#isn't some stalker moment but like his attempt to fulfill his promises to Snow

[prosebushpatch]

In my humble opinion, the successful retellings of Snow White take the relationship between Snow and the Wicked Queen and really dig into why the queen is so desperate to be beautiful and why Snow is still the fairest because of her kindness.

My favorite examples of this are Gail Carson Levine's Fairest, and the movie Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarves. In both of these retellings, Snow White is conventionally unattractive. And how society views Snow White in these stories is drastically different from how they view the Wicked Queen. There is a privilege to being beautiful. Both Snow White and the Wicked Queen know this. But the Wicked Queen will do anything to have that privilege--that power--over her subjects. Whether it's to use her beauty to manipulate people or because she's desperate for love is what makes her such an interesting character. Snow White, on the other hand, gets a taste of how people would treat her if she was conventionally attractive, at least in these stories. And when she realizes that people are finally able to appreciate her or praise her or HELP HER because of her looks, she's forced to ask herself the question whether she'll choose to keep being "beautiful" or if she'll go back to being herself because society's definition of beauty isn't worth the cost.

Snow White and the Wicked Queen are foils. They represent how conventional beauty standards can pressure woman and pit them against each other. They represent how a mother, related by blood or not, can become jealous because the simple act of growing older makes her less attractive than her daughter in society's eyes and that means she's going to be treated differently as a result.

All this to say, if you turn Snow White's story into Snow White becomes a "Strong Independent Female Who Doesn't Need Any Prince And Is Growing Into the Leader She was Born to Be" then you lose that commentary about what true beauty is. You lose the chance to ask what makes someone the fairest and why. If you aren't asking why the Wicked Queen wants to be the fairest to the point of having a huntsman cut out a child's heart, then you're missing out on the entire point of the fairy tale.

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - “The Dangerous Chemistry of Gandra Dee!”

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

Written by: Christian Magalhaes

Storyboard by: Jean-Sebastien Duclos, Sam King, Jason Reicher

Directed by: Jason Zurek

Dangerous!

We begin this adventure in a dark and stormy night, caused by a villain who calls himself Dr. Atmozfear. GizmoDuck shows up and attempts a one-liner about how he's going to rain on his parade. It's made quite clear this was not his best line, even Dr. Atmozfear points out that he must not really be trying, but Gizmo has an excuse: not only has he spent better one-liners against two other weather-based villains, he is so overworked as a superhero that he couldn't re-up his puns.

Showing that off even more, he gets a phone call right in the middle of this encounter, showing that he's so busy, even explanations about how he's so busy gets interrupted. The villain even says almost exactly that; his other part of his villainy is explaining the joke. He eventually punches him out, and uses the exact same one-liner he used slightly more confidently, much to Dr. Atmozfear's derision. Pointing out your jokes aren't funny isn't usually a good idea, but it does work for the rest of the plot.

After taking care of that umpteenth villain, we see Huey and Webby waiting for Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera to show up. Webby still doesn't know who GizmoDuck's secret identity is, but Huey does, and he desperately tries to keep the secret as Fenton walks out of an alley coincidentally after GizmoDuck crashes into that alleyway and disturbs a cat. Webby connects the dots immediately, and asks Fenton if his GizmoDuck suit has a toilet in it.

Thankfully, he never answers that question, but he does have to add Webby to the growing list of people who know his secret identity. He decides to walk into an electronics store to find a birefringent beam splitter, only to be blasted.

No, not by a ray gun, but by a bunch of TVs. This electronics store decided to have every news channel play at the same time. Yes, I know, it's to show that every news station in Duckberg is talking about that amazing superhero. Well, one of these news reports ends up being very apparent to me, and it's easy to see why.

Tom Kenny: So once again, the day is saved, thanks to Gizmoduck!

I was so glad I wasn't drinking coffee here, because I would have spit it out, got it all over my keyboard, and had yet another excuse to delay a review. It's been so long since I've heard anything like that in a current show, and I didn't expect to hear it here, of all places. Fenton asks around for those birefringent beam splitters, and someone helps him out.

This lady knows what that is, and throws it to him. Fenton just can't believe someone else would know what a birefringent beam splitter is, with the implication that he can't believe that it would be her in particular. She doesn't exactly call him out on it, but she does say that working with hard physics can be hard for a rookie.

