#della arc

Thunderstormy to be precise and the Sunchaser is natrually encountering loads of turbulence with Launchpad barely holding int here while Donald’s buffeted around the back. Why Donald’s with them... 

But it’’s one of his only five starring episodes in the season, out of 9 appearances total the rest of which are cameos.  Yeah now seems as good as time as any to talk about Season 1′s Donald Duck problem. 

See Donald was promoted as a major part of the series, rightly so since he was reduced to a guest star for the 87 series due to a combination of Disney not wanting to overexpose the characters, people possibly not being able to understand his voice and thus making plots hard to understand, and Tony Anselmo being new to the roll at the time. So the reboot went all out promoting the fact Donald would be in it, front and center and gave him TWO character shorts to the rest of the casts one. Disney really went out of their way to show he’d be in there so as a certified Donald Fanatic, I was sure he’d actually be in the show a lot and on the adventures a lot. The crew were not blameless as both promotional arts featured him. Launchpad and Beakly conversely were asbent, so the impression given by all of this was that Donald would be central to the series and in a lot of episodes, given equal focus to scrooge and the kids. 

This.. didn’t happen as you all know. Instead as stated he’s up front and center for 5 episodes, and makes cameos in others, but generally is hardly around. Now there is KINDA an excuse to this as he doesn’t want to adventure, be in the mansion or any of that.. but it’s a REALLY weak one. He still at least could’ve made more cameos, the fact he was working on the boat all that time isn’t made clear till last crash, and his two spotlight episodes both have him dragged along on the adventure anyway, so it’s not like his not wanting to be there meant he woudln’t be forced to join in anyway. There were ways to include him, still have him in a supporting role instead of leaving him back at the mansion.. and even the second episode proved there was still comedy to be mliked from that.. and pathos don’t forget the pathos. So yeah this was easily the biggest mistake of the season and one season 2 largely corrected: He got four dedicated plots, and was around a decent amount in the first half of the season and while he DID get shot up to the moon... it was for valid reasons. They wanted to focus on Della and the kids, give her room to breathe as a brand new major addition to the show, and thus him being around and the elephant in the room of his and scrooge’s feud that was never dealt with on screen, would’ve distracted from that. And even with that they still gave him a focus episode that somehow added more depth and MASSIVELY advanced the main plot, and a sizeable roll in the finale. Season 3 likewise had things better: while he shows up as much as in season 1, the episode count is lower by one, and he’s a major part of the plot in every one BUT Last Christmas, with four of those having the spotlight on him in some way. They eventually did figure out how to use him far more ballanced. So yeah credit where it’s do it got MUCH better, but he still felt like a recurring character in his own series, that was still bad, and I still needed to give out about it. 

But Webby and Dewey have a mission even if Dewey dosen’t quite get what’s going on so they flip a switch to turn on a warning light of some kind forcing Launchpad to make an emergency landing on a gorgeous tropical island. To Huey’s amazement, as the place was apparenlty only a myth, though naturally the guidebook did have it’s aproximate location listed... Ithaquack, home of the gods. Naturally Scrooge and Donald want to leave as soon as possible for reasons we’ll get into but Launchpad , for once is being a responsible pilot “Better safe than.. something right? Scrooge is of course irate that Launchpad picked NOW of all times to be safe, and the Kids.. don’t listen because Huey sees a beautiful realm of myth, Louie sees a beach vacation and Dewey and Webby.. have work to do. Webby eventually fills Dewey in on why their here, having wrongly assumed he got why they were going to a mythical greek island. As Dewey delightfully puts it later “Don’t assume I know anything. “ So she pieces it together for him: Selene was the greek goddess of the moon... Della took the SPEAR of Selene. Ergo this island is the best place to find the Spear and failing that, Selene herself to get more info on it and Della. 

So we have our two plots. Scrooge and Donald dealing with their pasts and the gods, and Dewey and Webby diving into his mom’s past. And unlike the last review where a genuinely unsettling story about an abuse victim forced to manipulate her girlfriend not going into a murder vault was paired with Louie having to deal with a Sasquatch while Huey catches a case of Dewey’s stupidity somehow, these two plots are perfectly paired: Their both perfectly thematically connected, both dealing with the past, Della’s absence and Scrooge and the Twins past encounters with the gods.. but both being self contained outside of that, entirely unconnected but stilll necessary to be in the same episode. THIS is how you do two plots. But since they don’t really synch up again till the end, let’s cover each one at a time shall we?

“What if My Mom was a Bad Person?” 

The plot is pretty straight forward but expertly done: Dewey and Webby first check your standard Zelda dungeon which apparently has a cursed weapon at the end. We also get an utterly adorable and sweet shot of Webby comforting Dewey after he’s clearly shook from it. Awwww. Turns out it’s the SWORD of Selene. and quickly turns into a game of put the Cursed Sword back before we all die. 

Next up is a monster who nearly kills both protecting it’s spear.. the spear of POSIDEN. (Look at meeeeee). And since they aren’t going to be on a boat that isn’t a house boat anytime soon, they don’t need that and the monster cheerfully redirects them, with Dewey apologizing for calling it ugly. 

