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Mighty Ducks: The Animated Series - A Traitor Among Us
Reviewed: 08/26/2014
...And He Is Very Wise!
So we finally get to the final episode in the first 1/3 of this series as some "hot" woman seduces Duke and Nosedive; while she replays Many Love Is A Splintered Thing from Rescue Rangers; which I considered one of the better Monteray Jack episodes out there. Trust me; that is a huge compilement to someone that I don't like. Now; will this episode be the big break this cartoon so desparately needs, or will we see yet another example of why this show sucks? Let's rant on shall we...?!
This episode is written by Gordon Kent and story edited by David Wise. Gordon Kent according to The-Pack.biz: With two Emmy nominations, Gordon is a gifted and experienced writer, comic strip writer, and cartoonist, and he’s worked in nearly every facet of TV animation, including: in-betweener, assistant animator, storyboard artist, writer, story editor, lyricist, voice director, director, and producer. Writer and lyricist: Hallmark’s Timeless Tales; writer: Scooby Doo, G.I. Joe, Teen Wolf, CBS Storybreak, Paddington Bear, the Tasmanian Devil, Teamo Supremo, and the Rugrats & Pink Panther comic strips. He began his career on Fangface in 1978. Bonkers is his DTVA debut and he also worked on Recess, Hercules The Series, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Legend of Tarzan, House of Mouse, Atlantis: Milo's Return, Kim Possible, Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, Lilo & Stitch: The Series, Teamo Supremo and Gravity Falls. Bob's Burgers is his most recent credit. He has 55 animation department credits, 28 writing credits, nine production credits, seven other credits, seven storyboard credits and four direction credits to his resume. Animation is done by Plus One Animation.
We begin this one in the suburbs of Anaheim which looks as gloomy as this show actually. We see Wraith and Chameleon teleport in front of one of the red roofed houses which clearly is where the Raptorous is. Which is pretty convincing; but what happened to the original house? And how come no one in the neighbourhood noticed it? This is the kind of stuff that annoys me because they seriously believe that kids will not use their brains. So they enter the Raptorous as Chameleon is cutting Flintstone promos and there are robots walking around. Why? Because Dragonous has to destroy them silly since Chameleon failed to get whatever Dragonous wanted and he's mad. I think he's mad at Chameleon's delivery of saying no then him saying no. Anyhow; Dragonus shows off a monitor with blue/yellow splashes on it complete with an earthquake reader. Chameleon calls the five mile radius nothing but sand; with Wraith chiming in that they don't have the technology to produce a something chip. And why should I care what it is named? Okay; it's called Protemus and I still don't care. Basically; he needs it to power up a cannon the drones are bringing in; which he wants to destroy the world. This Dragonous fellow is so conflicted that he doesn't know what he wants to do. Dragonous shoots at another drone and it only loses it's head. Dragonous has a headache and apologizes for not being himself today; and then shoots the drone into scrap. That was funny as Chameleon claims that he knows someone who could pull this operation off; but Dragonous must be nice and all. Dragonous then threatens to shoot him into a million pieces and that's nice enough for Chameleon to do a lime green impression of Wildwing. Wraith blows this off with sarcasm, but Dragonous has a better idea because he has a friend that was from Puck World. Wow; something that actually makes sense in storyline? In this show? Anyhow; Dragonous orders the dimensional gate to be opened because they have a vistor coming. CGI puck scene changer of doom and we cut to inside the Arrowhead Pond with the jumbotron showing the lamest scoreboard I have ever seen. Yeah; the team du jour is the Macroons, yawn.