Fenton defends himself, saying that he's actually scientist for McDuck Enterprises. Not impressed, she talks about how he's into "sellout science", and that she doesn't kiss up to zillionaires and play by any rules. Eventually, he claims that he's working on a dangerous project for himself, playing himself as if he had a dangerous personality, and, with both curiosity and extreme doubt, she wants to see his lab. Fenton just goes along with it, acting like he's the great inventor for Scrooge McDuck.

While this conversation is happening, a different kind of dot-connecting happens with Huey and Webby. Webby is confused about all of this, but the great student of the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook knows this has to be the romantic courting of adults. This one doesn’t have any separate B-plot, but it’s as close as we get here.

It doesn’t help their interpretation that this lady just took his phone and put her phone number in it, with her name, revealing her as this reboot's version of Gandra Dee. From what I can remember, and from what I could see from reading wikis, this is a very different character than the one from the original outside of the "love interest to Fenton Crackshell" part. So yeah, she bought it.

After the "animated character who only wears one outfit deciding between two identical suits" joke, Huey and Webby respond that he should dress to impress his new date. Fenton denies it, saying this is just a melding of the minds. Sure, it would eventually blossom into a relationship that will last as long as they live, but it's not a date!

M'Ma Cabrera shows up, and ends up giving him dating tips and a nice suit to wear for the date that used to be his father's. Also, if she breaks his heart, she promises to come and dismantle her life. She won't fulfill that promise...yet.

Turns out, it's not just Huey and Webby that's assuming this is a date and not the "melding of the minds" Fenton claims it is, as even Launchpad congratulates him on it. For the first time since Season 1, we see Launchpad being able to park his car after recklessly driving. After wrecking his car for the last few episodes we saw him driving it, it's good to see that gag come back.

Gandra Dee: Nice upgrade, Suit. Yeah, you’re definitely the bad boy of science.

Oh, please don’t remind me of that one episode of the other show. He still tries to play this off as a non-date, and doesn't help anything that the latest hit song that's playing on the radio is "It's A Date (Don't Let Him Fool You)". At least he's comforted, knowing that his "interns” are preparing "his" lab.

...and they prepared an Italian restaurant instead, much to Fenton's disapproval, as this was supposed to be "his" lab that he is totally not just an intern for. As for what happened to the actual inventor for McDuck Enterprises:

Gyro: (locked behind a door, banging) You will rue the day!

Webby shows up as the waiter, telling them about the special of the day: spaghetti! She then begs them to choose that, as that's all they made. Of course, they just want to recreate that scene from Lady and the Tramp. Gandra Dee doesn't have any interest in that spaghetti, and she has to walk away to answer a phone call.

They reveal pretty much right at this moment that Gandra is actually working for...oh, boy, Mark Beaks. I get his gimmick, but he was never a villain I felt joy in seeing. Not helping anything is that he's played as this stalker, constantly giving her phone calls.

She already said she works for herself, but could this just be a cover-up for her being a spy? Not helping anything is that, right before the commercial break, Gyro gets out of that door, and, out of pure instinct, she knocks out Gyro with an electric shock from her hands. How she does that will be explained later.

Beak is also drinking this blue stuff, which he will drink in almost every scene until they reveal what exactly it is. Chances are, considering he's drinking it out of glass vials, it's not Gatorade.

As an aside to all of that Italian restaurant stuff, Fenton gets to show off some of his inventions. There's no implication that at least some of these are actually Gyro's, so at least he seems honest about this. This includes a spray that makes anything taste like glazed donuts, and a solvent that melts anything but the hardest diamonds. Surprisingly, the latter doesn't really do that much in this episode. As for the former, she does ask this question:

Gandra: What if the person doesn't like glazed donuts?

Fenton: What kind of monster doesn’t like glazed donuts?

I can smell the callback from here! She shows off a few inventions of her own, telling him to look in her eyes and hold her hand on two separate occasions. Anyone can guess where that ends up with the "Huey and Webby's perfect date" plot. These actually turn out to be eye cameras and nanobot-powered way for her to use her body's electricity to shock people. Yeah, really showing you're not evil there.

