Phantom floats down and pseudo-freezes Sam and Tucker with a wave of his hand before wondering why they’re here, or more importantly, what Clockwork is up to when he eyes the medallions on them. Being drawn away from Valerie gives her an advantage to blast him away. Phantom clears away the dust and the two both go on the offense, Valerie chucking bombs at him, Phantom turning into some gaseous form to dodge them, and eventually grabbing and smacking her away. Danny at this point manages to get out of his shock and break the net he’s in. Phantom says a little something before grabbing Valerie and flinging her away. See? No long speeches, more villains seriously need to be like him. Danny however manages to save her before something bad could happen to her, Valerie eventually figuring out he’s from the past and stating how cute he once was before going unconscious (Danny quickly stating an “older woman likes him.”) Wait, she can survive being thrown down hundreds of feet in the air, but when she gets thrown that’s not even CLOSE to that measurement, she loses consciousness?! Somebody needs to take a look at her medical files, seriously.

Phantom eyes his still pseudo-frozen friends (who watch in horror) as Phantom basically threatens to kill them despite their friendship in the past, seeing as he has no humanity left in him basically. Danny to the rescue as he comes in time. Both Phantoms Ecto blasts each other at the same time, hitting them both and causing Phantom to lose his concentration on Tucker and Sam, causing their entrapment to disappear. “Tucker, Sam, RUN!” Danny cries out to them. “Run? Where are they going to go?” Phantom smugly asks, then he shows off his Ghostly Wail, aiming for the already damaged enough Fenton Works (but…but it exploded from an explosion earlier, how is it still standing?), it’s wailing echoes sending the debris crashing down on the two. Danny is shocked and tries to fly towards them until Phantom grabs him by the leg and flings him where he turns human. However he sees Tucker and Sam removed the medallions, thus restoring them to their time periods just in time. Danny is about to do the same until Phantom grabs him by the arm, removes his time medallion and phases it inside him, doubly making him unconscious at the same time.

Present time as Jazz stops by the still ruined Nasty Burger in her cute pink car (geez, isn’t anything she owns not pink or is this just to contrast Danny’s general blue-ness?) while Tucker and Sam end up near the Nasty Burger. Tucker sees Sam removed the medallions off of them after screaming like a little girl. Jazz spots the two and immediately chats with the duo, stating she knows Danny is going to cheat, so she makes a fair warning to bring him home if he is spotted and return the test in time before Jazz ends up playing the role of tattletale to her folks and Lancer. Quite a bit step down from the Jazz of “The Fenton Menace”, but it’s not like she denied her responsibilities, so whatever. The disappointed sister drives off while Sam concludes Danny cheating leads to their death and him being evil. Tucker just laments how it’s unfair such a fate bestows upon them because of Danny’s foolishness.

Danny wakes up, now tied with ectoplasmic rope. There he sees a statue of his family and friends with the words written, “Gone, but not forgotten” and a separate statue of Lancer with the word, "Gone". Ouch, that’s a bite to his ass, even if he is a jerk at times. Phantom comes up from behind the Nasty Burger (the one destroyed from the explosion) and basically jokes around about the explosives like it’s no big deal (lacking humanity alright) and how the time medallion is forever stuck inside him, unreachable whether ghost or human, then opens up a Ghost Portal with his hand. Phantom then turns into his younger present day counterpart while Danny cries out that he’ll never become his evil self, though Phantom is confident he will. Gripping Danny, he flings him inside the Ghost Zone to keep him out of his way while he takes one of Sam and Tucker’s time medallion and warps back to ten years later.

Back in Clockwork’s lair, ol' timekeeper is winding his time staff until interrupted by the Observants who approach him to see if he’s accomplished his task. Clockwork shows off Danny’s well being (in reality, Phantom in disguise as Danny) saying everything is fine, so “care to observe the door?” Honestly, I still don’t really know what he means by that, I suppose in essence it means the Observants are guarding something or maybe it‘s a metaphor thing. Either way, along with Carradine’s great acting, it’s a nice quote.

