DuckTales, Season 2 Episode 11: "The Golden Spear!"

Episode: 211 "The Golden Spear!" 5/10/19
Starring: Della Duck, Donald Duck, Lieutenant Penumbra, and General Lunaris
Costarring: Huey Duck, Webby Vanderquack, Storkules, Dewey Duck, Zenith, Gibbous, Palus, Zeus, Scrooge McDuck, and Louie Duck
Introducing: The Goat of Goat’hool
An Appearance by: Roxanne Featherly
Settings: Planet Moon (Tranquility), and Duckburg (McDuck Manor)

PlotTales
While Della is making friends and influencing people in Tranquility, Donald is on the brink of a nervous breakdown.  As if the Duck siblings’ current states couldn’t be more starkly opposed, they become proverbial ships passing in the night when Della finally lifts off from the moon, setting course for Duckburg while Donald inadvertently finds himself hurtling towards a not-so-tranquil Tranquility.  

But this episode acts more as a jumping off point for what’s to come with a lunar invasion looming along with a Donald/Penumbra team-up to thwart Lunaris’ plot looking likely. But the biggest development, of which has been building since the show began, is a reunion for the ages when Della Duck finally returns home to Duckburg and meets her sons.       

Quacking Points
Donald’s heightened anxiety and stress levels have been a running theme for two seasons and the molting is just the latest symptom.  And, a run-in with the undead, dodging lightning bolts from an angry Zeus, and getting pulled into an interdimensional adventure aren’t helping matters. 

The zombie attack is brought on by the Necronomicassette - a VHS of a horror movie from the 90s that raises the dead.

Because Dewey is in possession of Hermes’ flying sandals, Zeus has declared war on him.

General Meridian, Lunaris’ father, was terrified of Earth and claimed to see mysterious objects launch from it which forced the Moonlanders to live underground.  Using paranoia, fear, and a whole bunch of lies to gin up his people, Lunaris is bent on starting the war daddy never had the guts to see through. Perhaps this invasion will serve as Season Two’s Finale. 

We meet a few of the Moonlanders by name; they are Gibbous (bald male), Zenith (slender female), and Palus (portly female).

Della remarks on it herself but the similarities between Penny and Donald are obvious.  While Penumbra seethes because she’s a warrior with no war, Donald continues to suffer from the trauma of losing his sister and, thusly, swearing of adventuring.  They are both unable to shed their past and move forward.

It is a bit heartbreaking and a harsh reminder of the time she’ll never get back when Della envisions conquering Mount Neverrest and discovering the Hidden Pyramids of Toth-Rah with her boys when Huey, Dewey, and Louie already reached these accomplishments all the way back in Season 1.  

The Goat of Goat’hool is not really a goat, it’s merely his terrestrial form. Goat’hool is a netherworld of treasures untold and petulant orcs.  He offers Scrooge, Louie, and Donald passage to his world and the chance to become kings. 

We learn that Dewey received an offer to host “Dewey Dew-nite” in Demagorgana.  Demogorgana, a demon dimension, is first introduced in The Golden Lagoon of White Agony Plains! (S1, E15) when we learn that Scrooge spent an unknown amount of time there during a demon uprising caused when Goldie stole the Eye of the Demogorgan. 

Webby and Huey ask Scrooge for a caravan of camels so they could search for the Desert Ship of Galleon which is in reference to Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge comic, “The Seven Cities of Cibola” (1954).  The idea of a stranded treasure ship in the desert also appeared in DuckTales 87’s five-part-pilot, “The Treasure of the Golden Suns.”  

In an attempt to give Donald the rest and relaxation he so desperately needs, Scrooge and family arrange for him to take a month-long cruise on the S.S. 40 Winks.  Although he never makes it to the cruise ship, this will cover his absence when he is, in fact, on the moon.