Recap / DuckTales (2017) S3 E15 "New Gods on the Block!"

The kids try to prove themselves by auditioning to take Zeus’s place amongst the Greek gods, while Storkules interferes with Donald and Daisy’s date.

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Tropes:

• Accentuate the Negative: Huey's downfall as God of Intuition; knowing everything that's going to happen to those around him sends the chronic worrier spiraling into everything that will go wrong and telling people such until Selene takes the power away.
• All There in the Script:
  • The female half of the pig couple is named "Sowvanna" in the credits.
  • It's only through a YouTube made to the official channel that the titan's name is confirmed as Crownus.
• All Your Powers Combined: When the kids are the only ones left to fight Crownus the titan, they split the laurel's into four pieces and use their desired powers once more to defeat it.
• An Aesop: You can try your hardest and put all of your heart and determination into something and still come up short. At the end of the day, your shortcomings don’t dictate what you are worth, and only you can decide that.
• Artifact of Power: Zeus's laurel; it's the source of Zeus's power, and it can grant godlike powers to mortals. It can also be divided (and later reassembled) to empower more than one person at once with no seeming loss of power.
• Asshole Victim: Zeus is stripped of his godly powers as punishment for abusing them. Then when he gets them back, he falls into the Underworld. You don’t feel bad for him.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: The crown of Henghis Khan is guarded by giant silkworms. They are presumably a reference to the Mongolian death worm, but the actual cryptid was described to be a 2-foot-long, deadly-poisonous worm without a head or legs rather than a giant silkworm.
• The Big Damn Kiss: After Donald and others are freed from inside the titan, Daisy and Donald officiate their relationship with a kiss (which is quickly cut short by a Bear Hug from an overenthusiastic Storkules).
• Blatant Lies: After Crownus has been defeated, Zeus zaps the titan with a lightning bolt and pushes the body into the Underworld, then claims that he and he alone defeated the titan.
• Breather Episode: After several episodes in a row of the Duck-McDuck family dealing with F.O.W.L., this episode is more low-key, relatively speaking.
• Brought Down to Normal: Zeus has his powers taken away by the other gods because of one too many selfish actions, realizing that he’s a jerk undeserving of his godhood. He gets them back by the end of the episode.
• The Bus Came Back: Storkules, Selene, and Zeus make their first appearances this season.
• Call-Back:
  • Storkules references the time he and Donald were roommates.
  • The song playing in the background of Donald and Daisy's Big Damn Kiss is an instrumental cover of "Hear My Voice".
• Calling the Old Man Out: Della does this to Scrooge whilst they fight the titan.
  Scrooge: Where are those blasted kids?
  Della: They're on the ground, doubting themselves, because they've spent the day worried you're replacing them!
  Scrooge: What? What made them think that?
  Della: When you told them you were replacing them!
• The Cameo:
  • Gibbous is shown walking his dog in the park when Louie is testing out his powers.
  • Glomgold appears briefly in the episode during Webby's audition (with no speaking lines, just his usual maniacal laugh), hogging the rocking spaceship ride at the pier.
  • Hades is seen texting with Poseidon and Athena (who are unseen). Storkules also has a tied-up cherub near him, presumably Cupid.
  • The pig couple that are often featured in the background return only to have their relationship terminated thanks to Huey's intervention.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: Downplayed; Selene didn't even consider the kids at first because they're children, but concedes after Della's urging. The main plot focuses on choosing one of the kids to replace Zeus as the king of the Greek gods. In the end, none of them proves to be worthy candidates as gods, let alone the leader of them.
• Colossus Climb: Della and Scrooge climb up Crownus the titan's leg to get to the stomach and try to free the others.
• Combination Attack: The kids manage to defeat Crownus at the end by using all their godly powers together; Huey using his increased intellect to plan the attack, Louie turning the Titan's limbs into gold to hold him down, Dewey using his dance to disorient him (with an enhanced kick for good measure), and then Webby finishing him off with a lightning strike.
• Comfort Food: Once again, someone is ordering a copious amount of pizza to deal with their depression (in this case, Louie).
• Comically Missing the Point: Rather than taking godly power for a spin, Dewey treats the audition like it was an audition for a show, doing a rehearsed dance and only remembering afterward that he was supposed to use god-powers.
• Covered in Gunge: Everyone who was eaten by the titan is barfed back up covered in what seems to be tree sap (based on the colour and titan's tree-like appearance).
• Company Cross References:
  • The dog in the park bears a strong resemblance to Jock, Lady's Scottish terrier friend from Lady and the Tramp.
  • One girl in the park looks like Melissa from Milo Murphy's Law.