So it's the third period and the ducks are tied 1-1 with the Macroons with Roy Firestone claiming that there is 20 seconds left. Cut to a far shot of the crowd cheering as Nosedive and Duke hog the duck while skating down the ice. Both blow each other off and they shoot the puck in such an impossible way that Tanya grabs the puck; shoots the puck into the net and scores on a shot that appears to bounce off the crossbar; but it's in the net anyway. The crowd pops loudly as Roy yells that the ducks win it; and I would fine with this except that the time that he said 21 seconds with at 2:56, and Tanya scored at 3:09 which is 13 seconds apart. So there is still seven seconds left in the game. Nope; the ducks go to center ice; touch hockey sticks and then we get more CGI shots of the pond as Tanya returns in street gear wanting to do some browsing. On what? She doesn't really say; since she just goes on and on. So yeah; logic break. Not nearly as bad as Mad Quacks Beyond Hockeydome; but still annoyed me. They couldn't just say overtime? Because then it wouldn't matter what the time was, first goal scored ends the game anyway. Tanya gets to the boards; when then we hear a sultry female voice and we see a woman duck with purple anime hair and wearing a pink swimsuit with purple gloves. Tanya right away notices that this is Lucretia DeCoy; and Lucretia uses the puck gun to shoot the puck rope to tie up Tanya to the ground, and then Lucretia basically wraps duck...ERRRR...duct tape around Tanya's beak. Then she simply carries her away while basically blurting out that she cannot allow Tanya to know that Lucretia is a traitor to Puckworld. If I was booking this; I would have Lucretia come out and Tanya noticing her (although when she's about to say her name; I would cut it off before she sezs her name). Then scene change to the recreational room in order to build up the storyline to "What happened to Tanya?". This would build up suspense and then Lucreatia comes in; they ask where Tanya is and Lucretia makes up some story with the phrase "hanging around". That way; we know Lucretia did something awful to Tanya; but what exactly is still up in the air.
It's called "Not treating kids like morons and babying them every step of the storyline." So let's head to the recreational room with the western pan shot of Duke blowing off Nosedive for being an asshole and stealing the puck from his own team mates. Duke does have a point there as Nosedive is playing some video game and ignoring Duke all the way. Nosedive blows him off and basically claims that Duke is the one acting like an asshole. Methinks Nosedive is projecting today; but who cares? Mallory and Grin are playing chess; which for some reason is the best two ducks to be playing such a thing. Duke accuses Nosedive of being a hotdog while Nosedive accuses Duke of being a former jewel thief. Earth to Nosedive: He was a FORMER jewel thief, meaning he doesn't steal jewls anymore. You are a CURRENT hotdogger. Point to Duke on this exchange. I wish Duke had just said that; but he doesn't as he threatens to show the difference between a diamond tiara and a puck. I'm more interested in Duke's past then this episode anyway; so they booked the last episode to be about Duke's past. DUMB! Alarms sound as a monitor is showing more CGI for no reason as a red dot is coming down the elevator. So the ducks go to the door with their puck guns as I swear to god; this looks like a drug raid, only the owners are the police and drug dogs. So the doors open and in comes Lucretia with saxaphone music. If you cannot guess how Nosedive and Duke react to her; you have no business reading this business; and you might be a sexist. Wildwing isn't buying it and neither is Mallory as she thinks Lucretia is a robot or the Chameleon in disguise. This is actually good booking on Gordan's part since Chameleon has in fact changed into a woman before, although it was well after this episode. It's believable at least as Wildwing uses the mask to check her out and she's flesh and bones so she's legit. Nosedive's creditability of having a functioning brain takes a nosedive when he claims that she is a blond; when clearly she has purple hair. WHAT?!
Can someone get a story editor with a clue? I'm beginning to hate David Wise a lot more more than I hate Toby Shelton. At least Toby Shelton's politics were in fact based on the fear that a Ducktales world would never get over in 1996. As irrational as that sounds; at least there was a chance that this was justified. I just thought Toby was just merely being an asshole who thought he had a good idea which was bogged down by him poisoning the well and not doing it on purpose. Not David Wise; oh no. He's making simple mistakes left and right; and doesn't give a damn about anything at this point. Karl Geurs would have noticed this error and correct it before the story went into first draft. So we meet and greet as it was Tanya who allowed her in; which is sort of true I guess. Mallory then asks what happened to Tanya and Lucretia lies that she went to Electric Land. Now this is where that babying completely killed off any suspense they could have had. Sometimes, less is better. Plus; it would have at least reduced the amount of people who get turned on by something tying up and duct taping hapless cartoon characters which I see far too much on Deviant Art to my liking. Tickling pics are at least amusing up to a certain point before they become sadistic. So we spend time with Duke and Nosedive making asses out of themselves trying to treat Lucretia right. This worked a lot better in TaleSpin because it was in the 1930's and you expect sexism in that time period to be even worse than it is in 1996. Of course; nowadays in 2014, this amount of sexism is actually tame because the hyper entitled creeps have finally figured out that in the eyes of the world, they don't matter and thus they are getting much worse than in 1996! Mallory's response to this is that she might throw up. That is putting it mildly there Mall! Then she calls herself Vonda McDrake for no reason. Why? Tanya is the ONLY ONE who knows who she is and Tanya I don't think has ever told the ducks who she really is, so what was the point of changing the name? She basically claims that she was in PuckWorld and some dimensional gate whisked her away to this place. Isn't Puckworld under Dragonous' control?
