4x23 Ego and Superego

[7.4/10] I’m glad that Young Justice is finally following up on the events of season 3 in this arc (beyond Beast Boy’s difficulties) of course. It’s exciting to pick up where that season’s storylines left off. I’m glad, because I liked those characters, and appreciated the makeshift family they made and eventually broke together. But it also reminds me of my dissatisfaction with how things ended that season.

That continues for Brion, who isn’t a villain who made an understandable choice that led him to darkness, but rather remains a fundamentally decent guy who’s just being brainwashed by an evil manipulator. IT takes all the agency out of the proceedings, and frustrates me still.

But for one thing, I appreciate the worldbuilding we get here, seeing how Markovia is a home for metahumans, one with its own squad of heroes called the Infinitors, but one that’s taking a Magneto like claim to superiority over non-meta that threatens to turn the prejudice around. For another, I find it intriguing that Fury, one of the Infinitor goons, is catching on to the manipulation, and trying to help Brion break out of it. It’s not much, but I appreciate the steps the show’s taking on that front, even if I still have my gripes about Brion’s character arc.

That said, I’m much more on board with Violet’s character arc. I’d argue they are the signature character from the last season, so it’s nice to follow them as the anchor here. I like the throughline that they have complicated feelings for Harper, but need to resolve their feelings for Brion before feeling like they can move on. The scenes we get of them talking during group therapy with the other heroes is heartening in the honesty and vulnerability everyone shows, even if the writing is a little overly didactic. And Violet’s argument with Brion reinforces their shared history but also the different paths their lives have taken. It has the tenor of a real fight between people who care for one another but have hurt one another, and I appreciate how hashing all of this out gives Violet the closure they need to take the leap with Harper. It provides her a coda to that relationship, and offers one to the audience as well.

The Young Justice team fixing up the magic school bus using Zatanna’s gremlins is a little...out there. I don’t know why, in a world with various dimensions, and explicit magic users, and all the other over-the-top stuff we get in this show, that a bunch of little goblin creatures fixing a crushed vehicle in exchange for chicken fingers feels so ridiculous, but it does. As with the last episode, this plays a little like piece-moving before the gang can really get in gear. But I like the idea that, with a magical signature, Zatanna can use it to get the team to the Phantom Zone. Plus, they offer a plausible reason for not telling M’gaan, namely that the prospect of false hope might kill her. I can buy that, and it answers a question that was itching at the back of my head.

Last but not least, I’m a little thrown by the Superboy storyline here. I get that his brain was scrambled by the visions he had in the Phantom Zone, but his unblinking loyalty to Zod seems downright peculiar and out of character. Maybe he’s being mind controlled somehow, but I don’t think so. I think we’re just supposed to see him go from largely acting like himself in this realm, to being the unthinking mindslave of Zod, and buy that all it took was a few strange visions and an odd Movementarians-style chant from Zod’s goons to change his heart. At least we get some plot movement in the form of Phantom Girl explaining her dimensional phase-shifting as the cause of how they ended up here, and how she’s now able to get out.

Overall, this is one more Young Justice episode that arguably tries to do too much in the confines of a single half-hour episode, but is at least now addressing some of the key lingering points from season 3 that I’m most interested in.