- The Fearsome Four members' newer, more imposing appearances (i.e. Liquidator being much more muscular, Bushroot looking like a plant/zombie hybrid) go hand-in-hand with the revelation of Drake's Darkwing costume first introduced in The Duck Knight Returns! Considering how the new Darkwing outfit seems to be an updated version of the one worn by Jim Starling (being more reminiscent of modern superheroes like Batman than of older pulp fiction heroes like the Green Hornet), the members of the Fearsome Four have been given the same treatment, coming off as less cartoonish than their OG counterparts and closer to more modern supervillains like Poison Ivy and Hydro-Man.
- Owlson becoming the mayor of St. Canard makes sense as she was the one who kept Glomgold under a decent amount of control. Who wouldn't vote for someone like that?
- Taurus Bulba choosing haggis over pizza is a subtle foreshadowing of his true nature: Traditional haggis is an illegal dish in the U.S.note Sheep lung, a key ingredient in traditional haggis, is classified as a food safety risk by the USDA , and as it later turns out, Bulba is not the law-abiding citizen he makes himself out to be to the public.
- It makes sense Louie would have the opinion of Haggis Is Horrible. Haggis is basically a mutton sausage. It was confirmed in "The Beagle Birthday Massacre" that Louie hates hot dogs (a type of sausage), so of course he'd hate haggis.
- Darkwing's lack of a reputation in Moonvasion! makes sense given Drake had only started crimefighting shortly after the movie he was going to star in was shut down, and with a hero like Gizmoduck looking after Duckburg, his services probably were not so desperately needed there. His reasons for relocating to St. Canard were most likely so he could kickstart his crimefighting career in a city that was fraught with crime and had no protector to work outside the law to keep the criminal element under control. Further, he's a Legacy Hero to a fictional superhero who has faded into obscurity: these two facts likely help to explain why he was being such a glory hound in his last appearance.
- When Gosalyn accuses Darkwing of not going after Bulba because he doesn't want to risk his own reputation, she's not wrong, but it's not an unwise move on Drake's part; With the next-to-no clout Darkwing has at this point, taking a big risk that doesn't pay off could get him potentially laughed out of the superhero business, if not arrested.
- WANDA was designed by Fenton and is voiced by Jameela Jamil, who also voices Gandra Dee. It seems Fenton is still holding a bit of a torch.
- Sure it seems a bit uncharacteristic that Black Heron would make such a colossal blunder by piloting a helicopter bearing the symbol of her organization to pick up her boss from St. Canard, but considering what happened to her in "Double-O-Duck", maybe the intelli-ray to turn her smart again didn't work quite as perfectly as intended...
- Given that the Ramrod scarred Taurus Bulba's face and broke off one of his horns, and his sanity takes a pretty deep plunge after, it's not unlikely that the blow to his head might have given Bulba brain damage.
- Way back in the first season, Bradford and the board were very eager to cut funding for the Bin because a lot of the employees there were crazy lunatics (pre-character development Gyro and Quackfaster). They only relented when they were reminded that said lunatics would be coming after the board if they lost their jobs. This exact scenario happens when Bradford tries to shut down the Ramrod project and a less-than-mentally-stable Bulba decides to go rogue.
- A crime happening at the end despite Saint Canard being much safer and less crime riddled could be explained by criminals coming out of hiding to take advantage of the supervillain aftermath, where police are likely to be injured and unable to stop them.
- Bradford had enough plausible deniability to work off of and that would've lowered a lot of suspicion. The moment the triplets found him and asked why he was even at the facility, he could've just said Taurus Bulba went rogue, kidnapped and threw him in the cell against his will. All of that is technically true and is believable considering he almost never shows up in person. Plus he doesn't even have to say where he got kidnapped from. That excuse would've covered a lot of his bases, and thus would've allowed Bradford to keep the blame of the incident entirely on Bulba, including Scrooge being thrown in another dimension. But the thing is, the director is just not good under pressure, so he panicked.
- If you look closely, the pancakes Launchpad offers Gosalyn are in the shape of Darkwing's face. He probably used a recipe from Darkwing's self-published cookbook to make them.
- In "Darkly Dawns the Duck", Hammerhead (under Bulba's orders to kidnap Gosalyn) claims twice to be a friend of Dr. Waddlemeyer and shows a picture of Gosalyn, Waddlemeyer, and "him", only for the person to comment that it looks more like a grape stain. Here, Taurus Bulba was a genuine family friend of Waddlemeyer's and is in the picture of him and Gosalyn.
- It makes sense that the Fluppy Dogs would show up in an episode about portals to alternate dimensions, since the original premise of the failed pilot/movie was about the main characters trying to find their way back to their home dimension. It would be possible for them to show up again, brought by their own portal, now that they’ve been established.
- Saint Canard being devoid of crime at the start of the episode is suggested to be the result of Zan Owlson's sensible management. But what led to her becoming the city's mayor was her getting fed up with all the whacky hijinks that ensued every week. Surely a person frustrated with this wouldn't allow someone like Bonkers to serve on the police force...unless they were actually good at their job. Back in Bonkers' own series, he helped take down criminals ranging from pretty muggers to full-on supervillains as a regular cop, not a costumed superhero like Darkwing Duck. Cops like Bonkers are the reason Darkwing Duck couldn't find even the pettiest of crimes to make his debut. This episode may have found a way for him to be Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
- Word of God has stated, "Darkwing Duck is nothing without Gosalyn", and this episode ultimately clarifies that this is true without a doubt, both in a figurative and literal sense. By the time Gosalyn showed up in Darkwing's life, he was completely despondent without any sort of crime to fight and was on the verge of giving up altogether. It was her breaking into Taurus Bulba's lab that spurned Drake back into action, thus filling out the literal sense of the words. As for the figurative, Gosalyn came right back into Darkwing's life shortly after he stopped her from breaking into the lab, which in turn brought him the attention and the credit as a hero he so desperately wanted. With that sense of attention, he may very well have been content to have simply gotten that recognition and went right back to work, eager to continue promoting himself. It was only when Gosalyn made her claims of Bulba's crimes and Darkwing was eventually persuaded to look into it that helped keep Darkwing on the path of humility. Had Gosalyn not shown up, at worst, he would have quit altogether and slunk into a serious funk. At best, he would have become no more egotistical than the original version.