Phantom laments on the Nasty Burger, seeing the boiler slowly rising. Eventually he is reunited with Tucker and Sam whom he states to the two that he defeated his “older self” and managed to stop the boiler. To prevent Tucker and Sam from second guessing, he offers to play video games with them to which the two immediately hop to it. Wow…that was a sudden shift from the two nagging about his CAT, but that was only for the cheating part and with the recent crap they just went through, it’s understandable they need a break from all that. Quite frankly, I’d still be traumatized over an evil version of myself.

Danny in the meantime is still trying in vain to get rid of the ectoplasmic rope around him. Turning ghost doesn’t help much either, but he has a pretty hilariously irritated face. He is met by future Box Ghost and by future, we’re talkin’ “Silly-comical-side-left-the-window-for-more-serious-I-will-kick-your-ass-silly” Box Ghost. Wow, no wonder he managed to win a woman’s heart. He’s met eventually by other ghosts he’s known from his time, now affected by Phantom in the future. Ember is now VERY large after Phantom destroyed her vocal cord and it seems he might have crippled an older Johnny 13 who’s now in a wheelchair…and bald which is such a major contrast to his hair back when he was younger. I mean, he was some teenager to early 20’s guys punk biker, to see him looking like a beer guzzling lazy dad on a couch is…well, hilarious. Any who, seeing they know who he is, the ghosts basically beat the shit out of him.

Back in the present time period, Phantom (still in Danny disguise) flies to his old room and laments on his memories. Jazz enters--nay, barges in his room--and tells him about the CAT testing (all the while as the plot device--I mean---Booooo-merang just sits ideally on the floor) something that obviously doesn’t faze Phantom. Jazz finally brings out her trump card by finally confessing she knows he’s big secret of being a half ghost superhero and how proud she was that he did good, but not anymore. Phantom, rather shocked by this and impressed, turns into his original self and confronts her. Jazz knows now why the plot device didn’t hook up to his Ecto signature and cries out in defense that Danny will beat him. Phantom is again not fazed and makes a confident note that nobody will stop him, not her, not even Vlad (which also further shocks Jazz when she finds out he’s Danny’s arch enemy). That said, he doesn’t kill her (surprisingly, although I made my theory on why located in the “TUE Questions” section ), but merely knocks her unconscious. Afterwards, he then takes out the CAT test to see the first answer and make a joke about it despite the current predicament. You know you’re a sick bastard if you joke around during this questionable time. What an awesome villain.

Jazz wakes up the next day in her room, suffering from a nightmare (of the events from yesterday). She wakes up safe and sound (much to her shock), her parents coming in to check up on her upon her screams and eventually informing her Danny left to take the CAT test. With the information given by Phantom from earlier, Jazz quickly leaves her bed and grabs the plot device Jack has in his hand. She races to the lab basement and ties a quickly written note to the plot device with her headband, sending it to find Danny inside the Ghost Zone. There, the plot device travels for ten long years (miraculously), almost gets eaten by a giant ass crab monster, then continues it’s course. Meanwhile, Danny is still getting his ass kicked by all the ghosts (Skultech and an older Kitty, looking more like a business mom joining in; strangely Box Lunch is missing…she didn’t really get blown up from the Nasty Burger explosion, did she?) for punishment on all the horrible things he did--er--will do.

All the stress builds up inside from all the crap he’s been given, so in a fit of rage, Danny screams and out comes the Ghostly Wail, knocking his foes unconscious. Briefly turning human (but strangely still in his ghost attire), Danny turns ghost again and gets smacked by the plot device. There, he reads the note and sees Vlad is involved, so he goes there, the boooo-merang having served it’s purpose.