Because if so; even with the name change, makes me think something is up. So in comes Phil on his cellphone, thus he is more over than everyone else in the room. You wonder why this show sucks? When the best babyface on the show is a scummy lawyer voiced by James Belushi! Phil notices her and shows more class than Nosedive and Duke combined while at the same time being charmed. This is just great folks as Duke basically introduces Phil and tells Lucretia to completely ignore him. Yeah; we don't want anyone to know that Phil is the best babyface on this show now don't we? Phil wants to sign Vonda (I might as well call her by her codename now; since it's easier to type anyway) to a large contract in which Grin basically sezs "He's certainly looking out for others". That made me laugh and Phil leaves without further incident. So we talk some more as Wildwing thinks the dimensional gate was from Dragonous; and Vonda is surprised by this. Vonda asks where is Dragonous and Wildwing claims that they are spying on Dragonous; but Dragonous is using a proxy server...ERRR... I mean a cloaking device. It's so hard to like this ducks as babyfaces in 2014 and the NSA debacle. Vonda offers to help tap into the computer and of course, Duke and Nosedive are just acting like a bunch of morons in trying to one-up each other and then they tackle each onto the ground and fight like a bunch of little kids. Mallory sums up my feelings nicely about this stupidity as Vonda is typing onto the computer on her own without anyone's help. So she manages to recreate the exact same map that we saw in Dragonous' lair which would be the first clue that gives away who Vonda really is; but David Wise is a moron, so no one cares anymore. So all the babyfaces realize this and Mallory is acting like something is up; but nothing comes out of it. All the babyfaces decide to go into the Aerowing as Wildwing tells Vonda that she cannot stay here; which Vonda doesn't mind because she has a score to settle with Dragonous anyway. Yeah; I'll bet. So we go into the ultra-long CGI sequence to waste time and it's a neat sequence if you like time killing filler.
So we fly into the skies AFTER HAPPY HOUR (after dark) and then away from the hard camera in the clouds. Then we head to BEFORE HAPPY HOUR (so they are in Nevada or something?) with Chameleon, Siege (where was Siege earlier? Taking a smoke break or something?) and Wraith blasting rocks off of cliffs. Well not really; Wraith is too busy whining about how much this wastes time. This is more productive than watching the Aerowing CGI sequence, so what is his problem? Siege claims that they are blasting rocks for no reason because this is trap. I just wish Siege would say "If our spy did it's job" because that would not give away Vonda as the spy outright and makes us wonder if Duke is the real spy. Tease the twist and then deliver the plot that actually makes more sense. Here; we know Vonda is the spy and thus they are jackhammering the point home because David Wise cannot help but babying the kids. It failed because kids aren't that stupid. Anyhow; we cut to the same shot of the Aerowing going away from the hard camera, only it's sunset now. Then we head inside as Vonda is sitting in the middle being the cream filling to a sexist duck sandwich. That's Duke and Nosedive acting like morons as usual. Nosedive and Duke are trying to be Baloo and Louie in Road To Macadamia and For Whom The Bell Klangs; but it's not working at all. Animation mistake: We can see the pupil of Duke's eye go right through the red eyepatch. Vonda is hungry and of course the goofballs are still acting like morons.
