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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Ducktales Reviews: The Forbidden Fountain of the Foreverglades!

Here I am a day late and 7 dollars short.. because I just bought the lost boys. Scrooge and the kids find themselves in America’s own personal circle of hell Florida to track down the fountain of youth. But with Goldie arriving for the same reason and swiping Finch’s diary, Scrooge and Webby are forced to take off without the boys in persuit while the boys enjoy themselves.. well Louie does, Dewey and Huey fight over whose the older sibling. Meanwhile Scoldie find themsleves magically younger, Webby finds herself crotchety and Rockerduck finds all of them in his quest to get the fountain for himself and be carried around like a baby like Jeeves. Full review with spoilers bellow.

Yes this is a day late, as I had to stop writing yesterday to do other stuff and to help stablize mom’s internet while she worked, and then had a full day with my best friend watching the bizzare but enjoyable double feature of Hubie Halloween and Tales from the Hood. But i’m back and with a LOT of other reviews to get to this week, two more for regular coverage, a review I didn’t finish sunday due to being really tired, and some reviews in time for next week’s episode, no more time for a big intro. Let’s go. Thankfully did get some of this done yesterday soooo...

It's spring break in Duckberg. So while Violet does her vacation research, Lena throws some things into the local ditch and misses webby, Boyd goes on family vacation with his adopted parents, birth creator parent, and Anthony Fremont without the powers thank god, Beakly goes on her annual grannies gone wild vacation, Donald goes on a boat trip with Daisy with his boys crashing, Della tries to party wtih the young people to show she still has it, Launchpad joins her because he is the young people. Fenton works and Penny.. triest to reign her girlfriend in because it’s Donald’s week off from trying to get the non-beakly adults to be reasonable. It’s her curse now.

In the actual episode Scrooge has taken the niece and nephews to Florida, the land that gods forgot.. yes gods forgot. They all did. Except maybe Loki because the god of chaos and storytelling really can’t ignore his people. Much as he’d like to. Sadly we don’t get Scrooge and the nephews on jetskis outrunning alligators iwth guns also on jetskis.. both anthro gators and regular animal gators, that still have guns mind because florida. And yes that is a recycled script from my failed Calvin and Hobbes spinoff pitch, Calvin and Hobbes: Miami Nights. Hobbes has a serious coke problem. Also Opus from Bloom County is there.. I mean hew as just supposed to be a guest star but the execs loved him and Berke was like “whatever can’t be worse than the Garfield movies throw bill in too”. But obviously coked up gators, tigers and bill the cat are not what you came to see so let’s move on. Though if it is hit me up. I think we’d get along great.

Anyways instead of Cokehead and Hobbes, we get a bunch of partying college kids, which given Scrooge already hates young people, this is indeed his own personal hell.. much like everyone whose not young or old going to florida. But spring break hotels are super cheap so Scrooge’s need to save money outweighed his need to not be surronded by young hot morons blowing off steam. Though Webby being webby points out the blowing off steam part.. which is nice of her but is probably only like.. half of them the other half being young dumb rich people looking to get laid. Which is also the mission statment MTV’s had since 2000. 20 years of not being about music and counting!

Anyways, naturally their here for a quest, with everyone else gone for the above reasons I made up but sound plausible and entertaining, as Finch’s diaries put the fabled fountain of youth here. As does a cheesy video from the lion owner of the result played by Nestor Carbonell. If that name dosen’t ring a carbonbell, which fair enough it iddn’t for me at first either, his voice probably will for disney fans who grew up around the 2000′s like me. It’s Senior Junior! From kim possible.

