TITLE: Kindred Spirits: Hey, Danny already shared that with Vlad
LOGO: "It will leave you feeling all gooey inside!"
EPISODE #: 40
SEASON: 2
AIRDATE: April 7, 2006
DIRECTOR: Butch Hartman, Daniel De La Vega, Gary Conrad
WRITERS: Steve Marmel, Sib Ventress
STORYBOARD: Butch Hartman, James Yang, Ben Balistreri, Shaunt Nigoghossian
ART DIRECTIONS: George Goodchild
MUSIC: Guy Moon
APPEARANCE: Angry Hispanic Golf Manager, Danielle, Danny Clones—Bedsheet Ghost, Hulk Ghost, Tiny Fairy Ghost (1st appearance), Danny, Vlad, Tucker and Sam, Jack and Maddie, Lancer
GHOST APPEARANCE: Danny Clones—Bedsheet Ghost, Hulk Ghost, Tiny Fairy Ghost (1st appearance)...hey, they’re still ghosts, okay! Skulker, Ghost Dog, Lunch Lady (all three cameo)
FENTON GADGET APPEARANCE: Fenton Boooo-merang, Specter Speeder, Specter Deflector
LESSON: Failed clones should stay failed...and dead. Failed and dead.
SUMMARY: Vlad’s voice rings out in the seemingly near empty and dark lair of his Colorado lab as he watches various holographic-like screens of the many videos he has of Danny. Geez, Vlad, I know you like the kid, but did you have to go all stalker? Why can’t you be like all the normal possessive boyfriend types and bother him through his cell phone, e-mail, house, and work area? Logically speaking, if all the videos Vlad smuggled came from Valerie’s suit, shouldn’t it be shown from her perspective? That don’t a good logic make. Alas, his current unknown plan is missing something vital: Danny’s mid-morph. Well, he’s gonna fix that: he orders three mysterious ghostly figures to go get his future lover. However there is a fourth hatch that hasn’t opened. Golly, I wonder who could be inside. Vlad then proceeds to milk his other current obsession by making his Maddie program declare "Jack Fenton an idiot". End with a villainous laugh. An awesome one with maybe a small tint of narm.
Despite her superior sports skills, Sam is a dud when it comes to miniature golf. Well, when you’re losing to a techno geek, you’re considered one! Danny however blows any shot of Tucker gaining first prize when he phases his ball for the fun of it. His buddies are more concerned on his delayed arrival. Danny’s excuse gets no further then two seconds before he confesses he overslept. They accuse him for his lack of consideration, saying they feel more sidekick then friends. Cue flashback to events that happened off-camera; Sam and Tucker are molassed, slobbered, and stepped on in that order. Why the hell is Skulker stealing money in a Molasses factory of all places? Doesn’t Vlad pay him so that he doesn’t have to do this kinda crap? Mind trip to the past over, Danny annoying replies that he’ll do better...starting tomorrow. He’s got ghost duties to do.
Tucker: What kind of ghost haunts a miniature golf course?Sam: Well, there is a box ghost. Obviously all the good haunts have been taken.
Danny confronts the most stereotypical ghost kind there is: the Bedsheet Ghost and Genre Savvy Danny knows it. After a quick, but nicely choreographed action scene, Danny pulls the sheet off to reveal its true form: a dark skeleton with no legs. Definitely creepier. He tells Danny to "change back", but Clueless One doesn’t get the message, so he opts to blows him the shit up. The windmill course and all. Am I the only one who sees a potential story behind this sudden empowered Ecto Ray? Kinda makes me wonder if the original writers had significant plans for this. E-mail and let me know, guys! With the wanton destruction before him, Danny flies off before he can get penalized (hey, if you're protecting Amity Park from baddies, the citizens should fully be aware there’s going to be damage in their hometown; from both the bad and the good) leaving the ticked off manager to dump the blame on Tucker and Sam, both tragically in the same place at the worst time.
