DuckTales–excuse us, GlomTales–gathers a villainous family for sweet, sweet revenge
The clash of outsized personalities is fun and hilarious, making “GlomTales!” a delightful episode in and of itself.
TV Reviews DuckTales
The only thing I enjoy more than cool, animated dreamscapes/headspaces are villain team-ups, and while I have some issues with how a few of these current villains are portrayed, it takes effort to really screw things up naaratively when the bad guys unite towards a common goal. Like their protagonist counterparts, the clash of outsized personalities is fun and hilarious when propped up together, making “GlomTales!” a delightful episode in and of itself. There are some outlier issues with how the episode seems to function thematically, but overall, watching Glomgold, Magica, Ma Beagle, three of Beagle boys, and Don Karnage spar with each other is pure entertainment.
Glomgold gets it in his head that the main reason he keeps losing to Scrooge isn’t because he’s basically an idiot with nonsensical plans, but because he doesn’t have a family. In a way, he’s right–Scrooge’s family has often saved him from certain doom–but the fake Scotsman sees family as a ruse, a scheme, a ploy that functions as a broad method of exploitation and manipulation. It’s a bit on the nose, meant mostly to contrast up against Louie’s whole approach to scheming (more on that in a second), but it does fit Glomgold’s whole worldview.
Outside of his reasoning for it, bringing together Scrooge’s most wanted enemies to finally try and take him down is just a sound idea. Too bad those various characters are too self-involved to truly work as a team, and that Glomgold is too much of an idiot to be a functional leader. He completely forgets to check if Scrooge McDuck is even home when they invade the mansion, and all the villains blindly sign their wealth and resources over to him, including one billion “dead souls,” only for his contract to be nullified when he signs it with Glomgold, and not his real name, Duke Baloney*.
So most of the episode is Glomgold talking to Ma Beagle, Beaks, Karnage, and Magica into working together. There’s a couple of good comic runners: Karnage primarily focused on taking out Dewey Duck is a great, specific beat for the character, and watching Magica struggle at Fun Zone is a treat. Also great is how everyone immediately pegs Magica as the leader of this villainous family, agitating Glomgold further. That all being said, one can’t help but feel a little disappointed that this evil collaboration should have been a bit more effective–perhaps utilized in robust two-parter to really let the various villains sink their teeth into their plans. Essentially the episode just leaves you wanting more, wishing you could see them at their most evil, instead of just a conglomerate of comic fodder.
Slightly more disappointing though, is what seems to be the resolution to the Louie/Della conflict. After being grounded and missing out on the laziest treasure hunt of all time to Big Rock Candy Mountain, Louie tries to “scheme” his way out of the mansion, only to be thwarted by the security measures that Della put in place. There’s indeed a sense that Louie is genuinely hurt by the fact that his mother doesn’t see his particularly shady gift for grift as useful, and to be honest, it is reasonable why she doesn’t. This feels like it’s remedied too conveniently though, with how Louie pretends to “betray” his family by signing, with Glomgold, the rights to every villain’s possession, to then gain the rights himself when Glomgold signs with the wrong name.
This feels pat, almost too easy. Della allows Louie to continue his scheming due to his “seeing all the angles” prowess, as long as she’s there to point out the angles he’d miss (presumably, the “fatal consequences” angles). But it feels like “GlomTales!” failed to address the actual conflict burgeoning between Louie and Della–the young nephew’s disassociation with his own mother’s return–and arguably Della’s own selfishness in darting off on a space adventure while ignoring the loved ones she could hurt.
I say “feels like” there because the ending has Louie considering not handing over the wealth he mooched off Glomgold and the rest of the villains. This could be significant, and considering tomorrow’s episode is called “The Richest Duck In The World!”, it looks like we have a lot more Louie conflict to work through. We may see how corrupting that kind of wealth will have on Louie. The creators once said that Doofus was meant to be a foil to Louie and how such wealth without limits could be destructive. I… have thoughts about this comparison, but I’ll withhold them for now until we see how things play out.
Stray observations
- The redone introduction with the poorly designed “GlomTales!” song and animation was a treat! I especially loved that really terrible CGI part.
- I wish the show would utilize Mark Beaks more in a hostile, technocratic, self-deification manner more often. His declarations of being the future, that he could wipe out your entire existence with the swipe of his finger, gives him more antagonistic life than spouting lines about “hashtags” and “trending”.
- I know it would have been cliche, but I feel like a Home Alone-like conflict with Louie vs. the villains would have been a stronger narrative to utilize, especially if Louie manipulated the various bad guys against each other, to really showcase how brilliant a schemer he is.