The Late Great Ricardo Montalbon, who I dearly miss to this day,with Nestor as his son, Senior Senior Senior and Senior Senior Junior, which are great names already. Their easily my favorite Kim Possible Villains (Yes I still love Drakken and Shego now hush), and it’s in part because the concept is brilliant: Senior was just a rich man accidently taking all the power in France. Kim showed up to stop him and Ron, her best friend sidekick and later boyfriend and presumably now husband, casually mentioned Senior’s home was the perfect villain lair, and that Senior had the talent for it. Senior took that to heart and spent the rest of the series trying to be the best classical arch villain he could be, trying to adhere to the tropes of one warts and all while his son just wanted to loung around and be young and rich. It was a great dynamic and the two really played off one another beautifully. Hopefully if there’s another reboot nestor can pick up where Montalbon left off with some new hot idiot as his own son. Even if it’s just for the intro you have to admit it’d be great.

So yeah I was happy to have him on board once I realzied this, More on him later I keep getting sidetracked this review and we’re, no joke not even past the intro. But Scrooge needs ice for his back, so the boys have the afternoon off while Webby helps him, because she’s a sweetheart, and Huey’s in charge because oldest.

Thus we get their subplot for the episode.. or most of it but more on that in a bit: Dewey is annoyed Huey is ALWAYS in charge and always overscheduling, case in point he has an afternoon schedule down pat MOMENTS after they arrive. However given Huey later did his research and has a super analytical and regimented mind, it isn’t a stretch to say he spent their time on the plane planning out things just in case. or that he always doesn’t do that when they have to stay overnight. But what makes it work is Dewey’s frustration is understandable. Despite being barely younger he never gets put in charge, Huey while a good kid can be bossy as we’ve seen as early as season one and has even been condescending with it once or twice. So as a younger brother myself I understand chafing under an older brother all the time.

However, Huey being in charge.. makes the most sense. Scrooge , and i’m HEAVILY betting Donald on the boat to present day and every other adult, uses the oldest excuse as something the kids will follow easily without starting a fight over the simple truth that Huey’s the most responsible and organized out of the three. And by that I mean Dewey fighting over it or being hurt at his mom saying it , Louie would probably be hurt but would probably be fine just fine with having no responsibility or effort to put in. Huey makes plans, looks after his siblings even when not in charge, and thinks things through the most of his three brothers. Sometimes overly so, which I can relate to, but point is he’s the best boy for the job, though I could also easily buy that at least for Scrooge, he genuinely buys into oldest is in charge because he was raised that way. Also this episode didn’t explain how he’s immortal but I’m betting “Battle for Castle McDuck” does so no harm done.

Back on point, Dewey is governed almost entirely by his impulses, which does work sometimes as seen with the season premiere, but has also lead to him nearly being sacrificed 74 times, while Louie can lead, he just doesn’t wanna half the time and would likely weasel out of it. And the episode bears this out with Louie being more bothered with the power struggle interfering in his being lazy time and generally being outside it. He just doesn’t care whose in charge unless it benefits him in some way and right now it doesn’t.

I’ll go ahead and cover this plot since, surprisingly, it ends up dovetailing into the main plot, and it’s easier to get it out of the wya here and cover where they start to overlap when the main plot catches up. So Huey leads them around starting with Lounging which goes well: Louie’s naturally on board and while well bored, Dewey sleeps when he can’t just impulsively jump into he pool.

The tide turns however when after his short dip, Dewey seemingly has a growth spurt and is taller and thus takes overa s big brother and forces them to go ahead and lunch.. which runs into both the old people and the old people menu. It backs up what I thought from the start: huey likely knows what he’s doing, which he does; Obviously in Florida old people eat earlier, so Huey’s scheduling wasn’t just his normal OCD flaring up, but using it to strategically plan when to have fun so they could in a packed resort. It also shows how clever Huey is, as even for something so mundane he plans perfectly. He’s my faviorite for a reason.

