Official Synopsis:
“The team embarks on a desperate endeavor to free Blue Beetle!”
If you have not seen this episode yet and don’t want to be spoiled, do not continue reading!
REVIEW
For fans of Blue Beetle, great exposition delivery, great character development, as well as some callbacks to what we have seen before on Young Justice, then “Intervention” is just perfect. At this point, I should have expected to get as much as we got in this episode, but I didn’t imagine they’d be able to impressively squeeze as much as they did in a 20-minute episode.
A concern I mentioned in “War” was how disappointing it would be if Blue Beetle’s storyline had been left unresolved in the series finale. Before “Intervention”, I had almost given up hope of getting to see a resolution. Luckily, this wasn’t the case, though this show has always had an certain tendency to deceive.
Zatanna (last seen in a speaking appearance in “Cornered”) has been one of the most well developed characters since her first appearance in season 1, even despite only appearing in a limited number of episodes this season. What she was able to pull out of her hat this time was unbelievable. It’s a nice reminder that the five year gap between the two seasons means that several of our characters have been able to improve and master their powers. In that respect, seeing Zatanna perform that level of magic against something as advanced as the Scarab and the Reach was something I could buy.
On that note, one of the characters that I never expected to show up was Isis, the spirit we saw when Zatanna performed the spell. It was an impressive surprise, and she was well-used considering a character like her is someone that that might be difficult to integrate into this show. But luckily they did it well, and I did buy that whole plot of the episode.
What this story gave us was not only freeing Blue and Green, but it also showed how much most of the characters introduced this season have grown and learned, both individually and as a team. Everything that they did, from the plan of using Batgirl/Impulse as decoys while saving Rocket/Zatanna for the right time, to how they found out how to cut the connection between the Scarab and the Reach, was just remarkable.
“Intervention” was one of the ultimate teamwork episodes of the series, which makes these final episodes feel more memorable. The show also did some of its best exposition delivery for the Blue Beetle mythology. They explored how Dan Garrett (Blue I) and Ted Kord (Blue II) dealt with the scarab, as well as how they were during their times as Blue Beetle, which I enjoyed a lot. Not only did it give us some insight on these two, it also delved deeper into the Scarab and its history here on Earth. That’s interesting to see, since the Scarab has been one of the more complicated “characters” this season.
As one of the final episodes of the series, “Intervention” delivered a lot of satisfying things, as well as throwing in some surprises—particularly, whatever it is that The Light has planned that is apparently “set to proceed on schedule.”
ODDS & ENDS
- The Lagoon Boy/Miss Martian relationship was finally terminated, as she realized their relationship wasn’t good for them (and that it was never good to begin with.) I’m just going to pretend that the real reason why Miss Martian broke up with Lagoon Boy was because of him always calling her “Angelfish,” still is the worst charming pet/nickname to call your girlfriend.
- Regarding the scene where Blue is talking to Cat Grant while waving to fans and viewing himself as a big deal: the one thing that scene needed was Booster Gold doing the same thing with him, and it would had been priceless. While on the subject, how cool would it have been cool if Booster had showed up on the show?
- Ever since Smallville, Chris Gauthier’s Toyman has always been my favorite incarnation of that character, and he trumps every version there is. But it was still nice to see that character show up on this show at least once.
- I have a hard time believing that Blue Beetle II would be able to defeat someone as big as Deathstroke. I could, however, see Sportsmaster being defeated by Blue II.
- Some great callbacks to the previous episodes of both seasons with appearances of Queen Bee, Mammoth, Devastation, and Shimmer (who still hasn’t had a single line).
- Really Conner? Is this really the time to go on a date with Wendy Harris when the world is currently under an alien invasion?
- Where the heck was Wally West this week?! We can have both Barry Allén (although it was a non-speaking cameo) and Bart Allen in one episode, but we can’t get Wally?
Young Justice airs on Saturdays, 10:30 AM on the DC Nation block on Cartoon Network.
1 Comment
Regarding Blue Beetle II defeating Deathstroke, Ted Kord had a lot of training, almost on Batman level, and his gadgets actually rival Batman’s. It doesn’t surprise me that he could beat Deathstroke in a fight given how underrated and smart the character actually is.