Review: Young Justice: Outsiders “Terminus”

One more episode before the 3-part finale.

The episode begins as Jefferson Pierce/Black Lightning begins to reel-in on the series of bullshit betrayal’s he’s just experienced. From Batman’s deception to Helga Jace playing with his heart for the sake of her own twisted goals. The scenes that later follow with him in this episode say so much with so little, but it’s an example of visual storytelling done right. While this is going on, the three Green Lanterns from Earth and the Justice League attack Granny Goodness’ “Orphanage” to rescue the kidnapped metahumans. But, given how powerful Halo is under Granny’s control, it goes about as well as you’d expect… Of course, the same can’t be said of the other heroes. Dick/Nightwing is back in commission, barely. And M’gann/Miss Martian and Connor/Superboy are having their typical couple-argument, and Connor is less than thrilled that M’gann would conspire to lie to so many of the heroes about their plans. But even more so, because of their staged battles which were meant to give positive hero-buzz all over the world. It should also be noted that during the course of Season 2, this couple had a similar conversation before when M’gann used her mental abilities without consent on Superboy, and the time she fried Kaldur’s brain despite not knowing he was deep undercover which really nearly tore them apart that time, but for me, it’s hard to give a shit about this couple when every season tries to forcibly find new excuses to keep them from being a happy due to the ethically questionable gray area’s of Miss Martian using her mind powers on people.

As they remain unsure where Violet is for their upcoming rescue mission, out of sheer happenstance they receive a surprise visitor, Vandal Savage! (voiced by David Kaye) While Savage himself is normally a powerful, immortal super-genius, He’s at least civilized enough to share Halo’s coordinates. But of course, the only condition he demands in return is that He wants the team to let Halo’s kidnapper know that Savage sent them (possibly as a big middle-finger to Granny for ditching the Light for Darkseid’s goals). Upon getting to Violet’s location, all this seems too damn easy, as it turns out the location is Granny Goodness’ base called the “Orphanage” where possibly thousands of Meta-Kids were forcibly kidnapped and maybe even brainwashed to be part of Darkseid’s army. During a battle, Nightwing gets knocked in the face by a parademon, and it’s here when things take a more interesting & nostalgic direction as Dick not only starts to hallucinate visions of a surprisingly familiar face, but also imagines that the former Young Justice team are together once again with classic uniforms and all. Somehow, this nostalgia-trip helps Nightwing complete the mission, but since M’Gann had psychically connected the team in advance, everything Nightwing ‘saw’, they saw as well. It’s easily the most heartfelt & badass moment in this episode because even after losing someone close to them, they’ve never really gone in their hearts.

After the battle, Connor even gives Dick some much-needed wisdom about learning to be a better and different leader than Batman. At the same time this is going on, the Markov siblings (Brion & Terra) along with Forager find Halo but Granny Goodness has a backup plan – she proceeds to use the anti-life equation and predictably, has turned the Justice League (Who made a valiant effort earlier to attack granny and failed) into mindless puppets and she sets them on the Outsiders. This also leads to a conflicting decision Miss Martian may have to do to counter the “Anti-Life” stuff Granny is dishing out despite Superboy’s objections, but just as they attempt to, the episode ends on a somewhat bleak and uncertain note leaving us to wonder what happens next…

Our Take

Damn! Even after the drama shit-storm of last week, this was quite an episode. A lot of really great moments, with the highest stakes the show has laid out so far, even if it’s mostly set up for the large-scale event.

It’s also easy to assume that Vandal Savage and the Light aren’t the types to just sit quietly while the Earth is enslaved. I guess we’ll see how it all ends next week.