Well, after going through what we can of Ncuti Gatwa’s filmography, plus a Matt Smith-related House of the Dragon detour, we’re finally getting back to DuckTales. The season 2 premiere is a lot of fun, full of humor and hijinks while also offering some nice character exploration for Louie. The show’s firing on all cylinders with this one.
Louie is starting to feel like the odd one out in his family. While his brothers and Webby are all about following Scrooge on every single wild, dangerous, exciting adventure, Louie wants to break the cycle of constant action and peril. So naturally, when he attempts to organize a laidback, non-swashbuckling game night, adventure comes along and finds him.
Of the triplets, it seems like Louie has probably gotten the least centric plots thus far. It makes sense within the show dynamics, but that means it always stands out a little more when the spotlight is on him. I like this episode for him—it hits at some deeper character stuff, even as the overall premise is well-grounded in his established character traits of being less of a go-getter, one for easy shortcuts over derring-do. I enjoy Louie’s annoyed/unimpressed reaction to their adventure at the start of the episode, bemoaning, “Can we just wrap up the ‘whoa!’ and get to the ‘wait, what?’ already?”, and it’s fun to watch him flail as he tries to keep game night from going off the rails (thanks to a chaotic appearance from Gyro and a miniature civilization that may or may not exist within the mansion.)
While this is a Louie-centric story, we get some good stuff from other characters too. Dewey and Webby are an adorably entertaining duo here, complete with teamwork-related duets and coordinated acrobatics, but they find their effortless synchronicity on adventures doesn’t necessarily apply to other aspects of their lives. And Donald is used to excellent effect as we discover why he’s the ideal charades partner: “You spend 30 years guessing what Donald is saying, you must get good at nonverbal communication.”
Plenty of fun for Scrooge/David Tennant today. It’s not surprising that Louie’s attitude toward adventuring puts him at odds with Scrooge. Irritated at his nephew dismissing the thrill of their expeditions, Scrooge gripes, “You’ve got to judge every angle! No two perilous scenarios are alike.” I enjoy seeing how he and Louie come to terms over the course of the episode.
That said, Scrooge is hilariously all in on Louie’s game night idea. As Mrs. Beakley explains, “You know how competitive he gets when he’s trying to best an enemy? On game night, we’re the enemies.” I get a kick out of watching Scrooge pop up all over the mansion/Donald’s house boat bellowing about game night, running around with a stack of board games taller than he is and generally being a wildly bad sport. Of course he has his own eponymous version of Monopoly, in which all the playing pieces are identical top hats.
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