They run to the cupboard, push the drawers open and have a meeting of the minds. And it wasn't in Breadwinners with those ducks. Nosedive wants a timeout and wonders why the hell that they are doing this stupid crap? Answer: because David Wise is projecting his faults onto you. And they look at Vonda again and they repeat the stupid crap as the Aerowing is landing. Whatever. So they land on the desert with no fanfare and we scene change to the babyfaces and Vonda walking in the desert as Mallory demands to know where they are. Out pops Siege out of the sand with his blaster and he blasts the conveniently placed cliff. The babyfaces all scatter to behind the rock while still being in danger from the cliff. Wraith teleports in as Morondive brings out his puck gun and tells Vonda to watch this. Morondive pops from the rock and yells that Ducks rock. However; Wraith throws the fireball of doom at the cliff and a bunch of rocks get dislodge and are falling down straight at Morondive, prompting Morondive to yell Duck Rock. HAHA! That was a funny way to end the segment nearly ten minutes in. This is a great plot done badly by someone who doesn't give a damn about his work anymore. I'm more interested in the Smash Brothers 3DS leaks then in this show; which is not a good thing, thank you very much. One final note: Kath Soucie is voicing Lucretia by the way, not that anyone can care at this point.
After the commercial break; the babyfaces all get buried by debris, and then for no reason Siege shoots his blaster at the burial site and it causes no damage whatsoever. Why? Siege and Wraith crack rock jokes and then Wildwing uses the ice shield to easily break free from the tomb. Oh; that's why they went to commercial break before they got buried. Okay. Grin lifts one of the rocks and throws it at the heels; and they dodge. Now; where the hell is Chameleon? Is he taking a smoke break or something? Duke L'Moron brings out the banana yellow sword and swings it wildly. It's not as dangerous as a puck gun; but it's generally not a good idea to swing it that carelessly. Morondive of course blows him off and shoots a puck at Wraith which Wraith dodges with ease. So Morondive and L'Moron argue and blow each other off for a long ass whomping time. Siege runs in with the lime green cannon blaster of doom (which the most awkward FPS shot ever); and Vonda finally ends this nonsense by doing a flying kick onto Siege to knock him out. Now this is great booking because it throws us off the scent for a while. Sadly; it would work a lot better if we as the viewer didn't know who Vonda is from the very start! Nosedive and Duke just stand there like the sexist morons they are; in total shock and disbelief. Wildwing is fighting with Wraith and this leads to the worst throw into a heel that I have ever seen in my life. It looked like Wraith simply bounced back by himself into Siege; as if BS&P didn't want Wildwing to punch him in the face or stomach. Remember six years ago when King Gregor punched Sir Victor in the face on-screen in Gummi Bears? This is what BS&P has stooped into in 1996. Even Fish Hooks allowed Oscar to be punched in the face by Jumbo Shrimp on-screen at least a half dozen times. I will say that the barrel roll Wraith does on Siege like he was a wheel was in fact funny; so kudos to Wraith for trying to salvage this BS&P spot into something decent. So the babyfaces run in and Wraith proclaims that win or lose; there is no winning for them as he and Siege teleport out.
This causes Vonda to act legit frustrated. Again; good spot that would have worked a lot better if we didn't know who Vonda was from the very start! So Mallory wants to know what is going on here as Wildwing deduces that they were mining, which is funny considering that it was Siege who was claiming that they were only here to lure the ducks in. Wildwing then uses the mask on the cliff and discovers that there is an energy signal in there with a pattern that is unique to him. He wants Grin to take over and Grin does his ten seconds of work by ass back bumping hard into the cliff causing the cliffslide to completely crumble to the ground exposing the entrance to some temple like cave. Methinks Siege knew what was in there and this is a legit trap. So the babyfaces all walk in and they notice a modern spaceship inside which Wildwing instantly claims that the humans build a temple around it and worshipped it many years ago. Wait; what? That was out of nowhere and makes no sense; I think Wildwing is making this up. So they go into the spaceship and to the back as we see a grey triangle shaped chip on a pedistal as Vonda calls it the Promteus Chip right where Wildwing can hear it. Wildwing ignores it; takes the chip and wants to put it into a safe place until they can analyze it for safety and usage. At this point; I fully expected Vonda to finally end her facade and turn heel officially, but in a surprise of surprises we return to inside headquarter with the far shot of Drake One. Okay; I can live with this since it's at least different from Many Love Is A Splintered Thing. So we head to in front of Drake One as Wildwing puts the chip into another popup carrying case and it closes automatically and goes underneath the floor. Vonda has the Gruffi pose on and looks disappointed as she wants some rest. Wildwing states that he is all right with that and Vonda gets to sleep in his room for the night. So we head to outside Wildwing's room as L'Moron and Morondive continue to act like moronic teenagers who just discovered what a woman is.
