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Stew’s Young Justice Retrospective: Season 1, Episodes 23 – 24
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Animation
The Banshees Of Inishiren: A Young Justice Retrospective, S 1 E23-24
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Episode 23
We open up this episode in Star City… and with the evil Spider-Man we saw several episodes ago. He tries killing a dude, but Green Arrow and Artemis stop and defeat him. After the triumphant moment, Artemis heads home, allowing Roy to step out of the shadows and talk to Green Arrow. He still doesn’t trust Artemis! Green Arrow tells him to keep his shit in order because he made the Justice League’s cut down and should be on the team by year’s end. He just needs to play nice with Young Justice.
We cut to Belle Reve and see SportsMaster free someone who is kept secretively shadowed!
Elsewhere in Belle Reve, Dr. Ivo is taunting Dr. Morrow’s aged, incapacitated form.
SportsMaster and the shadowy figure board a truck leaving Belle Reve, and oh, the figure he freed was just Dr. Ivo. Okay, that all was a choice then. Why even bother shadowing Ivo TWO MINUTES AGO?! What is going on here?! We, of course, see that the Ivo teasing Morrow is an android with Hugo Strange.
Off now to Artemi and her mom, and we find out her mom used to be Huntress! After Artemis saved Kid Flash from Amazo, she met with Batman and Green Arrow and begged them to let her daughter join up with Young Justice. Artemis HATES this news, by the way, that her mom begged her to be on the team. She figures she was let on out of pity and not merit.
SportsMaster brings Ivo to Klarion, Mallah, and the Brain, and after some villainy bickering, they decide to work together.
Meanwhile, NOTHING is coming up Milhouse for Artemis. After Eye Of The Tiger-ing herself up and deciding she has nothing to prove to anyone, she heads to Mount Justice and sees Roy has joined his former friends on the team. So she is feeling replaced as the team archer. She demands to join the mission of team members going after SportsMaster, using the fact that she is one of the best Bioship fliers there.
On the Bioship, Wally reads that Artemis is pissy as hell, and he reassures her that she has nothing to prove to anyone. Elsewhere on the ship, Roy tells Aqualad that he still thinks there is a mole on the team, and today, he thinks it is Artemis. But this changes with the wind for this dude. He blames EVERYONE.
Back at the cave, a bored Superboy, M’Gann, and Zatanna decide to see what Red Tornado’s private quarters are like. Ah, our thrilling B-side plot: What size fridge does Red Tornado have in his room?
The team finds SportsMaster, and Artemis abandons her post aboard the Bioship to fight Cheshire. Chesh says that working with SportsMaster is not her call. Curious! Red Arrow gets involved before we can get any more info, though, and Cheshire starts flirting with/at him.
As SportsMaster speedboats away, Red Arrow makes a tracer shot onto the boat that Artemis could/would not, and Cheshire taunts her for this. Wally still reaffirms his faith in Artemis and tells Red Arrow to quit bad-mouthing her.
From here, we get a very frustrating game of Tracer Royale. SportsMaster loses his tracer. Artemis tracers Cheshire. Then she tracers a train going in the opposite direction. She goes after the REAL tracer on Chesh, while the team follows the train tracer, thinking it is Cheshire. Artemis figures when they catch it, they’ll assume Cheshire found and ditched the tracer. Red Arrow, meanwhile, has tracered Artemis and follows her and her real tracer to Cheshire.
And I never, ever, ever want to talk about tracers ever again, okay? Can we do that, Young Justice? This segment made me dizzy.
Back at the cave, Superboy, Megan, and Zatanna find a human looking robot body under a tarp in Red Tornado’s room. He flies back in (best moment of the episode: Wolf was on lookout duty but just went to sleep instead) and explains he wants an alter ego so he can walk amongst humans as a normal dude. Zatanna gives his new body pants.
And that’s it for our B-plot. Red Tornado gets pants.
And on that note, let’s get a visit from the Ghost Of Memes Past.
SportsMaster brings the abducted Starro arm to Klarion and Ivo, and they start casting a spell on it. Didn’t… didn’t the bad guys already HAVE this? What was with the train robbery that SportsMaster pulled to get it?
This episode makes me feel like I just woke up from a coma.
Back to the fight, all the bad guys teleport away because whatever; I don’t care anymore.
Back at Mount Justice, Wally—who spent the entire episode backing up Artemis and defending her to his friend Red Arrow–finds out about the Tracer-Go-Round games she was playing. He is now disappointed in her and takes her fraudulent tracer as his mission souvenir. Then Red Arrow gives her some more crap.
