Young Justice S02E18 Review: A Puppet's Strings

Young Justice, Season 2, Episode 18: Intervention

This is the "Jaime Reyes gets redeemed episode", and it really would've worked so much better had the ritual to cleanse the Blue Beetle via magic was actually foreshadowed other than a brief glance of a beetle mural in the Bialyan episode. I'm highly tempted to write off this episode as a big fat deus ex machina episode, and don't get me wrong -- the fact that Zatanna just happens to have a spell to cleanse the parasitic Beetle from the Reach's influence is insanely and awfully convenient, and at the same time bizarre that no one's mentioned this at all before. Thankfully, the rest of the episode isn't quite as bad.

The episode picks up from where we left off in the previous episode, wrapping up the non-stop Black Beetle/Mongul fight, and immediately following up on the events of episode 17 actually kind of helps to build up momentum. Green Beetle shows up to help up turn the tide, put Mongul back on ice, and then together with the Ambassador, they discover that someone's stolen the Warworld's Key. Black Beetle begin to also raise some doubts about how the Ambassador is running things, considering how passive he's been throughout all of this.

Meanwhile, while the Reach might have lost the Warworld's Key, their prisoners and the Ambassador's credibility with the UN, at least one thing is going well for them -- the popularity of Blue Beetle himself, who makes use of Superman's absence to beat up poor, poor Toyman in Metropolis. And while some members of the Team aren't feeling quite as charitable about Jaime, Impulse is quick to remind everyone that is being used by the Reach like a puppet -- and quite literally too. In perhaps one of the less well-done direction that Young Justice has done, we get the revelation that... apparently the Ambassador straight-up just controls how the Blue Beetle body moves around via a literal remote control and a keyboard, instead of just having an autopilot setting? That felt bizarrely awkward, and while this episode makes fun at how PR-hungry Blue Beetle is, in all previous appearances the mind-controlled Blue Beetle honestly just feels like regular Jaime, just more brutal and doing things to further Reach ambition.

We then get a pretty awesome bit where Blue Beetle in a dark alley is ambushed by Batgirl and Impulse, who waylay him with hit-and-run tactics and a particularly awesome visual effect that showcases how Blue Beetle's exhaust vents sort of just splay apart when viewed through Impulse super-speedy point of view. That's actually pretty neat! We also have the brief signs of Jaime's Scarab actually resisting, albeit framed in a way that's ambiguous. Does he really have no way to deal with the force field? Was he prolonging the fight against Impulse and Batgirl by doing things like scraping his blades on the ground, or stabbing the magical barrier intentionally?

Regardless, though, Rocket and Zatanna return for the first real guest spotlight after their graduation into the Justice League between seasons, and a combination of Rocket's alien force bubble and Zatanna's magic allows the Young Justice Team to abduct Blue Beetle and bring him to the underground Bialya ruins discovered in "Beneath". We get some fun bits where Ambassador-Beetle taunts the Team embarrassingly while they all keep quiet, while Jaime mocks the Ambassador through their shared mind-link. Through this all, on the Reach base, we get the Scientist arguing with the Ambassador about how it's too risky to have the Blue Beetle even engage the superheroes, especially since the far easier way would be to just let Jaime die and find a new host for the Scarab.


The Young Justice Team fight the Fearsome Five in Bialya, and beat them up pretty swiftly, before Zatanna unleashes some magic ritual to cleanse Jaime Reyes and the Scarab from the Reach's influence. At this point, Green Beetle swoops in to beat down the Team, but the arrival of hidden forces like Beast Boy (cleverly foreshadowed in the beginning of the Bialyan scene) and Bumblebee end up overwhelming Green Beetle as well. Beetles Green and Blue end up being pushed into the magical bubble while the Ambassador and Scientist argue about whether to send Black Beetle or not, the ritual succeeds, and both B'aars and Jamie have control of their respective Scarabs, free of the Reach.

Also, that awesome move with Impulse and Wonder Girl's lassoo that end up throwing Green Beetle into the magic bubble? Absolutely fantastic. I've spent a significant amount of this review talking about the storytelling aspect, but I must give credit where it's due... the action scenes here, showing the Team fully assembled as, well, a team, is pretty damn great.

