Young Justice S02E07 Review: Casualties and Duplicities

Young Justice: Invasion, Episode 7: Depths

Oh yeah, this episode. Boy.

"Depths" is an episode that finally tackles a lot of the disparate plotlines and questions we've been having since the time-skip between seasons one and two, and does so in a pretty huge way. After a couple of episodes highlighting new additions like Impulse and Blue Beetle, we finally get a storyline highlighting the older crew, as well as answering a lot of questions regarding Kaldur'ahm's seeming allegiance change. Also on the table in this episode is finally tackling the whole deal behind Superboy and Miss Martian's breakup, as well as revealing a bit of a conspiracy that's been going on at the back of the Young Justice Team.

The newer characters aren't completely absent from the episode, of course, but there's a significant focus on the older ones. One of the first scenes in this episode focuses on Wally and Artemis in their civilian life, with Wally clearly upset at Artemis suiting up at Nightwing's request. Wally wants nothing but to leave the superheroing life behind (the previous episode notwithstanding), but Artemis notes that she needs to do this -- and the sheer danger of what they're discussing in this scene changes dramatically when you see the episode with full context of the final scene in this episode. The episode does get a bit too overdramatic, in my opinion, by cutting from Artemis and Wally smooching and going "what could go wrong?" and then smash-cut to a couple hours later with Nightwing performing CPR on Artemis before declaring that she's dead.

I mean, it's an obvious fake-out from the moment it's shown to us, and I genuinely wished that we didn't actually have that little "ooooh guess what's gonna go wrong!" Damocles sword hanging over our head throughout the entire episode. I thought that was a bit of a rather poorly-executed bit of editing. After that we cut back to before the mission happens, with Nightwing giving some exposition about where Impulse is rooming as well as the whole Speedy deal handwaved for a future episode with him recovering in a hospital.

The mission-of-the-week is protecting a rocket launch that's supposed to further communications between Earth and Mars (by Ferris Air, yay!), a move that's criticized heavily by G. Gordon Godfrey in his increasingly entertaining 'bah humbug' hate-news segments that is actually a pretty clever way to get an X-Men style public distrust deal as a constant theme throughout this season. Also love how one of the things Godfrey attacks is Martian Manhunter's... not-exactly-friendly-sounding superhero moniker. We get some fun moments with Superboy and Miss Martian masquerading as their mentors to show the JLA's support for this mission, neatly showcasing how they're adding a layer of duplicity over the whole deal by making it look as if the Justice League members are still on Earth.

Meanwhile, during the mission which features a record number of season one alumni (Nightwing even lampshades this, noting that he just itches for action after being stuck as mission control), we actually get to see the other side of the Lagoon Boy/Miss Martian/Superboy love triangle. While all we've seen is M'gann and Lagoon Boy's PDA and Superboy's clear disdain and jealousy, this is the first we've seen of Lagoon Boy when he's actually alone. It would've been so easy to cast Lagoon Boy as a jerk or a jock, but his little bit of grumbling as he tries to make it so that M'gann isn't on a mission with her "super ex boyfriend" is actually pretty human, especially when it's heavily implied that Lagoon Boy doesn't really know just why Conner and M'gann broke up in the first place.

And it's quickly revealed to us the reason of their breakup when the two of them are left alone on the Bioship. Apparently sometime between the two seasons, M'gann begins to revel more and more in her psychic powers. It's not just lobotomizing Kroloteans either, because apparently M'gann at one point tried to use her own psychic powers to invade Conner's own mind to get rid of his negative feelings towards M'gann's increasing abuse of her powers -- the catalyst of their breakup.

Meanwhile, Lagoon Boy realizes just who the enemy seeking to blow up the rocket are. Kaldur'ahm and Black Manta's endless supply of manta-troopers or whatever those faceless minions are called. Superboy's flippant offer of helping out the "rookie" causes Lagoon Boy to get reckless and engage the villains against everyone's orders, and basically fucks up the mission by alerting the manta dudes to the Team's presence.

We get a cool bit of Nightwing and Artemis doing some badass-normal-trained-people battling against Kaldur's minions, and a neat little acknowledgement about how Artemis is kind of out of practice and superheroing isn't something you can retire for years and jump back in. We get to see an actual confrontation between Lagoon Boy and Kaldur'ahm, two residents of Atlantis and both Aquaman's sidekicks of sorts. It's a neat little conversation, but poor Lagoon Boy gets zapped straight to heck, and gets captured by Kaldur'ahm's minions and meant to be kept alive for the ever-mysterious Partner (man, I really can't wait for when they reveal the Partner's identity so I can actually say their name out loud in my reviews).