Back in school, Phantom takes the CAT test, cheating of course. Tucker eyes this and whispers to him to cut it out while Sam tries to shut him up for their sake, I suppose. Lancer steps in asking what the dizzle is going on, but Phantom, again in creepy evil cryptic message way states there’s “no problem” going on. Then his eyes glow red. Oooh, that’s SO evil! While he continues breaking his moral conscience, Jazz is right behind his classroom door, Fenton Peeler at hand. Phantom eyes her from afar and sends an invisible duplicate to again knock her unconscious and…well, send her away…somewhere. If this were more of a mob story, he’d dump her body inside a garbage disposal.

Danny successfully manages to find Vlad’s portal, which on it's own wasn't hard to begin with--big, giant football blocked it’s way. “That’s Vlad for ya, subtle as a flying mallet.” He heads inside only to find his glorious manor is no more, now a sort of dark cave (Holy Batcave!) filled with some football memorabilia, some technology, and other random junks here and there. And in the mist of it all is Mr. Masters himself who turned from sexy deviant pompous to a…sexy old hermit.....Oh, come on! He’s Vlad! And what Neo Yi sees, Neo Yi likes. But okay, he is way worse for wear, having gone all Howard Hughes on us, something Danny points out. Vlad basically asks the same thing, recognizing the kid from the past on account he has no damn clue what the shit is going on, so Vlad relates his tale. Flashback time!

“If it’s any consolation, they felt no pain; unfortunately the same could not be said of you, Daniel. With nowhere else to go, you came to me, the only other person on the planet who could hope to understand your situation.”

Basically upon the death of his family and friends (which garnered headline news) Danny, in a fit of sadness requested to move in with Vlad, seeing as he was the only one who could understand his pain. Pulled up in fancy limo and like 15 bags of presumably all his crap, Danny arrived to Vlad’s not so humble manor. There Vlad places a caring hand on Danny’s shoulder as he gloomily eyes a picture of his parents and friends, one which even Vlad gives a sincere concern and sadness to.

“All you wanted was to make the hurt go away. I honored your wishes, no more painful human emotions to drag you down.”

And thus, with a heavy heart, Danny was placed inside Vlad’s basement lab where Vlad uses the Ghost Gauntlet, this one able to rip out claws. Either Vlad made his own version of the gauntlet or he modified the Fentons’. That said, Vlad used said claws to rip out Danny’s ghost self from his human counterpart with great success, but…

Ghost Danny got pissed for some reason (again, something I theorized in my TUE questions section) and used the gauntlets on Vlad, ripping him off his ghost self. With that, ghost Danny flies into ghost Vlad and the two pretty much…merge together into one being or something. Vlad’s evil side just got him to him and thus, Phantom was born. “What happened to my human self?” Danny asks.

In short, Phantom killed his human self, then blew up Vlad’s manor, and started his ten year conquest of total destruction. Dude…words could not compromise how I felt when I first saw that scene. I mean, it’s one thing to blow up manors, but it’s another when you’re killing your OWN self in cold blood and that evil laughter--truly menacing. I mean, seriously.

And with that said, Vlad picks up an old photo of him, Jack, and Maddie in their college years, obviously upset even Jack is dead, repenting for his sin. And even in a more rarer moment, Danny sincerely forgives the man, then asks if he still has the Ghost Gauntlets.

Meanwhile, back in present time period, Phantom finishes his test, glares evilly and cocky-like towards Lancer, says some quip, then walks off satisfied. Lancer, knowing Danny cheated now calls the Fenton folks to come along with Danny to the Nasty Burger at around 5PM for important discussion. His teacher senses are tingling, OH-NOES.

We again cut back to real Danny (*sigh* So many short paragraphs) in the future where he asks Vlad to rip out the time medallion lodged inside him using those Ghost Gauntlets from before. Vlad however decides to kill him instead, so as to prevent this time period from ever happening…which is unfortunate since we don’t know WHAT THE HELL HAPPENS after he blurts out that revelation. Seriously, this scene is so ridiculously vague it’s not even funny. He slashes, but all we get to hear is one large scream and giant green energy waves coming out of a cave. What happened? Did Vlad really slash him or did Danny somehow stop him or what? Ugh…irritating.

