There are only three episodes left in our 2018 Summer TV Binge of Young Justice: Invasion! Which is good because we’re officially in fall now so gotta be wrapping things up. This week in “Intervention” the Team rescue Jaime from The Reach’s influence as ther plans begin to fall apart. Oh right and M’gann and La’gaan break up. Super weird B plot. Anyway let’s dive in!
1. A matter of control
The episode opens with Blue Beetle getting some more public praise by picking off an eyebrow pierced version of Toyman robbing a bank in Metropolis. The villain is so terrified of Beetle as the hero that singlehandedly took at Warworld that he tries to flee. Jaime gets to do an interview with Cat Grant and cozy up to her, and it is then that we learn that Jaime is still inside his body, he just is taking a backseat like the scarab usually does. He is watching The Reach control his body, which to me, sounds utterly terrifying.
The episode uses this both for terror and comedy though. Apparently The Reach Ambassador can still hear Jaime’s thoughts and they talk and he makes regular hero quips in talking to him. It’s just funny that The Reach wouldn’t try to get rid of Jamie’s voice for good.
2. Is this really the time?
So the B plot of this episode has to do with M’gann going to see La’gaan and them “having a talk” and ultimately breaking up. In an episode where it probably would’ve been really good to have all Team members on deck to reign in Blue Beetle, it seems odd that they get to have their break up montage. She basically calls him her rebound guy and that it was never gonna work between them, blah blah blah, I had a lot of time to think while I was a prisoner of Black Manta, blah blah blah, it’s not you it’s me you deserve better, and so on. As soon as they get back to Bludhaven and hear the mission was successful she imediately asks Nightwing about Connor after she already told Lagoon Boy it wasn’t about him. He’s off though with Wendy Harris (more Super Friends jabs), which also seemed weird because if Black Beetle had shown up to fight the Team members trying to save Blue they’d have been screwed without him. TL;DR, it’s weird the break up is this episode, also why isn’t all of the Team on the mission to save Blue. That is all.
3. Playing with fire
So the episode continues as Impulse, Batgirl, Zatanna, and Rocket capture Blue and take him to some weird Bialayan desert chamber to perform voodoo Beetle magic on the scarab. Fighting of course ensues and Beast Boy, Bumblebee, Wonder Girl, and Robin join the mix. The Reach send Green Beetle in to the fight only for him to be subdued briefly by fire (aka Martian kryptonite) and then ultimately to have his scarab cleansed alongside Jaime’s. Freedom for both at last. Everything is good as new as The Reach start to fall apart. But how did the Team know about the weird magic nonsense? Well Batgirl and Bumblebee had stumbled upon it back in “Beneath” and apparently Zatanna had been working on learning the magic since then after Doctor Fate deciphered stuff. So the Team knew Beetle might go bad for awhile. Guess that explains some of the special attention. But wait there’s more!
4. Dan Garret
The show does another one of the things it is consistently good which is referencing older DC continuity and trying to make it all fit together! With that in mind, meet Dan Garret, archaeologist and Blue Beetle numero uno from 1939 who had a bulletproof costume and gained powers from the scarab Jaime now has attached to his back. The scarab never corrupted him cause magicians cleansed it thousands of years ago when it landed on Earth. He had a protege named, you guessed it, Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle. Kord never wore the scarab, but was influenced by his teacher to make himself the next Blue Beetle through technology. When The Light came looking for the scarab cause they knew The Reach were a-calling, he died protecting it and Jaime got it by accident becoming BB number three. And all that explained seamlessly and under a minute. Thanks comic book writer Peter David who wrote this episode for making continuity manageable! See how easy that can be?
Continued below5. The Light is still Light-ing
Alright so last week I mused on about which team Luthor is playing for and whether or not it was The Light or his own team. Well it turns out it’s probably definitely The Light. Queen Bee shows up at the end of the episode thanking her goons for throwing their fight with Batgirl, Impulse and Zatanna and allowing the Team to cure Blue, presumably throwing a wrench in all the stuff The Reach was up to. The Light is still clearly in complete control of the situation and no one else is. All of you are puppets. None of you can see the strings.
Two more episodes left friends as the binge winds down, the battle heats up, it’s The Reach versus The Team next week for all the marbles! Sound off in the comments below and tune back in in seven days!