So all pretty standard stuff for the show and really good stuff.. but it’s the building tension underneath that truly makes the episode and leads to one hell of a climax for this plot. All the while Dewey is DESPERATE for some explination for his mom’s disapperance that isn’t her betraying Scrooge, maybe returning the spear because it was cursed or getting eaten by a monster. Just ANYTHING but the mounting and horrifying suspicion.. that his mom was a bad person who destroyed her family and betrayed her uncle and laughed all the while. Webby.. does not help, backing that side of things and constantly voicing hte idea Della betrayed Scrooge, so obsessed with solving the mystery of her life.. but so unfamilliar with people she dosen’t see the very real toll this is taking on her best friend. To her she’s just making a logical counterpoint.. to him it’s just another idea in his head about the way his mom could’ve betrayed everyone she cared about. 

So that climax is where it explodes. Our heroes find a scale model of ithaquack (Complete with Tiny Maniticore! It’s so cute Webby just wants to slay it)  and an opening.. with an ominous message about incurring the wrath of the god seemingly conforming the worst. So Webby prepares to find out the whole story.. only for Dewey to stop her. No one’s finding this out, whatever it is, no matter how far they’ve come. And given this is the biggest mystery of her life and she simply dosen’t understand WHY Dewey dosen’t want to know.. both sides are ready to fight for this. And Webby DOES try to back him down, pointing out he really can’t beat her in a fight. But Dewey’s already grown leaps and bounds form the pilot and is working smarter not harder. Beat Webby, who spent a good chunk of her life being honed into the most badass child on the parent, one who can take on several of scrooge’s worst foes one on one? Not on his life. But hold her off long enough for the gate to close? He can do that. 

So the result? One of the best fights of the series... and given the sheer amount of great ones we’ve gottten since this one it still says something it holds up THIS well. It’s an even, furiously paced fight, with Dewey using every advantage he has including tossing said manticore to keep up, but not slowing down one bit. It’s heartbreaking to see the two come to this but it’s an delight to watch. Webby DOES win eventually, though time’s running out to get in and she finally asks WHY. And  while the stakes have been crystal clear for both this whole time.. we get them laid out in the most painful way for both. 

Webby: We're so close to the truth! Why won't you let us find it?! Dewey: Because...*his voice cracks* what if my mom was a bad person?

It hits VERY hard. For Webby this has been a puzzle something to solve the greatest achivment of her life, her chance to make her mark... and her best friend just wanted to abandon it. But in one swift response, he disarms all of that.. and makes her see how insnstivie she’s been: He may not know his mom.. but he can’t bear the thought she was a bad person. That she left or WORSE, because she didn’t care about him, or scrooge or ANYONE. Knowing nothing is better than knowing she was a monster. 

Webby realizes what she’s been doing to her friend and is horrified and offers to back out. The answers.. aren’t worth destroying her brother. But her willingness to back down.. finally gets Dewey to see the light. His fear was valid.. but at the end of the day,  it’d never go away. it’d just keep eating him for the rest of his life, every time she was mentioned or he found something else out he’d just wonder if it was a lie and wonder wht he COULD’VE learned this day. And if Webby’s willing to sacrifice THIS MUCH to give him peace of mind... then he can sacrifice that peace of mind for the truth, for her, and for himself. So he pulls them inside. 

Inside they find Selene who suprises them.. and is then confused. Their not della. Also I guarantee mentally she’s thiking “Thank me I didn’t do it naked this time. “. After some confusion as to who this is, Webby explains that IS Selene, and Dewey begs for answers about the spear... only to find out she dosen’t have one. Nope. The sword seen before and a SPHERE, yes.. but no Spear. So the poor boy breaks down, back to square one. It’s hard not to see why... all this effort, all of this sacrifice.. and he’s no closer than when they first set down. 

Selene does help though... giving him an idea of who his mom WAS: one of her closest friends (And let’s face it  Della named the ship after Selene and Selene casually uses Della’s shower. If they didn’t go out at least once, I am an outer god. And I very much am not and they very much banged hard. Goodnight. ) , a good person who brought fun to everyone, and loved her family more than anything. Wether she betrayed Scrooge or not, she wasn’t a bad person. And her own orb shows it showing Della in her prime, brightly smiling next ot her family. Selene encourages the boy not to give up, that his mom always loved a mystery.. and he can solve this one and gently hugs the sobbing child.. with Dewey quickly pulling webby in. It’s genuinely touching and a satisfying ISH ending. 

The ish... is because while this is a VERY good plot, i’ll gush more about it at the end, it does have one supreme flaw: the mystery dosen’t progress. And with the huge gaps between this episode and hte next one, in BOTH airing orders... it’s unforgivable to not have EITHER plot give us any hints about what happened. I don’t ask for much, but they could’ve found a clue in the sphere Dewey got, or saw a memory of her that brought up the next place they look, just something a little. While it’s still a very fine story, the main plot suffers a bit by having one of the ONLY three episodes delving into the della mystery before it’s fully revealed in sunchaaser have almost no progress. Della was probably a good person, which comes from her ex who clearly still loves her so that’s not really reliable, and the spear isn’t literal. While the lack of progress works for the story in the episode itself.. it comes at the cost of any actual plot progression. We end up exactly where we started and have to wait SOME TIME before we get to the next spot on the tour. Well we did, you guys will find out Monday or Tuesday depending on if the finale goes up in the morning or Disney holds it till the actual airing. Please don’t you bastards. Point is it’s  VERY good plot, but it’s hampred by not really progressing the arc. 

