Other Doctor Lives: DuckTales: Season 1, Episode 21 – “The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck!” (2018)

*Episode premise spoilers.*

It’s a little wild to think we’re approaching the end of season 1 here. Only a few more to go! Understandably, that means important movement on a major arc storyline. Not the one about the triplets’ mom—the one about Webby’s friend Lena. Seriously, when I started this show, I would not have guessed that the DuckTales reboot features multiple ongoing arcs.

Webby’s friend Lena is conflicted. She took the overeager, socially-awkward Webby under her wing as a ploy, because her wicked aunt has an old score to settle with Scrooge and enlisted Lena to do her dirty work. But now that she’s on the brink of potentially fulfilling her secret mission, Lena worries about Webby getting hurt in the process. Elsewhere, Huey has befriended a Bigfoot and taken it into the mansion, but while Dewey helps him hide it from Scrooge, Louie is suspicious of the hairy beast.

Lena’s storyline, that of the spy/fake friend who has misgivings when she starts to develop real affection, is a tried-and-true one, but the story makes it work. Webby is a lot—when Lena professes an interest in the McDuck family history, Webby escalates from fan clubs to blood oaths with a quickness—but she’s so enthusiastic and sincere that it’s hard to resist her charms for long. Lena is in a bad spot, because her aunt is no one to mess around with, but when the truth inevitably comes out, hopefully it won’t take long from Webby to move from feeling betrayed to figuring out how to help Lena stop her aunt.

The storyline involves a new locale in Scrooge’s mansion, the “other bin” where he keeps all his most dangerous secrets and discoveries. Naturally, Webby’s reactions to all of this ranges from the ecstatically excited (“Sword horse!” she screams when she sees a unicorn) to the amusingly blasé (“Don’t worry,” she assures Lena, “it’s just some assorted zombie parts.”)

The triplets’ storyline is a definite B-plot, although they have more to do than they have in most of Lena’s episodes. Huey and Dewey’s gaga affection for Bigfoot contrasts amusingly with Louie’s irritation, but I like that it goes deeper than him just being annoyed by Huey’s new monster/pet. He quickly suspects that the Bigfoot’s aggravating ways aren’t just innocently unknowing. “Simple-minded?!” Louie protests to his brothers. “He’s making a sandwich on a panini press!” This is a good plot for Louie, who doesn’t really take the lead in storylines too often. But as someone who’s always trying to get something for nothing, it makes sense that he’d be the one to assume the Bigfoot might have an angle.

Since both storylines revolve around doing something behind Scrooge’s back, that means he stays more on the periphery of the action. He’s always coming around the corner right as Webby and Lena are trying to access the secret other bin, or entering a room just after the triplets have frantically stuffed the Bigfoot in a closet. This means there’s not a whole lot for David Tennant to do this week. I do like this line, though, which displays a very quintessentially-Scrooge brand of taking care of children: “What if you were lost? Or hurt? Or eaten by the dragon?” Hehe—never change, Scrooge!

Further Thoughts on The Power of the Dog

*Spoilers.*

The Power of the Dog wasn’t my favorite Best Picture nominee this year, and I admitted that, while undeniably well made, it wasn’t really for me. However, the film definitely made an impression, and I was still thinking about it long after I saw it. So today, I’d like to revisit the film and its depiction of Phil.

Before I get going, I have to reiterate in no uncertain terms that Phil is terrible. His psychological torment of Rose is relentless and twisted, and when he underestimates Peter’s propensity for getting back, I understand why Peter decides to unequivocally take him out. A big part of the reason the film got under my skin, even though I wasn’t really a fan of it, is down to how disturbing Phil’s behavior is.

That said, the film is also an excellent demonstration of how toxic masculinity hurts men as well as women. Certainly, women are the main target when it comes to this social attitude, but it also harms men even as they perpetuate it. In Phil’s case, there are a few things going on that contribute to toxic masculinity basically rotting him from the inside out.