- I sort of like that the Beagle Boys are essentially fighting for the deed to Duckburg, basically a legacy of losers who feel their right to some hold to the town has been stolen from Scrooge’s family. In some ways… they’re right.
- *I feel like Glomgold has probably signed many, many, many documents and contracts with “Flintheart Glomgold” so I don’t know if that final twist really works. Either many of the things he claims to own are, in fact, not his (possible, and retrospectively funny, but the truth about this should come off a bit more devastating or revelatory?), or the creative team failed to apply that fact to all of his holdings.
30 Comments
I have many, MANY issues with this show, but one of them is definitely not Glomgold. I absolutely adore the little idiot every time he’s on screen. As soon as that intro came up I was laughing like an idiot.The team-up bit does damper a bit in that they included Don Karnage, and I hate this version of him. While I did overall enjoy the episode, I do agree that this should have been a 2-parter. There was too much comedy potential left on the floor, plus more Glomgold.I also find the time scale kinda weird. So, the entire gang goes out on an adventure to the mountains, but are back literally the next day for Scrooge’s bet? I feel like more time should have been placed between the adventure and the finale of the bet.
Also, this episode must have been VERY expensive. Not only was the animation very fluid and expressive, but the voice cast was almost double what it normally is.
Oh, yeah, the animation in this one was much more fluid throughout than previous (though the angular designs of everyone kind of detract sometimes).
As someone who loved every season of the original, with very little criticism of the content (why did they have a beagle boy for every situation, and why were they always in jail? Even the one that hacked Gizmoduck was in a low security prison, is jail their home?), this Glomgold is insanely hilarious! My favorite joke encapsulates the character so well: Goes an entire episode not remembering who is, but had the evil beard in his pocket the whole time🤣
This version of Flinty is pretty great. I watched the alternate intro twice.
Yes, a two-part arc would have been much better, but I still enjoyed this episode quite a lot.
I’m relatively sure that the birthday song that Magica was forced to sing was a variation of the one they used to do at Bennigan’s. I once heard it 4 times in the same night and it’s hard to forget despite how much you want to.
“If you wanna be a part of this family…” Seriously, Della? Also, there’s a difference between grounding a kid and leaving him alone for two days (the timeline of this episode did seem a little wonky though). I’ll be pretty disappointed if this counts as the resolution episode.
In real life, Glomgold’s signing of “Glomgold” probably would not have mattered.
I wish the Scrooge/Glomgold bet had been at the forefront of the season a bit more – there are clear parallels to the firefly fruit arc from the original show and the final “weighing” feels like it would’ve benefitted from more anticipation and build up. I do enjoy how Glomgold’s CEO pretty much can’t wait to work under new management.Hoping Magica gets her mojo back at some point. She was the show’s most threatening villain and the heroes are still somewhat cautious of her, even de-powered.The Louie arc segued very nicely into the Glomgold arc, will be interesting to see where it continues to go. I agree there’s a subtext of abandonment between Louie/Della that still needs to be surfaced.
I’m rooting for Glomgold’s now-former-CEO to succeed – somehow I don’t think working for a child is the upgrade she was searching for. That said Louie’s transitioned from Home Alone to Richie Rich – if they’re working through Culkin’s back-catalogue of work as a framework for Louie, i can’t wait til they reach Changeland (also, foreshadowimg My Girl? – avoid the bees Louie, avoid the bees!)
I really like this down in the dumps Magica de Spell but yeah it can’t last forever.
I was legit scared of Mark Beaks when he said he could wipe out someone’s life with a swipe. I bet he could.Question: Does cryptocurrency count when you’re deciding the richest duck in the world?
It’s funny that Glomgold thought he needed Beaks as a Gyro when Gyro is not what I would call a member of the family.
I had the same thought. I figure the writers just wanted a reason to involve Beaks.
– “Ok, we ran out of budget, but kids 6 through 10 will love it! GLOM TALES!” The 18-40 demographic, too!
– “I was told I’d be fighting Gyro!” Mark Beaks as a megalomaniacal Actual Threat is an intriguing idea, but I had to laugh at his big talk coming to nothing (see also his cowering during the fight/recruitment scene in the Iron Vulture). We’re currently rewatching The Office at my house, so I was rather reminded of Ryan from Season 4 onward (or as I like to call him, Evil Ryan).
– On the one hand, I didn’t want Louie further alienated from his family.