  • When Storkules releases Crownus from the Underworld, the titan raises his fist up just like when the Titans were released in Hercules. The depiction of the titan as a gigantic Monstrous Humanoid with an elemental appearance is also very similar to the interpretation of the Titans in Hercules.
    • Also, while not fully spelled out as such, Zeus's story of how he and Storkules's mother fell in love seems to imply that in this universe she is his godly wife Hera, as was the case in the Disney film, rather than the mortal Alcmene as in the original mythology.
    • Zeus's plan to release the Titans in order to (re)take over the Greek Pantheon, and falling deep into the underworld at the story's conclusion, are ironically similar to Hades' plot and final fate in Hercules.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The show's version of Hades is closer to the original Greek myths, being a dark but not wicked figure who ultimately takes his job as god of the underworld seriously and refuses to free the titans as part of Zeus's plan.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Storkules thinks that Donald and Daisy going on their second date is enough for them to get engaged.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: When Crownus tries to attack the kids, Daisy steps up to yell at the monster for hurting everyone. This actually makes him pause.
  Storkules: What godly powers is she using to keep the beast at bay?
  Donald: That's all Daisy.
• Drunk with Power: Webby loses it after her repeated attempts to make everyone friends using her powers causes a lot of mess in the process.
• Epic Fail:
  • The kids' several chances to prove they're worthy of the laurel. Louie's gold touch goes out of control and turns people into heavy gold statues, Huey becomes overwhelmed with his future sight and accelerates misfortune for others instead of trying to avert it, and Webby's well-meaning attempts to help people at the fair devolve into her going Drunk with Power and forcing them to be happy.
    • Special mention goes to Dewey, who tried to impress Selene with a dancing recital...but failed to even think about his own godly power. (Apparently, during the titan's fight, it was having stronger feet power.)
  • Zeus tricks Storkules into releasing a titan in a ploy to get his laurel back, but once he gets the chance to snatch the crown, he is instantly caught and eaten by the Titan.
  Zeus: Zeus's time to shine baby! [grabbed] Nope, failed immediately.
• Everybody Hates Hades: Inverted. Unlike the other Disney depiction, Hades seems to be fairly well-liked among the gods, or rather treated as an equal. It's Zeus that everybody hates, ironically, and who thinks the least of his brother.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: While he's more of a self-centered bully than a straight-up villain, Zeus finds it hilarious when Louie accidentally turns a park full of people into gold.
  Zeus: Now that's funny!
• Evil Is Petty: Glomgold’s shown hogging a kiddie ride, leaving the kids upset, and then steals another child's drink to cool his heated body.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: In the middle of predicting bad stuff, Huey points out that a man is about to hurt a big-headed kid because he's making everyone feel bad. A second later, he realizes he’s said big-head.
• Five Stages of Grief: Whenever one of Scrooge's adventures turns sour (as rare as that happens), he goes through three stages in under a minute: wallowing in self-pity, anger/denial over the prize he lost and motivation to try again (or "shaking it off").
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Hades is texting the other gods about Zeus, and Poseidon responds with "hahaha" and a laughing emoji.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: When Zeus asks Hades to release a titan, Hades reveals he and the rest of the Olympians already know he's lost his powers and have been laughing about it behind his back.
• Furry Reminder: Daisy steps away to powder her beak.
• Getting Eaten Is Harmless: Those swallowed by Crownus the titan end up in his semi-transparent belly, Covered in Gunge, but don't seem to be in the process of getting digested. This is accurate to the original myths involving being eaten by a Titan.
• Glory Days: Selene points out that Zeus hasn't done anything deserving of the Olympian throne since defeating and imprisoning the titans millennia ago. This eventually gives him the idea that if he can take down a titan again, he can prove himself still worthy to be king of the gods.
• Hero of Another Story: In the background, Scrooge is assembling another treasure-hunting team and mentions Penumbra, Quackfaster, and D'jinn as members.
• Hollywood Density: Averted in that the things Louie turns to gold become much heavier, as seen with the stick a dog was carrying, which weighs him down immediately. Later, Louie weaponizes this by turning Crownus's hands to gold so he can't hold them up anymore.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: Daisy drives away from the manor, telling herself she doesn't need a man who needs saving. Then, in her rear-view mirror, she sees the titan coming over the hill and turns around to save Donald.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Storkules after he's chased Daisy away, coupled with sad attempts to grass whistle. Zeus almost breaks character as a concerned father in disgust from how much Storkules is crying.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • After he and kids fail to retrieve the helmet of Henghis Khan, Scrooge decides to find new team members to try again, but leads the kids to believe he wants to replace them. Fortunately, Della lets Scrooge know and he sets it all straight by the end of the episode.
