Deep Dive Ducktales: Wes Looks at The Beagle Birthday Massacre!

Welcome back to another installment of Deep Dive Ducktales dear friends.

Today’s episode opens with the gang on the beach getting ready for a kayak trip. Webby packed life vests with hotdogs taped to them. Why? Well, Webby has calculated that if they get lost at sea, Louie is the most likely to turn cannibal, and since Louie hates hotdogs, he’ll be more inclined to leave them alone. … Well, that… deeply unsettling thought aside, Webby seems to be without a role in the expedition since the boys have never really had to factor in a fourth person before. It becomes especially uncomfortable when they share an in-joke that only makes sense to the three of them. Since Webby really doesn’t fit in the boat, both literally and metaphorically, she opts to stay behind while the boys go have their fun, secretly sad that she doesn’t really fit into their dynamic. See, no matter what happened, the boys always had each other, so they never knew what it was like to be alone. Webby on the other hand had never even seen other children her age before Huey, Dewey and Louie came along. She’s basically spent her whole life alone. Now she finally has friends but finds she doesn’t really fit in with them due to a lack of shared history. Such things really can be crushing, especially to a child.

Anywho, while Webby is wallowing in self-pity, a message in a bottle containing a desperate cry for help washes up on shore. Said bottle is soon followed by several more, one warning of man-eating dolphins, but it soon turns out all the bottles are coming from a girl just a little older than Webby writing notes to mess with people. Webby tries her hand at this game, but all she writes is a reminder to recycle the bottle. The girl, Lena, doesn’t think Webby understands the game, but lets her hang out anyway. Webby makes note of a necklace Lena’s wearing that seems to contain a vintage Sumerian talisman, but Lena claims she has no idea what it is and found the trinket at a thrift shop. I must say, I love the awkwardness of this meeting. Webby clearly means well, but in her desperate attempts not to seem socially awkward in front of her new friend, she ends up seeming even more socially awkward. Speaking as someone on the autism spectrum, I very much relate to this, even as an adult. Anwho, after Webby shows off some of her sick acrobatic skills to retrieve a bottle, Lena is impressed and invites Webby to a party going on later that night.

The party is apparently taking place at a burnt out junkyard, because, according to Lena, all the best parties happen at burnt out junkyards. Also, turns out that Lena doesn’t have an invitation but is instead attempting to crash and plans to use Webby’s sick parkour skills to help her get in. Webby is reluctant, but agrees for the sake of the adventure. By the way, Webby receiving her first fist bump is by far the most adorable moment in the show.

However, now’s when the bad news happens. See, Lena and Webby haven’t just crashed any party, they’ve crashed Ma Beagle’s birthday party and all the sub-gangs of the Beagle Boys are there. The Original Classics, the Glam Yankees, The Déjà vus The Sixth Avenue Meanies, The Sixth Avenue Friendlies, the Long Board Taquitos The Déjà Vus, The Tumblebums, The Ugly Failures and the Déjà Vus are all present and accounted for, and they all sound like either band names from Scott Pilgrim or Crime Syndicates from Power Rangers RPM. In any case, Webby tells Lena that they need to get the hell out of there as soon as possible but they’re soon spotted and Webby is recognized as the brat that lured Ma Beagle into a ball pit themed death trap a few episodes ago. Lena creates a distraction by throwing the cake in Ma’s face and making a run for it, but now every branch of the Beagle family is after them and they’re going to have to fight their way through each of their territories until they’re home free because today’s episode is a parody of the 1979 cult classic, The Warriors.

After narrowly escaping a steamroller driven by the Original Classics, Webby and Lena climb to the roof of a downtown building where Webby explains her backstory and her history with the Beagle gang. Lena actually thinks it’s cool as hell that Webby fights crime bosses and lives in a mansion, but there’s no time to dwell on that as they’re soon jumped by the Long Board Taquitos, a branch of the gang with an extreme sports theme. Lena goads them into a complex base-jumping stunt and uses a nearby fan to blow them away, allowing them to escape once again.

The next obstacle is the Ugly Failures, the losers of the Beagle Boys, and honestly, to be a loser in this group is impressive in and of itself. The failures must definitely live up to their names, but they are still blocking Lena and Webby’s way to safety and there’s no way to get past them without being noticed. Lena has a plan, put on a British accent and pretend to be Ma Beagle’s adopted daughters from England. It takes them a while, but with the help of Webby’s perfect British accent (as opposed to Lena who sounds like Duck Van Dyke), they fool the Failures, escape peril once again and even grab their radio so they can keep track of the other gangs’ movements.