The arc progression for this storyline is painfully slow, and tha’ts not on disney. In either order there’s a MASSIVE gap of 15+ episodes between what we learned in the great dime chase and what we learn in castle mcduck. It’s sloppy writing and I expect better from this team, especially since the Lena plot the same season is far tighter paced: each one builds a bit, both on Lena as a character (Why she’s doing this etc), her development as a person, her relationship with webby growing and Magica and her growing more and more spiteful with one another. They could’ve had at least ONE MORE subplot to build this up, especially since we really dind’t need the sasquatch episode but just.. didn’t for whatever reason and it’s still frustrating.  But as always credit where it’s due.. the next two seasons were better about it. 

Season 2 while not perfect, and we’ll get to it’s plots someday.. and I do say plots as not alternating between the two plots for season 1 was a mistake if a well meaning one as not to drive up the price for Kev but for future refrence if any of you want me to cover an arc for something I WILL have to cover all of it or any adjacent to it that flow into it. Point is they move faster and both Glomgold and Louie’s are pretty lowkey and low stakes so while enjoyable, their not moving incredibly fast dosen’t hurt the show. And the Moon plot has the best pacing of the three and possibly of the series plots period: We get filled in on Della fairly quick, getting answers on her WAY faster, get introduced to the moon and it’s people right away, get a whole episode on them, and the most importantly in sharp contrast? She returns HOME halfway into the season. 

I will probably go into this again when I get to nothing will stop della duck but Season 1′s pacing and general wisdowm made me think she wouldn’t get home anytime soon and she’d return in the finale. Instead? We get a whole half a season fleshing her out further, seeing her connect with her kids, all that good stuff, WITH an episode advancing the moon arc, without that arc feeling unimportant, but still having the slow pacing. 

Season 3 meanwhile while again not without bugs, the last few episodes before the finale having no real build up to it really wasnt a good idea and I question why these two episodes were the ones leading into it, has two seemingly barely related plots.. that EFFORTLESLY merge into one, with one hell of a huge twist in impossibin that ratchets up the stakes. I don’t know how it’ll payoff.. but we’ll see. 

So they did get better, i’m still hard on it because it happened.. but I will never stop stressing how this crew usually corrected a mistake. If they fucked up, they LEARNED FROM IT, course corrected, and made it better and they listened to US. IN the good way, not letting fans run the series but listening to valid concerns and adapting to them. And given how fucking rare that is and how hard it must’ve been with the tight schedule, I.. I really appricate it and i’m going to miss it. And I can’t think of a segue so enjoy this picture of a turtle hitting a trapper in the face with a bat instead. 

“Someone Always Gets Hurt”

So let’s take it back a few hours. Hit it boys!

Donald tries getting the boys back on the ship, clearly fearing something coming for him.. and we soon meet that something. Yes it’s the hero of legend, the stork out of myth, the star of a LOT of Donald Duck Slash FanFiction only half of which he wrote, STORKULES!

In case I didn’t make it clear when I reviewed New Gods on the Block! I love this guy. He reminds me a LOT of the marvel version: Boisterious , horny (if in a far more pg version), Gay (Pansexual for the marvel version), flawed but still immensley likeable. Stork is a bit diffrent, a bit more naive, a bit peppier and entirely blind to the fact his father is a terrible person. But my love of the marvel herc means Stork was an easy sell for me and Chris Dimatopolis’ performance is second to none, only topped in this series by his later work as Darkwing where he got a bit more range than “Joyous ham who wants to bang”. Also I’m 100% convenced he’s made this memetic expression to donald at some point... 

If someone hasn’t redrawn that with Storkules yet, we have failed as an internet. And if someone has please show me. 

His crush on Donald is also endearing even if I don’t ship the two. And if your curious as to why it’s simple: Storkules is attracted to a version of Donald that no longer exists. Storkules craves a Donald whose a brave daring hero who loves adventure. And while still a brave hero when the situation calls for it as this episode will bare out.. he just.. dosen’t have the passion for adventure he did as a kid. While a LOT of that is loosing his sister for a decade, even once he makes peace with that and later gets her back... he just wants a normal life. His greatest wish was for one. He apparenlty “wishes for this every day”. He dosen’t hate adventuering anymore and by season 3 has come to terms with the fact he’ll never get everyone else to stop.. but I also think it’s always been obvious he clearly wants to one day. To have a normal life, settle down, find a girl, and if she wants to get married. Get old , fat and happy. I honestly think that’s the direction the finale’s heading in judging from the previews. I don’t think he’ll ever stop entirely, his family life’s too insane for that.. but he just dosen’t want to keep going forever and Stork, being an immortal hero does. They want diffrent things entirely and that just won’t work. Though that’s also JUST me and if you ship them or have a way around that, feel free. This is just my opinon. 

