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The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks
This episode continues the reboot’s trend of adding its own elements alongside putting its own spin on the familiar. While it did a very commendable job with Lena a while back, the reboot-exclusive elements here is kind of mixed.
At a club made for billionaires comes a sudden appearance of a tech developer called Mark Beaks. His main trait is being up to date with the latest trends, innovating with new technology and staying relevant on social media. As a character, these qualities can be seen as fairly enjoyable or somewhat excessive and dated, so that puts his entertainment value in a conflicting place. Looking at the main plot, Huey and Dewey, taking a keen interest in Mark’s ways, learn that the tech developer is looking for an intern and they’re inspired to apply for the job. Even as they say they’ll approach competing for the position fairly, it’s very easy to tell that this position will come between them.
Within this standard plot though, there’s solid entertainment coming from exploring his company, Waddle. For such a major business said to have made millions, the whole place is practically one big playground from an abundance of trampolines and slides to everything made of candy. In addition to the fun environment, the main conflict does a solid job of demonstrating a point of favor to this entire reboot. It highlights the newly formed individuality of the nephews that other incarnations of the characters never touched upon. Competing for the internship shows off Huey’s specific trait of being obsessively detail oriented with Dewey’s more laid back approach of taking the easy way through the job. While the former certainly has a serious and more responsible approach to business, the latter treats the job offer as something cool and develops a good rapport with the staff. In Mark’s eyes, they both seem to show good potential, though his thought process is very random. After a random stint of the boys bringing him coffee for certain times, he declares Huey the intern but out of nowhere decides to make young Dewey a vice president. It does show off more good individuality in the characters with Huey suffering a breakdown over things going against everything he calculated.
While Waddle certainly seems like a fun business place, one can’t help but feel there’s something phony about all this. It’s like the episode is smart enough to point out that even the best seeming companies have a catch to them. A lot of that is displayed in scenes featuring Scrooge and Flintheart Glomgold contemplating Mark Beaks and how untrustworthy he is. The two rival billionaires even consider teaming up to take him down, though Flintheart is much more demented in his scheme that goes to ridiculous lengths.
A big factor to his plan is that he’s at least clear that he plans on betraying everyone when all is said and done, unlike Mark himself. This is especially notable with his constant mentions of an amazing sounding plan called Project Ta-Dah, especially to a threatening looking agent, Falcon Graves. For all Mark’s talk, the nature of the project is very vague and just a cover for its truth later on; that being that the project doesn’t exist. It’s nothing more than a big empty room whose sole purpose is to build up hype from the name alone. Because Graves is the one who invested in Mark becoming rich, it’s way too easy to side with him when he attacks him. While Huey and Dewey reconciling and appreciating each other’s virtues is nice after learning the truth, it’s concerning that they still feel like Mark is the one who needs help. Even so, while their strengths do save Mark, they do give him some karma by posting an embarrassing picture of him on social media. Plus, it seems like Mark does get some comeuppance when he’s suddenly roped into Flintheart’s convoluted scheme of going to a fake yacht party. It’s never seen, so whatever happens is up to audience interpretation.
In spite of a questionable character and basic plot, the execution brings enough solid fun and chemistry from those involved.
B+
Series Ranking
1.
The House of the Lucky Gander
2.
The Beagle Birthday Breakout
3.
The Impossible Summit of Mt. Neverrest
4.
Daytrip of Doom
5.
The Great Dime Chase
6.
Escape To/From Atlantis
7.
Woo-oo
8.
The Infernal Internship
of Mark Beaks
The next episode takes Scrooge and the team to Egypt where they find a group of mummies with limited knowledge of the outside world and worship their own fabricated god.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is "Your Ed Here" and "The Good Ol' Ed" from Ed Edd n Eddy.
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