Young Justice Outsiders Into the Breach Television 

Five Thoughts on Young Justice: Outsiders “Into the Breach”

By | August 28th, 2019
Posted in Television | % Comments

Today is the day the end begins as Young Justice: Outsiders has dropped the last three episodes of season all for your viewing pleasure. We’ll be covering them each separately, the first today, the next on Sunday, and finishing out the end of the season a week from today. You of course will probably have binged all three episodes by the time you read this (you impatient, entertainment-enslaved, Anti-Life Equation admirer you), but just like I did back in part one when DC Universe dropped multiple episodes at once, I’m taking these one at a time, and my thoughts are free from the images and sounds of the following two episodes. Though I am very excited to get to them.

This episode picks up directly (via being adjacent) to last week’s episode, and gives us the direction of the next two episodes. The Light and Darkseid are at odds, and the Anti-Life Equation is here. All that and some bloody action and talk of football. There will be spoilers from here on out and a detailed discussion will ensue. But with that, let’s dive in!

1. Pwoom. Pwoom.

I just love that Kid Flash makes sound effect noises when he goes to recon the entire Goode facility in Burbank, but I’m getting quite ahead of myself.

This episode takes place on the same day that last episode took place: January 25th. The kicker is, instead of the perspective of M’gann’s Team and the League in space, we get the Outsiders sacking a Goode facility in Cali. That text that M’gann sends to Gar last episode before their assault, winds up being how this episode begins. I really want to know who their cell service provider is.

With that, we get the Outsiders being heroic following the direction of Vic. This is very much the Victor Stone Redemption Tour episode as we learn Vic has gained new mastery over his powers thanks to the events of “Quiet Conversations” and has tracked a lack of electronic activity and the buzz of Apokaliptin tech to a Goode Facility. The Outsiders intercept, and find the big, bad machine that houses the X-Pit, or allows the X-Pit to function? Something like that.

This was not the opener I expected for this episode, having been primed by the possibility of “Final Crisis” and now several years of reading comics where alternative futures, different dimensions, warped timelines, and devastating (but indefatigably reversible) devastation are the norm. Instead, we get a different open and more time with the Outsiders, which leads to a legitimate win for them, and leads to a win for the heroes. It leads to screen time and purpose for Vic, which he’s somewhat been lacking, and keeps the episode character-focused, which this show has had no problem ever doing. It both subverted and confirmed my expectations. The confirmation, though, we’ll get to.

2. Technocancer/Technocure

So Vic’s tampering with the X-Pit leads to all the Outsiders being sucked into the Pit. The Scarab retreats from Jaime and he starts getting it the worst, and Dorado who stayed on the ship tries to teleport in to help, but to no avail. All this leads to Granny singling out Gar to fight one-on-one and for Vic to try to find a new solution by transcending his body to fight Overlord inside his mainframe or the machine’s mainframe or something of the sort. It’s comic book wackiness and plotting, which while bothering plot devices and characters from, is the kind of logic I feel like this show has shied away from as it’s assumed it’s serious tone and drama. Someone’s probably going to disagree with me there, but I feel like this show’s quest for respectability has skirted around some of the more comix bookiness.

Anyway, Granny just wipes the floor with Beast Boy in what is absolutely the most brutal 1 v 1 of this entire run. There’s blood dripping, and just the utter hatred and contempt shared between the two foes. This is coupled with Vic’s cyber battle with the cyber golem thing where he takes a spear to the stomach, but wishes it away and wins. While I am glad that it’s not Violet getting utterly wrecked, there is still something odd to me, even here at the end, about this season’s use of violence. This show’s strong suit has always been, cunning, cleverness, and subterfuge. While there have been fights and death, none of those things have ever been glorified in gore. Not that there’s copious amounts of blood here, but it just seems extra and unnecessary. I binged Amazon’s The Boys recently which has a ton of violence and blood, none of which bothered me, because that’s the tone and sarcasm that show struck and it felt intentionally and authentically what they were going for in a way this season has never felt. Violence does not mature themes make, especially since this show was already so exciting, morally grey, and asking interesting ethical questions.

Continued below

Anyway, the fight happens and they win, Vic rids the “technocancer” from his friends by being the “technocure,” in what is some of the groan-worthy dialogue in this episode, a lot of which seems to come from Vic’s mouth. I totally forgot he was playing football only months ago until he started using it as an analogy. Some of it felt forced and odd and tonally dissonant. Jonathan Callan who has written episodes of Justice League Action and Ben 10, shows where that dialogue might be more appropriate. This is also Callan’s first Young Justice, and while I in no way think this episode is bad, or that Callan did a bad job, or that my foibles are entirely his, it does add to my suspicion that there has been some backroom issues with the second half of this season either on the part of DC Universe or on Weisman and Vietti.