Lena is floored by Webby’s accent, but it makes sense, she was raised by her British grandmother and the only other significant adult figure in her life is Scottish. Apparently, Webby never even heard an American accent until she was seven. Makes you wonder why she even has an American accent to begin with, but if I can let it slide for sixty-five episodes worth of fantasy creatures from tenth century Scotland, I can let it slide here too. But anyway, Webby can’t wait to tell the boys about this awesome adventure, but Lena says she probably shouldn’t want to be friends with three dudes who left her waiting alone on the beach. Webby says it’s okay since she and the boys are like family, but the mention of family seems to upset Lena who says family really isn’t her thing. Webby loves the boys, but she does admit to Lena that she feels left out because they have so much history together that she wasn’t a part of. Lena smiles and says that now she and Webby have history. However, the sweet moment is cut short by a rustling in the bushes. Fortunately, it’s only the boys, but Lena doesn’t know them and tackles Louie on sight. Louie’s hugging Huey and shaking in fear is actually pretty hilarious. Webby explains what’s been going on and introduces the boys to Lena.

Things start to get really creepy when Ma Beagle over the radio reveals that the kids have been spotted in the middle of Tumblebums territory. This is very bad since the Tumblebums are all creepy nightmare clowns, kinda like the Jokerz from Batman Beyond. The Tumblebums introduction is one of my favorite moments in the episode, arriving in shadow accompanied by creepy music and moving around like Horror movie monsters. As the boys bicker about the plan to fight off these freaks, Lena tries to convince Webby to leave the boys to die so they can escape, just like they left her on the beach. Webby is still upset about that, but there’s no way she’d ever abandon Huey, Dewey and Louie. Webby goes back for the boys and using the clown’s greatest weakness, banana peels, they escape back to the beach, but Lena is nowhere to be found.

Back on the beach, Webby is sad because she was hoping she could have what the boys have with her new friend Lena, but now she’s gone. In a sweet moment, Huey promises never to leave Webby off the boat ever again. Instead, they’ll leave Louie, because he’s bad at most things. However, one of Lena’s messages in a bottle washes up telling Webby that she didn’t abandon her, she was just captured by the Beagle Boys and needs help.

At the old Duckburg seaside amphitheater, the Beagles have Lena all tied up. We also get the most overt The Warriors reference yet with one of the Failures having bottles stuck to his fingers. No “Warriors Come Out to Play” moment, but I’ll take it all the same. Webby arrives and attempts a rescue but ends up getting herself and the boys caught. Lena is upset about the botched rescue attempt, and as the boys bicker, she says this is why she avoids family, because all they do is fight. This gives the girls an idea. Lena asks the Beagle Boys which one of them will present the captured children to Ma Beagle and naturally, this leads to an argument and quickly escalates into a full blown brawl, our heroes managing to escape in the chaos.

As the sun rises, Lena walks Webby and the gang home, Lena having gained the acceptance of Huey, Dewey and Louie and vice versa. Lena and Webby even talk to each other in British accents, showing that they now have an in-joke of their own. However, once Webby and the boys are gone, Lena returns to the spot Webby founds her and uses her talisman to summon a sinister looking shadow out of her own. Lena refers to the shadow being as “Aunt Magica” and our episode ends with Lena telling her that whatever sinister scheme Magica is planning, she wants in.

This was a great episode. The homage to The Warriors was a lot of fun and allowed for a lot of cool setups. The theme of Webby feeling left out really hit close to home as I too struggle to find common ground even amongst close friends. I think this may have been the most relatable Webby has been to date and seeing her carry an episode and not just be relegated to a side character for one of the boys or Scrooge was a nice change of pace. However, the big takeaway is the reveal at the end. We have now officially met the big bad of season 1 (please don’t act like that’s a spoiler) and her name is Magica De Spell, one of the most classic and most powerful villains in the original Ducktales rogues gallery. And like any good episode of a show like this, we’re left with plenty of questions. What is Magica’s evil plan, does it have anything to do with the other ongoing mystery regarding Della Duck, and where does Lena fit into all of this? Those answers will come in time, but our next episode brings us to a casino in Asia that might not be all that it seems. Next time on Deep Dive Ducktales, The House of the Lucky Gander.