Review: Young Justice: Phantoms “I Know Why the Caged Cat Sings”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

For Tigress, saving everyone may not be an option – unless help is offered from an unexpected source.

Our Take:

It doesn’t take a genius to understand why the caged bird sings. It also doesn’t take one to know that the mole is Cassandra Savage, as seen in last week’s episode. This week, we see Tigress and the others trapped in the lion’s den, with our hero struggling with a difficult decision.

“I Know Why the Caged Cat Sings” has Artemis, Jade, and Onyx surrounded by Lady Shiva and the Shadows while attempting to rescue Orphan. After a brief fight, Artemis and the others are unexpectedly saved by Shade, one of the League’s members, and manage to escape Shiva’s grasp. But, unfortunately, their troubles were far from over as Artemis was forced to make a difficult decision. Meanwhile, Clark Kent and his family deal with the loss of Superboy in Smallville. 

Once again, the episode takes several cues from an iconic novel. This time, it’s Maya Angelou’s 1969 autobiographical novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, regarding its themes of family and independence. The typical example of this is Jade, who’s dealing with her past sins during her quest, which ends with her staying with Ra’s al Ghul and Sensei on Infinity Island with Onyx. Like the previous episodes, this one worked wonders in making the references relevant to the novel despite my lack of knowledge of the source material.

This episode has it all: bloody violence, family drama, and topics you might not usually see in other superhero cartoons. These elements were nicely balanced with Greg Weisman’s script, solid direction, and strong performances from Stephanie Lemelin and Kelly Hu as Artemis and Jade, respectively. We’ve seen these two sisters grow throughout the show, even though they’re apart, and seeing this relationship come full circle here will surely put a huge smile on the fans’ faces. More importantly, it did its job in providing effective depth and exposition in the sisterly bond through its flashbacks, even for newcomers.

The main highlights in the episode were Clark Kent’s time in Smallville and the brief action scene between Artemis’ team and the Shadows. The subplot involving Clark’s family continues the season’s approach of coping with loss, similar to the previous episodes with Beast Boy and Miss Martian. The Clark Kent scenario is another superb example of the show’s handling of mature topics such as death, mainly with Clark talking to his son Johnny about Superboy’s passing. In my eyes, that scene was suitably poetic and well-executed regarding its approach to explaining death to a young child. The fight between Artemis and the League in the dark was the best sequence I’ve seen in the season so far. The combination of its swift animation and lighting helped provide plenty of tension and high stakes for the heroes.

Overall, “I Know Why the Caged Cat Sings” is an impressive blend of action and drama that’s worth singing about. Its storytelling, animation, and character development helped make this the best episode this season had to offer since the first two episodes. Not only that, but it is also a well-deserved conclusion to Artemis’s story arc that’s more light-hearted than Miss Martian’s story arc ending. Hopefully, this means we don’t have to worry about any more novel references in the future.