Young-Justice-Complications Television 

Five Thoughts on Young Justice‘s “Complications”

By | September 12th, 2018
Posted in Television | % Comments

Counting down the episodes in the, what will surely extend past summer, 2018 Summer TV Binge of Young Justice: Invasion here at Multiversity. We have five episodes left and as the Warworld is secure, the Team is missing, Nightwing is suspicious, and Sportsmaster and Cheshire seek vengeance, there are of course (duh, duh, duh) complications. Let’s dive in!

1. The band back together

This episodes is pretty straightforward as we learn that Kaldur has been fixed by Miss M and them and Artemis need a way for her to escape which conveniently comes in the revenge scheme of Sportsmaster and Cheshire. All the while this is going on, the Warworld business from last episode becomes the side show which is interesting. What is exciting about the main crux of this episode is that it is one of the few times that members of the original Team or together, strategizing and trying to save the day. And that’s pretty cool. This really benefits Kaldur who loses some of the coldness and hardness of the season and reverts back to an older version of himself. He even gets his old costume back in the intricate mindscape that M’gann sends the five of them to. I like the wiser more reserved Kaldur and am glad he’s making a comeback here at the end of the season. Also the M’gann that doesn’t kill people. More of her.

2. Dick the detective

So Nightwing is clearly not convinced that his entire team was offed by Mongul and Boom Tubed away just cause Beetle says so and play acts as that’s the case. The Justice League may be clueless, but not Dick Grayson dammit! Actually, lots of adults are very clueless in this episode but we’ll get there. Anyway, Nightwing does just some, hmmm, basic detective work, and finds WAY more evidence than the League was able to find that Beetle was lying and that there was a struggle in the docking bay of Warworld and maybe Beetle is lying. From Wolf’s claw marks to the busted docking bay door to finally a Birdarang (God I love superhero names) from Tim he’s able to deduce that hmmm maybe some more stuff happened. I like seeing Dick Grayson play detective. While not the best of Batman’s protege’s in that department, it’s good to see him follow a hunch and not give up on his Team. Plus, it really just shows the League is entirely incompetent without Batman.

3. That’s sweet

There’s a lot of sweet moments in this episode from Artemis and M’gann’s interactions to Cheshire’s return to pick up her daughter from her mother who was babysitting her while she went on a mission with Sportsmaster. We get a lot of depth here from Cheshire and Sportsmaster outside of them totally wasting Black Manta and his crew. While we’re on that topic, Black Manta is weak here and I’m surprised The Light has let him join cause Sportsmaster just wrecks him. Sure they had the element of surprise but it’s almost laughable how easy the fight is and how gullible Black Manta is in just trying to save Kaldur. They even have Deathstroke on their side, albeit a much weaker less experienced Deathstroke than main DCU continuity. But, like Obama last week, I digress.

These sweet moments between Artemis and her sister and Artemis and her friend who is like her sister are some of the best things about the episode. The moment at the end where Jade tells her mother that Artemis is actually alive is really great. Even Sportsmaster who seemed only fueled by protecting his name has slight subtleties of something more than that. They are redeemable villains, or at least complex, honorable, and familial ones, showcasing that this show still knows how to do bad guys well.

4. This episode lives or dies on bad acting

This point is here mostly cause the episode could have been called “Acting,” or “Bad Acting,” Or “Theatrics,” and it still would have made complete sense. Beetle is a poor liar and the amount of staging that Kaldur, Artemis, and M’gann have to do to make Black Manta believe that everything is cool is hilarious. M’gann pretending to want to kill people then immediately fleeing, also bad. I get why they went with “Complications” it makes sense cause there’s so much improvisation going on, but jeez people be real gullible and it’s just almost sad how easy it is to trick bad guys.

Continued below

5. Beetle the Traitorous Hero

Hey folks, Beetle is bad. Poor Blue Beetle, victim and figurehead of The Reach. We all saw it coming, they turned him and Nightwing is the only one who can save him. But hey at least now he can get the respect he deserves.

Making Blue the main focus for the season and turning him into a villain was a really cool move, and with everyone out of commission it hits harder as The Reach continue to enact their plan. Plus, Jaime just outed himself too in this episode ala Peter Parker in “Civil War.” Things are not looking good.

That’s all we have this week folks. Sound off in the comments below and come back next week as we only have four more episodes left!


//TAGS | 2018 Summer TV Binge | Young Justice

Kevin Gregory

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