And yes, we do get an explanation. We get a recap of Batgirl finding out about the Bialyan ruins and the Scarab imagery. We get a recap of how the very first Blue Beetle, Dan Garrett, found the Scarab after it was purified and put "off-mode" by an ancient group of magicians, while Ted Kord apparently dying in an epic battle to prevent the Scarab from falling into the Light's hands. And it... it makes sense, of course, but I really, really wished that at least some of this backstory is hinted in the past. I don't think there was any real hint or indication that Ted Kord's death was foul play connected to the Light. While a full flashback episode might be out of the question considering how Blue Beetle centric the season has already been, we definitely could've used a lot more foreshadowing here and there.

Oh, and the Scarab is apparently good all along, resisting the Reach as much as Jaime has been -- it's just a bit harder to tell with him considering his penchant for suggesting things like evisceration and stuff. The Scarab never really felt like a villain, and for one, I'm quite happy that he's not killed off.


Interestingly, though, the final scene of this episode shows Queen Bee talking to the Fearsome Five, noting that while they might've been a bit pissed at being ordered to throw the match, freeing Blue Beetle from the Reach's influence is certainly something that the Light wants and was planning for, hence the orders for Shimmer's team to throw the match. Yeah, the Light's definitely planning to double-cross the Reach, and it seems that we're starting this off.

The B-plot in this episode takes place over a couple of scatterd M'gann scenes, dealing with one of the remaining storylines left to tell in this season... her relationship with Lagoon Boy. She shows up in Atlantis, talking with the recovering La'gaan, and basically decides to break up with him. And it's definitely not quite fair to La'gaan... but it is definitely the right thing to do for M'gann to rip off the band-aid if she is indeed not serious about the relationship and is basically treating La'gaan as the rebound guy. There is, of course, some merit to La'gaan's own arguments, that he started the relationship on his own terms and there is a chance that their relationship would become something more... but M'gann ends it anyway.

And, mind you, La'gaan definitely hit the nail on the head when he asks M'gann if this has anything to do with Connner. M'gann denies it, of course, but the literal first thing she does when she gets back to base is to ask where Conner is... and Conner's apparently on a date with Wendy Harris. It's definitely not painting M'gann in a particularly good light, as much as the season one Conner/M'gann shippers would be excited about this, it does shaft poor La'gaan. Overall, though, there's only really one lesson to take away from this -- relationship drama hurts everyone involved. Even when you come to your senses, as M'gann does here, she ends up hurting poor La'gaan anyway.

Overall, it's a bit of a rocky episode. This one has some of the best action sequences seen in Young Justice, and it is pretty neat that we do get a full backstory (as much as the lack of foreshadowing irks me) as well as a full well-thought-out plan on the part of the good guys to get Blue Beetle back to normal. But there are a lot of good things that the episode actually does well, and while the magic-ex-machina is irksome, it's at least a competently directed episode.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Green Beetle (now a good guy!), Flash, Aquaman, Atom, Wonder Girl, Batgirl, Miss Martian, Superboy, Guardian, Bumblebee, Wolf, Impulse, Nightwing, Robin, Beast Boy, Blue Beetle, Lagoon Boy, Rocket, Zatanna, Sphere, Dr. Fate, Blue Beetle/Ted Kord (flashback), Blue Beetle/Dan Garrett (flashback)
• Villains: Black Beetle, Mongul, Toyman, The Ambassador, The Scientist, Devastation, Mammoth, Shimmer, Sportsmaster (flashback), Deathstroke (flashback), Queen Bee
• Others: Cat Grant, Isis

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Toyman is one of Superman's classic enemies. There have been multiple villains to adopt the moniker Toyman, but based on his costume, this one is clearly based on the first Toyman, Winslow Schott. Being a Superman enemy, Toyman operates out of Metropolis. 
• The fact that Dan Garrett thought that the alien scarab was actually a mystical talisman was based on the retcon done to the Scarab (originally intended and portrayed as a mystical talisman for years) during the reinvention of Blue Beetle mythos with Jaime Reyes. 
• The goddess that Zatanna summons is based on the DC character Isis (a.k.a. Andrea Thomas), based on the Egyptian goddess of the same name. A Captain Marvel supporting character, Isis-the-superhero drew her powers from Isis-the-goddess, and first appeared in the TV show Secrets of Isis before being brought into the comic-book continuity. Zatanna summons the Isis-equivalent goddess by shouting "Oh Mighty Isis!" backwards, which was the chant that Isis uses to access her powers. 
• The Reach dudes briefly talk about how they are unable to penetrate the energy field of the Cooperative. Rocket's power-generating technology are taken from an alien race known as the Cooperative.