With Walker rounding up the last of his prisoners, there's one left on his list; Danny Phantom. Revenge on his mind, Walker stages an invasion of Amity Park with his guards. The plan; overshadow Danny's inner circle, beat the living daylights out of him,
9.8
"Superb"
The first new episode in many a day, "Public Enemies" marks the beginning of the new batch of aired eps for "Danny Phantom" and gives us another twist to the story. It is not a move into a fourth act for Season One, but takes Act III to a new level.
With Walker rounding up the last of his prisoners from "Prisoner of Love," there's one left on his list; Danny Phantom. With revenge on his mind, Walker stages a hostile invasion of Amity Park with his guards. A prisoner, Wulf, is brought out to sniff out and distract Danny while Walker handles the dirty work. The plan; overshadow Danny's inner circle, beat the living daylights out of him, and turn Amity Park against him. As the invasion wears on, it appears Walker will succeed; Danny is labelled Public Ghost Enemy #1!
This episode stared out a bit of a tricky one. As one of my "Must-See Four" ("Public Enemies," "Lucky in Love," "Maternal Instinct," and "Million Dollar Ghost") it pretty much lived up to my expectations. I at first thought it was a bit bland. But in light of "Lucky in Love" and a few extra viewings, I feel compelled to raise my rating for this one. It really was a wonderful episode.
The opening was really amazing. I had not expected Wulf to be tied to Walker, or the ghosts in the invasion to necessarily be Walker's guards. Bullet was interesting as the Number 2 man and Wulf was a really lovely character. This is one of the most complex plans laid out by a villain on *any* network, made even more notable by the fact that Nickelodeon rarely allows all this detail, and the fact that Walker didn't want Danny back in his prison struck me as very interesting coming from his character and was a pleasant surprise.
The handling of Walker's plot was very well done. I had expected Sam and Tuck to be overshadowed when I read the episode description, but the fact that so much damage was done by people that weren't as close to Danny as immediate family and friends made it seem all the more sinister and incredible. The fact that Walker and company could use the voices of the people they ruled over and disguise their eyes shows just how much Danny has yet to learn. On the flip side, the fact that he quickly took care of Walker's guards shows his developing powers, though I get the feeling that ghosts aren't as strong when confined to human form. By the time the ep was over, we see that Walker did not win. Danny's town is against him, but his spirit is far from crushed. That seemed to be his intent, and he failed. This seemed like a more important victory than stopping Walker's plans, and Danny's resolution to stay the hero was very noble.
The animation in this episode was *amazing*. The keyer from the park scene in SoG and the second half of FN is back, but he seems like he's managed to end the choppiness in his sequences. His animation is now very fluid and easy, and his fight sequences were *incredible*. However, his way of drawing Walker didn't really work. I like his slimmer, sharper, more angular designs for most of the characters, but his work with Walker really rubbed me the wrong way. But watching all the wonderful fight sequences, that became very easy to forget. I feel it's the best piece of animation on all of Nickelodeon now.
The colouring in this episode varied a lot. From the theatrical blues and muting reminiscent of BR to the blood-red skies of MBK, and finally to the stylised blues and pinks of the park fight in SoG. This felt a bit uneven to me at first. The colouration has never bothered me before except in FN, because besides FN, the colours always seemed to match the episode and change and style themselves as the story and the scenes demanded. Here, there did not appear to be any such reasoning behind the colour scheme's jumpiness at first, but at hindsight, it did seem to have some pattern to it and worked out really well.
The action sequences, as I said, are *incredible.* They've stolen the title of "Best Action" from OoaK in my opinion. Cinematic camera tricks, pans and zooms abound, quick-cutting, loads of energy, and so many different elements to the fights really shine in this episode. Kudos to the storyboard artists, keyers, animators, and to the directors for a job well done!
The character work here was really wonderful, with the trio going into full work and Jack and Maddie really putting their talents to use. Well, Maddie anyway. There was a little hint of set-up for "Lucky in Love," and the villains and Wulf were very well done. Jazz was very well-done as well. I would have liked to see Tucker and Sam around a bit more this time, though. For some reason they seemed absent for too long in the story. And like the scenes in FN, the trio's behaviour to Lancer's being chased down by the Fentons after eps like TotY really bugged me.
Speaking of Lancer...the voice actors in this ep were excellent for the most part, with David Kaufman really giving Danny his all and Walker having some genuine menace to his voice. However, Lancer's and Maddie's voices seemed really off for the entire episode, Lancer especially. It was almost like there was another actor doing his voice instead of Ron Perlman. Tucker's voice bugged me once or twice, but these two really seemed off.
The dialogue also seemed pretty bad in a few spots. "Go Ghost Sting?" Cheesy "hero" lines by Maddie instead of Jack? (Jack actually seemed a bit *too* stupid, actually) This really annoyed me. I guess superhero cliches in dialogue were bound to show up eventually. This is also the first time Danny has said "Going Ghost!" since BR. Guess the sting from Vlad's little insult wore off ;)
All in all, I'd say it was a really good episode, with an excellent plot, tremendous photography and action, and an excellent mover for the show's plot points. Little things in the animation, the VAs, the character behaviour, and the dialogue kept bugging me at first, but now, those are easy to overlook, and this has become a wonderful episode for me.
9.8 out of 10.