Good episode, but very flawed one. I liked Jamie search for his friend, but the girls' mission was boring. At least now, I'm interested who is this partner that Queen Bee mentioned. I liked Batgirl and Wonder Girl a lot, but Miss Martian and Bumblebee were very flat characters. The mission was boring because in the end it didn't achieve anything. Overall, it was a better episode than the last one. But it doesn't say that much about this season.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-05-17T01:59:27Z
[7.4/10] I spent a lot of this episode wondering why they set up the A-story and B-story this way until they came together. I appreciate the effort to make them dovetail with one another in a natural way that, at a minimum, a dummy like me didn’t see coming.
With the raft of new characters this season, I appreciate that the focal point for this one comes in the form of Blue Beetle and Wonder Girl. The chance to get to know them better and see what each is dealing with helps make the shift in main characters easier to swallow.
Jaime’s story is pretty intense. A young teenager running away from home because he can’t take the way his mom’s boyfriend physically abuses him and his mother is serious stuff for a kid-friendly show to grapple with. But it’s real, and so, like fellow young hero show Static Shock once did, I appreciate Young Justice grappling with such things, however difficult they may be.
Star Trek: Voyager’s Robert Beltran does a good job as Maurice, said abusive boyfriend. He’s manacing in his vocal tones, and the animators give the character a physicality to match. It’s just as neat to hear Twin Peaks’ Michael Horse as the grandfather of Jaime’s friend, one who seems to understand the Jaime’s inner turmoil in a way that catches Blue Beetle off guard. And while the resolution (for now) of Jaime just finding Maurice’s pirated movie and games collection is a bit of a letdown, the tension in their confrontation is real (especially with the scarab impelling Jaime to respond with preemptive violence), and the terror of having a friend abducted with no sign of where they ended up gives it emotional force.
The other story is more of a dose of pure action, but has its fair share of cool moments. Again, I like the basics here, where Miss Martian, Batgirl, and Bumblebee go on a stealth mission, but a disgruntled Wonder Girl is left behind because she’s not exactly stealthy. The turn, when she sees Psimon and must spring into action to warn her friends that their psychic link is no longer a safe mode of communication, and gets an attagirl from M’gaan for it, is a nice mini-arc.
Otherwise, the major reveal here is that Psimon and his gang are kidnapping runaways and hiding them in some sort of stasis tube, almost certainly in conjunction with The Partner. The goal seems plain after the skirmishes with the Kroloteans we’ve seen thus far: they’ll be replaced with alien doubles or something along those lines. But for now, it’s mostly an excuse to watch the quartet of heroes do battle with Psimon and his confederates.
There’s a few interesting wrinkles there. They at least give the new villain, Devastation, a bit of shading, as opposed to Shimmer and Mammoth who are basically mute muscle. The fact that Miss Martian and Psimon have had prior standoffs and do battle again raises the stakes, especially given how M’gaan’s been psychically lobotomizing people of late. And I like the continuity of how Icicle Jr. feels tricked and jilted from the time M’gaan pretended to be one of the Cajun ice siblings last season. The fact that the villains lose the battle but haven’t lost the war, since they still have a plane that includes Jaime’s friend in stasis, creates an ominous air despite our heroes winning the day.
Overall, this is a good episode, with two stories that succeed well enough on their own, but have a new resonance when they unexpectedly come together.