  • Storkules includes himself into Donald and Daisy's date and does everything in his power to help the night go well for the two. He doesn't realize until later that his actions made everything worse.
• Insane Troll Logic: Zeus thinks that the kids failing the auditions will automatically grant him his powers back, instead of Selene moving on to other candidates.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: In trying to cheer the kids up, Della tells them they are all irreplaceable. Then Scrooge comes in to talk about his special ops team replacement (which isn't really a replacement and more of a supplemental).
• Ironic Echo Cut: The episode starts with this as the Ducks prepare to take the crown but fail miserably.
  Dewey: Let's Dewey this!
  [Cut to the kids entering McDuck Manor]
  Dewey: [to Webby] Aw, I told you to Dewey this!
• Karma Houdini Warranty: The plot of the episode involves the gods of Olympus finally having enough of Zeus's Manchild impulsivity and destructive tantrums and they have his throne and godly powers rescinded. When Zeus tries asking Hades for help, Hades matter-of-factly dismisses him, gossiping with the other gods behind his back, who are clearly glad to be rid of him. And when he gets his powers back, he falls into the Underworld.
• Lonely at the Top: During his audition as the God of Intuition, Huey warns a little kid playing chess with his friend that once he wins, he'll become a master chess player who's so good that no one will ever want to play with him.
• Love Epiphany: Daisy realizes she loves Donald after he's swallowed by the titan, and she believes he's dead.
  Daisy: You killed my boyfriend!
• Mama Bear: Della, very much so. Not only does she continuously encourage the kids, she also calls out Scrooge for making them think they are useless to him.
• Midas Touch: Louie tries out as the god of fortune with hands that turn anything they touch to gold (the "Louie Touch" as he calls it), but almost immediately fails his audition when he trips and turns an entire park (and the people in it) into gold.
• Monster Protection Racket: Zeus convinces Storkules to unleash a titan, so that Zeus can defeat it and thus reclaim his throne on Olympus.
• My Brain Is Big: This happens to Huey when he tries to become a god.
• My Skull Runneth Over: Huey tries out as the god of intuition but he finds he can't handle all the knowledge and ends up only making things worse by telling people their future misfortunes and making them feel bad, as well as making his head painfully swell up.
  Huey: I can never know that much again!
• Mythology Gag:
  • Once again, the show references the iconic storyline "Lost Crown of Genghis Khan", with the episode Cold Open involving them trying to retrieve the helmet of Henghis Khan.
  • Storkules tries to rope Donald into auditioning to take Zeus's place as a god. Donald being imbued with god powers is a concept that dates back to the classic Donald short "Trombone Trouble".
  • Huey's enlarged cranium seems to resemble Dewey's superhero from Quack Pack.
  • Louie's last accident with the "Louie Touch" resembles the Golden Death seen in the very last episode of the original series.
• Never Say "Die": Played with. The Cold Opening ends with Selene proclaiming that the King of the Gods is no more, with the body of Zeus flopping into the entryway. Dewey hesitantly approaches before Zeus proves he is still very much alive. It's Averted later on when Daisy tells Storkules his stunt "killed [her] boyfriend".
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Storkules's attempts at "helping" Donald with his date with Daisy only drive Daisy away.
  • A bit with Huey who accidentally ruined the pig couple's relationship.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In an attempt to get his powers back, Zeus convinces Storkules to release a titan, claiming that the resulting battle would help make a bond between Donald and Daisy... which is exactly what happens! In addition to that, the circumstances help Della call out Scrooge on how he's caused the kids to doubt themselves, and during the battle, Scrooge reassures them enough that they save the day.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Hades is quite clearly based on Alice Cooper.
• No, You: Twice in the episode, Hades tells Zeus that his recent misfortunes are hilarious. Zeus, once again, can only retort that "You're hilarious!". Also, "'Tis you who are jerks!"
• Noodle Incident:
  • What exactly happened with Scrooge and the kids that caused the mission to fail.
  • Daisy reminds herself that she does not need to "fall for another man who needs saving," implying that she has a history with broken men.
• Odd Job Gods:
  • When Louie takes the crown, he declares himself the God of Fortune and gives himself the Midas Touch.
  • When Huey gets the crown, he makes himself the God of Intuition, bestowing him Super-Intelligence that works like precognition.
  • When Webby has the crown, she makes herself the Goddess of Sunny Fun Times Friendship, giving herself the power of Flight, The Power of the Sun and Weather Manipulation.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Selene, the peppy and fun loving goddess, is portrayed as more level headed and serious as she tries to look for a suitable replacement for her father. She even shows skepticism of having the kids audition to become a god. But she does allow them to try out and judges them fairly after each of their performances.