On the other, this did seem like too quick a resolution for his conflict
with Della. She did apologize briefly when she first returned, but more explicitly recognizing her own mistakes and the damage they did might go farther in guiding her kids from making similar ones.
I’m not sure anyone wants to see this show go too heavy on the angst, but the kids’ feelings about Della’s absence and what it did to them need to be addressed more than they have, if only so everyone can move on. It’s getting to be a bit of an elephant in the room.
I laughed at the “cheap” part of the GlomTales song.This episode was some of the best use of Beaks yet.
I found this one amusing, though I kinda wish they had something better for Magica to do than be a lame birthday gag thing.
I think its pretty funny that Magica, this all poweful being who almost took over the world (or Duckburg at least) was lowered to cheesy magic tricks at kid’s party.
I’m quite enjoying pathetic De Spell.
“This feels like it’s remedied too conveniently though, with how Louie pretends to “betray” his family”Patience. This particular conflict was resolved, but I’m sure future, larger ones will come up.“I especially loved that really terrible CGI part.”Pasting Glomgold’s badly drawn face on the other characters, LOL.
You know, I think it’s RIGHT that Louie go ‘well, wait a minute’ and take a beat to decide whether or not to give ANYTHING back. He sort of did, after all, win fair and square. He recognized that Glomgold was an idiot, he orchestrated the winning of the bet, he got the prize. Certainly it would be NICE to return at least Scrooge’s actual possessions/money/etc to him, but giving him the Glomgold stuff as well seems… well, like the sort of thing Scrooge would declare a mooch, or charity, or what have you.And if you look at things from Louie’s perspective, this has at many points not been a good time for him. He keeps getting dragged on adventures and almost killed (note that in the very first episode that after ‘oooooh’ and ‘say what now’ it was ‘LOUIE almost dies’ not ‘someone almost dies’) and no one listens when he’s crying for a rest. Later on his brothers are explicit and quite honest about loving a hairy grifter they just met more than they love him. (To Louie’s credit, he fights the grifter instead of saying ‘well, fine, see ya’.) His mom comes back and seems to pay attention only to his brothers… and then tells him flat out that if he wants to be her family he’s going to have to change absolutely everything about himself and give up his only talent. Oh, and then his mom used a violent robot to keep him in his room for X amount of time – his room where there is no food or water – while she took off with the entire rest of the household.And then, when he’s saved all their lives AND kept their house from being destroyed by villains, he essentially gets ‘aw that’s nice sweetie but you still have to stop being you and also give your uncle everything you just earned.’ It’s not like Louie won the lottery – he actually put himself at serious risk for a level of chicanery that Scrooge would commit as a matter of course.If I were Louie, I’d want to have a think about that too. Louie Duck beat all of Scrooge’s villains and Scrooge himself. Why should he be expected to give that up?
I totally thought that the episode would be a Home Alone homage too, would’ve been great just to see Louie throwing bricks at Glomgold’s head like HA2.
I did find the plot twist clever but yeah, it could’ve been a bit bigger or so. And doesn’t that mean Glomgold technically has been committing fraud for decades and doesn’t really own anything?
Maybe Louie now is the richest duck in the world … until those golden moon rockets are landing! Now who’s the richest then? We’ll find out soon!
I found the part where Louie dresses up as Huey particularly funny!Hah, it’s the Hobo King on a gold silk reclining throne!
Is anyone els3 worried about Duckworth? Is he trapped in that amulet, was he destroyed, ? I mean, of the staff I prefer Mrs Beakley but I dont wish Duckworth any ill-will.
It looked like it pushed him away. So hopefully he’s all good.
I get the sentiment that this leaves one wanting more and yeah would’ve been fun as a two parter. That said I geeked out the whole episode. As pointed out the alternate opening was a delight. I was glad we got more Don Karnage. I think the rift between Della and Louie isn’t quite healed.
I’m a sucker for supervillain team-ups. We need Don Karnage’s version of the theme song next! A two-parter could’ve been more satisfying as this beats out even Gotham’s Legion of Horribles for shortest-lived supervillain team-up. I’d quibble about a minor having access to those resources, but this universe undoubtedly has laws that serve the comedic plot.
I actually really like how Glomgold’s “family” ended up almost immediately falling apart. It illustrates how villain team-ups really shouldn’t work as well as the heroes; they’re all self-motivated, larger then life personalities who oftentimes barely know each other, let along work together. Realistically, a bunch of untrustworthy ne’er do wells banding together end up being much less effective if they had been working separately.