Danny later calls to apology for not sticking around, but he’s got a secret identity to maintain. Why couldn’t he hide somewhere and transform back? Dumbass. On the plus side, his cell phone looks like it got an upgrade and actually looks as if it was made for this time period. Tucker and Sam are none to pleased, forced to clean and rebuild the entire course by hand. Despite his soul-crushing guilt, Danny keeps flying to his house, phasing into his room only to find someone on his bed, reading his comic book.
Well, it’s finally happened. It took 39 episodes, but there she is. The putrid, annoying, terrible, horrifying cesspool of a creation has wandered into the Danny Phantom universe. From this point on, there is no turning back. My fingers must type the inevitable of the disgusting display that is within my sight. But before I do, I would like to confess all my unworthy sins to the big man upstairs because right now, I need his strength to hold in my vomit long enough to write the rest of this summary. For what I am about to type after this blatantly unnecessary paragraph is a being not even Satan himself would want. Oh, the horrors upon horror, the tragic upon tragic, the abomination, the trepidation, the repugnant...
...DANIELLE PHANTOM.*shudders* It hurts to write the name of She-Who-Should-Not-Be-Spoken, but the show must go on. Commend my brave sacrifice, people. She introduces herself as Danny’s third cousin once removed. Claiming she ran away from home, she asks Danny if there’s any food. He tells his friends he’ll call back later (which doesn’t make them any happier), then feeds the kid. Fruit Cocktails? After the gallant feast, Danielle eyes Danny’s NASA crap and states a fact he already knew. Danny, why are you even asking her how she knew? There’s a reason the internet exist, hon. She compliments the Dumpty Humpty, but Danny’s suspicious doesn’t daunt. He drags her away to talk with his parents on how to properly deal with her, but like a little tart, she runs back into his room and escapes through the window. Danny goes ghost to try and track down the twelve-year-old. Twelve. Seriously? Seriously?! Does she look twelve to you?!
Another ghost comes to crash the non-existent party. This time, giant Hulk Man. "Man, you like I do on a bad day; but I’m gonna make you look worse!" That line being a blatant hint that he's a Danny clone, DOOOOOY. Danny's action doesn't quite work the way he wants, Hulk Man grab him by the face. Out of nowhere comes young Danielle who proves she’s more then meets the eye when she, too goes half ghost. Confused, Danny reluctantly teams up with his so-called "cousin" and blasts a big ass hole to the giant, turning his corpse into Ecto goop. Getting weirder and weirder, Danny is ready to pepper Danielle with questions, but she faints, causing the ghost boy to put that on hold. Secretly, she gives off a devious look. Oooh, as if she already didn’t warrant suspect!
Danny explains Danielle’s existence to Tucker and Sam at school the next day, but the two aren’t in a state of shock like they should be. No, they’re still beyond pissed that they were the ones stuck building a golf course from scratch while Danny got off scot-free. No amount of apologizing can change that and he can’t suck in more, Danielle phases from under the table, unknowingly dumping the lunch trays on Danny’s weary friends. Add another point of frustration. But they’re not the only ones, Danny asks Danielle for a private chat, lecturing her lack of care on proper secret identity coverage. He is impressed that she for no reason of her own, hates Dash though, but he’s back in business when he asks her how she got her powers. Unfortunately interruption is the key ingredient in this episode: the Fairy Ghost thingamajig pops out and another battle is underway. Danielle promises to explain everything once they get Navi, so Danny follows suit. Lancer at this pops in, sees the mess the ghost created, and is quick to blame Tucker and Sam the minute Dash points fingers.
Danielle decides to make it more entertaining and demands a fair race. Danny agrees and quickly bypasses the brat, though that grin on her face suggest she’s got something up her sleeve. A quick take, but very subtle. Nicely done, animators. The Fairy Ghost leads Danny to Vladdie Plasmius. And what follows is a kickass battle.
Vlad: No, dear boy, funny joke around Vlad isn’t here today.
