"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Other Doctor Lives: DuckTales: Season 2, Episode 23 – “The Richest Duck in the World!” (2019)

*Spoilers for the end of “GlomTales!”, and season 2 arc spoilers.*

This episode follows nicely from the end of the last one. While it’s another spotlight episode for Louie, it still features some nice moments for the whole main cast, including fun stuff for David Tennant/Scrooge.

Part of Glomgold’s mania in the last episode was over a bet he had with Scrooge, that whichever of them was richer got to seize the other’s fortune. Louie was able to trick Glomgold and wound up with both fortunes. Now, he decides against signing the money/assets/corporation back over to Scrooge, but despite what his playlist says, he soon learns that “mo’ money” doesn’t equal “no problems.” Especially when the title of “richest duck in the world” comes with its own curse!

We’ll start with the B-plot, which features Della and the non-Louie kids. Della has been trying to send transmissions to Penumbra back on the moon; she doesn’t know about everything that went on after her departure, and she’s still expecting the moon folks to fly over to Earth for a friendly visit. As she’s introducing the kids in her transmission, I get a kick out of the line, “This is Webby, the boys’ charmingly violent best friend. She’s like their you!” We also get a return of Dewey’s imaginary Dewy Dew-Night talk show, a fact that Dewey is unspeakably excited about. It's pretty cute, and the kids all get some fun one-liners while Della gets a chance to reflect on her frenemyship with Penumbra.

It totally tracks that Louie wouldn’t give up his chance at being the richest duck in the world, and it makes perfect sense that he’d drop huge amounts of cash on frivolous stuff, like an emerald-studded ottoman designed by his favorite reality-show furniture makers. And of course, he has zero interest in actually running McDuck Enterprises. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but Marc Evan Jackson (a.k.a. Shawn from The Good Place) plays one of the buzzards in Scrooge’s boardroom, and he’s clearly even more fed up with Louie than he is with Scrooge. “This is a business, not a bank account!” he gripes re: Louie’s lavish spending. “That money has to come from somewhere.” And because this is DuckTales, it’s only a matter of time before the monstrous curse rears its head.

I love Scrooge’s reaction to Louie’s admission that he’s not signing the fortune back over. Louie braces himself for a Donald-worthy tantrum, but instead, Scrooge is positively tickled by this notion. “Oh sure,” he crows. “It’s just a complex international conglomeration. You love hard work!” Tennant injects so much glee into this line; I love it. Basically, Scrooge has already started the countdown on Louie crashing and burning, and he’s prepared to sit back and wait.

Well, not exactly “sit back and wait.” Scrooge quickly realizes he has way too much gumption to sit idle, so while he waits for Louie to learn his lesson, he rolls up his sleeves and gets a head start on McDuck Fortune 2.0. The old man is out here in his top hat and spats trying to pound the pavement as a shoeshine duck! Scrooge has a lot of quintessential traits, and most of them are on display on the regular, so it’s hard to label any one scene as the Most Scrooge Thing Ever, but I feel like that has to at least be a contender.

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