Young Justice: Outsiders S03E06 Review: Exile Bros

Young Justice: Outsiders, Season 3, Episode 6: Rescue Op

A pretty interesting episode, with a bunch of character reveals that clearly hit me out of the left field. While the red-hooded ninja and Talia's baby might be a lot more 'mainstream', so to speak, compared to Halo and Geo-Force, it's still surprising that we're actually getting even more new characters and potential Team members revealed here and there.

The cold open is pretty interesting, too, showing the Goode-VR item again that makes me pretty sure that it's going to be an important plot element going forwards considering how much it's been shoved in our faces for the past couple of episodes. Some schmuck in Bialya gets attacked by the wise-cracking Black Spider from the League of Shadows. And while Black Spider doesn't have a whole ton of screentime, he gets to make a whole lot of work with it, wish Josh Keaton giving what's essentially an evil version of his Spider-Man voice. All that quipping! And then, suddenly, Black Spider's mark is killed by a gigantic rock that squashes him flat almost comically, done by Black Spider's partner.

What a fun little cold open! We follow this up with another person playing on the Goode VR console -- Oracle! The episode doesn't really call any attention to Oracle being a crippled Batgirl/Barbara Gordon, so less attentive viewers might not even really realize who she used to be in season two, but Young Justice has tended to not try and shoehorn exposition all that much. Anyway, we get a brief scene between her and Dick that's pretty sweet. I like them!

Speaking of nice scenes to make you warm, we get the little 'adopted' Outsiders hanging out around the apple trees outside Superboy and M'gann's house, with Halo apparently not even remembering what hunger is because "Artemis feeds [her] regularly". We get a brief handwave of Forager communicating with them with the revelation that M'gann has downloaded the human language to Forager's brain. "Except pronouns", Superboy snarks, but turns out that Forager just has a very strong sense of self. This allows Forager to be adorable and speak in the third person!

Adding to even more mystery on Halo, though, is perhaps the most disturbing and sinister part of her yet, when she suddenly goes on a near-encyclopedic recital of random facts of New Genesis like a computer. Forager is just happy and amused that Halo knows about his home, but everyone else is... far more shaken. More hilarious is the interaction that Prince Brion has when he sees Forager, a real alien. Not like the half-Kryptonian Conner or the martian M'gann, not at all. It's hilarious.

After that bit of joking around, we get some heartwarming bonding between Brion and Forager, where the two of them bond over the fact that they're basically exile bros. I also love how Halo and Brion acknowledge that the senior members of the Team always try and talk about what to do with them, something that they do a lot. In this case, though, we get the glorious return of the Bio-Ship, which transforms into a trailer and gets along pretty well with Forager and his glorious apples. Forager loves his apples and that's just adorable. We also get some fun "is X's gender not obvious?" bit regarding the show's robotic sidekicks.


And this is where the cold open becomes relevant, where the combined conversations with dr. Helga Jace (still not allowed to hang out with the Outsiders, and who Jeff still has the hots for) and Dick has basically led Brion to get some confirmation that his sister Tara is still alive, probably has the same Geo-Force powers that he and Baron Bedlam have... and that she might very well be the mysterious rock-manipulating assassin in Bialya. Of course, the senior members of the Team are quick to note that there are many ways that people in the DC comics universe can lift rocks -- telekinesis, magic, super strength... but Brion is pretty convinced that he has to pursue this lead, if nothing else. Also, believing that Tara is under mind-control isn't a hard sell, considering how Plasmus, Plasma and presumably the other two random meta-kids used by Ma'alefa'ak have been mind-controlled.


Dick is not unwilling to help out, but he wants time to prepare for the simple reason that you don't mess with someone with the resources that Ra's al Ghul has. Of course, this isn't going to stop Brion Markov, though, who calls Jace for help. Halo is quick to be roped into all this, and Forager also wants in because 'helping the hive is the Bug way'. Forager is a good boy. Halo, having befriended the Sphere, basically coaxes him to take them to Infinity Island. Exile Hive-Bros, away!

The Team finds out that Halo's real name is Gabrielle Daou (a slight change from her comic-book 'Gabrielle Doe'), but when they go to inform Halo, they find out that the kids are gone! Thanks, Wolf. We get a fun little parallel to this scene as the Hive-Bros arrive on Infinity Island, and Halo decides that she wants the civilian name of "Violet", based on something Brion said to her last episode regarding her violet coloured light.

And then the Hive-Bros encounter Sensei... and, hoo boy, I know we've met Sensei in season one, but he was wholly unremarkable back then. He has taken several levels in snarkiness, and Keone Young gives us some absolutely fun line deliveries. "I am trying to meditate."  "Who does not know of the foolish prince, banished on live television?" "You are here to make a fool of yourself." and best of all, the absolutely badass comeback of "I don't need an army. I trained the army."

Of course, what the Exile Hive-Bros are doing is basically what any young team of superheroes will do, and isn't particularly different from what the various members of the Team did in seasons one and two -- charging into a fight that they're unprepared for, with very little resources, because they think they can handle what the world throws at them. The difference, though, is that the likes of Dick, Kaldur and Wally were already superhero sidekicks when they assaulted Cadmus. The Exile Hive-Bros are all very much un-trained.