• Our Titans Are Different: A titan, called Crownus, as depicted here is a monstrous giant that seems to be made of earth with plant life growing on the body. He swallows victims whole into an abdomen transparent in a way resembling cage bars. He only superficially shares the anthropomorphism of other characters, having a beak but otherwise not resembling any specific species.
• Parenting the Husband: Daisy worries about having to be Donald's "mom" by telling him how to take out the trash and organize his playdates with his friends (She was unaware that Storkules's visit was unexpected and Donald did try to get rid of him).
• Reimagining the Artifact: In many versions, Daisy is a nagging shrew who gives Donald a ration of grief (and often breaks up with him) over the smallest mistakes or misunderstandings. In this version, she's very patient and gives him the benefit of the doubt about his friend Storkules invading their date, but when she does finally lose patience and consider breaking up with him, it's over understandable grievances: she worries that she'll end up Parenting the Husband and have to teach Donald basic adult things like how to take out the trash or schedule dates around his Manchild friend. However, she doesn't scold Donald or invoke a Minor Flaw, Major Breakup, but takes time to think, and ultimately decides she's in it for the long haul.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: Della while trying to pump the kids up for their auditions:
  Della: Who cares what Old Man McDuck thinks, ehh?
  Huey/Dewey/Louie: Me!/I do!/Me too!
  Webby: IT CONSUMES ME.
• Running Gag: After the kids all fail their auditions, Louie orders pizzas. He's so depressed, he doesn't even order toppings for them. After being vomited up by Crownus, Selene also suggests they order a pizza.
• Shipper on Deck: Storkules for Donald and Daisy. It's deconstructed since, despite Storkules's efforts to make their second date perfect, he turns out to be a nuisance and ends up ruining it. His desire for them to reconcile is also what makes him easy prey to Zeus's manipulations.
• Shout-Out:
  • Crownus having a prison inside of his ribcage resembles D'Compose, one of the monstrous villains from Inhumanoids.
  • Cupid is portrayed as a pig, much like in the Rocko's Modern Life episode "Leap Frogs".
  • The title is a reference to New Kids on the Block.
• Shown Their Work:
  • As mentioned in Dark Is Not Evil above, Hades is portrayed as more true to Greek mythology, being a fairly benevolent ruler of the underworld who takes his job seriously.
  • Like in the original Greek mythology, those who are swallowed by a titan are imprisoned inside their stomach without being digested. For bonus points, Crownus is named after Kronos, Zeus's titan father who swallowed Zeus's siblings only to be tricked by his son into coughing them back up.
• Sibling Rivalry: Hades isn't very fond of his brother Zeus and relishes in the latter's misfortunes throughout the episode. Poseidon, their other brother, also laughs via text message.
• Skewed Priorities: Dewey is so focused on using his god audition to impress Scrooge that he completely forgets to use any god powers in the audition with Selene.
• Spit Take: Donald does this after Storkules asks Daisy "what are your intentions with MY Donald?".
• Status Quo Is God: Literally! At the end, Zeus manages to get his crown back and restore his godly strength, although he does end up slipping and falling into the Underworld.
• Suddenly Shouting: Hades can't arrange an undead uprising for Zeus because he's a little busy "keeping the Titans {Zeus} locked down here at bay for all eternity!" The Underworld rumbles at the last part.
• Swallowed Whole: All the adults, except Daisy, get consumed by Crownus and kept inside his stomach like a prison.
• Third Wheel: Storkules is this to Donald and Daisy's date, and refuses to take the hint.
• This Is Gonna Suck: When Donald realizes Storkules has arrived moments before his date with Daisy, he can only cry out "No, not today!"
• Titanomachy, Round Two: After being stripped of his powers as punishment for abusing them, Zeus frees a titan in order to prove himself worthy to regain his place as King of the Gods. While he ultimately wasn't the one to defeat the titan, he still gets his power and position back at the end of the episode.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Daisy makes a titan cringe in fear after it swallows her boyfriend, Donald, and yells at it.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Storkules, who wants to get Donald and Daisy to reconcile, is manipulated by Zeus to release a titan from the Underworld in hopes that battling it together will cause them to fall for each other again.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Della calls out Scrooge for causing the kids to believe they're not good adventurers that will be replaced unless they prove themselves.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Webby fails her audition to become the God of Friendship because she quickly devolves to trying to make everyone act friendly... by violent and destructive force, forcing Selene to cut her off.
• Would Hurt a Child: Huey predicts a man in a Gizmoduck T-shirt will beat up a big-headed freak who's making everyone uncomfortable before realizing that it's him.

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