Huey eventually gets fed up with it and plays Dewey, but Louie, suspcious of the head of the hotel, instead starts piecing things together... and i’ll save that reveal for when it ducktails into the main plot..l because I couldn’t resist that pun and you know it. Not a bad plot, mildly slight but it sets up it’s connection to the main plot well and has a good conlict. Moving onto the real meat of the episode, turns out the race.. isn’t that much of a race as Webby outspeeds both Scrooge and Goldie, who bicker over a canteen and their long history of her betraying him and him betraying her for betraying him etc etc. Webby is delighful here as she’s both understandably awkward playing third whell and not at all fond of Goldie which.. yeah you would be too if she locked you in a closet. It’s nice to see the two interact if not by much. However things soon change when Scrooge and Goldie seemingly get tranformed by the river into younger 18-20 something versions of themselves. Admitley Tennant’s voice for younger scrooge is.. eh, but he still does well enough that you soon stop carring. The designs are great.. and damn if young scrooge isn’t delcious. Seriously it’s only thorugh the magic of network standards that Jodeci’s freak n you isn’t playing over half his scenes. Damn. Him around this age in the comics just looked sorta like donald with sideburns god damn Frank thank you.

Speaking of thirst with their hormones in place it’s naturally not long before the twos old spark that was smothered under decades of betryal comes roaring back, and the two even almost make out before Webby interputs, getting increasingly injured by the everglades.. as most people do by florida itself really. It won’t let you leave in one piece.

But things get interesting when Goldie makes a proposal.. ditch Webby for a bit and go find the fountain. As Goldie brilliantly puts it youth’s wasted on the young.. but not them. This is a second chance. While I heard people comment on “why is scrooge’s age suddenly affecting him now”... honestly it really probably isn’t. While he’s likely been old for some time, we’ve seen his back hurt him once or twice, just faking being hunched hurt him. And while it is played up a bit much in this episode, it’s perfectly realistic that his body has good and bad days. My mother does, I do, most people do as they get older. The parts of you that ache and don’t work right tend to wax and wayne in how much they hate you.

TO me it works to sell why this is tempting for Scrooge: A chance to start over, not abandon his family obviously, and given how much nonsense is around his life and how old he is, it’s not a stretch for duckberg to accept he’s younger than his own son and daughter now. Scrooge can buy or earn anything he wants and really is the man who has everything: He has a loving family, a repaired relationship with Donald, Della back after loosing her, a nice and nephews to carry on his legacy, tons of friends, a thriving empire, and tons of mysteries to track down, including recently ones his own idol never could find. He has everything he could want and tons more adventures to go: Bold New Discoveries, old ones to show his grandkids for the first time, and a cozy mansion. There’s really only two things missing: more time, as even with him and goldie having worked hard magically to stay alive as long as they have, as while they’ve found ways to stay alive, they haven’t been able to stay YOUNG. Sure they’ve added years and years, hell 60′s scrooge only looks somewhat older despite decades having passed, but while they can probably go on for a few more decades, there’s only so much they can do before their time runs out. And the other thing missing from his life quite obviously is goldie. The two clearly love one another.. but scrooge very justifably can’t trust her and can’t have her in his life until she tries to change, and she dosen’t want to. This.. offers a chance to turn back all of that, to cast aside their bitter history and start over as better people than they were before. Scrooge can have time with his family, time he would likely loose eventually to see THEM grow old. Raise their own families he might not get to see. To see those kids grow up and take on their own parents legacy. And to share it all WITH Goldie. TO have her in his family at long last. Sure he’s leaving Webby behind but he’ll come back and as we see she’s fine if understandably upset. Granted I think they could’ve done more with her leaving her, but the sheer brilliance of this plot I didn’t see coming, the sheer pathos of Scrooge’s second chance makes up for it. They find the fountain.. but it’s dried up and unconnected to the river. They also find Rockerduck, out of the amber with his frakenstein butler whose clearly now just a mindless monster. which means whoever did his work really did it shoddy as even frakenstein had some intellegence. He’s also being carried around like a baby which I enjoy throughly. Rockerduck does not look plesant, and i’m happy to have him back as I was upset this character only got adapted for seemingly one episode and was pleased to see him with fowl. They also find a good angle for him: Beisdes the old timey rober baron thing, and looking like Rene Belloq.. he even gets to do the nothing you can’t posses that I can’t take away line which is great and Hodgman is amazing as ever. But yeah besides that, he also gets his comic versions tendency to throw money around and do none of the work himself. The throw money around thing while neat in the comics did need to be reframed, as Glomgold now does it, and so does beaks. But with Rockerduck they found a nice medium for the two: like both he’ll spend massive amounts of dough. Like Glomgold he likes a good scheme, but dosen’t go to the sheer lunatic lenghts Glommy does: His schemes are more practical, stealing a deed from some unsuspecting trusting townsfolk, or finding some youth water to shore up his plan to freeze himself by getting his apperance back. While no longer young like Beaks, he shares beaks laziness and again tendency to spend money.. but still contrasts the guy: Rockerduck is ambitious in his cons and plans, Beaks is not. Rockerduck has money already to tap into, Beaks is new money and clearly burns through it on a daily basis. The show brillinatly kept what made the mallard a great villian, while reframing what no longer worked. But yeah Scrooge realizes that if the river didn’t help them what did, and now it’s time to get back to Louie: Whose figured out that Ponce De Leon, mentioned earlier, and the hotel manager are one in the same! Also props for making Ponce an actual lion. Nicely done. Yeah turns out Ponce diverted the water from the fountain to the resot: The tap water there is actually the restorative water, with Scrooge having filled his canteen with it without realizing. As for the old people turns out the fountain runs on equilvent exchange: Some of it’s waters drain youth to create the youth creating part of it. As such the seniors.. are actually the spring breakers, drained of youth and too senile to fight back. And Dewey’s sudden growth spurt was just him being in the pool for two seconds draining his youth. Naturally though Louie made the mistake of blurting this out and the boys get captured by Ponce who explains why the resort scheme: At first he just lured gullible minions on expeditions but eventually that scheme dried up so he simply modernized by building the resort and diverting the fountain to it., having gallons of youth restoring water stocked up. He traps the boys with a pool ring and while I expect more from them I get leaving them out of the climax. While Mildly annoying.. this really isn’t their story anymore, and the scrooge and Goldie stuff is where to focus. I can let a story slide on some weaknesses if it’s for good reason and really, focusing more on the more engaging main plot with Scrooge and Goldie was the right call. That said the nephews could’ve fought Jeeves or something but i’m getting ahead of myself. This twist is utterly and a great surprise. No notes.