It really isn’t. He’s at his most aggressive here; the two quickly engage in a Beam O War until Danielle comes from behind. Danny asks her to do something, so she does. She backstabs him in an almost literal fashion: Ecto Raying him unconscious, but right after Danielle calls Vlad her "daddy". Also, more evil laugh. Damn, Vlad, you’re really giving it your all today, aren’t you?
Back in school, Tucker and Sam are taking out the cafeteria garbage, the latter already plotting revenge on Danny for abandoning them again. They change their mind when they see his comatose body taken away by Vlad, who incidentally, touched Danny’s ass. Oooh, they’re gonna get some lovin’! When Lancer arrives to ask why they aren’t inside, Sam and Tucker makes an excuse that they’re ditching school and runs off to pursue their kidnapped friend. Why couldn’t they just say they were taking out the garbage, then run off? Either way, Lancer seems more pissed on the "Old Man" comment then their immediate plans to skip school.
Danny awakes to find himself in that damn cube from "Bitter Reunions". The computer screens next to him only furthers his contempt (or raw animal love) of Vlad when he realized he’d been spying on him. Honey, he mentioned your grades in "Maternal Instincts", of course he spied on you. Calling him a "fruit loop" again, Vlad violently denies it, sporting his power use to gain money—those two are the same cops from "Control Freaks", they haven’t aged a day since 1983)—and his status as billionaire to prove otherwise. Vladco...wow, he really does have an ego. "I am not a villain, all I wanted was love." Awww, that face Vlad gives of desperation and loneliness, it's so awwww. At this point, Danielle watches the whole thing from above, invisible. He pushes a button and reveals the perfect clone to Danny. The other three that ambushed him were failures. "And I would watch a hundred more failures devolve into Ectoplasm to get the perfect half ghost son!" After Danny calls him "loopy", Vlad orders the Fairy Ghost to possess Danny in order to get him to mid-morph. Then he "will be obsolete". No evil laugh this time.
At Fenton Works, Jack is busying himself with some...anti-ghost modem? The phone rings, but he lets his wife get it despite the three inch gap in-between. She gets a call from Lancer on what Danny and his friends did while Tucker and Sam sneaks into the basement. I hope Lancer called the Mansons and Foleys because I hate to think he pits the blame on the Fentons on Tucker and Sam’s actions. They’re not their kids! Jack and Maddie for some reason managed to figure out Sam and Tucker are in the lab and order them away from the Specter Speeder. Yeah, not gonna happen. They use the stupidly named tracking device (Booo-merang) to track Danny down.
Meanwhile, Vlad subjects Danny to some electrocuting torture chamber to bring about the mid-morph along with one of the failed clones inside to urge it out. Maddie Program ups the power, but the boy resists. It’s a nice display of the level of strength the boy possesses. The machine overloads and blows up. An escaped, but dazed Danny flies free. Vlad doesn’t get to sulk in his anger; Danielle counters him and bitterly asks if she, too, is a failed clone. And of course, Vlad plays her like a violin.
Vlad: What? Ha Ha, dearest, I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about the other clone.
Danielle: *after witnessing a failed clone degrade, she screams like a..little girl*
Vlad: I know, it’s horrible, isn’t it? That’s why I need Daniel’s DNA, to stabilize you, my greatest creation.
Danielle: Really?
Vlad: Uh-Huh, but here’s what I need you to do.
Hook, Link, and Sinker. Was that failed clone the Fairy Ghost or just another one in a long line of rejected experiments? Tucker and Sam managed to make it to the Colorado/Wyoming borders and nearly fly into a plane. Damn, bugs are one thing, but cleaning up an entire Specter Speeder would be a bitch. They evade in time, but not before almost hurtling to their doom.
