"Masters of All Time" is the thirty-sixth episode of the animated TV series Danny Phantom.
Plot[]
When Vlad receives Ecto-acne again, he coerces Danny to help him by infecting his friends with the same illness. Danny begs Clockwork to let him travel to the past to form a world where Vlad Plasmius does not exist. When he succeeds, Danny ends up in an alternate timeline where his mother, Maddie, has married Vlad and his father, Jack, is the bitter half-ghost.
Synopsis[]
At the Nasty Burger, Danny, Sam, and Tucker are hanging out peacefully until a panicking Jazz enters, desperately trying to hide from embarrassment in the forms of Jack and Maddie entering the fast food joint dressed in gaudy '80s clothing for an '80s-themed party. After they embarrass Danny by interacting with him (giving him his wallet, hugging him, etc.), Danny storms out the back door as his peers laugh, his friends following behind. Outside, he expresses how he wishes for more normal parents.
His anger is interrupted when Vlad Plasmius appears, turning human as he has another outbreak of ecto-acne. He begs for Danny's help to cure it, something the trio isn't willing to do. In order to force Danny to help him, Vlad infects Sam and Tucker with the same illness before falling unconscious.
Danny tries desperately to wake Vlad but instead gets ambushed by Jack and Maddie. He flies off while the parents eye Vlad, Sam, and Tucker, all infected while Jazz returns with a now-human Danny. The infected ones are taken to Fenton Works (the entire house now covered with biohazard sheets and signs), where they are examined. However, they are unable to find a cure for the three's ailment.
Danny threatens Vlad afterward when he proclaims his friends are running out of time, which gives the boy an idea to focus on finding a cure. Going to Clockwork's lair, Danny begs for him to send him to the past where he can prevent Vlad from ever getting ecto-acne in the first place, thus preventing him from acquiring ghost powers. Clockwork reluctantly does so, opening a portal to his parents' college days, warning him not to screw up time any further than he should.
Finding a flyer of the prototype ghost portal on the school bulletin board, Danny manages to find the laboratory where Jack, Maddie and Vlad are testing the proto-portal. Jack accidentally grabs a diet cola instead of the Ecto-Purifier, pours it into the Ecto-Filtrator, and activates the machinery behind the portal with it while Vlad tries to confess his love for Maddie.
Jack then activates the portal, but this time Danny pushes Vlad out the way. The ecto-energy ricochets off the walls and heads straight for Maddie. Vlad saves her in time, something she is grateful for. Danny ends up back in the present through Clockwork's help, satisfied he had managed to make a better future.
However, when he returns home, he finds the Fenton household is missing the Ops Center. Heading inside (now as a human), Danny finds the house is a complete mess. To further add to the shock Jack comes with ecto-acne on his face, wondering who Danny is.
The boy tries to convince him that he is Jack's son, but he claims he is single, bitter, and alone. He then angrily transforms into Jack Plasmius and commences to attack Danny (who also goes ghost as an act of self-defense).
Jack angrily fights Danny, stating his hatred of ghosts, saying it was the cause of him being separated from Maddie. Danny heads to the basement to go back to Clockwork, but unfortunately there is no ghost portal there. Danny tries to squeeze through the old proto-portal but instead finds a newspaper clipping of Vlad marrying Maddie.
Jack continues to try and destroy Danny until the latter convinces him to state what happened 20 years ago.
Jack explains the Ecto-Blast from the proto-portal ended up hitting him in the face, causing him to get ghost powers, while Vlad ended up with Maddie. With his powers, he tried to be a superhero (which was bad judgement on his part, as he had chased after a ghost that in reality was a kid in a ghost costume for Halloween), then he tried in vain to find a cure for his ailing half inside his home.
Danny states it was his fault he ended that way, going as far as showing a picture of the Fenton family from his wallet. This only further angers Jack who claims he is lying so he goes on the offensive, causing Danny to exit the house and leave to find his mother, hoping she has a ghost portal.
He goes to Vlad's manor, where he finds Vlad and Maddie, now a married couple. Calling Maddie his "mom" prompts the couple to invite him in and feed him, as well as question him on where his folks are. Danny answers the question then asks if they have a ghost portal to which Vlad vehemently shouts that they do not talk about ghosts, ever.
Danny points out the Ecto-Foamer sticking out partially from a nearby closet, to which Maddie quickly cries out that it is just a carpet foamer. Later that night, Danny searches in vain until he finds Maddie's secret ghost lab, including a ghost portal.
About to go in, he is ambushed by Maddie with her "Maddie Weasel" and strapped to a table where she hopes to dissect the half ghost. A desperate Danny once again states he is her son and that Jack still loves her despite what Vlad said to her (stating that Jack blamed her for his problems).
Jack suddenly flies down from nowhere to confirm this, going as far as showing Danny's wallet storing the photo of the Fenton family. Happy to be with Jack, she hugs him and then frees Danny. The two then hug the boy, now realizing he is from an alternate timeline.
Maddie opens the ghost portal for Danny to go through but Vlad interrupts, blasting the ghosts with the Ecto-Foamer. Danny, strapped to the table again, cries out that this is all wrong and none of this should be happening, something Vlad doesn't care for saying that he likes it this way so he'll not let anyone change his life the way it goes.
When Jack comes to save Danny by pushing Vlad away from the laser without letting him hurt his son, Vlad gets right back up and then shoots a laser beam in his way. Jack creates a shield, but the force of the laser blast pushes him to the ghost portal, causing it to overload (due to the combined energy of the portal, the laser, and the shield cause another explosion) and Jack to apparently die. Upset, Maddie sends Vlad flying into the ghost portal, where he is quickly hounded by various ghosts. She then tells Danny to fix the past. After he flies into the Ghost Zone, the portal explodes.
He returns to Clockwork who once again refuses, saying the most he'll do is fix the past to the way it was before Danny messed with it. He then observes it, noticing that Jack from 20 years back spilled Diet Cola inside the Ecto-Filtrator that worked the proto-portal, giving Danny an idea, one which Clockwork merely smiles at. Back in the Fenton household Sam, almost fading, struggles to tell those nearby to confess something to Danny.
However, Danny comes and suggests that his parents use Diet Cola for the cure. Maddie mixes up a batch that cures all three to great success, much to everyone's relief. Vlad suggests to Danny afterward to "let bygones be bygones," which Danny does... by sending him flying through the air.
The Fenton parents are on stage later that night for their '80s-themed party. Much to Jazz's further embarrassment, Danny (dressed in '80s clothing as well) joins in on the fun, saying he better appreciates his parents' past and present.
Series continuity[]
- This episode delves deeper into Vlad's college lab accident first shown in "Bitter Reunions."
Trivia[]
- Allusions: See List of allusions
- Goofs: See List of goofs
- Vlad's white hair was caused by the original ghost portal malfunction in his college days. But in the alternate timeline featured in this episode, his hair became white regardless.
- Additionally, in that same timeline, Jack was the one infected with the Ecto-Acne, but his hair didn't turn white. Instead, his hair remained black, as he didn't have the partially grey hair he had in the main timeline.
- Running gag 1: Since he is single, Jack got a cat and named it Jasmine, a reference to Maddie the cat.
- Character revelations:
- It is likely that Jack did not pick Danny's name.
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