ten, regarding intimidation?

I want these three to have the same cold blooded nature, as Bill Fucking Cipher. Don’t hold back on the danger.

I want them to actually PUT the triplets’ lives in real danger for Season 3′s intensity. They wanted to give Clan McDuck their last adventure, so make the threat feel genuinely real. Lunaris had a promising start in Season 2, but didn’t carry through with that factor on attacking the triplets in Moonvasion, which Magica did a much better job in putting an actual threat on the children’s lives, during the Shadow War. She wasn’t a damn pushover, even despite Webby’s best efforts, it was a combination of the other kids that helped bring her down, by freeing Scrooge from his magical prison inside his own number one dime. Magica was this serious threat that Season 1 made clear was a force to be reckoned with and said point is made evidently clear by how they weren’t fighting to beat her on their own, but freeing their uncle was the top objective.

I want to feel that same danger for Huey, Dewey, and Louie, as I felt for Dipper & Mabel in Weridmageddon’s climatic finale at Bill Cipher’s hands. That particular moment where Bill almost snaps his finger never fails to send chills down my spine. Bill was tired of screwing around trying to get the information outta Ford, so he cut the bullshit and went after his most vulnerable area emotionally. This is what should’ve happened with Lunaris. Scrooge & Della should’ve had a physical confrontation with Lunaris instead of a space ship battle, even though I very much enjoyed that last battle against him. Imagine how painfully awesome it would’ve been to see Lunaris capture the children and torment Scrooge, Della, and Donald over using them as chess pieces to manipulate their emotions and be seriously reckless. Seeing Lunaris beat the crap out of Scrooge here, can’t stop giving me ideas for how brutal their fight would’ve been like if they had invaded his ship, instead of blowing it up to Hell. 

This isn’t to knock hard on Moonvasion because its a totally solid season finale, of course. It wraps up Della and Louie’s plot line beautifully with that Moon Lullaby reprisal from Louie, even if it had a mixed bag of an episode transition in the middle Glomtales, which could’ve explored so much more of their dynamic instead of focusing solely on Glomgold’s shenanigans through a lot of it. However, seeing the wonderful climax of Season 1 and what it accomplished still makes me reminisce about an another emotionally intense physical fight we could’ve gotten back in September of last year. Not even Donald, at his most pissed, could win against Lunaris’ brute strength, so this could’ve out shined Magica’s fight potentially. You know someone means business when they can stop Donald. Like, he literally roared at a freaking vicious lion outta existence back in Season 1′s episode, The House Of Lucky Gander.

Anyways, I’ve gotten a strong first impression that these buzzards are gonna be a Hell of a lot smarter compared to Lunaris’ incompetence with carrying out on legitimate threats, considering Frank stated they’ve been planning their diabolical stuff for quite a very long time. Longer than Lunaris ever managed to accomplish for those many years of planning, which given how under the radar they’ve been with manipulating Scrooge is a freaking no-brainer there. No matter how many times I’ve rewatched this cliffhanger, their straightforward robotic nature about how carefully they’ve planned all this out has me so worried for what they could do to the duck family. Especially Huey, since he’ll be slowly learning of their existence throughout this big arc. Although, it makes ya wonder just how far they will go with their manipulation tactics. Considering Lunaris used Della’s PTSD against her to make her run for the hills, who’s to say these heartless buzzards won’t take that a step further? If Lunaris was all about using fear to crush his opponents, then Bradford will most likely be using whatever secrets he has up those sleeves about the past to crush the family’s improved emotional state, like say I don’t know...

Most likely being the root cause of Della’s Spear Of Selene tragedy? 

I’d be seriously shocked if these guys weren’t highly responsible for keeping her on that Moon for the past decade. These guys have been watching Scrooge for so many years, which leaves very few suspects to who else could’ve caused Della’s unfortunate separation. Either Bradford did the awful deed himself or got somebody else the buzzards trusted enough to do this hit job properly. There’s no way we haven’t entirely gotten the full story yet of what happened to Della. A tragedy like that just doesn’t happen by accident and knowing this is a season all about secrecy leads me into highly anticipating the bombshell of this idea being confirmed. After all, Frank did say it was serious spoilers as to why Della’s communications were jammed and none of her messages got through. Regardless, I’m beyond ecstatic to see how they’ll make these antagonists a step up from Lunaris in this season.

Bring on the buzzard cruelty. Let’s see what these three got.