Back at the fountain having realized what’s going on now, if not the youth sucking part just yet, Scrooge and Goldie race back with Rockerduck and Jeeves in persuit. Scrooge and Goldie arrive to find De Leon, revealing their on to them if being confused for springbreakers. But once he realizes what’s going on De Leon.. actually offers to cut them in. After all while it means sharing his water as shown the man has gallons of it, and even off spring break likely still has no shortage of young idiots to drain because it’s Florida and he runs a cheap hotel with a pool. But while Goldie’s naturally tempted.. Scrooge isn’t. He’s fine with a second chance.. but not at the cost of other people’s first ones. Sure they might waste it.. but it’s not his life to steal. Naturally a swordfight insues while Goldie darts off to find the water and Scrooge finds himself fighting both De Leon and Jeeves, as Rockerduck cheerfully admits he has ZERO issues with stealing other people’s youth and while he and De Leon don’t formally partner up, it’s not a stretch to say De Leon would be happy with a rich billionare joining in his operation providing both fincial backing.. and possible room to expand and steal MORE youth.

But before Goldie can run away with the water she finds the boys.. and in a nice callback her previous bond with Louie gets her to crack.. and she realizes she can’t just run out on scrooge again and repeat their history. So she frees the boys,k who are a bit dazed to help, and shoves the bit of water she got down jeeves throat. Though Rockerduck still got some, so he’s back to peak shape, if now having to carry around a baby frakenstien. He exits, and I loved him in this one clearly, even if i’m STILL annoyed it’s taking till next week for FOWL to do much of anything. I mean it’s obvious FOWL told him about the fountain but still, while they’ve set up the members well for the second half, we still haven’t seen much of the actual orignization and it’s grating. But again the rest of the episode is good enough that it swoops over this. This episoide has some minor flaws.. but the core story, big twist and everything is so good and the upcoming climax so emotional, it’s easy enough to forgive.