And then shit just goes down, with M'gann wanting to rescue Lagoon Boy, but Superboy instructs her to deal with the missiles first. Whether it's out of jealousy or pragmatism is never made clear, although I'm leaning towards the latter -- Conner's angry, but he's not malicious. This choice does cost Lagoon Boy being captured and spirited away by the villains. Meanwhile, Kaldur'ahm engages his old teammates Nightwing and Artemis on the beach in a pretty spectacular battle that involves a goddamn water dragon attack. The battle culminates with Kaldur'ahm engaging both Nightwing and Artemis in a melee with their martial arts weapons, and a water-sword through Artemis's chest.

While Kaldur'ahm's missiles fail to blow up the rocket... it blows up anyway, something that shocks the former Aqualad. With his mission complete in any case, and them having captured Lagoon Boy as a consolation prize, Kaldur'ahm leaves Nightwing performing CPR on Artemis while the other season one characters M'gann and Superboy watch in despair. Truly, it's the darkest hour for the Young Justice team. Artemis is dead, Aqualad is a traitor, Lagoon Boy is captured, and his sacrifice ends up in vain because the rocket gets blown up anyway.

And the final couple of scenes in this episode gets to smartly explain everything that's going on. Black Manta has planted a bomb on the Ferris rocket even before this mission began, just to gauge Kaldur'ahm's loyalty -- particularly to see if Kaldur would take credit for something he didn't accomplish. Killing Artemis and capturing La'gann? Both insane bonuses that allows Kaldur'ahm far more respect amongst the members of the Light. Meanwhile, we get a brief scene of the entire Team, old and new, in their civilian clothes, mourning Artemis's death. And for a moment, it seemed that that might be true. Aqualad is truly descended into the dark side, and one of our main characters is dead...

Except it's not, of course. In one of the neatest swerves in Young Justice, we get a meeting between Aqualad and three members of the original team -- Nightwing, Wally and a still-alive Artemis. Apparently they've taken this covert ops team to a whole new level, and Aqualad was a double agent planted for the sole purpose of infiltrating the Light. The whole "son of Black Manta" and "Tula's death" seem to just be convenient excuses for him to infiltrate the bad guys, and we get the revelation of just what the whole episode is all about. Make Kaldur'ahm look good in front of the villains, while also wiping Artemis off the board so that she can don a Zatanna-created glamour charm and assist Aqualad in his deep-cover mission. (Also, watching Kaldur's previous appearances in this season, we can see some scenes where he interacts with Nightwing that really helps to show where his true allegiance lie)

But I remembered that the biggest surprise isn't the fact that Aqualad is good all along (because of course he is), or that Artemis is dead (again, the fake-out at the beginning of the episode felt too black comedy to be serious). It's the fact that they've left out not only the rest of the Team, but also two of the season one main cast -- M'gann and Conner -- out of the conspiracy. Will the rest of the team ever forgive these four conspirators for all the grief they've given them? The whole faking-Artemis's-death bit probably won't sit well with most people, and how will M'gann in particular react to this, especially with her increasing brutality? It's a very exciting twist. The episode doesn't do the best job at doing this in my opinion, as I felt that doing the whole "ARTEMIS DIES TONIGHT" bit was a unnecessary and hurts the episode more than anything... but eh. Still otherwise a pretty damn well-done episode, and allows Young Justice to have its status quo changes without completely doing a 180 on their main characters.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Kid Flash, Artemis, Nightwing, Impulse, Speedy, Superboy, Malcolm Duncan, Miss Martian, Lagoon Boy, Aqualad, Blue Beetle, Robin, Zatanna, Beast Boy, Wonder Girl, Rocket, Batgirl, Bumblebee
• Villains: Black Manta
• Others: G. Gordon Godfrey, Carol Ferris, Catherine Grant, Jimmy Olsen, Tom Kalmaku

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Ferris Aircraft, and its owner, Carol Ferris, are both major parts of Hal Jordan/Green Lantern's mythology. Carol Ferris is Hal Jordan's main love interest and childhood friend, and have often times been either an enemy or an ally when possessed by the mysterious gemstone known as the Star Sapphire (the combined entity would call herself that). Later on in the comics, the Star Sapphire would be retconned into being one of the many other parts of the emotional spectrum, and Carol would learn to wield the Star Sapphire's powers as her own.
• As a nod to her comic-book superhero/supervillain codename, Carol actually wears a presumably non-alien star sapphire on her neck. 
• One of the Ferris Aircraft engineers overseeing the rocket launch is Tom Kalmaku, Hal Jordan's Golden Age era sidekick. Initially called the racially insensitive "Pieface", Tom Kalmaku has since been reinvented and had all of his more racist undertones cut out. 
• Jimmy Olsen, Superman's cameraman co-worker and best pal, has his sole, non-speaking appearance in the series as part of the crowd covering the Earth-Mars satellite. 
• Impulse has moved in with Jay and Joan Garrick, which was the living accommodations that he got during a significant portion of his career in DC's original continuity.