Anyways Donald’s not happy, the kids are confused  and Scrooge. has problesm bigger than simply not knowing how to say i’m not into you.... aka Zeus, king of the gods and of all assholes. He was originally supposed to be a swan due to a certian myth.. but they realized since that myth is both really fucked up and really not for children to not do that because why the fuck would you. Point is Zeus in myth is an asshole, a rapist, a cheating husband, and a vengeful, petty dick and that’s with barely any knowledge of Greek Myth on my part. He’s played by Micheal Chiklis whose famous for The Comissh and the Shield.. but whose famous to me for playing the ever loving Blue Eyed thing in the Tim Story Fantastic Four movies.. and honeslty, at least till marvel takes a crack at it soon, is the best screen version of the character. Look the film is flawed and I don’t remember a lot of it.. but his stuff in it just NAILS the character perfectly, at least the first one, and while the look is.. eh, he was the perfect casting. He just wasn’t in the right movie. So he’s naturally awesome here as history’s greatest douchebag. 

As for why Zeus is pissed at him unlike say Donald (The whole Spear of Selene fiasco) or Magica (Who while even worse than Zeus still lost her brother because of his callousness), or others he’s wronged.. Scrooge did absolutely nothing wrong here. During a beach party Storkules intiates, he reveals he used to be king of the beach and loved and worshipped by the people of ithaquack, which last time the adult ducks visited was a lovely hideaway for heroes. Scrooge naturally did a bunch of heroic and cool stuff, and upstaged him, and then bested him in various games and what not. Zeus claims they ran off because of this and because they didn’t want to party with a god bested by a mortal.. but scrooge reveals pottery showing it’s because Zeus threw a temper tantrum aka “a year long lightning storm”. So yeah for once all Scrooge did was just upstage someone who was already objectively horrible and who brought all of htis on himself. Scrooge even points it out perfectly “They didn’t leave because they liked me, they left because they didn’t like YOU. “ 

Pissing off the god who already didn’t like you for stupid reason goes about how you’d expect and when Storkules tries to cool things down by suggesting a game, Zeus turns it into a contest. His son against Scrooge’s nephews. Because he uh dosen’t want to lower himself. Yeah that’s it, totally not that Scrooge would kick his ass and then fucking kick his ass. Yeah that’s the ticket. 

So our boys don Toga’s, and gear up for the first challenge: grabbing the bag of winds. In case you thought Spongebob just made that up. Zeus of course opens it so Donald can’t just leave, but Huey simply thinks his way out and wins , Zeus demands best 2/3 and we soon get a montage of various events from chariot racing to sculpture where we get our title picture, lest you thought I was kidding abotu Storkules obession with donald. I mean there’s subtextually having a character have a crush on another and then ther’es making a naked muscular statue of him. I.. I don’t even have a joke here. He made a naked muscular statue of Donald. The only way they could be less obvious without just coming outright and saying it was if hte statue was of hima nd storkules making out. And i’m 100% sure Frank, Matt and Dana, yes Dana Terrace was involved in this one i’m as unsurpised as you are, only didn’t do that because Disney said no. 

Zeus declares one final round because he’s tired of this..e ven though he CLEARLY won the last one while Donald once again tries to just leave and Storkules finally calls him on it wondering why he’s given up adventuring and wondering what della would say if she could see him like this, having just given up and not caring anymore about any of ths stuff.  “Well she can’t! Someone always gets hurt....”

And that one very sharp and painful line both outlines Donald’s arc here, and for the season, and makes it VERY clear why he retired and why I felt like he was already on his way and the spear of selene was simply the final straw. He gave up.. because he was just tired of it. Tired of being the one who got hurt.. and devistated when it wasn’t him that time. When he lost his sister for what he felt was NOTHING. Sure hte stars would be great but they’d done everything and gone everywhere..w asn’t.. wasn’t that enough/ Couldn’t they just be done? Couldn’t he just stop. The spear gave him an excuse to do what he always wanted, but it also caused him to harden up and view EVERYTHING about his old days of adventuring as bad when like most things i’ts not that simple., There were good times, sunshine, giant sized gay men obessing over you.. okay maybe the last part isn’t a plus in his book, but point is there was good and his arc is seeing that and realizing he can’t just cling to his pain. He has to let go so he can move on heathliy. 

As for said final challenge Zeus tasks the boys and Storkules with stealing the golden fleece from a little girl. While this is part of a whole scheme... he undereistmaed his son’s valour and Storkules is naturally sent spinning over having to steal from a child and is sent into a crisis. Louie however has no such qualms, as he is a children.. and he’s also louie.. but as he tries to the child starts singing. As Scrooge puts it “nothing good happens when creepy children start singing. “ Very true, it’s usually a sign freddy kruger’s about to show up or your  about to be taken by a miltiary orginzation obssed with The Doctor. 

The boys plug their ears.. and Zeus’ plan becomes horrifically clear. Turns out he had no real interest in an actual contest this time, and has the child take control of Storkules to murder them. And gives the doucheist shrug imaginable when his OWN SON IS BEGGING HIM NOT TO MAKE HIM MURDER SOME CHILDREN. 

Scrooge naturally gets involved. Meanwhile Donald is trying to escape the lightning cage Zeus is using to make sure no one leaves... when he hears the boys cries of terror. He may hate this kind of thing.. but there’s one thing and only one thing that can make him snap back into who he used to be like it was yesterday. And that’s harming his boys. So Donald snaps into action and it’s a glory to see as Scrooge snaps back with him “Just like old times”. The two once again get a little closer to reconclisation by wrestling a golden pansexual to prevent him from brainwashdely murdering two children. God I love this show and this job. 

