*Episode premise spoilers.*
We have reached penultimate episode time! While it’s a big one, it’s also a relatively intimate one that doesn’t have anything to do with the ongoing F.O.W.L. arc, which is an interesting choice. It’s a very personal episode for Scrooge to preface the presumably action-packed series finale.
Scrooge is summoned to an extradimensional courtroom to face a trial brought by various nemeses with grievances against him. Louie, who happened to get swept up into the courtroom alongside him, serves as his defense counsel.
That’s right, we are “Trial of a Time Lord”-ing Scrooge McDuck! Both the Tenth and Fourteenth Doctor’s have definite moments of reckoning of a “look at the damage the Doctor leaves in their wake!” nature, but neither experience a legit trial like more than one previous Doctor did, so it’s neat to see Scrooge in this storyline.
It’s fitting that Louie is the triplet who’s along for the ride here, and not only because he considers himself an expert at talking himself out of sticky situations. The episode opens in media res on a minor calamity at the mansion brought about by Louie’s carelessness, and we see Scrooge lecturing him on taking responsibility for his actions. As Louie defends Scrooge in the trial, that question of accountability comes up more than once.
Interestingly, the assorted villains who testify aren’t just claiming that Scrooge wronged them. They’re claiming that, in doing so, Scrooge turned them into the villains they are today. It’s an extremely Once Upon a Time Villain way of looking at things, and it means that Louie’s task is less about absolving Scrooge of wrongdoing than it is about proving that they still made their own choices. Re: Glomgold, Louie exclaimed, “He did this to himself! I mean, he’s planting dynamite under Scrooge’s chair right now!”
Other bits of fun: we learn that Glomgold has a chest tattoo of a shark splayed across a heart background! We meet a journalist in a flashback named Webra Walters, who speaks exactly like you’d think she would. Henry Winkler voices the extradimensional bailiff, while the statue of Lady Justice herself serves as the judge. Catherine Tate has her usual fun vamping it up as Magica de Spell, and in a flashback, we’re also introduced to her brother Poe, voiced by Martin Freeman!
Given the nature of the episode, there’s plenty of good stuff from David Tennant here. Scrooge runs the gamut of emotions from baffled to indignant to contrite. At times, he scoffs at the villains’ claims, while at others he gives exasperated arguments in his defense or expresses shame at past choices he made. Tennant does a nice job in all the flashbacks and shines in the courtroom scenes, especially in the final act.
Highlights!
· Not a line delivery, but there’s a flashback where Scrooge navigates treacherous waters by using sharks as stepping stones, leaping from shark to shark.
· Classic Scrooge alliteration! – “I’ve had enough of this cockamamie kangaroo court!”
· I love this exchange between Scrooge and Magica – “Curse me kilts!” “Oh, I’ll curse your whole outfit!”
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