- In another way, Gosalyn helps Darkwing find his inner hero. Despite some initial resistance, it doesn't take much to convince Drake to help Gosalyn to the point of collapsing from exhaustion. Why? Because she's the kind of person he wanted to help and inspire by becoming a superhero in the first place. Also differing from the original Darkwing who went straight into danger no matter what, this Darkwing is more of a Cowardly Lion; when he first hears about the Fearsome Four, his reaction is to panic and he gives (rather justified) reasons for not wanting to face them. It's Gosalyn who keeps pushing him to take action by going out to fight them. It's quite possible without her pushiness, he would have stayed safe in his lair rather than go confront them as a superhero would.
- The Running Gag of Drake rudely cutting off Fenton’s calls at first seems to just be Drake being dense as usual—until you remember that Drake and Fenton had been working together every night to find Gosalyn’s grandfather. Drake must have thought that Fenton was calling to continue the discussion, which obviously wouldn’t be welcome during a motorcycle chase or heated argument.
- After seeing yet another F.O.W.L. agent go off the rails, you have to wonder why F.O.W.L seems to be full of Mad Scientists and idiots. What kind of organization employs so many eccentric, unpredictable madmen and expects to stay running? Well, remember that this F.O.W.L. is the resurrected version of the one that existed before the show took place; before it initially disbanded, F.O.W.L. was a criminal organization that fought against the likes of S.H.U.S.H. As Bradford constantly reminds his agents, F.O.W.L. isn't a supervillain organization. But look at the lineup — many of the members, such as Black Heron and Steelbeak, came directly from the old organization, which was very much a villainous group; others, such as Taurus Bulba, are erratic newcomers who clearly don't have a firm grip on their own sanity. To put it simply: even though F.O.W.L. isn't a supervillain organization anymore, everyone in F.O.W.L. is a supervillain. The only logical, levelheaded person in the entire thing is Bradford, and he's holding onto the whole thing by the coattails, barely able to keep his group of villainous misfits under control. No wonder Bradford is so desperate for absolute order.
- It's fitting that Solego is the one who first came up with the idea of the Solego Circuit. He was the villain behind the epic crossover of not two, not three, but five Disney cartoon worlds in the original comics.
- Solego was originally the God of Chaos rather than a mad thinker. Between the supervillains showing up, reality almost collapsing, Bulba going crazy, and F.O.W.L. being exposed; his thinking does cause a lot of chaos here. What's more, Bradford would later try to use the Solego Circuit to end chaos in "The Last Adventure!" Which actually lead to more chaos in the finale.
- Gosalyn being so independent would make sense for a scientist's ward. Her grandfather was probably busy working on his discoveries all the time, leaving her to take care of herself when he wasn’t around. Plus, the flashback shows that Gosalyn had her own work station at her grandpa's lab, so she could develop an inventive, resourceful mindset, that would help her to take care of herself without assistance.
- Liquidator is the only one who came up with a idea for marketing Bulba's supervillain business. Since his backstory in the original series had him as the owner and spokeperson of a bottled water company, it'd make sense he'd be the one to come up with a suggestion.
- While all the characters here are technically toons, Bonkers was created to be referred to as such, he lives in Toontown, after all. So what's a primary trait of toon archetypes like him? Slapstick, lots of it. Like Darkwing, he can endure a lot of punishment, which is why he's shown getting bodied by the Fearsome Four, because any other police officer probably would've died in that footage.
- Why would the Fearsome Four be so fine working with Taurus? He gave them an opportunity they couldn't refuse, a St. Canard that isn't prepared for people like them, and its Darkwing Duck isn't as used to fighting supervillains as the one in their universe is.
- Even though Thaddeus Waddlemeyer was not outright killed by Bulba like in the OG series, the fact that he is currently stranded on one of possibly infinite alternate realities with little to no hope of being found (especially following Gosalyn's destruction of the Ramrod to save her own reality) means Gos has effectively been orphaned again.
- Using the Ramrod seems to have destabilized reality after several uses, who's to say Louie didn't accelerate the damage with his time travel antics in "Timephoon!"? That too, had damaging effects on reality, and it’s unlikely to have repaired itself by the time of this special.
- McDuck Enterprises is probably going to be met with bad press now that a trusted scientist on one of their branches unleasehed four supervillains on a city.
The original
Darkwing Duck show was an in-universe cartoon and many of the characters from the show are constantly referenced. The
Ducktales!Darkwing met the
Ducktales!Gosalyn and
Ducktales!Bulba in these two episodes but never mentioned them being "part of" the original show. Would this mean 1 integral character (Gosalyn) and 1 recurring enemy (Taurus Bulba) never appeared in the
Ducktales version of
Darkwing Duck? And if so, how would many of those plots would have played out differently without Gosalyn to help DW?
- Yes, the original show within this show was not exactly the same as the original show in reality. It ran for far fewer episodes, and Gosalyn and Bulba were not characters in it.
