Review: Young Justice: Outsiders Episodes 4-6

We are here for this part.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
Unlike last week’s first three episodes, which felt sort of like an hour long movie, this feels much more like three separate episodes of a season of television. And while each of them has recurring plots and themes throughout, they are very much separated by their respective A-Plots. “Private Security” sees Dick returning with the rest of his makeshift team and going to Bowhunter Security, run by Roy, Jim, and Will Harper, AKA the former Arsenal, Guardian, and Red Arrow (which must be payback for my knocking the double-casting from last week since they’re all voiced by Crispin Freeman). “Away Mission” mostly focuses on Miss Martian taking the remaining members of The Team on a mission to New Genesis to quell manipulation by someone close to M’gann, as well as the debut of new addition Forager.

“Private Security” acts as a bit of a breather after the intenseness of the first three episodes, along with being a chance for our new cast to get their bearings after having to relocate to America. It’s also a chance to, as I said, make jokes about how weird and hilarious the deal with the Harper siblings is AND how they all have the same voice. This is basically a “comedy episode” for the most part, but aside from it doubling down on a minor thing that irked me, I found the attempts at humor a bit too…weird to really laugh at. But Dick getting a good talking to by Will was cathartic, plus seeing them all in their costumes at the end was a nice final image.

Then there’s “Away Mission”, which feels more like going back to basics with this show, or at least back to early Season 2. While characters like Static, Blue Beetle, Kid Flash II, and Wonder Girl are out of the spotlight they got last season, it’s good to see they’re not slouching in their hero work, especially now that they’re what’s left of the team that started way back in the first episode. Though with the rise of Batman Incorporated and the slowly forming Outsiders, they ARE becoming redundant, but it’s a good check-in regardless. And as for M’gann’s newly revealed brother, I understand in how there’s things we’re still learning about her after all this time, but I don’t know where this “White Martian Revolution” is headed in terms of story importance. The main lasting contribution is the introduction of Forager, who gives Jason Spisak a reason to return to the cast.

However, both of those episodes show the gradual growing kinship between Brion, Halo, Dr. Jace, and the rest of the team, which leads to “Rescue Op”. Brion, Halo, and Forager end up sneaking out to follow a lead to Brion’s sister Tara, similar to the first two episodes of the series where Dick, Kaldur, and Wally snuck away to eventually find Conner. This episode felt like the most plot relevant as it directly continues the story from last week, as well as shedding more light on how things have changed in the world since last season AND what will be coming. So, I think it’s safe to say I liked this one the most out of the three, especially since it gave the main six a little bit of a reunion, though with Payton and Spisak in different roles.

The Hive Five:

Okay, it’s technically just three, but I’m counting the Bio-Ship and Sphere so the rhyme can make sense. Now that we’ve brought in and fleshed out more of the newbies, let’s take a quick look at where they’re starting out as heroes. I probably won’t find as much to talk about them every week, so this analysis will serve as a milestone to revisit at the end of the season.

Brion:
I touched on Brion a bit when covering last week’s episodes, but I think this is worth revisiting now that he’s finding his team. Between the three of the new cast, it feels like he’s lost the most, or at least is more aware of how much. He’s been exiled from his country right after almost losing his life saving it, is used to being royalty and so is having trouble adjusting to life among the common people, and is still having a lot of trouble learning to control his new powers, on top of still having no idea what’s happening with his missing sister. Basically, as other characters put it, he’s a bundle of rage not unlike Conner in Season 1. And now with a potential sibling face-off looming between him and a (possibly) brainwashed Tara, it looks like life is not done kicking Brion in the pebbles.

Halo:
Halo AKA Gabrielle AKA Violet is becoming a lot more verbose since dying twice in Markovia. As her light powers develop further (Red lights for shields, Orange for flight, Yellow for lasers, and Violet for healing), she also starts regaining glimpses of her former life as a Quraci refugee, a life that she seems to want to leave behind as fast as she can. In that life’s former space, it turns out she’s surprisingly knowledgeable in the New Gods and their worlds, even having a special bond with Sphere, a machine from New Genesis. What that could possibly mean, I haven’t a clue, but what I do know is that I’m not particularly looking forward to how her budding crush on Brion will play out. I don’t think this series is especially BAD at writing relationships, but I do think the romantic ones do tend to end up on the overdramatic side.

Forager:
We’ve only had a couple episodes to get to know Forager, but already I can tell he’s not going to be that hard to figure out. Being a…well, BEING from New Genesis will likely help to make the matters involving Darkseid and the New Gods more personal, as well as a possible way for him to rebuild his relationship with his “hive” that abandoned him for asking the New Gods for help. Though unless he can find a way to camouflage, he’s a bit limited in what he can do on Earth between missions. That said, Spisak has shown to be very good at the “light-hearted comedic relief” role and brings that to Forager’s performance pretty well. Hopefully there’ll be more to say about Forager in the future, but for now, he’s just…nice and…there.

Filling in the Blanks:
One of Young Justice’s double-edged swords is its considerable time skips between seasons. Five years passed between the first two seasons and some of that has been covered in comics and games, leaving us pretty in the dark about things like Dick’s moving on to being Nightwing or the induction of the latter two Robins, Jason and Tim, as well as Jason’s (apparent) death. However, it also allowed us to see how the show’s characters have grown at a rate that would normally take a series five or six seasons to reach. Now there looks like a two year gap between Invasion and Outsiders that is virtually unknown.

The most notable blank so far is the gradual dissolution of the Justice League, but this week’s batch also brought us another thing to question: the creation of Bowhunter Security. Last time we checked in on Arsenal-Roy in the show, he was being thrown off the team for nearly sucking them into space, but it seems now he’s made peace with his younger clone “brothers” and gone into business with them. It’s heartwarming to see, but I feel like I would’ve liked to see how some of these developments started as opposed to continuously jumping into the middle. And I really hope we get some confirmation that Roy finally made up with Ollie.

Picking up the Pieces:
Additionally, there seems to be more initiative to check back in with plots and subplots established in the first season, including some that were apparently cut from Season 2 back when that aired. The biggest standout being the revisiting of Zatanna and Zatara after he put on Doctor Fate’s helmet in an episode that aired nearly SEVEN YEARS AGO…which actually works out pretty well with the in-universe timescale, since it’s been over seven years there too, and now father and daughter only get to see each other for one hour every year on her birthday before Zatara has to go back in the helmet again (and without even getting a change of clothes!). Honestly, I had kind of hoped something like this would happen and it’s nice to see the writers had the same idea. So, knowing this show is very well aware of its established history, I look forward to the future deep cuts we’re likely to see as the season continues.

OVERALL:
These three episodes are a little less streamlined in story than the last three, though I suppose some cracks were bound to show in releasing three episodes of a season at once. Regardless, the season continues to provide the shocks and occasional laughs, remaining a rock solid continuation of this long awaited series. So far, my greatest gripe is that, once this month is over, we’re going to have to say goodbye again for another four months. But for now, it’s totally crash.

Score
8/10