Review: Young Justice: Outsiders Eps 24-26 (Season Finale)

 

We’re finally here, the last three episodes of Season 3 and with a large number of heroes who have fallen victim to Granny Goodness’ mind control via the “anti-life equation”, all hell could potentially break loose. So without further ado, we begin with…

“Into the Breach”

Cyborg & Beast Boy are following in on a lead of their own regarding the whereabouts of Granny Goodness with a series of fun reveals about Cyborg learning to access some powers even he didn’t know he had after he was able to heal himself from the Mobius Chair incident. When they find a solid lead within a movie studio and “Boom-Tube” their way in. Of course, it goes about as well as you’d expect given that this is Granny Goodness we’re talking about, She has to be smart enough to have some sort of contingency plan for any possible intruders. Granny offers Beast Boy a wager to fight her and if he wins, she’ll let him and his teammates go. It’s an entertaining, yet brutal fight scene that further emphasizes how much of a threat Granny can be in single combat alone, especially against Beast Boy’s animal changing powers.

While this is going on, Cyborg attempts to access cyberspace while his physical form is trapped, and in a surprising piece of fanservice, manages to defeat the source of Granny’s Powers which is basically a mini-computer called “Overlord”. As Cyborg proceeds to follow he’s able to find the heroes who were all enslaved from the previous episode and manages to free them and Violet in the process leading to another badass action sequence, In the end, Granny’s Operation is now destroyed and all the “Meta-Teens” are liberated from her space-prison called “The Orphanage”. The episode ends on an uncertain note when Lex Luthor’s answer to the Outsiders’, Infinity Inc, begin to out-trend the Outsiders in terms of popularity.

“Overwhelmed”

You’d think the previous episode would’ve been the season finale, but taking place on Valentines Day, we get to see the aftermath of all the teens who were liberated from Granny’s “Orphanage”, who all have their powers activated and are getting the proper treatment they deserve, while the Light decides to “set their plan in motion”. As this is happening, we’re even seeing small glimpses of Artemis/Tigress possibly moving on with Will Harper, of course, it’s not that easy for Artemis who’s seems to still be reeling-in from the loss of Wally who died in season 2’s finale. As Artemis makes a phone call to Zatanna for a private matter, Connor/Superboy takes Forager to a hidden community of refugee creatures called “Genomorphs” whom much like Superboy himself were bi-products of cloning experiments by Lex Luthor’s “Project Cadmus” to create artificial superheroes he could control, until they were liberated and given their own personal sanctuary. As Connor gets the Genomorph Mayor to help Forager be himself now that he no longer knows what to do now that his people are free from Granny’s control. It’s abundantly clear that Artemis’s desire to see Wally has reached a ridiculous level where she seeks Zatanna to help psychically take her to Limbo so she can interact with him and give her the proper closure she didn’t exactly have when he died, and to give a sense of urgency to the proceedings, Artemis has to return before sunrise or she’ll be trapped out of her body forever.

While we do get a scenes with Metron warning Halo & Cyborg of an oncoming war that may possibly happen with Darkseid as he potentially sees them as obstacles to his goal of conquest, Forager learns about the origins of this hidden community and a hardens his resolve to do more for acceptance and encourage Superboy to do more for Genomorph representation, while Terra slowly becomes a subtle version of her comic book rendition from “The Judas Contract”, The real heart of this episode is about Artemis’s need to live the life she feels was denied to her away from Wally and the desires she could’ve had if he were still alive. It’s all the more heart-wrenching knowing all of this is a simulation and Artemis never wants to face the reality of all of it, but we do get a heartfelt scene when Wally encourages Artemis to properly move on, no matter how painful her past experiences were of losing Wally but decides to not pursue a relationship with Will preferably on mutual and civil terms. The episode ends on an intense cliffhanger, as Brion & Terra’s homeland of Markovia is being taken over once more by their shitty supervillain relative Baron Bedlam as an indirect result of a private text message Terra sent to Slade.