For starters, he’s queer in an environment that’s all about manly men, so to preemptively deflect any suspicion, he’s decided that he needs to be the Manliest Ever to Man. So everything becomes a pissing contest. He walks with bow-legged swagger and takes a weird pride in being unwashed and grungy. He insults his brother at every turn and has to have absolute reign over day-to-day business at the ranch. He also sneers at anything lovely or feminine. When the cowboys come into Rose’s establishment for dinner and Phil sees the paper flowers Peter has made for the table, he can’t ignore them. He can’t even make a quick quip or scoff and move on. He has to make a whole production out of it and set fire the flowers while Peter is watching. And in addition to the behaviors he adopts to overcompensate, I’m sure being closeted just makes him bitter—not to mention he’s also bereaved, as it’s implied that he was in love with the late Bronco Henry. So he’s a lonely, deeply unhappy man who gets off on dragging others down into his misery.

Side note: Are there gay cowboy movies that don’t have soul-crushing endings? If there are happy movies out there about a couple of guys falling in love while rustling cattle or fighting outlaws, I want to know about it!

Furthermore, because he’s such a Big Tough Cowboy, Phil has no healthy outlet for expressing his feelings (‘cause that’d be girly, or gay or something.) So when George marries Rose, Phil can’t bring himself to be happy for his brother. He feels frightened and jealous, because it’s always been George and him against the world and he’s terrified that Rose is taking George away from him. But he can’t let himself say any of that to George, so instead, he decides to make Rose’s life a living hell. He’s punishing her, not just for “stealing” George’s love and attention, but because she made him feel frightened and jealous. He can’t deal with those feelings, and he can’t cut them out of himself, so he sublimates them into the perverse pleasure he takes in haunting Rose’s every step.

Phil’s issues don’t excuse what he does. At all. Again, he is awful. But it’s interesting to see how the toxic masculinity that causes him to torture Rose, belittle George, and underestimate Peter, also causes him to bring so much misery on himself.

Character Highlight: The Roberts Master (Doctor Who)

*Spoilers for the TV movie.*

Even though the Derek Jacobi Master spends considerably less time actually being the Master, the Eric Roberts incarnation is probably my least favorite. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s the fault of the actor—I’ve talked about other talented actors who’ve been hamstrung by less-than-stellar writing for their Masters, and while the Eighth Doctor and Grace get most of the TV movie’s best qualities, the Roberts Master is saddled with a lot of its worst.

Like the Anthony Ainley incarnation before him, the Roberts Master isn’t actually a regeneration. With no regenerations left and on the brink of being executed, the Master’s final wish is to have the Doctor transport his remains home. By unknown means, his essence is transmuted into some kind of incorporeal serpent thing (is this a Horcrux situation? Enquiring minds want to know,) and he plans to steal the Doctor’s body and remaining regenerations. That plan hits a snag when the Doctor receives a fatal blow and is on the road to regenerating himself, so the Master coopts a nearby human body in a pinch.

If the Ainley Master usurping Tremas’s body is awful on an emotional level, the Roberts Master taking over Bruce’s body is awful on a physical level. The hijacking is fraught this time around and the body almost immediately starts decaying. A side effect of the serpent thing, maybe? Either way, we’ve now got a Master with yellow snake eyes who spits hypnotic venom, desperate to make a second play for the Doctor’s regenerations before his current body falls apart.

I’m again struck by how tenaciously the Master tries to run away from death, trying to scrape and steal a bit more life for himself any way he can. For all of their schemes for assorted villainy and/or domination, a significant part of any Master is motivated purely by their fear of dying.

The Master we’re left with isn’t great. He does have some quintessential Mastery traits, like the aforementioned hypnotic abilities (even if it’s transmitted through venom in this incarnation) and a propensity for dramatics. But he’s weirdly split between this really slick, slightly cheesy Master and some kind of zombie-snake animalistic Master that growls and hisses. It’s odd, it’s over-the-top, and it doesn’t work all that well.

I do get a kick out of the fact that he changes into traditional Gallifreyan robes before executing his ultimate plan against the Doctor. 1) Again with the dramatics. And 2) since the TV movie was a prospective relaunch for the show to an American audience who wasn’t necessarily familiar with the classic series, I like imagining people who’ve rolled with the regenerating Time Lord and the police-box spaceship suddenly going, “Wait, what on earth is he wearing?”

Roberts Master, we hardly knew ye. Not the best, but you’re still a part of the Master’s lives and thus still a part of that delightful, crazy journey we call Who.

