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[8.4/10] Wow! I’d go so far as to say that M’gaan was the least-developed character in the series to this point. But after this episode, she’s skyrocketed up the list to most interesting. The sense of her hiding part of who she is or was, firmly holding onto her humanoid form as her true identity, and adapting out of a deep fear of prejudice against her deepens the character immensely. Throw in the idea that she has tremendous power to an extent even she doesn’t fully realize, and you have a character who’s suddenly vastly more interesting than she was just a handful of episodes ago. Good show!

I also love the reveal that M’gaan has been imitating a sitcom character this whole time. It makes “Image” feel of a piece with WandaVision in the sense of a person suffering through a difficult time finding solace in the simplicity of the sitcom form. The show “Hello Megan” provided something to aspire to, something comforting, for M’gaan in a way that made her want to come to Earth and gave her a model for who she wanted to be there.

At the same time, there’s the extra layer with Miss Martian meeting the actress who played the character she aspired to become. The performer-turned-conservationist is a nice reflection of voice actress Danica McKellar, who went from being a performer on The Wonder Years to being a prominent mathematician who didn’t necessarily want to be defined by a role she played when she was a kid.

Who knows how much real life was injected into the script, but there’s something that works on multiple levels about Ms. Logan taking extra pride in her work when she realized it inspired someone like M’gaan, who would go on to save her son. It speaks to the joy creative people have when they realize their work has moved and even motivated the people who watched it.

It’s also psychologically telling how much Miss Martian wanted to embody Megan from her favorite show and tried to model her life on that rubric. From the look, to the voice, to the cheerleading squad, down to giving Superboy the same name as the love interest from the show, there’s an almost creepy level to which she’s tried to step into this fictional life and make it real for her. The parasocial relationship she has with the show reflects real overidentification between fans and fictional creations, one that certainly extends to the realm of superhero stories.

And yet, we also get a deeper understanding of why she might choose to dive headlong into that life and run away from her own. We’ve had a couple of what I took to be hints that M’gaan is one of the White Martians that face prejudice where she comes. Well, I’m a dunce, and it turns out those hints were that she is a White Martian, with the implication that her rough time back home came from the fact that she was part of a marginalized group.

There’s real power in that, particularly in the internalized shame and insecurity M’gaan developed as a result. Psimon’s the perfect villain to drag that out, not only capable of exposing her Martian form, but able to delve deep into her psyche and dredge up her worst fears. The concern that her teammates will feel betrayed, that her mentors will be disappointed, that her uncle will send her back, and most of all that the boy she loves will reject her, completely break your heart.

While thankfully, none of us have to fear that our friends won’t like or trust us because we secretly look like alien monsters, anxieties that those close to us might be repulsed if they saw the real you are highly relatable, if not universal. This is a cool way to dramatize that idea.

I especially like it because we see M’gaan continue the lie. When pressed on what’s going on with the sitcom thing, she tells her allies a half truth. She reveals her true form as...the same, except without hair. She’s still too anxious to fully come clean to them. Characters who act dishonestly, but do so for understandable reasons, makes for compelling storytelling, and this is not exception.

My only complaint is that the conflict between the two rival governments that the Young Justice team has to intervene in doesn’t do much for me. There’s some juice to the notion of one world leader subduing a rival through telepathy, but we barely get to delve into it since it’s rightfully not the focus here. Robin succeeding in his temporary promotion to team leader and exposing Queen Bee’s plot publicly via Miss Martian’s shapeshifting abilities is a good mini-arc. But otherwise it seems like an excuse for some action-y business apart from the more interesting, but more internal story.

That said, it’s good to see a member of The Light taking more direct action here rather than the usual shadow-y business we’ve seen to this point. The fact that Queen Bee’s goons have Apokalips tech helps tie things together. And as ongoing plots go, the fact that Queen Bee now has blackmail material over M’gaan, centered on the young woman’s deepest fears, is an intriguing development.

I’m most curious to see where the show will go with Miss Martian’s insistence that her “Hello Megan” persona is, in fact, the real her. You could see it breaking either direction: either affirming that you can choose to be who you see as your best self and that's totally valid, or supporting the idea that you need not be ashamed of who or what you are. Or hell, maybe they could even thread the needle and achieve both. There’s a lot of metaphors you could draw in either case, and I’m fascinated to see where things land.

Overall, I was really impressed by this episode. M’gaan hasn’t had nearly as much going for her as some of the other characters, but this moved her to the head of the pack in terms of complexity and emotional complications that makes her feel more well-rounded and compelling. There’s so many things to take from her predicament, and I’m excited to watch the rest of the season to see where it goes.