Stew’s Young Justice Retrospective: Season 2, Episodes 13 – 14

Miss Melancholy: A Young Justice Retrospective, S2 E13-14

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Episode 13

Image Credit: Warner Bros. Animation

We kick things off with some melancholy inner monologue from Artemis aboard Black Manta’s ship. She regrets the situation that she is in and wishes she was still home with Wally. She is tired of forgetting who she is and playing minion to the baddies. Black Manta introduces her to Psi-Mon and the plan to rebuild Kaldur’s mind. More angst from Artemis as we head into the opening!

After Manta threatens to get revenge on Miss Martian, we move on over to Megan herself, who is reluctant to mind-link with Green Beetle to confirm he is a good guy. He volunteers his thoughts to her so she won’t have to worry about hurting him. Oh, this is going to go somewhere…

Back aboard Manta’s ship, mind-reader Psi-Mon doesn’t see Artemis poisoning him coming. He tries to fight back, but collapses. This show always wants to present this guy as a threat, only to job him out more and more easily every time. Artemis suggests that Miss Martian left psychic traps in Kaldur’s mind to deter other telepaths, so the only way to cure Kaldur is to get Miss Martian herself to do it. Manta sends her and Deathstroke after our favorite Martian.

We get a commercial for The Reach’s faux-Gatorade, which is cleverly just called “Reach”, and I, of course, love that G. Gordon Godfrey is in the commercial. He doesn’t even talk; he just hangs out and drinks a Reach with one of the aliens and some kids.

Green Beetle notes that the additive in Reach is designed to addict humanity over generations and make them more placid and easy to control. Nightwing knew that already, but Green Beetle gives some info he didn’t: it also helps The Reach monitor and separate the Metagene so they can weaponize it.

Megan and Lagoon Boy head to J’onn’s apartment in Chicago, but they are attacked by Artemis and Deathstroke. Artemis lets Megan in on the plan to kidnap her, and after Deathstroke breaks Lagoon Boy’s leg, they abduct her. Raise your hand if you saw “Lagoon Boy Vs Deathstroke The Terminator” not ending up being a real even fight.

Blue and Green Beetle are hanging out. Blue begs Green to go inside his mind and help him take full control of his scarab to stop it from ever regaining its true functionality and making him go heel. Oh no! Green Beetle is going to be a bad guy after all, right? All because Megan was too much of a schmuck now.

Speak of the schmuck: Manta threatens Megan into fixing Kaldur’s mind, but after he leaves, she confides in Artemis that she isn’t sure she can fix him. Regardless, the two of them enter his mind, which is symbolized as Atlantis in ruins. There, a mental image of Tula (Kaldur’s dead love) attacks them!

Nightwing tells Lagoon Boy and Superboy the truth about Aqualad and Artemis out of desperation to keep Lagoon Boy calmed down over Megan’s abduction. Superboy backs him up, but after they leave LB’s hospital room, he tears Nightwing a new one over all the secrecy! Yeah, season two Superboy! You’re really trying to make up for what a jerkface you were in season one, my man. Er… boy.

WE get an underwater psychic plane sequence where Megan starts feeling all hopeless and guilty and tries to let Tula kill her, so Artemis has to do all of the heavy lifting to find Aqualad’s mental self. God, this character arc for Miss M. She’s so pathetic right now! After Artemis finds Kaldur, he and Megan start slowly reconstructing the Atlantis in his mind.

Manta pulls Artemis aside and confirms that they will kill Miss Martian as soon as she is done rebuilding his son’s mind.

Our very last scene is Bart seeing Green and Blue Beetles together, and Blue says that Green (Ugh with all the colors here) fixed his scarab and now he’s in full control.

LONG CON. DON’T BUY IT, JAIME.

Episode 14

Image Credit: Warner Bros. Animation

At Star Labs, Virgil is being trained in the use of his new electric powers. He is magnetizing around garbage can lid, and the scientist yells at him to do the whole can, haha. Oh, Easter Eggs. He and Ty pass by another kid named Eduardo yelling at his dad, who is a Star scientist. Virgil tells the rest of the kids they are going to bust out of Star Labs.

After training is over, Virgil and the others want to make a run for it, but the guy who was previously Neutron wants them to stay. He sets off the alarm to stop them! Snitches get stitches, buddy. Three jabroney guards try to stop the kids, but short work is made of them. After defeating the guards, they are able to walk out the exit, which mysteriously unlocks when the power randomly goes out.

Elsewhere, Young Justice Season Two: Blue Beetle And His Unimportant Friends continues, as Jaime Reyes gets a call from Nightwing to round up the escapees since he is friends with Ty.

Virgil tells the other kids that he was never a run away; The Reach grabbed him while he was waiting for his sister at a train station; he has a great relationship with his family. Outside the bus depot, the Star Lab scientists and guards arrive to grab the kids!

We see Ty’s power now, where… I guess he falls asleep, and some yellow energy body surrounds him and is really tall and strong? Hmmm. Think a bigger, more complicated Armor from the X-Men. That’s the correlative for me, anyway. He throws the roof of the station at the guards!

Blue Beetle shows up, and Ty pummels him going into the commercial break. When we come back, Ty grabs the other kids with his giant astral projection and runs off with them, with Jaime giving chase.

After catching up with the kids, Jaime reveals his secret identity to them. The kids refuse to go back to Star. Jaime agrees to take the kids to Green Beetle.

Back at Star, the big red android villain from season one shows up! Red… Red… Volcano? I’m going with Red Volcano. The Earth-powered one. He is there to steal the Justice League’s stored Amazo parts.

Blue Beetle, Green Beetle, Red Volcano. Super people love their color schemed names.

Nightwing calls Jaime to deal with Red Volcano since no one else is nearby. Beetle jets off to Star Labs, and the kids decide to go back to Star to save Eduardo’s dad. When they get there, Volcano and Beetle are mid-fight… and it’s going poorly for Blue.

Eduado saves his dad by using his teleporting powers in new ways for the first time! Virgil and the Japanese girl with them are ineffectual against Volcano, but Ty pulls him out of the building and sets him up for Blue Beetle to fight back against.

Beetle gets reckless during the fight–no doubt because of Green Beetle’s influence!–and starts destroying Star Labs while trying to take Volcano down! The kids rush in and save all of the Star Labs employees.

Volcano traps the kids and tells Beetle he will have to let him escape to save them. But Beetle just says “nuts to that” and just goes after Volcano and blows him up.

After the fight, we get the reveal I’ve been waiting for: Green Beetle reprogrammed Jaime’s scarab to obey The Reach and control him after all. Green, Blue, and Black hang out on a roof together with Black celebrating that Blue looked like a hero to the media.

With the kids, Lex Luthor shows up and notes he helped them escape from Star. He tells them he doesn’t fully trust The Reach, and he wants to help them take control of their own fates.

Oh man, we are really nearing the culmination of Season Two, and everything is going to pot for our heroes! Let’s see what happens next…

Until then… take care!