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Stew’s Young Justice Retrospective: Season 1, Episodes 25 – 26
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Animation
Starro Chips And Dips: A Young Justice Retrospective, S1 E25-26
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Episode 25
We’re about to wrap up Season One with the penultimate and final episodes, so let’s see what we get!
We start off in Washington DC, with the Justice League introducing the newest members, so we see Roy (didn’t he JUST join Young Justice?!), Dr. Fate, Plastic Man, Atom, and Ikon officially getting inducted in front of the Hall Of Justice.
At Mount Justice, we see Young Justice (so many Justices getting written today… Leagues and Halls and Mounts and Youngs) watching the festivities on TV. Rocket, Ikon’s sidekick, is now part of the team, probably because the plot needs her to be and even though this was a TWENTY-SIX (26!) episode season, they couldn’t fit that in organically. That’s sudden, though, right?! Did I miss an episode? Rocket is pissed off that she isn’t with Ikon at the event, but eases her suffering be drooling over Kaldur.
When the League and their new members get inside to see how YJ is doing, the kids are gone!
We cut to over the Smokey Mountains, with the team tracking Cheshire and the case they failed to secure in Louisiana (GOD this case makes its way around! It’s currently in the hands of whoever the episode at hand wants it to be). Cheshire’s plan has crashed, and Artemis is stunned that her sister might be dead.
As they investigate the crash, Cheshire and Riddler pop out, and we get a classic Riddler riddle telling the kids it was an ambush. I’ve… already had enough of this character. Can Superboy break his neck or something now?
Superboy is down to his last patch (JESUS, Conner, I was joking about your using them to make dinner previously) and puts it on during the fight. He openly flies and uses his heat vision in front of his teammates, but it turns out he is in such a rage fighting Mammoth that he doesn’t care. He fractures a mountain, and Cheshire has to save Artemis from being crushed.
Back at Mount Justice, Batman is pissed at Young Justice, but he turns it into praise like he so often does. They hacked the JL computer, but they also caught a bunch of villains and proved Hugo Strange is nefarious in his running of Arkham. Bats is a real Ends-Justify-The-Means type. He takes the case to the Watchtower.
Superboy gets a sub-sonic call from Lex Luthor to offer him more shields! He takes the Super-Cycle to Santa Prisca and meets Lex and a bunch of villains. Queen Bee, Bane, SportsMaster. Cheshire shows up with Artemis, who says she was tired of not being trusted. M’Gann shows up under Queen Bee’s orders. Everyone is heel turning! Even if reluctantly. Lex shuts down Conner with the Red Sun command.
We flashback to Mount Justice and see the Superboy, Artemis, and M’Gann already revealed all of their secrets before any of them went to Santa Prisca. In undoubtedly the sweetest moment of the show, Superboy shows he not only knew about Megan’s White Martian form since several months before, but still cared for her anyway.
Aw, did Young Justice just almost tear me up? What the hell?!
Still, now that I’m in control of my emotionality… 23 episodes of building everyone’s secrets and double lives, and we get one (1) scene of the sus characters going “OH BY THE WAY…”, and it’s all resolved? Weeeeaaaaak.
During the ensuing brawl, where we see that Megan has cleared Luthor’s tampering from Conner’s mind, Lex and Queen Bee get away. Eventually, so does Cheshire, but everyone else gets caught! So that’s good, right? Kaldur tells everyone this has been a good day, but the episode has 2 minutes left, so let’s ruin that, right? Because these kids never ever ever go over strong.
At the Watchtower, Roy places one of the Starro mind control chips on Batman, taking him to the rest of the controlled League. Batman gives access to the Watchtower to Vandal Savage, and the whole JL kneels to him. Roy comes out of his mind control enough to realize he was always the mole, albeit unknowingly.
Was he, though? The Light has only had these chips for a few episodes, and definitely not as long as they’ve said there was a mole.
Anyway Young Justice only has one regular length episode to clean Roy’s mess up and save the world!
Episode 26
Washington, D.C. on New Year’s Eve: We see Roy running through a subway system from Green Arrow, The Flash, and Aquaman—wait.
Roy is RUNNING FROM THE FLASH.
AND GETS AWAY.
Sigh. It’s so hard to write superspeed competently, isn’t it? Superspeed is so often written as either Thousands Of Time The Speed Of Light or as Slightly Faster Than A Car.
Anyway, at Mount Justice, Batman and Red Tornado is telling the team that Red Arrow was the mole… and more notably, was a clone of the real Speedy! Batman doesn’t chip the kids OR tell them to go after Roy, so I’m not sure why this happened other than to give us a reveal that made no sense to give us.
After Bats teleports out, Red Tornado tries to chip Aqualad, but fritzes out. Flash finds Red holding the chip, and the team splits up to find out what is going on.
The ones who stay at Mount Justice transplant Tornado’s consciousness into his new android body (minor plot points paying off; you love to see it), and he wakes up and warns them that the just-arrived Black Canary is a threat. Red’s new body SUCKS, and she shreds it in one scream. Rocket and Robin take her down.
The other half of the team—Artemis, Kaldur, Superboy, and Megan—IMMEDIATELY find Red Arrow the first place they look. I love that they know him better than Ollie. They convince him they aren’t controlled, and he goes off with them pulls a Clarissa (he Explains It All, and since I had to spell that out, it was a terrible joke).
OH! Arrow was a mole not because of the Starro chips (sound yummy) but because of his clone programming. Okay, that makes more sense than what I thought before. FAIR PLAY, YOUNG JUSTICE. You have to forgive me; I’m more used to the lazy writing of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
Tornado tells the others than in the fraction of a second before the Starro chip took him over, he created a subroutine to shut himself down if he attempted to infect anyone else. The team sends a de-programmed Canary, Tornado, and Roy to the Watchtower, but Savage and Klarion know who is or isn’t under control. They re-chip the heroes.
Young Justice infiltrates the Watchtower and begins de-chipping heroes like Plastic Man, Hawkman, Captain Atom, and The Atom.
Roy, Tornado, and Canary are revealed to be immune to re-chipping! They put up a fight, but are pretty quickly subdued by the heavy hitters: Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Superman, etc.
Zatanna tries to take the Helm Of Fate off of her KO’ed dad (de-chipped! Lots of re-chipping and de-chipping going on today), but even unconscious, the helmet fights back against removal.
Artemis, Kid Flash, and Aqualad go clean over Aquaman, Green Arrow, and Flash! Even if they had to use the battleground setting (the Watchtower’s vacuum seal) to do it. NOW the kids are looking strong.
Batman vs Robin! Superboy vs Superman! M’Gann vs J’onn! Hey, teachers! Leave those kids alone!
All the heroes get de-chipped, but Klarion and Savage get away. New Year’s strikes (Uh, they are on the MOON; what time zone is THAT?), and the kids all kiss (Artemis/Wally, Conner/Megan, Zatanna/Robin, Rocket/Kaldur, and is that the SOLE reason she was introduced?!) because that’s way more important than the masterminds teleporting away!
Superman gives his approval to Superboy, and they share secret identities.
Roy is down on himself and decides he has to rescue the real Roy Harper. We cut to Cadmus getting taken apart by The Light. The real Speedy is in a pod… and missing his right arm.
As an epilogue, we find out six members of the League went missing for 16 hours, and no one knows what Savage had them do in that time frame.
But that’s it! That’s all of season one and it’s whopping 26 episodes. Wow. Even Buffy is only, what, 22? I had no idea this show had so many episodes per season. Going to take a while to get through it all at this rate. But hey… I’m working on it.
That doesn’t sound as inspiring as I was hoping for.