The episode ends with SportsMaster showing up in Artemis’ room and revealing he is her dad. He wants her to join him with The League Of The Shadows, as the good guys will never end up accepting her.
Episode 24
It’s time to make like Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleason because we starting this 24th episode with The Banshees Of—I mean, we are starting it In Bruges!
We are with the traveling Haly’s Circus, and their star attractions: The Daring Dangers, trapeze artists! They are, of course, just Young Justice in circus gear. Robin does a trapeze jump, but misses catching Megan’s hand and starts to fall!
He ends up being saved by Robin and Superboy, but it turns out he has some kind of cold affecting his performance.
We get a flashback of Robin putting the team together, saying Batman wants them on this mission. He enlists Artemis, Megan, and Conner. Roy demands a spot because he don’t trust NONE of those other three with Robin. Roy is getting more annoying than Conner this damn season. At least Conner has a reason: he’s a few months old. Roy’s just a petulant jerk.
Back at the circus, there are blonde twins who are upset that Young Justice is taking their top billing with the circus, but that’s not really our story, as we see an Interpol agent named Farraday questioning Mr. Haly. There have been robberies at every stop the circus has been at. Aren’t there robberies every day everywhere in this universe? Giant starfish limbs get stolen by the same people twice!
In Bruges, Robin has figured out the most likely target for the next robbery, so he has the team on a stakeout despite his still being sick. They see a disguised acrobat sneak into the facility they are watching. With the threat being a circus acrobat, surely it’s time for… Superboy to put on his Superman patch? What? What are you doing, Conner?
Does he use the patches back home when he helps Megan cook—oh, I forgot, he doesn’t do that.
Once inside, it seems like the fire-breather is doing the thieving because he turns and sets the building ablaze. Conner is seemingly enraged from his patch but cools down enough to be reminded to save Megan from the harm of the fire. Red Arrow and Artemis team up to save a sickly Robin.
Farraday questions Haly about yet another robbery, but Haly covers for his whole circus, saying they were in bed, though Young Justice knows that the five of them, at least, weren’t. So he is lying. Still, Robin believes Haly is innocent in all of this. Megan wants to read some minds and get some answers, but Red Arrow tell her he doesn’t trust her. OF ALL PEOPLE, Artemis tries to cool Roy down and say they would all give their lives for the team.
This was the circus Robin was a part of in his youth, and he trusts Haly implicitly. It’s revealed in a call to Kid Flash that Robin lied about Batman sending them on this mission; this one is all Dick’s idea.
With the show over and the circus no longer wanting to be In Bruges, a brusque Haly tells everyone to load up in a hurry, and we see several other circus members have the same cold as Robin. Robin is actually feeling better here, but now Megan is sick!
She asks who knew a Martian could get an Earth cold, and Robin responds “H.G. Wells?”
Haly shapeshifts into the big, blonde guy in the circus, Ray The Roustabout, and I can’t stress enough how much I love that word. No idea what it means, but it sound great.
The team splits up to find the missing Ray, but instead find a tied up Haly. Again, Superboy decides this must be a Patch occasion. They encounter a clown, and he has Megan’s Martian powers; it turns out it is Parasite! He absorbs the Kryptonian powers from Conner and flies away with the items he has been stealing at each stop.
Having stolen a flash drive from Parasite, Robin deduces he is making a BLACK HOLE GENERATOR WHAT THE WHAT?! So he’s just committing suicide now or what? Does this show know what black holes would do?! It sure doesn’t seem like it.
They head to Geneva, the next stop on the tour, to catch Parasite, so Superboy patches back up. This is a limited supply, right? He doesn’t have infinite patches. Quit using all your patches! I know a plot point when I see one.
Parasite’s about to open a black hole (sigh), but Superboy bounds in after him and gets fed on AGAIN. God damn, you are having a rough episode, Conner. You used three patches and not one of them was worth the time or effort to put on.
The heroes trick Parasite into setting the lab on fire with heat vision, whereupon Miss Martian’s weakness kicks in, causing him to pass out from the flames. The team shuts down the generator, and Farraday arrests and collars Parasite.
After the success of the mission, Red Arrow admits he no longer thinks there is a mole. Superboy, Megan, and Artemis (who are admittedly each hiding a pretty big secret, though at least the League knows Artemis’) could have betrayed the rest at any time and did not.
Robin, as Dan Danger, says goodbye to Haly, and the latter reveals he always knew it was Dick Grayson. Before the heroes leave, they do one last performance for the circus.