You would think that having Vonda rest up in Wildwing's bunk was an indication to these morons that Wildwing might be..you know...trying to steal her away. Now Wildwing isn't interested of course, but that tease booking would have helped make this love triangle more interesting at least. So Vonda walks in and then admits that she needs something to eat; which causes the morons to run off stage right acting like morons. So we head back to Drake One as the popup case goes into the floor and Mallory actually isn't buying this Vonda McDrake character; and then we hear Tanya's voice on the wrist communicator. This is another example of babying by David Wise on top of the babying he has already done: Wildwing asks Tanya where she is and Tanya claims that she's somewhere fixing a circuit board somewhere in Anaheim. It's not really important; what is important is that they cut back to Wildwing's room showing Vonda using some voice choker and her communication device which looks mighty kick ass; doing voice miming of Tanya. Now at this point; it really isn't all that bad to expose the facade now because it's 13 minutes in and at some point you have to expose the facade in order to progress with the storyline. However; since we already know that Vonda is a spy from the very moment she talked to Tanya, this is really jackhammering the point home and this insults me for that reason. Anyhow; Vonda wants them to get a part from the Migrator's circuit board and it would save her a trip. Even dumber; didn't Vonda say that Tanya was in Electric Land earlier? You couldn't just say: "can you get a part from the Migrator and deliver it to me in Electric Land?" That would make a hell of a lot more sense. After Wildwing agrees to do that; we get a shot of the floor as the communicator is on the floor and Vonda smashes it with her foot. That would have been fine as a scene ender; but they had to pan up to Vonda with the choker calling them suckers. So we scene change to the kitchen with L'Moron and Morondive are stuffing food into a blender on the counter. L'Moron at least is not liking the idea of this; but he doesn't prevent Morondive from doing this crap.
Now we are in crash television mode which is something Disney cannot do right without looking like a total cheap moron. So then we get a classic Mighty Ducks that shows the gall of these writers: So the blender is turned on and Morondive gets splattered with green colored slime in the process. Okay; that is fine. Morondive is pissed off and L'Moron comes in and basically tells Morondive that he must agree to lose because it's in his contract. Okay; that sounds funny...until Morondive finds a black book out of nowhere and reads a section of it which is actually HIS contract stating that he must agree to lose when Duke has a conflict with him. WHY?! I'm sick and tired of this BS! You are not TMNT; get over yourselves! Morondive claims that he needs to seek a new agent. How about one who can blow off David Wise for this BS?! So we head back to Drake One as Vonda comes in; uses her hacking device and brings up the popup safe; opens the door, grabs the chip and I discover that the hacking device doubles as a teleportation device because she teleports it to Dragonous who is somewhere in some construction site having the cannon mounted by the drones. Dragonous gets the chip and is so happy to get it that he is going to destroy the world at his earliest convenience. So then we return to Drake One as Wildwing, Grin and Mallory return looking angry because Tanya lied to them about the Migrator having such a part in it. They then notice the popup safe and Wildwing panics as we see Vonda slumped on the chair basically saying that she gave the chip to Dragonous just like that causing Mallory to be pissed off. Vonda claims that she had no choice because her parents were aducted in Puckworld; which may in fact be true even if she is a scummy traitorous spy for Dragonous. She was forced to do this while doing his routine which is actually an improvement from Many Love Is A Splintered Thing as she pleas for Wildwing's help to get her parents back. Wildwing is not happy that she didn't say this sooner; but offers to help as long as Dragonous is stopped. Vonda is so happy as Wildwing, Mallory and Grin walk out with her; then we cut to the jumbotron and we see Tanya tied to one of the poles and manages to get her beak loose from the duct tape. Then Phil comes in with the calculator wanting to make money off of Vonda because she's sexy. No she is not Phil.