So speaking of that climax we get one hell of a swordfight with Scrooge and Goldie versus Ponce before Ponce ends up in the pool as he deserves but is determined to take Scrooge with him. So we get Goldie’s moment of truth: She could leave scrooge the drown, go about her day and take the water for herself.. or decide it’s not too late.. that even with her clean slate gone.. she can still change and still have a future with scrooge, stop betraying him for his own gain and start enjoying their time together instead. She makes the obvious choice, diving in in a beautifully shot sequence to save him. Ponce withers to death which is sad, as I really would’ve liked to see him again, but fitting. With the villian gone it’s time to wrapup loose ends! The ducks hand out the youth water, using up all but a few drops left to restore the spring breakers and hte natural order, Scrooge happy in his decision. Dewey decides to cede being the bigger brother back to Huey , and offers Webby some and in a great gag, she explains she just had a bad day she didn’t get her youth sapped.. though I feel she did in an earlier draft, but a quick pop of her back gets her back to normal. Though having her be an old lady was hilarious and it was nice to have a youth swap plot that didn’t have a roll reversal. To close things out Scrooge laments Goldie probably ran off again and leanred nothing.. only to be plesantly suprsied when it turns out while she is leaving for more adventure, she didn’t want to say good buy.. and it’s clear she’s changed. While her last apperance showed some cracks forming, while she did take the loot she did go back to save Louie and vice versa, here we see a genuine change. She’s realized, and it feels entirely plausable, that even if she can still scam other people and probably will.. she shoudln’t keep hurting scrogoe like this and her feelings for him outweigh any beinifit from treating him like garbage. Having a clean slate for a moment gave her a persepctive, and even if the slate’s back to full.. it’s not too late to fix things. So she kisses him passionately he happily reciporcates and i’m totally on board. I only didn’t ship this version fo the two because this goldie.. was not a godo person. Granted I do like her better than the comics version. While Comics Goldie is not BAD persay, she lacks some agency. She’s still cool, what with her shotgun and take no fucks attitude especailly in her youth, her just.. waiting for scrooge instead of getting after him feels.. weird to me. Sure the man’s stubborn but it didn’t fit her personality to just wait for it. Here there’s a valid reason they aren’t together despite a clear attraction: Goldie is out for herself. She’s the catwoman to his batman, which was a good metaphor really: Scrooge too is a grumpy guy who fights evil and has traveld the globe and has a massive extended family includling children he teaches to fight crime and his own adult children and is richer than god. But more than that Goldie is selfish, untrustworthly and loved money more than Scrooge.. here.. she realizes while she’ll likely still be stealing shit, because hey it’s her calling, she loves him more than doing crimes and that it’s not a clean slate they needed. .it was abetter her. I didn’t support them because frankly she wasn’t in a good place for an actual relationship. Now she is, he is and it’s sweet to see. A good note to end the episode

Final Thoughts: This ep was a bit uneven in places, not knowing what to do with the kids at times but as i’ve made clear i’ts excellent with the scrooge and goldie core really working well and Janney and Tennant bringing their absolute best to this one. Easily one of the season’s best. Not much more to say. If you liked this tune in each week for more ducktales coverage, and I intend once the hiatus begins to try and do one episode a week still to catch up as hopefully this isn’t the last season it might very well be. Next week Darkwing owns the night! I had planned a full darkweek.. but my busy monday and some other stuff got away from me. Still I have two darkwing themed reviews planned: Drake’s introdcution in the reboot with “Duck Knight Returns!” and the very first darkwing episode, chronlogically anyway, “Darkly Dawns the Duck.” Until next week, Let’s Get Dangerous!

#ducktales #the forbidden fountain of the foreverglades!#ducktales spoilers #reviews #scoldie #scrooge mcduck #goldie o gilt #john d rockerduck #huey duck #dewey duck #louie duck #webby vanderquack #ponce de leon #nestor carbonell #spring break

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