Huey however is more of the aim for the head sort and Louie simply uses his natural talent to talk the siren into working with him, with him as her agent. As he puts it Zeus just wants to use her.. he wants to use her too.. but to make them BOTH rich. She agrees, Louie wins, and Donald finally accepts storkules is his friend. Scrooge TRIES to use this to mend fences with Zeus.. but Zeus being a petulant dick wants another game and Scrooge simply throws a game of billiards or something like it to get this over with. 

So we get our wrapup. Dewey and Webby return, and Storkules and Donald say their goodbyes. Donald finally admits he’s his friend.. and in that one act finally admits he can’t just bury his past because parts of it are painful. And as Storkules puts it he may be done with adventure.. btu adventure’s not done with him. He’s got more of his old self in who he is now than he thought. Dewey also accidently wins and our family finds launchpad took the plane apart. There.. there’s no real ending. I can only assume Selene said knock this shit off when she found out or beakly later came in guns blazing. I don’t know. 

Final Thoughts: This episode is excellent. It has it’s fault: there’s no plot progression, and the ending is just stupid and is the only one of the series that feels like nothing was resolved. That being said.. the rest of the episode makes up for it. It’s filled with great gags as usual.. but the real meat is the character work. Dewey’s worries about his mom, and Donald’s attempt to literally leave his past behind, it’s really amazing stuff that elevates the episode past it’s flaws and into one fo the series best. Wheras revisting Other Bin reminded me it had a bad subplot that drug it down.. revisiting this one showed me just HOW near perfect it is with only a few things holding it back. Even with the dispaoitnment factor.. this one’s still excellent, with Ben, Kate and Tony all at the top of their games. Great stuff. 

Next Time on this Arc: Dewey has to face the future when the truth comes out. And Scrooge.. bitches with his dad for half the episode. Sure beats his dad sadly btu sweetly passing on to be with his wife huh?!

Next time on this blog: Amphibia time! Speaking of facing the consequences of lying to your family, Hop Pop’s FINALLY forced to face hiding the Box from Anne, and we also get an ivy episode. Super fuckin shooters. 

So our plot for the episode is that 

Yes Clan McDuck is taking their version of a vacation. It’s off to Monocrow for the E.X.C.E.S.S. Expo! Yes it’s the EXCESS Expo! With the latest in racecars lasers and many more! The EXCESS Expo! With booths from such welcome guests as Stark International, Muppet Labs, S.T.A.R. Labs, VenTech, The Franklin Sherman Memorial Fishmobabywhirlomgig Institute, TCRI, Gryzzl, Sumdac Systems, G-Heavy Industries, Tylerco, Lexcorp, Wayne Enterprises, Quickstart, The Gizmonic Institute, Alchemax,and Baintronics! But that’s not all! We also have huge paneeellls! Hank Pym’s “The ethics of dating your robot grandaughter”, Reed Richards “How to Dispatch an Evil Council made up entirely of yourself!”, Victor Von Dooms “CURSE YOU RICHARDS I’M SMARTER FOR I AM DOOM”, Stanford Pines with “How to Kill a Godlike Demon and Get your Smile Back”, Dr. Bunsen Hondedew with “How to abuse your assitant in 2020″ Dr.Light with “The Ethics of helping your robot child fight an evil albert einstein”, Profesor Henry Hidgens with “The incoming apocalypse with songs from Working Boys: A New Musical” Ray Palmer “Welcome To Pain”, and you know our friend Ass Dan will be in full effect> yeah bitch you know he’s going to live forev... what’s that? He’s dead. oh shame. Someone call rusty venture. Yes I know i’m typing this. Shut up. THE EXCESS EXPO. BE THERE OR WE’LL SEND OUR ROBOTS AFTER YOU. 

... Where.. Where was I? Oh yes, big vacation. Monocrow.. which sadly is not just a big field with just Crow T. Robot in it. Someday you’ll get MST3K/Ducktales Jake, someday. Point is our heroes are excited, and Scrooge is also there to find the Maltese MacGuffin, a mysterious artifact no one’s ever seen. And the kids and Scrooge have their own specail guest joining them: Bentina! Yeah turns out she has hundreds of vacation days built up, and simply hasn’t used them so she’s using a few to join them. It also once again shows how much less of a heartless money monster this Scrooge is as any of his employees asking for a vacation, paid or not, in the comics would result in this:

So their off on their greatest adventure.. with Louie having’ bought something mysterious along with him he’s only telling the other kids about. On with the intro!

