Young Justice Outsiders Antisocial Pathologies Featured Television 

Five Thoughts on Young Justice: Outsiders “Antisocial Pathologies”

By | August 14th, 2019
Posted in Television | % Comments

Today is the day…that we countdown to only three more weeks of Young Justice: Outsiders before this whole things end in a massive loss of free will as the puppet strings come into the fore through a glint of the light. No wait that might just be late-stage capitalism and the current rise of fascism again in the West. Whatever this is a comics site you aren’t here to read me ramble. Well not about politics.

So if we were still following the schedule of three episodes released per week, this would be the last one of the third round; this is the ninth episode of part two. With that, we have four more episodes remaining, and this one has a lot of work to do to drop the floor out from under everyone and begin the march to whatever resolution we’re getting. Of course, as per usual, there will be spoilers from here on out as talk full plot details. But as your freedom evaporates and nihilism sets in, what a perfect time to dive right in!

1. Flashbacks

This episode picks up immediately from the last as the Outsiders and others return to Hollywood from rescuring Jefferson and Dick from Granny’s X-Pit. Dick is still sick, for some reason, but this works to draw a large group to his bedside. We also see Tara taking a walk and she has a run in with Deathstroke who knows she’s been lying about the developments with Halo and Vic because Granny has informed the Light.

All of this leads to flashbacks to Tara’s time in captivity and the build up to her love for Slade and her further more forceful and purposeful betrayal come episode’s end. The flashbacks are fairly tame, after of course showing Tara’s bloody abduction in the UK. Brion went clubbing, she was alone, she got got. Slade liberates her from that and her post-Jace transformation and teaches her to fight and gives her some agency back. All season I’ve been worried this show would go full ‘The Judas Contract’ in showing Tara’s betrayal. Namely, that her and Slade would have sex and this show’s streaming service status would give us a gross “mature” and “updated” rendition of that story. It’s looking like we’re gonna avoid it. Tara and Slade’s relationship is looking to be akin to a more father/daughter (still screwed up) type thing, and her emotion toward him being mostly gratitude rather than attraction. Honestly, I think that makes more sense and is just a better way to enact that betrayal. It’s about loyalty rather than a relationship that shouldn’t’ve existed even in the 80s.

2. Civilian clothes

As aforementioned, Dick comes back from the X-Pit with a huge fever, which draws Bruce, Babs, Tim, and Alfred to his bedside, along with M’gann and Conner in tow. This is one of the few shots we get of “Batman Inc.” in civilian clothes, and the first we’ve seen of Bruce rocking the rich bastard turtle neck on this show. Seeing everyone in their street clothes is a first for this season, them preferring everyone in costume since the cast has grown so large there’s not as much time to check in with everyone. And really we haven’t seen Bruce and his gang or Tim and his crew in awhile. Or Tim really at all. It’s nice to see all the care Dick gets. It’s definitely a dumb move because Jefferson figures everything out, but it’s interesting. It highlights an oddity though of this second half of the season.

Bruce and Babs both speak in this part of the episode. They argue, and in true Bruce/Babs fashion, she’s one of the few that can put him in his place. But Tim never speaks, neither does Alfred, or Conner, or M’gann the whole episode. Along a number of others. It seems oddly out of place for them to be here and have nothing, and combined with my concern last episode about some of the stiffer animation, I am really curious about how this show is fairing with DC Universe having issues. It’s not going to get better with HBO Max coming. I hope that the announced is on DC Universe and HBO Max, that way there are some reassurances of the investment by Time Warner into the show. But we’ll see.

Continued below

3. “What good is the mission if we lose ourselves trying to fulfill it?”

Anyway this is the best part of the episode. Jefferson puts it all together as Bruce, Babs, Tim, Kaldur, Conner, and M’gann huddle up for a team meeting with Dick incapacitated. Idiots. If they really wanted to keep their secret society a secret they would’ve continued to meet in, I don’t know, secret? They bad secret keepers. All this cascades downward as everyone in the Outsiders HQ realizes that Batman and his folks have been playing the League, the Team, and the Outsiders. Jefferson gets in some great punches like what’s quoted above as he realizes he too has been a pawn in this whole game. Having Jefferson be the moral backbone helps, especially as he gets doubly screwed due to Jace’s betrayal. I am curious where he goes from here, being an important pillar of the Outsiders in most iterations, I have a hard time seeing him run off for the rest of the season. Though I guess with Artemis being gone recently (where she been in like 5 episodes), this show has no problem setting aside main characters for a bit. I think Jeff is right to point out the hypocrisy. As much as I love this show, this version of the League and these characters are the darkest and most paranoid-ridden versions of themselves. It works in this world of secrets and war-waging behind the public eye, but still.

4. Jace’s long monologue

Ok, so Dr. Jace. Yikes. She mind controls Brion and Tara (although Tara has a gift from Deathstroke to counteract her control) and gets Halo to go with all of them to meet Ultra-Humanite to “heal” her. But, as we heard from Granny last episode, she has the Anti-Life Equation, and Halo is the key! So Jace has lured Halo to Granny and Ultra-Humanite, and we get an extended sequence of Granny testing her equation on Jace. Maybe a little too longe extended sequence?

So Jace planned Brion and Tara’s transformations and thinks of them as her kids. She’s also a racist (metaist?) who thinks Halo isn’t “good enough” for Brion because she doesn’t have the metagene, but is endowed with a Mother Box. She seduced Jeff for knowledge, and betrays everyone for selfish reasons. Not that we hadn’t seen this coming, but this villain monologue is like 5 minutes of a 23 minute episode, and is fine, and makes sense, but could’ve been shortened. Still wild to see Jace as the first Anti-Life test subject. Darkseid is bay-bay.

5. Two Granny’s, one pissed Vandal

Alright so here’s a few odd thoughts at the end. Vandal goes off to meet with Darkseid partway through the episode. Their first face to face since “Endgame.” He’s super pissed to hear about the Anti-Life Equation. He’s done playing second fiddle, and is ready to continue his war, and knows if Darkseid gets the Equation then Darkseid wins. Wonder if that tips the scales back towards a Light/League team-up come season’s end. Maybe that means season 4 is a full “Final Crisis” adaptation.

Second odd thought: there’s two Granny Goodnesses. One in the Orphanage, and one on Earth. One wretched and one sweet. Is there comic book precedence for this? Does granny split herself in other places? Is there more going on here? I just assumed Granny was boom tubing everywhere, but if this has a fun payoff that’s way cooler.

Overall, this episode was alright, a step up from last week, and a great palette-wetter as we set up the end. Sound off in the comments below and we’ll see you next week!


//TAGS | Young Justice

Kevin Gregory

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