Then Phil hears Tanya yelling from the jumbotron and we get a scene changer with Phil on the catwalk pushing a button which brings the jumbtron up. I would love to know how Phil knew this considering the kind of person he is. I discover that Tanya's cuffs have electric chains which Phil has to push a button on the cuffs to kill off the electricty to get Tanya out. Tanya asks where the babyfaces are and Phil claims that they went out with Vonda. This causes Tanya to panic and she runs off because they do not know who she is. This is why the babying of this episode annoys me to no end because this is the point where we are supposed to realize that Vonda isn't on the up and up at this point. Then again; Many Love Is A Splintered Thing did the same thing too, so no one cares anyway. So we scene change to Wildwing using the mask on an abandoned factory and he sees Wraith and Dragonous doing their evil things inside, thus Vonda is at least telling the truth. Vonda wants them to go into the building out back in order to do a sneak attack from behind; which Wildwing stops because he wants to know if he can trust her. Really? Isn't it because it is heelish to attack the heels from behind if you are the babyface? And why bother? These ducks have been destroying people's properties with impunity anyway. So what difference does it make since we all know that Vonda is a heel working for Dragonous willfully. I hope that when the heel turn happens; Lucretia reveals that her parents were aducted in Puckworld for real; but SHE was the one who wanted Dragonous to do it for some petty reason. Vonda turns her back and Wildwing simply looks in her leather holder for goodness knows what reason; because she turns around and doesn't suspect a thing since Wildwing then agrees with her. It's only the storage room you see. So we head into the storage room and both Nosedive and Duke have tagged along. Nosedive is questionning this like the smartest guy in the room after at least ten minutes of him acting like a sexist moron throughout it all. Shouldn't Duke be saying that since he won the conflict with Nosedive?
So then we see Vonda pull the lever on the wall (JESUS~!) and the trapdoor opens causing the ducks to be WARNERED~ with Nosedive doing his worst Wily E Coyote impression in history. Speaking of impressions; where is Chameleon? Anyhow; the babyface land in some glass tank with a pipe attached to it as Vonda comes in and turns heel for real calling them pathetic suckers. Nosedive's reaction is hilarious as he asks if the date is off and Mallory smacks him in the back of the head. That was funny! I need a drop of this and an animated GIF of Nosedive asking if the date is off and then Mallory smacking him in the head. So Lucretia (the joke is officially dead now so let's move on) turns the wheel on the device and Nosedive looks in the pipe like a total moron and in comes thousands and thousands of gallons of water. Yeah. Lucretia takes the wheel out of the control panel, mocks the babyfaces for being stupid and then walks off to end the segment 17 minutes in. Yeah, the commercial break was before she took the wheel out, but this is kind of silly. Why not thousands and thousands of gallons of soy sauce or even orange juice? I mean; if you are going to drown the ducks in something as a death trap; why not orange juice. Duck L'Orange? Duke L'Orange? Ironic comedy! Nope; it's just water. Kind of kills the death trap considering that they are aliens anyway.
After the commercial break (and about thirty seconds after that); Duke is confused as Lucretia leaves to talk to Dragonous telling them that the ducks have two minutes to live now. Dragonous is so happy about this because now he can destroy the world and crush the human race into total servitude to him. Ooookkkkaaayyy; I'm confused. So the ducks are up to the top of the glass container (which is about 15 feet in height) as Wildwing proclaims that this is not going according to plan which means that the finish has been telegraphed in advance. So not only did they baby us throughout this episode and killed the suspense on Vonda; they killed the suspense for the finish as well. Another good plotline sabotaged by BS! So Tanya arrives from the ceiling and gets onto the top of the container and at first states that ducks don't drown; but stops midway with drown and panics. Yeah; even the writers realized that this is bullcrap. So Tanya looks around for a long ass whomping time; just to be an asshole jumping around looking at certain aspect of the glass container in which Nosedive blows her off. So then Tanya basically take out the puck gun; shoots the puck into the glass, and the glass breaks causing the babyfaces to come out with water flooding the area. Here's a massive logic break for ya: If all it took was Tanya shooting the puck gun at the glass to break the babyfaces free; WHY DIDN'T THE BABYFACES INSIDE SIMPLY USE THEIR PUCK GUNS?! There was no sense that Lucretia took their weapons during this entire sequence. Wildwing looked into Lucretia's leather holder; but that was it. None of this makes any sense!! Lucretia must have Jedi mind tricked them then! So Tanya finally explains poorly that Lucretia is Vonda all along who was a traitor for Puckworld before Dragonous took over and she was instrumental in wiping out the resistance. This would be great if Tanya showed us a flashback back to The First Faceoff as evidence of this happening; but of course not. We have to make Nosedive look like the moron that he is. So Wildwing wants to stop Dragonous and Mallory asks how.