Beakly.. is intstantly not at ease as they take off after driving their jeep into the plane. She feels launchpad is reckless, rightfully so not helped by a lack of seatbelts on the plane or his cheefully saying the closest he’s got, a floatie, will help “When” we crash. She’s also equally annoyed by Scrooge’s cavalier attitude, having intrusted the kids to him only to find out what the adventueres are really like. And this is the only part of the episode that REALLY doesn’t work. She KNOWS these two idiots too well for this to be beliviable. Launchpad wrecks part of the mansion at least once a day, and before Duckworth she had to clean that shit up. He’s there all the time.. and more damingly HE DROVE YOU AND YOUR KID, YOUR KIDS BEST FRIENDS, AND YOUR KIDS GIRLFRIEND TO THE FUCKING MOVIES. I can’t buy given how bad a driver launchapd is she didn’t wrench the wheel from him to prevent their early graves. Scrooge meanwhile is her BEST FRIEND. And until season 2 for her and 3 for him ONLY friend. Sure she works for him, but outside of one incident in this episode he treats her as his equal more than his housekeeper for the entire series. They trust each other more than anyone else at this point. And the only other two people Scrooge ends up trusting as much are Donald and Della. She’s been around him enough to know how he is. What did she THINK he was going to be like with the kids? She’s met the twins, and even mroe so is on good terms with Donald even into the pilot and they only got off on bad terms due to clashing over house rules. So she KNWOS this is what he does with children. You can’t be shocked Scrooge took children on death defying adventures in a barely secured plane after all this time. It’d be like giving Donald a turkey to carve and being suprised when it ends in this...

It just dosen’t work especially with a professional spy! Her job is reading people! And yes I know many of you are going to say “Well she misread Bradford”... but so did Scrooge and so many others. NO ONE suspected him. He’s that good. So her suddenly having a complaint about all this stuff when she could’ve come along anytime to check it out or just looked at the plain bothers me a LOT. Thankfully it’s only really present at the start as while it sets off her concern their back and forth soon has a far deeper meaning. But Scrooge insists Launchpad take her on a tour to ease her worry, seems like a contrdictary set of sentences there, while he flies. How hard could it be. Somewhere on the Moon, Della has the sudden urge to kick her uncle’s ass. 

So meanwhile in a secret base set up in a cargo box, the kids are working on the Della mystery. Turns out what Louie smuggled aboard was the documents shredded on the date the boys found on the Spear of Selene plans. Louie got them by smooth talking Quackfaster who even he found nuts. It also once again shows Dewey was only holding things back by keeping the other boys out as in jus weeks, since chronologically there were two other episodes between this and the last Della episode versus just one, their almost to the truth as one document from that day is simply torn into pieces and simply needs to be re-jiggered like a puzzle. Like most puzzles though naturally once they get it all together they find there’s one goddamn piece missing and it ends up loose int he plane flitting around... just as Scrooge majorly screws up and bumps things, leading Beakly to wonder where the kids are and them to scramble out. 

So yeah Scrooge seemingly crashed the plane.. except Launchpad notes that if they crashed.. why are they still airborne? This leads to everyone finding out their precariously perched on a VERY narrow rock that’s skewered the plane. Orignially the crew decided to strictly adhere to the concept that any movement would rock the thing.. but realized i’td make things boring visually so they allowed themselves some artistic license. 

So yeah our heroes are stuck in a hard place and Scrooge stubbornly digs in insisting he can fix this and turns on the plane.. which sends it spinning and prevents Dewey from getting the piece which ends up wedged in the jeep. Huh I think we need some appropriate music for going in circles. 

So yeah all Scrooge did was blow up one of the engines... I mean the blow up the engine button is right there, would’ve saved you some time. So Beakley berates him for not calling for help and digging in and for it’s next plan it’s time for Handyman Corner where he’s going to show you how to jumpstart a plane with a jeep’s engine. Beakly is not impressed and Scrooge’s case is not helped as Louie feigns fear , with Huey and Webby following his lead, so Dewey can get the piece. Unfortunately pointing out the very REAL dangers they face, with Huey giving the odds and Webby pointing out unlike most dangers they face there’s no easy way out and no villian to fight, sends Louie into an actual panic, jumpstarting the car  and causing the cargo bay to open, leading to one hell of a sequence: From Bentina driving a butterfly knife into the ground to hold the kid’s secret base crate (and wondering why it’s so heavy), to Launchpad desperatley platforming his way to saftey to scrooge swining in with his cane to rescue them. It’s some whopper animation that really shows off how damn good the team was and how gorgeous this show truly was at it’s best. 

The results aren’t good: the plane’s ballnce is now off so even a slight movement can move it, a holdover from the original idea simply saved for when it’d create the most tension. As a result Dewey can’t get the last piece as he can’t move and Scrooge berates the kids and has thems tay still watching the end credits of darkwing duck (It’s launchpad’s inflight movie and the tape is jammed to that section.

IT’s here the Scrooge and Beakley stuff went from poorly written to “oh shit” in one line. Scrooge is getting more and more desperate to prove he can take care of the kids on his own but Beakely’s demeanor has turned from annoying scolding.. to genuine concern and PLEADING with him not to go through with another dumb stunt that will leave them in a worse situation, int his case using the parachutes as counterweights to fix the engine. He refuses both rebuffing her as “your boss” (Which gets her rightfully pulling on the cord too tight) .. but then that one line comes in “I can protect her”. Beakley is confused.. but it instantly makes clear this is about Della and on rewatch now knowing the reveal at the end.. it makes it that much more heartbreaking. Part of his refusal to backdown is his natural nature as a stubborn ass. It’s been well displayed throughout this season and the ones after it: HIs refusal to backdown from nevverst, his jealousy of Dewey for being better at him and his refusal to accept it.. the man just does not back down and while it’s good in tight spots and against bad guys, as he finds a way out for him and his family with sheer grit and badassery... it’s a massive character flaw when dealing with people, as refusing to actually talk to them like a ratoinoal adult only makes things worse. And boy oh boy is he about to make things worse. But the other part is he can’t admit to himself there’s a risk in his lifestyle and that he can’t keep everyone safe constantly.. that theres inherent danger. He’s bought into the “because i’m scrooge mcduck” mantra here not out of his ego, entirely, but because he can’t let that not be enough again. He can’t LOOSE someone again like he lost Della and he can’t fail again. So his worst trait and his greatest trauma have mixed to make him act so rashly even Launchpad takes some shouting to agree to give him the other parachute. It’s clear he’s endangering EVERYONE to prove he can save them. 