Meanwhile, we cut back AGAIN to the present (you keeping up with me or did you get confused ages ago?) where the Fenton parents and Danny pull up to the destroyed Nasty Burger where Lancer reveals Danny cheated. Shocked and upset their son would do such a thing, they are all interrupted when Sam and Tucker comes running, crying out they need to split or they’ll be explodified. Lancer wants to know what the hell is going on, so Jazz provides the answer, donned in Fenton Peeler gear as she uses it against Phantom, peeling his disguise away and revealing his true form. Immediately Jack and Maddie come, guns a-blazing, demanding what they did to Danny. Phantom laughs manically and cries out he IS Danny ("I AM your boy!"). As he flies and the clouds all get dramatically swirly around him, he basically laments on his parents’ stupidity of having never figured out the obvious similarity to the name “Danny Fenton” and “Danny Phantom”, stating Jazz knew the whole ordeal. He ties up everyone except Jazz to the boiler room with ectoplasm (Animation goof, Maddie’s hood be off unlike previous showcase, ahahaha), including gagging their mouths with it. Jazz tries to play hero by punching him in the guts, but he merely and literally creates a hole around it that makes her arm pass through, then turns his neck a full 180 degrees (Holy Exorcist, Batman!), gets out two other duplicates to surround Jazz, remove her helmet, then shuts her up by gagging her as well when she screams, now dragged and joining the rest of her happy family, friends, and teacher as they inch closer to death.

Phantom gets ready to ensure his victory until--DA DA DAAAA, HALF GHOST POWAH! Danny comes back in time, now donning his backpack and a ultility belt. HOLY...something Batman puns. Where the hell he even got the backpack is questionable. Maybe he made a quick stop to his house or Vlad had a spare purple knapsack. Ahh, whatever it is, he tackles a surprised Phantom away, then flies to his family and friends, reassuring them that he will never end up like him. Ummm, geez, Danny, usually while Phantom is away, this would have been the PERFECT time to free your family, friends, and teacher from the boiling boiler of DEATH!

Phantom instead comes and Ecto-ropes the boy, pulling him closer to him. There Danny threatens him by basically stating he can’t kill him or otherwise he’ll create a paradox, but Phantom calmly replies he doesn’t have to, saying he just needs to waste time before his entire life falls apart. After all, “I’m still here, I still exist! That means you still turn into me.” With that said, he flings Danny away then aims for him. Danny phases his way underground causing his evil self to hit a lamp post (which he easily breaks through). Danny comes out with Ghost Gauntlets worn and Specter Deflector in hand. Yep, this kid definitely must have stopped by at his home at some point or at least taken remaining Fenton gadgets in future Vlad's home or something. Ahh, let's just say a wizard did it. He puts the belt on Phantom’s waist who immediately screams in agony of it’s power, causing Danny to smack him to an oil tank. Naturally, flame hair and oil don’t mix well and an explosion occurs. Blue fire decorates the majority of the street, but that doesn’t stop Phantom (hardly, there’s like NO dent on this guy) and he easily removes the Specter Deflector, grabs Danny by the arm and flings him to the ground. And no, he’s not gonna do anything sexual, no matter how much it sounds like it (although after Torn reads this part, he’ll be weeping in a corner that I put more sexual mental images of Phantom’s strange ways in his head). Phantom instead creates duplicates and in still shots (grrr), beats the shit out of Danny. Danny, hurt and near beaten cries out he promises to protect his loved ones to which Phantom merely laughs it off. Danny then surprises him once more by revealing his Ghostly Wail, something that throws Phantom off both literally and figuratively, seeing as he witnessed his younger self gain a power he won’t have for ten more years. “I guess the future isn’t set in stone as you think it is.” Danny responses, then he blows another Ghostly Wail on him, causing him to crash into a building…and a random car follows by, completely dismantling the building. Geez, it’s the ghostly equivalent of a demolition course.