Speaking of which, she then talks about how she's not like those pencil-pushers that talk...and then asks if there's a certain other word for talking. We then cut to Mark Beaks listening closely to this conversation. His patience runs out that getting only one of the words he needs, he decides to do a Plan B: infiltrate the lab himself.

The McDuck Manor’s security may not be as high as it was during the 87 Cent Incident, but he still has robot seagulls that shoot any intruder in sight with lasers.

Mark Beaks is this amazing laser dodger now, dancing around them to the tune of that "It's A Date" song from earlier. One thing that does fit him is that he takes out his phone and hacks into the seagulls.

In the middle of all of that, he dabs, because of course he does. Yes, this screenshot really needed to be by itself, and it also speaks for itself. Oh, that Beaks. Oh, and this line shows up, too, as soon as he gets into a vent.

Mark Beaks: (music stopping) What, no signal? Boo!

The importance of having a local music library instead of relying on streaming, a lesson brought to you by Disney.

Cutting back to the lab again, Fenton decides to show off his ultimate invention: a paddleball! We get the real Chekov's Gun for the episode here: the ball from the paddleball is made out of Fentonium, a frictionless material that actually gets faster every time it gets hit. It creates energy, it's named after him, and most importantly, it's dangerous. That's the word of the day for this episode.

They get back to that restaurant. Unfortunately, the spaghetti they rigged to force that kiss has come untied. Huey shows up to start singing as a distraction, while Webby tries to re-tie that spaghetti. Before she could, she notices a phone buzzing, with a message and a ton of voicemails from Mark Beaks, in the date's pocket. Any plans for potential romance are stopped here, needless to say.

After listening to those voicemails, no plot holes here, Webby reveals to Huey about the big plan: Gandra was sent to get her to record Fenton’s voice saying something that can be altered into “Blathering Blatherskite.” Huey gets Fenton, and while he can't believe he finally found someone who sees him as more than just Gizmoduck's not-so-secret identitty, he is none too happy to hear the bad news.

He's not even that mad about how she's a spy, though that certainly doesn't help, but that she ended up being yet another person that only sees him as the guy that turns into GizmoDuck. He eventually just outright says "blathering blatherskite", possibly by accident, possibly intentionally, I'm not sure which, and asks if this is what she wanted.

It turns out to be something someone else wanted. Mark Beaks shows up, and because Fenton just said the words, he doesn't even have to edit any recordings together when he just has that! That codeword activates the machinery in his body, including the nanites he's been drinking and stolen Gizmo tech, and even just one of them could give him strength beyond strength. He drank a bunch of those.

Yeah, that Mark Beaks, he sure knows the internet, whether it be desperately trying to be a memelord, or pandering to D...okay, fine, that joke is way too easy here. Also, insert a joke about a certain Metal Gear Rising villain here.

After Mega-Beaks shows off his massive pecs, GizmoDuck is left with no choice but to fight him. GizmoDuck mostly fights using the usual slapstick, using giant hammers, pies, and even an airhorn that doesn't make that infamous sound effect. Mega-Beaks, on the other hand, uses as much brute strength as TV-Y7-not-FV can allow. I guess since he's in a robot suit, they can get away with it.

One would expect after all of that stalker behavior from, Gandra would go up to that wannabe Adonis and give him the shock treatment, and when Webby uses her old fashioned camera’s flash to distract him long enough to give Gizmo the upper hand...

Gandra: I'm sorry, Suit.

That's not what really happens.

Half of this episode is just wondering if Gandra Dee is going to do a full-on mole reveal. She made her motives clear already: she'll do anything for science, but she doesn't work for anybody. She tries to pass this off, but Fenton, growing a spine, finally calls her out for being a crook. She leaves, her intentions never really becoming clear.

Mega-Beaks goes all King Kong with the kids, hanging off of his own building. He even says himself that this is all because he wants the attention.

This is where I'll just say watch the episode for the rest, as I already summarized enough. I will say it's not entirely predictable, but anyone could guess that Mega-Beaks will eventually lose his muscle.

Another thing anyone could guess is that Gandra eventually turns on Beaks...but her reasoning isn't entirely out of a desire to be good. Gandra Dee herself is an interesting character, and it could pay off in future episodes.

How does it stack up?

I liked this one. Not as much of a high Happy as the last episode, but a Happy nonetheless.

The next one is pretty big.

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