Eventually though things reach their head as Dewey CAN’T take the wait anymore. He’s waited his whole life to find out about his momma, and the answer’s feet away... and he can’t let it sit any longer. He HAS to know what happened. So he goes for it, though the rest of the kids are against it since i’ts highly risky and they can wait Huey ends up agreeing to help using his Junior Woodchuck knowledge (Where Newton apparently got the idea), to counterbalance hsi weight and guide him via walkee talkee. It’s a really nice moment, not only showing off Huey’s skill and intellect but also how much they care for her. Dewey may of screwed up last time but their still the duck boys and if he can’t talk him out of being sucidially reckless.. Huey’s going to at least give him a fighting chance. 

Unfortunately Scrooge spots him mid argument with Beakley and naturally wants him to give it here... but once the ship buckles when Dewey tries we get the scene that makes the episode. Up till now the tension has been top notch, ratcheting up by bit, not knowing if the kids would get caught, if something would happen with the plane all building to this. Scrooge and Dewey’s final chase. Dewey uses the distraction to make a runner for it with Scrooge following.. and Launchapd using the fact he’s still attached to the airbag to stop him. It’s a small but excellent character moment, showing that as much as Launchpad loves his boss.. he loves his best friend and eveyrone else’s saftey more. SCrooge of course uses it to knock him back while Beakley and the kids counterbalance. We also get the best joke of the episode as Beakley tells them to stop running.. only for them to simply start tip toeing, with Bentina’s reaction being a perfectly resigned “That’s not what I meant and you know it”. 

It’s a tense chase, with both sides using the enviorment to their advantage from the parachute to the crate.. and it’s breaking open reveals something’s gonig on and causes Beakley to notice Webby has the blueprints in her pocket and once she unfurls them and finds out what they are.. she can only give a sad, remorseful “oh children, what have you been up to” She’s not even mad like they seem to think.. she’s just sad, knowing the wound that’s about to be reopened for her closest friend and the one that’s about to be inflicted on those poor children, and knowing that they’re ALL made it worst by hiding it. Toks deserves all the praise for her delivery here. 

Eventually the piece blows outside of the plane and Dewey refuses to give up and go after it. Things get their most tense as everyone BEGS him not to come back, it’s not worth his death to get this. It’s not worth all of this. But he simply chucks the walkee away and ignores them. We then get Scrooge going from scolding grandpa.. to dearly begging Dewey to come back... David’s delvery here is just heartbreaking “I can’t protect you. Is that what you wanted me to say. Please lad just tell me what it will take to come back inside?” And Ben Schwartz meets it with an utterly emotional “Tell me about the spear of selene”. The animation here is once again some of the series best with Dewey’s determined face and Scrooge’s heartbreak as he realizes he has to finally stop hiding this from them and he’s not ready. So he takes his uncles hand.. and if you thought all of this is painful.. oh boy.. we’re just getting started. 

So back in the plane, with Launchpad setting up a table and a proper counterbalance so they can all sit, Scrooge finally explains and the boys, webby, and us int he audience all get the answers we desperately wanted: It was 10 1/2 years ago. The Original Trio had journeyed the world, having all sorts of adventures and making themselves into legends. But eventually you hit a wall and they’d realized they’d been just about everywhere. They could still globetrot of courser and as Season 3 would bear out there were some places they didn’t know about.. but the earth was about used up. So Della, being an aerospace wunderkind, thought of the next logical place to go. The stars. The Spear of Selene was a rocket, her pet project to give her kids, who she was expecting at the time the stars. 

Thing was Donald wasn’t on board with this at all. And the clash between the two, which we see in the flashback but don’t hear since Scrooge is narrating all of this over some cool looking semi-still images, was inetiviable. As I coverd in the spear of selene review I feel Donald was burnt out at this point. That he was tired of adventures and just wanted normalcy even before Scrooge forced his hand with what was to happen next. So to him Della should just settle down, live a regular life and raise those kids. The problem is... Della WASN’T burnt out. She didn’t need a break to live a normal life like Donald badly needed. She wanted to keep going and it was her choice. While Donald ultimately was right about the risk, he was wrong to try and force her into a life she didn’t want and project on her like that. 