“Nevermore”

Because of Lex Luthor’s “U.N Secretary” status giving him the power to push restrictions on the Justice League in an effort to keep them from liberating Markovia themselves, along with keeping them from helping other countries outside their jurisdiction, the Outsiders who thankfully aren’t bound to these laws proceed to take on Bedlam and split into 3 groups to raid Markovia, with the primary “Alpha” group consisting of Beast Boy, Cyborg, Geoforce, and Terra taking on the Baron, While Beta squad booms in to take out whatever backup the Baron has left as a means of defense, While the 3rd team “Gamma” that’s simply the living “Bioship” is stopping Bedlam’s team from executing forces loyal to Brion’s brother. As Luthor and Slade/Deathstroke being the arrogant douche’s they are, they confidently think they got this, not caring if Terra’s actions will ruin the public image of metahumans by making her kill Beast Boy on camera. And Jefferson/Black Lightning and Oracle/Barbara are in her cave with Barbara cluing Jefferson in on their plan. During the raid, a good portion of the episode is spent on the family throwdown between Terra and Geo Force against Bedlam. It’s a decent battle between the Markovian royal relatives whom based on observation, all have powers that seem synonymous with the earth element in different ways. When Brion and Terra finally take control of the situation, Slade gives her the signal to kill Beast Boy, and that’s when Jefferson pops up on their screen telling Luthor and Deathstroke in his own words to go fuck themselves which at least gave me a chuckle. But of course, the heart of this episode is when everyone but Brion knew about Terra secretly taking orders from Slade the whole time.

Artemis talks Terra into sparing Beast Boy’s life because letting her choose good was more important than blowing up Luthor’s plan when they first found out about it earlier in the season. But because Brion wasn’t in the loop about Terra’s ongoing betrayal, I kept expecting the writers to follow the same story-beats as “The Judas Contract” where Terra betrays everyone at the behest of Deathstroke, but shockingly, it instead subverted my expectations in ways I wouldn’t have expected, but for an unrepentant dick-hole like Baron Bedlam to be stopped, a price had to be paid that not only changes the status quo of our young heroes, but creates a massive divide between them and Markovia… In the aftermath, We do see a montage of massive changes going on, especially some major changes regarding Brion, The Light, and Darkseid, but Nightwing calls a massive meeting for the League to lay out all their proverbial dirty laundry that’s been going on behind the scenes and apologize for all of it in an effort to set the team on a better path and does this by nominating Black Lightning to be chairman of the League, and he wins by acclamation as they need someone like him to keep the Superhero community honest and fair for everyone. In the final scenes that follow, they even show Connor/Superboy stepping publicly outing Luthor, while Luthor hilariously goes as far as to use the ‘Fake News” Trump allegory to defend himself. But positive yet bittersweet montage, it ends on two cliffhangers. one before the credits involving a ring Connor is wearing and an even funnier cliffhanger during and after the credits a fan-favorite DC character that was hilariously foreshadowed in the credits of “Overwhelmed”.

Our Take

This was one hell of a way to end the season’s central conflict while leaving things open for the recently announced Season 4. So much action, dramatic tension, and weight were displayed here, and thankfully the drama was enough to keep me compelled while also downplayed in places, especially the bullshit will they/won’t they dynamic between Connor and Miss Martian. Cyborg clearly had his moment to shine in “Into the Breach” with how he came to grips with his powers, while Artemis had her’s in “Overwhelmed” but the last episode “Nevermore” mattered the most as the major turning point between the Markov royal family has changed the hero status quo in such a way that it didn’t predictably go down the way I imagined it would. While the world has gained a passable level of peace, that peace often comes with a price. And after the shit that went down, I’m not even sure anything will ever be resolved with how things played out, but at this time it all remains uncertain.

While I can’t give away the many twists that happened within these three episodes, it was a solid way to end season 3. And if you check out the full list of season 3 episodes, there’s a cryptic message hidden in the titles of season 3 that can be found by putting together every first letter of the episode titles in sequential order. (Points to you if you can decipher it, but it shows how clever the writers were in making this.)

Overall, a great way to end season 3 and I’m curious where they’ll go next given that the piece of jewelry Connor is wearing is something that will be familiar to DC fans everywhere.