Time for another scene analysis. This time we’re doing Ducktales. Now, I LOVE the reboot. The voice acting, the animation, the dialogue, the writing. Everything about the show is perfect. However, this here is one of my favorite scenes.

That’s right. Della’s return. Her expression is perfect here. You can actually feel her fear and nervousness. You can’t see it cause of the stillframe, but as you watch the episode you’ll notice her hand freezes and starts to shake. Her jaw even looks kinda clenched, as if she’s thinking “Come on, dummy! You can do this! Just move your fist two inches and knock!” Then while she’s practicing how to reunite, she isn’t satisfied with anything. Cause she knows there is no way to just casually pop into their lives like it’s not a big deal. In fact, she seems the most dissatisfied with the casual one of “Oh hey, didn’t see you there.” Her goofy little “Helloooo!” is also dissatisfying cause she knows this isn’t a time for humor. This is a VERY serious situation. I can’t quite determine why she’s also dissatisfied with “Greetings, children!” Probably because it sounds too cheesy. She knows this is, as she says, the most important moment of her life. This not only her first time seeing her sons in ten years, this is her first time seeing them EVER.

And then we cut to inside the mansion. Scrooge found a magical quill, which is a HUGE breakthrough for the gang’s adventuring career. We can tell this, cause we can clearly see how utterly excited Scrooge is, and hear it in his voice.

And then he opens the door and we see Della. And she reintroduces herself in the most Della fashion, dorkiest way possible. “SUP, party people?! I’m back in the hizou-oh, no. Knew it was wrong as soon as I said it. Sorry, that was terrible. Can I get a do-over?”

And these two shots are the absolute best. This is why I have no doubt Scrooge did most of the raising for Donald and Della. His face perfectly captures the emotion and relief of a parent who has found their child again. And Della’s perfectly captures a sheepish kid who (despite being gone for so long) thinks they’re gonna get yelled at.

And then Scrooge drops the quill here, shartering it to pieces. Because of Della, he (unintentionally) destroyed their big break at adventure. I’m not unconvinced that this is actually a parellel to him giving up adventuring previously for Della.

Two other shots I love that implies that Scrooge thinks of Della as a daughter. His body language is so clear here, “My baby is back. My baby’s alive and she’s home”

And his realization here is just heartbreaking. His niece/daughter was on on the moon the whole time and he had no idea even though he sent ships to the moon.

And this is just as heartbreaking. She may be alive, but it came with a cost. And he wasn’t even there to help her through it.