News Satire Roundup: May 22nd

Sunday, May 22

·        Recap of the Week – Primaries

o   John was gleeful to announce that Rep. Madison Cawthorn lost his primary, “which means he has now set the record for the shortest term ever served by a little bitch.”

o   Most of the time was spent on Pennsylvania governor candidate Doug Mastriano, who’s been very cozy with claims that Trump won the 2020 election and isn’t shy about his belief that, as governor, he’d be able to do whatever he wanted with Pennsylvania’s elections.

o   Despite the grim subject matter of the Mastriano story, John found humor in his endless collection of religious/patriotic ties, including one emblazoned with a tattered flag and the words, “Gave proof through the night, in God we trust” – John added, “which is…not how that song goes.”

o   Mastriano claims not to believe in QAnon, but that didn’t stop him from appearing at a conference hosted by two self-proclaimed QAnon prophets, who gifted him with a sword as a thank-you for his work – This conference appeared to be held in a church sanctuary decorated by no less than four American flags, including one draped over the altar. One of the “prophets” also wore both an American flag shirt and an American flag hat.

o   John was wary of the running-unopposed Democratic candidate promoting Mastriano before the primaries – “Well, that is fucking risky. Because look, I get the tactic behind wanting to choose an opponent that you think you have a better chance of beating, but as has been made painfully clear over the last decade, the most extreme Republican isn’t necessarily the least electable.”

·        And Now This – Texas sayings

o   A collection of people on news shows sharing purported Texan aphorisms – I liked, “Don’t let your alligator mouth overload your hummingbird rear end.”

o   After a montage of multiple people saying someone is “all hat and no cattle,” I laughed at the ending clip of Sen. Chuck Schumer butchering it.

·        Main Story – Subway

o   We opened on a laundry list of Subway’s scandals, from Jared to an Irish court ruling that their bread can’t legally be called bread.

o   Then there was the viral photo of a “sandwich artist” putting his penis on a batch of dough – “That penis isn’t even the most offensive part of that photo. Look at the bread! It looks like a child’s drawing of Ed Sheeran.”

o   Then there’s Subway having to launch subwaytunafacts.com to combat accusations that their tuna isn’t real tuna – “Although, the moment that you’ve done that, it does feel like you’re already losing the argument.”

o   The brunt of the story, though, was on the strong-arm tactics Subway uses with its franchisees, many of whom feel deeply taken in by the company but now unable to get out – After seeing a video clip of a franchisee sharing their story witness-protection style, John exclaimed, “Holy shit! You know it’s serious when they use a voice modulator that can only be described as Autotuned Andre the Giant. And remember, this is about a restaurant that sells ham sandwiches. What’s the worst Subway could do to that man, make him eat one?”

o   Because the entry fee to buy a Subway location is quite low, most stores are owned by individuals and families, many of them immigrants – John took issue with a promotional video praising just how easy it is to open a Subway, saying, “It’s true, you really don’t need all that much to open a Subway. Although, I’m not quite sure how reassuring it is that all you need is a plug. After all, it is a restaurant serving human food, not an air mattress.”

o   But while the costs to open a new store are low, most run at low profit margins, and franchisees have to give a much higher percentage of their profits back to Subway than other restaurant franchises.

o   This description made me laugh – “I will say, Subway puts those ad fees to heavy use. Because they are the reason you can’t turn on your TV without being bombarded by commercials featuring Steph Curry, Tom Brady, and Megan Rapinoe pretending they’re all standing in the same place and willing to put sloppy bread cannons into their god bods.”

o   I loved the section on Subway’s product placement, which is especially prevalent in Korean dramas and led to Subway creating its own mini-drama series online called “Someway” – Naturally, the show brought this back around in the end with their own version of a Subway-focused Korean drama.

o   John was alarmed by a corporate video for franchisees that started peppy and optimistic but devolved into statements like, “We don’t let people down by being lazy,” and, “We don’t feel sorry for ourselves” – “Oh my god, it’s a sandwich cult!”

o   Subway also undercuts the business of its own franchisees by relentlessly opening competing locations close to each other – John counted 10 Subways within a 1-mile radius of his studio.

o   This was a tangent, in response to store owners being reluctant to share their real opinions with prospective franchisees calling them up for information, but I loved it – “Calling people is for divorcees and serial killers. I haven’t answered my phone in ten years now—either text me, or forget me.”