Very entertaining episode—lots of fun and action, but with a nice emotional story as well. I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but this show is so much better than it needed to be. Three seasons in, I’m no longer surprised that it’s this good, but I continue to be impressed.
The kids are doubting themselves after a rare failure on a mission with Scrooge. But when the gods of Ithaquack show up at the mansion, they think this is their chance to prove themselves: Zeus is being ousted from the pantheon, and the gods are wanting to elevate a mortal to take his place. While they audition for godhood, Storkules does his utmost to provide as much help as possible on Donald’s second date with Daisy. So needless to say, it’s a disaster!
Overeager Storkules being 100% enamored with Donald is always a hoot. Things get a bit cringey here, since he’s completely unaware that his “helpful involvement” is tanking Donald’s date, but even amid all the shenanigans, Donald and Daisy are sweet together.
The kids’ confidence is shaken when they think Scrooge has lost faith in them. When Della tries to cheer them up, asking, “Who cares what old man McDuck thinks, huh?”, I got a kicked out of wide-eyed Webby dramatically intoning, “It consumes me!” And later, in a deep funk, we get this great line from Louie: “Hi, I’d like to order a ton of pizzas? …No, we don’t deserve toppings.”
So, they’re all very anxious to impress the gods. Everyone is very in-character here—three guesses as to who takes a test drive as “the goddess of sunny friendship get-along time!” I both laughed and awwed at Dewey breathlessly asking, “Did Scrooge see? Was I the best one?”, and you can imagine how well it goes when Louie tries out the power of the golden touch.
Aside from all that, we also get our first DuckTales glimpse of Hades, who’s basically Alice Cooper in bird form. And the gods of Ithaquack have a group chat, hee!
After the opening fumbled adventure, Scrooge spends much of the episode away from the action. He basically just pops in and out on the kids, inadvertently devastating them with every line. He’s so focused on “expanding” the team for a successful second try that he doesn’t notice their self-confidence spiral until he’s already done a lot of damage, but even then he doesn’t connect the dots. When he walks in on them lying dejected on the couch, his reaction is just splendidly awkward. I love David Tennant’s delivery here: “Ooh, well, looks like you have your own thing going on here, so I can just…go with them if you’re deep in…whatever this has become?”
Scrooge comes back with a vengeance in the final act, however, when an unexpected crisis kicks off and he’s forced to reckon with the effect his offhand remarks had on the kids. There’s a great conversation between him and Della—while both of them are fighting a beastie, naturally!—and it culminates in a rather lovely speech on his part. Love it!
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