1x23 Insecurity

[7.7/10] Alright, we truly are in bombshell alley now! After big reveals about Miss Martian and Superboy, Young Justice finally pulls the trigger on Artemis’ family life. Her dad is Sportsmaster! Her mom was Huntress! Maybe this is all known material from the comics, but it came as a sufficient shock to me, so kudos to the show for pulling it off.

But hey, one quick personal aside before we dive into the meat of it. For those of us who watched and enjoyed Greg Weisman’s previous superhero show, Spectacular Spider-Man, it’s a trip to see Josh Keaton, who portrayed the wall-crawler in that series, quasi-reprise the role as Black Spider here. Getting to see what amounts Spider-Man versus Green Arrow and Artemis, replete with some trademark attacks and quips from the self-proclaimed web-slinger, is a fun in-joke for fans of the character and Weisman’s prior work.

Back to the main deal. What I appreciate about these reveals is that they don’t just exist to mess with the heads of people like me who didn’t see it coming. Instead, they serve the character of Artemis, making her relationship with her friends and her allies and her family members more complicated than what they were before. Everyone remembers the “Luke, I am your father” twist in Star Wars. Fewer recall that it wasn’t just a mind-blowing twist; it complicated what it meant to fight against the Empire and the Dark Side for Luke. Twists should expand and enhance characters, not just give you a “Whoa!” moment, and this reveal achieves that well.

Finding out that Artemis’ mom is Huntress doesn’t just give Artemis a connection to the grown-up heroes which is deeper than any we knew about before. Her mom shares that the big-wigs approached her first before going to Artemis, suggesting Artemis’ inclusion in the Young Justice team was a favor to her rather than something Artemis earned on her own merits. Likewise, revealing that Sportmaster is her dad isn’t just a “Whoa, gotta fight your parent” twist. It comes with an invitation to join the bad guys right at the moment when Artemis is feeling the most unappreciated and replaceable. The new details about her parentage add weight to her decisions and psyche amid all of this.

Plus hey, I like an episode where the young heroes fail for once! It’s almost an afterthought that the heroes will succeed in most if not all of what they set out to do. The intrigue lies in how they’ll accomplish this. But here, for once, the baddies pull out their victory, and there’s nothing the heroes can do about it. In fact, the good guys lose almost every confrontation, which not only feeds into the blame game that follows within the Young Justice team, but makes their success seem less assured and du jure in every episode.

The dynamic at play is interesting. I appreciate Red Arrow’s return to the group with the other former sidekicks. The idea that he’s still reluctant to do it, but is up for joining the team as a show of good faith since he’s soon to be inducted into the Justice League, makes sense for why he would finally sign up. He still thinks it’s beneath him a little, but is willing to do it for the greater good.

(As an aside, crazy thought: Could Red arrow be the mole? It seems unlikely, but you can see the case for it with him as a part-timer.)
But naturally, it leads to tension in the group. Red Arrow resents Artemis because he thinks she was his replacement. He doesn’t trust her since he knows the story about her personal history is bogus. And he also thinks of himself as a seasoned pro right now who doesn’t like his literally and figuratively greener alternative.

For her part, Artemis resents Red Arrow, because he’s sort of a big brother she worries she won’t be able to live up to as an archer, who’s able to practically waltz into the place, and who carries himself with a certain arrogance. They’re oil and water, and the reasons why are pretty clear and fair given where each is coming from.

The mission itself isn’t particularly exciting but for the inclusion of Cheshire. I love the way she’s an agent of chaos here, playing mind games with all involved. She spurs mistrust between the archers by suggesting that she’s involved with Red Arrow, which naturally gets Artemis’ dander up. And she plays a game with the trackers to manipulate Artemis into assuming that Red Arrow and the rest of the team don’t trust her. There’s psychological warfare here with a biological sibling on the one hand and a spiritual sibling on the other, which makes for a rich dynamic between the three of them.

That said, the villain plot doesn’t do a lot for me. There’s some coolness to the magic of Klarion interacting with the alienness of the Starro arm being mixed with the science of The Brain and the cybernetics of Dr. Ivo. I can also appreciate Dr. Ivo using a robotic decoy to make it seem as though he never left Belle Reve (with the cooperation of Hugo Strange, of course). But it seems pretty disconnected from the skirmishes between the young heroes and Sportsmaster/Cheshire, with their tasks seeming like side dishes rather than key elements.

Still, the action is solid, and the show comes up with enough solid set pieces and moment-to-moment conflicts to keep things exciting and interesting. The efforts not to place blame and go back and forth over who’s responsible for what and worthy of what else are good.

That just leaves Wally, and sigh. He was doing so good! Him telling Artemis that she’ll always be a part of the team and has nothing to prove is such a great moment, one that pulls them together in a really plausible and genuinely sweet way. But then he turns on her on a dime at the end of the episode, and you just wanna see that maroon whopped upside the head for it. At least Aqualad has his “if mistakes were betrayals, we’d all be out” rejoinder, but seeing Kid Flash be such a jerk really rankled me. If anything, it almost lays it on too thick for why Artemis might feel abandoned and betrayed by her friends and seriously consider changing sides.

I want to be able to see it from Red Arrow and Wally’s perspectives. They have someone they think they can trust who leaves them hanging in a particularly tight moment. I can understand why that would be tough to take, especially for an already-suspicious Red Arrow. But we the audience know that Artemis is just trying to prove herself and overdoing it. Her mistakes are relatable and understandable, which makes the harsh reception feel unjust.The upshot is that even as we don’t want Artemis to join the bad guys, we’re sympathetic to why she might want to.

Oh, and I forgot about the rest of the team sneaking into Red Tornado’s apartment! It’s comparatively low stakes, and the reveal that he’s building a more humanoid body is pretty unremarkable. But knowing Young Justice, it’ll play into the big storylines in a major but unexpected way down the line. More than anything, it’s just relatable to see these teenagers be board and so poking around to try to solve a “mystery” of their own creation when they have nothing better to do.

Overall, I am again impressed by this show and its ability to find greater psychological depths in already fairly well-developed characters. Artemis’ family connections have a meaningful impact beyond the “Whoa” factor, and I’m excited to see where it takes her and the show over the last five episodes.