Phantom comes out of the debris, now looking VERY worse for wear (including limited flame hair to the point where’s he’s near bald), proving nothing can keep this dude down. Danny takes this time to Fenton Thermos him while Phantom, too weak to fight back merely cries out he will be too late to stop his loved ones. Danny ignores him and quickly makes haste to their aids. Too weak to turn ghost from all the Ghostly Wails (the fact that he actually pulled off two very successful ones in just one battle is already a remarkable feat in itself), Danny falls as the Nasty Burger blows up, too late to stop them. Flung back from the explosion, time suddenly freezes. Out comes Clockwork who gives a time medallion to Danny. Danny snaps out when he finds himself frozen in time with Clockwork, but is happy to see his beloved friends and family plus one teacher were spared by the Master of Time. Danny is confused, so Clockwork gives him the best answer he can muster, metaphorically, “The Observants look at time as if they’re watching a parade, one thing after another passing by in sequence right in front of them. I see the parade from above, all the twists and turns it might…or might not take.” Seriously, this episode has some ridiculously GOOD lines.

“You knew all of this would happen. All of it! Even this part!” A shocked, but happy Danny cries out.
“Everything’s the way it’s suppose to be and here we are, with you, a 14 year old child, risking everything to save the people he care about.” As Danny finally realizes Clockwork is an ally who knew everything that was to come or has come and all that jazz, Clockwork then sends Danny back two hours earlier, the subtitle said…despite the fact that it’s 8:50AM on the clock and Lancer meets everyone at the Nasty Burger at 5PM. I’m terrible at Math, but that is SO NOT two hours apart. Maybe this is special Clockwork time or he secretly can’t count which in this case must be shameful to his Time Guardian status. SHAME…SHAAAAAAAAME.

Giving Danny the CAT answers, Clockwork disappears and time returns to normal. His friends eye him puzzlingly, but Danny merely smiles. He walks over to Lancer and confesses he peeked at the answer, but he’s “not a cheater and never will be.” Jazz, seeing all this with Fenton Peeler now realizes that is the real Danny and doesn’t need to assault him. Lancer, with a proud, but calm smile states he can retake the test at another day, saying he can study during detention. Danny, happy that his moral side is now fixed in the good scale (and looking just a little more nicer to God), he eyes Jazz outside to whom Lancer points to. She makes a small, embarrassed yelp and runs off.

Danny later waits outside the school steps until Jazz arrives, confident face he wears. “So, how long have you known?” He asks. Jazz assumes she means the test answer cheating thing she found out, so she confesses for days and states how proud she is that he confessed and did the right thing.

And the two siblings, after episodes of development, embrace each other in a warm hug, thus completing one more step in Jazz’s journey of character development. This is also one of my most favorite scenes ever. Jazz concludes that she’ll still be the same sister she always was, one which Danny would want either way. Then he’s ghost sense lets loose as the siblings witness a giant blobby green monster heading their way chasing a police car for some reason (the polices probably refuse to share their donuts to el fatso there). Jazz tells Danny to do his business and he goes ghost, flying up to the monster, now feeling better then ever. Delivering a punch, some of the green slime rubs off on Jazz who states “it’s gonna take some time getting used to.”

And once again, all of this is being watched by the The Observants and Clockwork who now has the Fenton Thermos containing Phantom. The Observants basically states he manipulated Danny into making the choice he did now, in short, he cheated.

“True, I cheated, but I assure you, his choice was his own.” Clockwork once again calmly states. Seriously, annoying guys always ragging on me--POW! STRAIGHT TO THE MOON! That said, the two then tells him he is now responsible for Danny and Phantom, the latter now existing outside of time.

“I know…but then, I know everything.”

With the last words of the episode spoken, Clockwork places the thermos down where Phantom tries in vain to escape, his evil laughter ringing. Yep, one of the few times a DP episode does not end with some comical hi-jinx that relates nothing to the overall plot, but instead on a cryptic, possible foreshadowing event that could unfold over the course of time…