Young Justice: Outsiders S03E25 Review: Moving On

Young Justice: Outsiders, Season 3, Episode 25: Overwhelmed

This is certainly an interesting episode? With two episodes left in the third season and the whole Granny Goodness storyline relatively wrapped up in episode 24, these two episodes sort of form like an epilogue to the season, while the Light 'puts their plan into motion'. Which is all well and good -- I genuinely don't mind that the Light/Markovia storyline is given some huge closure considering how prominent it was in the earlier half of the series and how prominent Brion and Tara are in the season as a whole. What I do feel somewhat odd is the decision to have Artemis and Wally's moving-on episode to be located here, and taking so much space. Partially, again, because we've had two different sequences with Not-a-ghost Wally West showing up before. I really do think that in this case, less is more, and while Artemis is the character with the biggest reason to miss Wally, the impact is certainly diluted when we had that huge "oh lookit all our season one characters together" sequence a couple of episodes back, as well as the bizarro mind-trip sequence with Beast Boy and Wally earlier in the season.

It does, at least, help to give Artemis a whole lot of screentime. Which, to be fair, the character more than earned -- I just feel rather tired that so much of this episode's conflict ends up revolving on whether Artemis is 'allowed' to move on and smooch William Harper in a romantic dinner when she's still trying to hold on to the memory of Wally. Shipping's neat and all, and gives this whole episode a very heavy emotional backbone, but at the same time there are definitely moment when I watch this episode and sort of wonder if there was anything to Artemis's character development at all other than the shipping and moving on bit.

Will and Artemis have been sort of kinda gotten hints all throughout the season, in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge way, and Will sort of makes a move... causing Artemis to freak out and end up running away, eventually calling Zatanna and a bunch of her other girl friends (M'gann and Rocket) to help out. Artemis wants closure, she wants to speak with the dead Wally one last time, and what we got is a trippy, bizarre sequence where she meets Wally in the realm of Limbo. With a wacky fairy-tale-esque warning of not staying until the sun rises, Artemis briefly experiences a what-it-could-have-been life with Wally... until the ghost of Wally himself tells Artemis that all of this is just a dream, and she has to move on. Voice actors Stephanie Lemelin and Jason Spisak do an amazing job at showcasing this trippy emotional sequence. It's pretty heartwarming and genuinely well-done scene, even if it's genuinely pretty obvious and by-the-books. Ultimately, it's a closure, but it seems like we're going into yet another secret-themed storyline as M'gann and Zatanna discuss the fact that apparently the whole Limbo that Artemis saw was a fabrication caused by a combination of their powers. Okay?

Slightly more interesting is the Forager/Superboy storyline. I just really wished that this got any sort of buildup in the season at all, other than the one line last episode about how "Forager could go home". Forager has never shown any sort of nervousness about being accepted as a roly-poly bug alien before, but now suddenly it ends up being what defines his character, where he wants to fit in "as Forager". Superboy brings Forager to Geranium City, where apparently all the Genomorphs from the first season have co-existed with humans... albeit with the aid of glamour spells and illusions to make them look like everytown, America. It's a very, very welcome explanation to one of the seemingly dropped storylines from the first season, and it's always welcome to see Dubbilex again.

It turns out that the whole sequence is kind of an excuse for the Genomorphs to admit to Superboy that they still feel ostracized since they have to hide all the time, and sort of ask Superboy to help them out to become less segregated. Forager stays behind in Geranium City not as Fred Bugg but as Forager, and Superboy ends up being confronted with the fact that he's hiding from who he really is. Which, again, I'm so very glad that we're bringing up these facets of our main characters that's been put to the wayside since season 3 decided to focus on a bunch of new blood, but I really wished that whether it be Artemis's moving on or Superboy's guilt about running away from his sci-fi-experiment origin story, we had something peppered throughout the season, y'know?


As for more immediate and less character-development-centric concerns, the Light continues to do... things. Geo-Force gets more and more prominent as he gets interviews and whatnot; Luthor's Infinity Incorporated gets even more popular; Gregor Markov arrives to meet Brion and Tara... and Tara ends up reporting this incident to Deathstroke, which in turn prompts the Light to unleash a domino of events. They decide that this is the 'moment' for Terra to blow her cover, while Count Vertigo uses a boom tube to recruit Baron Bedlam and Dr. X, and they take over Markovia off-screen. With the United Nations declaring that this is an 'internal matter' and that 'there are good people on both sides', the Justice League are barred entry, causing Brion Markov, high off his recent string of successes, to summon the Outsiders...

Oh, yeah, there's the C-plot of Metron briefly kidnapping Cyborg, Halo and an ersatz Lian Harper to space, and talks to them in a more civil manner, because he considers the two half-box people to be their 'grandchildren', but leaves them with the cryptic warning that while he will enjoy seeing how they grow, hopefully Darkseid doesn't kill them first. Some vague cosmic threat is coming, oooo!

With one episode left to go, I hope the show's writing team doesn't over-exert themselves by shoehorning the Apokolips plotline back in, because it seems like we're building up to a relatively neat conclusion to the Outsiders storyline, the Terra storyline and the Markovia storyline. And considering that these characters have been the backbone of the season, I do feel like it's particularly appropriate. I just really do wish that the disparate stories of the third season have been interwoven better. Ultimately, despite the bit of negativity and indifference about some of the storylines in this episode, I still think it's a pretty okay outing. 

Roll Call:

• Heroes: El Dorado, Halo, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Red Arrow, Tigress, Bio-Ship, Superboy, Wolf, Forager, Dubbilex, Jim Harper, Geo-Force, Rocket, Zatanna, Miss Martian, Kid Flash I, Superman (flashback), Green Lantern (John Stewart; flashback)
• Villains: Vandal Savage, Ultra-Humanite, Klarion, Lex Luthor, Queen Bee, Deathstroke, Granny Goodness, Dr. Double-X, Baron Bedlam, Count Vertigo
• Civilians/Others: Tod Donner, Eduardo Dorado Sr, Lian Harper, The Genomorphs, Dr. Amanda Spence, Gregor Markov, Terra, Metron

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Tod Donner is a television host and a supporting character in Captain Atom comics, and is apparently modeled after the real-life Ted Koppel. 
• Zatanna claims to have sent Artemis's soul to Limbo, a location that's had various connotations in DC comics lore, sometimes just meaning a generic realm between life and death, sometimes being a location where "forgotten DC comics characters" sort of un-exist. 
• Wotan, the arch-enemy of Dr. Fate, was briefly mentioned by Artemis. He briefly showed up in non-speaking cameos in several episodes in the first season.