And as an increasingly irate Sensei snarks about how Brion has ruined his meditation space, he shows off that he's not just any martial artist, being apparently able to judo-throw Forager, dodge the Super-Cycle's laser blasts and walk on lava. "Pain is an illusion" indeed. Sensei then quickly shows just how they are in the real world by... instantly snapping Halo's neck. Of course, the audience knows very well that Halo has regenerative powers and it's far less gruesome of an injury than having half her head burned off by Plasmus in episode three... but it's still a shocking moment for sure.

This shock value is increased when Sensei's backup team shows up, including, quite hilariously, motherfucking Ubu with a chest cannon that takes out the Super-Cycle and forces it to revert into the Sphere. A mysterious red-hooded ninja takes out Forager with martial arts. Sensei dumps everyone in a cell, and Halo, of course, heals herself with violet light in a pretty uncomfortable-looking scene of her neck snaping back in place. "Is Halo a New God?" has to be another fun line from this episode. Honestly, the scripting of this season is just so hilarious!




We get Ra's al Ghul watching this from a monitor, with a very, very panicked Sensei apologizing and telling Ra's that he had felt the life drain from Halo's body. Ra's al Ghul doesn't really give two shits, though, because as someone whose entire gimmick is being able to return from the dead (as he had since the climax of season two), "Resurrection does happen around here."

The big boys led by Nightwing arrive to break out the Hive Bros, but are stopped by Sensei's small army. Sensei brings a god-damn lightsaber katana this time around! We get some pretty fun scenes of the senior team faring far better, with Nightwing fighting against the nameless ninja and M'gann basically using her telepathy to keep Sensei in the air and unable to move. It's Brion's powers malfunctioning thanks to his anger that ends up being disadvantageous to the good guys, although any further conflict ends up being stopped by Ra's al Ghul, who shows up and mocks Dick, telling him that the Detective would be disappointed.

Interestingly, Ra's al Ghul reveals that he is neither a member of the Light, nor is he the leader of the League of Shadows anymore. Nightwing insists that Ra's al Ghul never lies, which is... okay, then? I'm not sure if I buy into that, but taking this at face value, we learn that someone has apparently replaced Ra's al Ghul in the council of the Light. Ra's does confirm that Tara might be among the League of Shadows... it's just that there's no way to get to Tara from him. We get a fun little exchange between Tigress and Ra's, too, which is a fun nod to their meeting in season two.

This leads to what's basically the formation of the Outsiders, sort of -- Nightwing just wants them to commit to their own team, even if it's not the Young Justice Team, and all is forgiven. We get some hints of them working from the outside, clearly foreshadowing the formation of the Outsiders. Oh, and Halo basically rejects the Gabrielle Daou name, not wanting to associate with her old life and wants to just be Violet. We get some flashbacks to said old life, but I'm not sure if any of them are important beyond some vague "people are racist towards Quracis".

Far more interesting is Ra's al Ghul's part of the final scene, where Talia shows up holding a baby, while the mysterious, red-hooded ninja (the credits' name for him) recognizes 'Grayson', with Ra's being pleased that his memory is back. Neat foreshadowing! Overall, it's a pretty solid episode, mostly focusing on the Hive Bros as they bond together over their similar situations of being rejected by the world around them.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Oracle, Nightwing, Wolf, Halo, Brion Markov, Forager, Superboy, Miss Martian, Tigress, Black Lightning, Bio-Ship, Sphere
• Villains: Black Spider, Terra, Sensei, Ubu, Mysterious Red-Hooded Ninja, Ra's al Ghul, Talia al Ghul
• Others: Jaqqar Marlo, Talia's Baby

DC Easter Eggs Corner: [Spoilers for subsequent episodes]

• Ra's al Ghul was last seen mortally stabbed during the climax of Young Justice's second season, although as noted by Ra's himself, his whole deal is that he has access to the life-giving Lazarus Pits, allowing him to return back to life. 
• Ra's mentions "the Detective", a moniker for Batman that he uses almost consistently in the comics to refer to Batman whenever they meet each other. 
• Talia al Ghul and her mysterious baby! Talia, of course, is the daughter of Ra's al Ghul and probably as prominent as Ra's himself in various adaptations, characterized by her being torn between her loyalty to her father and her love for Batman. In far more recent stories, Talia would be revealed to be the mother of Batman's child, Damian Wayne, the most recent Robin. 
• Red-Hooded Ninja! Heading into spoilers territory, based on his name, the Red-Hooded Ninja is clearly Young Justice's adaptation of Red Hood. After the second Robin, Jason Todd, was murdered, he would be brought back to life by a combination of Superboy-Prime punching reality and a Lazarus Pit (most adaptations outside the original comic basically just ignore the stupid reality punch and revert back to Lazarus Pit). In the comics, Jason Todd spent a not-insignificant amount of time amnesiac as one of Ra's al Ghul's minions before slowly regaining his memory.