1x26 Auld Acquaintance

[8.0/10] What this one lacked in emotion, it made up for in sheer epicness. Let’s be real, the bulk of this one is just cool fights. There’s little in the way of outright cleverness or deep explorations of the characters who’ve sustained the show to this point.

But damn those fights are cool! There is something inherently thrilling about watching the Young Justice team members square off against their Justice League counterparts. Red Arrow getting into a battle with Green Arrow (plus Aquaman and Flash for good measure) features Roy having to dodge his own style of attacks. Aqualad has to apologize to “his king” for besting him in combat. Kid Flash has to stymie his mentor with a well-timed blast door opening. Miss Martian has to penetrate the mind of her uncle to stop him. The Boy Wonder has to square off with The Dark Knight. And Superboy has to go toe-to-toe with the father whom he has such complicated feelings about.

It’s all completely awesome. Look, it’s kind of a cheat how quickly the Young Justice team is able to come up with an antidote to and vaccine for the Starro tech. But seeing them work creatively to sneak in and plant the reciprocal patch on their adult heroes makes for good television. Some of these action show season finales are mainly there for the fireworks, and after some deeper character catharsis last week, I can live with that.

Hell, I even like the bad guys’ motivation here. The ability to mind control all the heroes, despite their different body chemistries and backgrounds, is a tad implausible. But Vandal Savage’s speech about monitoring every cutting edge technology involved in mind control, no matter which discipline it comes from, gives it the air of plausibility required for a superhero story. Likewise, I dig the official rationale -- that someone like Savage, and other villains who see themselves at the top of the food chain, believe humanity needs to evolve through survival of the fittest, and that the protection of the Justice League is hindering that natural evolutionary process. It’s better than “evil for evil’s sake”, directly addresses the good that the heroes do, and seems entirely self-serving for Vandal Savage and his cronies despite their supposedly “greater good” goals.

My one big complaint is that too much of this stuff comes down like a tease for the next season rather than a period of even a semicolon for this one. What did the six big time leaguers do in the sixteen hours they were missing? What is “Phase Two” of The Light’s plan? What do they plan to do with Bizarro and the real Roy Harper? Etc. etc. etc. I know it’s good to setup details for longterm storytelling, and if you’ve watched Gargoyles or The Spectacular Spider-Man, it’s very much Greg Weisman’s way. But I was expecting more of a sense of finality to this one.

Still, there’s at least some cleverness, payoffs, and capstones at play here. Red Tornado helping save the day via his quick response to the infiltration, and the group saving the day by transferring his consciousness to his android body is a good story beat. The fakeout with their off-screen cures getting good Leaguers out of Savage and Klarion’s control was a nice touch. And the group having to figure out who they can and can’t trust creates a foreboding, paranoid atmosphere.

To that end, though, I don’t love the reveal with Red Arrow. It’s hard to put my finger on, but as I said before, the fact that the mole isn’t really a mole, but rather someone programmed as a sleeper agent scans as a cop out to me. More to the point, it requires reams of exposition as to how exactly this went down, and reduces Speedy’s interesting choice to give up being part of the Young Justice squad because he felt betrayed and held back by the League to a part of his brainwashing rather than a fully-motivated decision. There’s narrative hay to be made from examining his journey of self-discovery upon realizing he’s a clone, but it’s not a fully satisfying resolution to the mole arc or the character’s arc in my eyes.

That said, I do appreciate where they landed with Superboy. For one thing, having him realize he can’t go it alone, and even has to sacrifice himself a little when working with Robin to win the day, is a great note for the character. And I particularly appreciate Superman finally giving the kid some support and even declaring that he thinks the name “Conner Kent” is appropriate. It’s the sort of father-son first step that shows both of them evolving, contrary to Vandal Savage’s concern.

The romantic stuff is pretty rushed though. Superboy and M’gaan are aces. But Artemis once again forgives Wally very quickly for being such a jerk, and even as I’m rooting for those two kids, I wish there’d been more connective tissue from there to here. Likewise, I dig the chemistry between Robin and Zatanna, but that's super sudden as well. And that's before the show goes diving headlong into Aqualad and Rocket as a couple. You don’t need to pair everybody off just because it’s the end of the season.

That's a lot of gripes, but despite that, I was largely satisfied with this finale. We got to understand the villains’ plan (mostly). We got an epic challenge in the form of a mind-controlled Justice League (including a particularly startling interlude featuring most of the lineup from the DCAU’s version of the team). And we got to see the young heroes rise to the challenge of fighting and saving their mentors. It’s not perfect, but it’s a roundly satisfying end to a fantastic season.