Ummm; Mallory, it's simple. You run in and you kick Dragonous' ass! Actually Wildwing then finally admits that he put a freeze chip from one of their pucks into the popup safe instead of the Prometius Chip. HOW?! How did Wildwing make the switch and Lucretia not notice this since she was WITH Wildwing the entire time they were on-screen? Second; if he was really talking about the leather holder which Wildwing went into, that makes no sense because Lucretia already teleported the chip to Dragonous. None of this makes any sense at all! This episode now officially sucks! Tanya asks where the real one is and Wildwing claims that it is around. Cut back to Dragonous who turns on his cannon; aims for Washington DC, and the cannon blows up in Dragonous' face. The only thing of note here is that you can still say devil in 1996 DTVA. Good to know. This could have been good; if Wildwing hadn't revealed outright that the chip was switched and waited until AFTER the thing blew up. You know; suspense. You know; not treating kids like they are morons. So Dragonous is pissed off as Lucretia claims that the babyfaces switched the chip on her; but Dragonous isn't buying it as Siege is ordered to search Lucreatia. Siege grabs her; goes to the leather hold and finds the real chip. So yes; Wildwing planted the chip inside Lucretia's holder in one of the scenes. HOW?! How did Wildwing switch the chip without Lucretia noticing him? God let this episode end now! Lucretia claims that the ducks planted the chip on her which makes no sense now because Dragonous has the real chip back anyway. That makes Wildwing look like a complete idiot. Oh; and this chip is blue so this has got to be fake. Actually; it is real: Dragonous goes over to cannon and throws the hacking device back to Lucretia. Lucretia turns it on and it creates a worm hole which Dragonous states will send her to dimensional limbo in a world where there is no escape. Yeap; she got screwed as I expected to happen. I'm fine with this since Dragonous is the heel here. If Nosedive and Duke did this to her; I would be pissed off.
At least now she will have to deal with Canard; even if no one cares about him anymore. Dragonous still thinks he has won as Siege and Wraith walk off like total morons because the doors open and here comes the babyfaces in a 6-on-1 match. Yeah; what great babyfaces these ducks are. Even with everyone it's still 6 to 4 advantage babyfaces. Where is Chameleon? Wildwing then shoots his puck gun and takes the Prometius Chip just like that. All three heels get subdued with ease as we discover that there is a drone in the room and no one bothers to destroy it; making the babyfaces look like morons. Wildwing demands to go to the Raptorous because they want that dimensional gateway home (as per the main point of them being on earth in the first place); but the drone points it's laser gun and Dragonous threatens to have the drone shoot the boxes filled with gunpowder and explosive causing the place to go sky high. Mallory dares Dragonous to do it; but Wildwing of course blows it off because safety first you know. Wildwing realizes that he has no other choice and decides to let Dragonous and company teleport out. The babyfaces let go and Wraith and Siege do teleport out without further incident. The drone teleports out as well without incident. Dragonous teases doing the same; but then cuts a promo, shoots the boxes anyway, blows off the babyfaces for being dumb and then teleports out making Nosedive call Dragonous a sleezebag. Geez; Phil must have been insulted by that remark! So they shoot pucks at the wall causing the wall to crumble to create an exit. The babyfaces exit the factory and then drop down to hide as the factory blows up with flaming debris flying around. So yes; even though Dragonous went back on his word, even if Wildwing had agreed with Mallory, they could have still escaped unharmed, thus rendering the whole decision completely time wasting filler. STUPID! So we head back into the hallways of headquarters as Mallory is opening the door into what should be her room; but clearly looks like Wildwing's room. Very rinky-dink this show can be sometimes.