3. I am Cyborg

The fight gets turned around, and the Outsiders get the upper hand, and manage to destroy the machine and send the Earth Granny Goodness back to her other self at the Orphange. Vic pursues, and comes upon Granny hurt at the moment that last episode ended, which means he has time to save Violet and together the two of them free the Team and the League, with Violet unleashing new levels of power, and they all stop Granny. She gets away of course, but they ruin her plan and take away her conduit (Violet) for the Anti-Life Equation.

Back on Earth, Vic gets offered a spot on both the Outsiders and the Team, and chooses the Outsiders. In a call back to Nightwing telling everyone they need to pick codenames, Brion offers Vic that same choice, to which he lovingly chooses Cyborg and seeks to truly embrace his human and machine sides. This good will is sunk a little by Violet explaining what an inside joke is, but nonetheless, after the Cyborg stuff dragging for much of this season, we get resolution, and it’s good and works. Seeing Violet and Vic save the day together after being antagonists closes out that thread. Great. There are better threads now to pick up.

4. Luthor’s Teen Team: Infinity Inc.

Speaking of threads, very thinly threaded through this episode, and a handful of preceding ones going back to “Unknown Factors” are Young Justice‘s version of Infinity, Inc. This version of that team seems to feature what looks like versions of Trajectory, Brainwave, and Fury, and are being handled by Lex Luthor. Luthor really likes teens, especially since he was the handler for the pseudo-Runaways-but-really-redeemed-racial-stereotypes-from-SuperFriends last season.

The original Infinity, Inc. was made up of the kids and inheritors of the roles from the Justice Society of America and debuted in the comics right before “Crisis on Infinite Earths” in the 1980s. Following the “Infinite Crisis” event in 2005, DC Comics ran a great (one of the only great) weekly comics called “52,” which ran for a whole year and told the story of the “missing year” after “Infinite Crisis.” In that event, there was a version of Infinity, Inc. that Luthor financed and ran, so there is more fun comics-precedent for this turn. Gotta love the inspiration. It’s interesting that Luthor is doing this, and I’m curious if the Light knows and is pulling the strings on this, or if it’s just him being pissy and petty after being put in his place by Godfrey. Are all the Light members acting out or just Vandal and possibly Luthor?

5. The carrot and the stick

With this episode we get once again the beginnings of what seems like the familiar patterns of the season end of Young Justice. The Team, or in this case the Outsiders, get a big win, and seemingly stick it to the big bad, only for something worse to happen which shows the villains really had it in the bag the whole time. Xanatos Gambit, the now famous trope coined from Gargoyles, which Young Justice co-creator Greg Weisman wrote, is primed and ready to be unveiled. In season one, the Team got a big win in “Usual Suspects,” before the League is brainwashed by Vandal Savage. The Team then takes down the League in the finale, but Vandal wins by making the League trash Rimbor in the missing 16 hours. In season two, the Team’s gambit of Aqualad being a spy pays off and they stop The Reach in “Summit,” only for them to turn around and try to blow up Earth in “Endgame,” where Wally dies and Darkseid still is. This episode seemingly seems to be our set up. The heroes beat Granny Goodness (who for some reason never told Darkseid she had a workable Anti-Life Equation until she needs to beg for mercy). The League is coming home and the Team and Outsiders are on the up and up. But, Infinity, Inc. is still out running, and now Darkseid and Vandal are heading for conflict. The question will be, which villain is pulling the ultimate strings here. Vandal? Luthor? Darkseid? Or someone else? Which villain comes out on top.

I hate to be like this I really do. I love this show, and I so wanted this season to go differently. Maybe it still will I don’t know. But having waited six years for Darkseid, and to get him so sparingly, I have no doubt the resolution we get by season’s end will be miniscule. I’m happy this show is getting a fourth season, but I really wanted an ending. I wanted this characters to get some closure, The Light Saga to end, and if there were to be another season, to begin something anew. I’m ready for that not to be the case. I’ll check back in with on this after two more episodes.

That’s all for part one of three. Sound off in the comments below, and I’ll see you in a few days for part two!


//TAGS | Young Justice

Kevin Gregory

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