What happened next though was all on Scrooge and Della. Scrooge simply did the thing that’s likely part of why Donald resents him so much and it took so long to fix thing: He ignored what Donald felt and thought, sided with Della and built the ship without telling either of them. His selfishness, thinking he knows what best and treatment of donald.. all backfired horribly. Della sussed out the ship.. and I still feel she was suspicious on her own.. and that Bradford telling her was him simply handing her a lit fuse knowing it’d go off and WHATEVER happened as a result of this would break scrooge. Even if the rocket had gone off saftely and everything was fine.. he could easily claim Della threatned him,k which she probably did and he simply went with it, and either way Donald would be unable to forgive either SCrooge or Della for the deciet. It just went better, and worse than he could’ve anpiciapted: much like the fantastic four she took the ship in the dead of night and hit a cosmic storm, with Scrooge only finding out in time to try and help her.. but the storm hit the ship.. and unlike the ff instead of gaining the power to turn invisible, she simply disappeared. She was lost. He and Donald didn’t speak again after Donald found out till 6 months ago. 

If that wasn’t heartbreaking enough.. it gets worse. The kids, full of fresh pain and anger over Scrooge’s part in things, their mom abandoning them, and their uncles hiding this for decades.. take it out on the one person there. Frank and Matt recently said in an artcle detailing the best 7 episodes from one site, or at least what the site considered to be the best, that Donald was absent because  he also knew and would’ve told them sooner. I also feel it’s because he would’ve disarmed this conflict, at least admitting what scrooge did alongside beakley. As mad as he was.. his own anger had started to disapate. The wound was fresh to the boys and thus they lashed out. 

Dewey blames him for it outright, Huey tell shim he should’ve called her back, and Louie tells him he shoudl’ve sent a fleet of ships to find her. As we find out in the somehow even MORE crushing ending he did the last two and as I made clear, and the show does, this was Della’s horrible decision. She took an unfinsihed rocket, she left her kids, she did this. While she regretted it and I don’t hold it against her because she spent 10 years away from the mon the moon, she’s suffered THROUGHLY for it and I don’t feel I need to pile on, Scrooge wasn’t wholly responsible. Still partly. Dewey makes things worse by impling scrooge GAVE UP ON HER because it cost too much. 

Look the rest of it is valid, if misguided, as Beakley tries to chime in on it and correct them knowing the full story. But claming, no matter how greedy he is that Scrooge would ABANDON HER.. that’s just wrong and he knows it. It’s why Scrooge gets so upset.. and why he pushes the last two people in his corner away. Webby critisizes building the rocket and Scrooge belts out “This is a family matter, your not family”. runing his position and poisiong his one ally by lashing out at someone who DID NOT DESERVE THIS. Make no mistake, this is present day scrooge’s WORST action. The past scrooge did worse, we saw that, but this is almost worse than the goat thing. Telling a child h’ed basically adopted, ignoring the finale twist for this as it’s irrelvant and all it does is twist the knife deeper, that “she’s not family” just because he wants someone to be mad at besides his boys... that’s fowl. Everyone’s against him except launchpad and tha’ts where his stubbornesst ragically comes in: he digs in his heels refuses to explain.. and the plane crashes due to it. though safely. Their safe.. but the family is broken. 

So we get our hell of an ending scenes. Donald cheerfully announces to the boys, who earlier had no intention of leaving anyway, the boats finished.. only for Dewey to inform him “We know abotu the spear of selene” . Donald is heartbroken, not only that they know.. but that he didn’t tell them. 

But since “it gets worse” is this episodes motto, we end on Beakley, Webby and Duckworth all leaving on vacation. How a ghost does vacations I dunno, maybe he’s going to go to Amity Park. Point is Webby, despite EVERYTHING , is crestfallen he’s not even going to say goodbye and still worried. As I said in my review of the finale.. it’s her heart that makes her and while Scrooge may be a dick right now.. he’s family. So we get the final lines of the episode Beakley: Well, you've successfully pushed your family and everyone who ever cared about you away... again. I hope you're happy. Scrooge:I AM

It’s just damn heartbreaking.. once again he’s lost everything and is too bitter to admit it and try and get it back. And as we see between the lines.. the boys were wrong: He drained his bin and his buisnesses creating a fleet to get Della back, and kept going despite the expense. He did everything he could to call her back. Nothing worked.. and he only stopped because the board yanked him away, Bradford sneering with pride as his plan, which backfired HORRIBLY, had at last finally gotten him what he wanted: a broken scrooge tired of adventure. And as Scrooge sits in his chair seething.. he’s broken again, angry, with tears in his eyes, loving nobody.. and nobody loving him, eerily mimickcking his first appearance in comics. 

Final Thoughts: 

This episode is a masterpice. It’s perfectly paced, with only a minor flaw tha’ts qwuickly snuffed out for a gripping drama. This was a gamble, taking 9 minutes where ther’es almost no jokes and just pure tensino and heartbreak.. but it paid off. This episode is one of the series finest and leads to one hell of a finale but on it’s own.. it’s nigh untouchable. This is the series at it’s best, and the finale and later information (More about Della and the spear, WEbby’s true origin, bradford’s role in all this and role as head of fowl), only make it better, with all those things being aware to the creators but not us. They really made us wait for this reveal but damn if it wasn’t perfect. 

Next Time: Webby, Bentina and Launchpad try to desperatley piece the family back together before the boys and donald leave forever.. and Scrooge’s darkest hour leaves him vunerable for his greatest foe. It’s finally time to get back to Lena as the Shadow War descends over our heroes.