Danny looks around for an exit (umm, dude, PHASE YOUR WAY OUT), but Danielle sneak attacks him. Danny warns Danielle that all the clones he meant so far has melted and her power overuse is producing the same results. Danielle looks down to see her feet is squirting out goop. She desperately asks Danny for his DNA in order to save her, but Danny bluntly lets her know that she’s "just a mess he’s (Vlad) not going to clean up". Harsh. Enough so that she jams an Ecto Ray to Danny’s guts, hoping to prove him wrong. She takes him back to the torture chamber where Vlad nicely orders Danielle to possess Danny and pull out the mid-morph. She’s concerned; the last time one of the clones did it, they melted. Vlad reassures her otherwise, but she doesn’t seem to get the memo. Then all hell breaks loose, "YOU. EXIST TO SERVE ME! JUST. DO IT!" Great acting, but the execution was a little too early—it should have been dragged a little bit longer. The next scene however shouldn’t have. Danielle realizes Vlad is exactly what Danny made him out to be, so after she frees him, the two go off on a looooong, draaaaaagggeeed ouuuuuut transformation. Impressive, but something that could have been better spent with the actual fisticuffs. The two send out an Ecto Ray towards the still surprised Vlad, knocking him to the container holding the perfect clone.
Now comes the gut-wrenching part. Vlad painstakingly watches as his perfect clone dissipates before his eyes. Oh, that’s not the worst part. That part is when the perfect clone’s hand reaches for his "father". Damn. I don’t care if he’s a clone, he behaved like a human. I’m counting that as an onscreen death. To make it worse, Vlad pulls off three Big NOOOOs, beautifully acted, powerful emotions. Then his face is emphasized in shadow except his red eyes. ...Shit. Danielle, YOU. ARE. FUCKED. Vlad comes, fists blazing, and a looming musical cue behind him. Danielle is about to give it her all, but Danny saves the day by Ghostly Wailing the entire lab, destroying the clone equipment and depowering Vlad to normal. Also, the Maddie Program has been cheating on you with the Jack Program. Cheap way to get in humor, guys. VERY cheap. This is an emotional core, DON’T RUIN IT! Just for the record, I don't find it strange for Vlad to have a Jack program, he's got to target practice on something. Oh, but it’s not over. Vlad still gets up and goes ghost to kill Danielle. HOLY SHIT. If there was any doubt of Vlad’s Magnificent Bastard status, THIS is the part where you convince them otherwise. He survived the fuckin’ Ghostly Wail. Not just survived, but wasn’t nearly as impacted by it as others would have. Vlad is more emotionally broken.
Luckily, the Booo-merang saves the day when it collides on him, then later the Specter Speeder that renders him disabled enough for Tucker to put the Specter Deflector on him. With Vlad weakened, Danielle knocks him unconscious with one punch. Alright, human or not, I’m going to say the Ghostly Wail did take a lot out of him because there’s no way a puny punch can knock Vlad down. Danny praises his friends, thanking them multiple times for their rescue. He then proceeds to thank Danielle except she has the case of the disappearances. Also, Vlad isn’t lying down, but sitting upright in that shot. Ah Ah Ah, bad animation move.
The three are then on the receiving end of the Fentons and Lancer. Maddie at least points out she’ll call Tucker and Sam’s parents instead of pointlessly punishing kids who aren’t hers, but the minute her eyes turn green, she claims they shouldn’t. Followed by Lancer’s agreement when he tells Jack he can always build another "cool ship thing." Jack doesn’t need to be possessed; he’s convinced and gets right to work. Interesting, Danielle (who’s the cause of it) didn’t have her voice when manipulating them. I’d say that would be a step above Danny in power, but he does the same thing the next episode and she’s a failed clone: she’s still indefinitely weaker to Danny even if she wasn’t destabilizing. Danielle later lets Danny, Tucker, and Sam know that she'll be back ("It’s Dani with an "i") and flies off towards the sunset. If she didn’t wanted to waste her strength so much, why the fuck is she so happy to use them? You’re gonna die pretty damn quick that way, girl.
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Article written in: Apr. 27, 2009
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