She wants to go shopping and freshen up as she has wiped her hands clean of this whole thing. At least she was the smart one in this episode; which is more than I can say for Nosedive and Duke who are exchanging notes on how much they were duped. Nosedive of course has to wink at the hard camera and cut a promo about not getting this on those other shows. Nosedive seriously needs to watch TMNT and I assure him that this message he gave would be the exact same one given by the turtles. It should be easy since we had almost TEN years of episodes to work with. Then out comes Mallory wearing a purple dress with a pink cape; and it appears that the pumps make her at least seven feet tall. Mallory offers for them to go to the mall; and the babyfaces tease lapsing back into character ten seconds after saying that won't be duped. Mallory leaves and the babyfaces then no sell and slap hands. That was awesome! So Duke and Nosedive walk off to get some hot cocoa while Duke likes to play checkers and probably get caught up on his reading, and that ends the episode at 21:08. That last 15 seconds is many buys! The plot idea was grand and all; but it was ruined completely by someone who believes that kids are such morons that they require babying throughout the storyline that there was no suspense at all and they telegraphed the finish in advance. On the other hand; at least Dragonous was the one to screw Lucretia at the end of this and there was some funny moments in this. Call it ** 1/4 (45%); because hell, I feel generous. Still a massive disappointment; but really at this point, it doesn't matter.
THE REVIEW LINE
What a massive disappointment that ultimately was. Now; the plot thread for this was really, really good on paper with a traitor from Puckworld seducing the ducks into believing that she was all right and all that. Lucretia was a great heel and in fact was better than Dessire Allure; mostly because Kath Soucie was doing Luc's voice and not Sindy McKay. There was a number of funny moments; mostly involving Phil, and the twist ending was really good as well. The problems are pretty obvious: David Wise has no confidence in children using their brains because from the very moment Lucretia was shown talking to Tanya, they gave away the entire facade to the audience; thus in the audience's eyes, they saw a bunch of morons who should know better than didn't. The reason that you don't blow your load in the first two minutes and give away the plot is to build up suspense. We aren't supposed to know what happened to Tanya until we see her tied up on the Jumbotron; but in this one we clearly saw Tanya bond and gagged with duct tape right from the start. This kills whatever suspense they had right from the beginning and everyone looks like idiots. Now; there was some good decision in some of the scenes; but it is marred by the fact that the first scene gave away the entire scheme! We are also not supposed to know that Wildwing switched the chips until AFTER the device blew up. Why? To create a suspenseful finish. Thus when the finish happened; everyone saw it coming and no one cared. On top of that; there were logic breaks out of the wazoo, and of course Chameleon gets written out via teleport basically as he was shown in the opening scene and we never saw him again after that scene. Then there is the "in your face" fourth wall breaking which makes everyone look like they are pandering. This kind of crap with Nosedive and Duke might have worked in 1986; but it doesn't now. The whole contract thing sounds a lot funnier if it was on a show that this series keeps doing low rent versions from.
Overall; this was a disappointment of an episode and a real epitome of what the series will always be remembered as: An idea marred by Disney desires to sell the hockey game to children. There were thousands of ways to make more money and lure kids in to this sport; and yet they decided to do a cartoon which only cares about hockey references and not about making sense, nor having character development nor having to be babied by writers in every single segment. I don't understand why people think the premise is so great either: Just watch TMNT. Besides; THAT brand is still alive and well after all these years. Sure; the newest ones are absolutely goofy beyond belief, but at least they are over. Mighty Ducks will never be over as long as it is being sabotaged by writers who don't care and by execs who look like complete morons even in the very thing that they are good at. So yeah; this episode sucked. So the Labor day weekend is next and it's Dave The Barbarian again; which is a much better show than this, I assure thee. Sure; it has it's own stupid problems, but at least there are moments where the writers not only have a clue; but write awesome episodes. Slay What? is a testament to that fact. So....
Thumbs down for this episode and I'll see you all next time.