4x25 Over and Out

[7.0/10] Feels like we’re limping to the finish. Candidly, maybe I’m just burnt out on the show. Major things seem to happen, like Dick getting smashed to death in the Fortress of Solitude and Rocket sacrificing herself to get Aqualad, Tigress, and Zatanna out of the boom tube, but there’s nothing here that convinced me those deaths will stick, and they come with little fanfare or ceremony. To be charitable, that’s how these things might happen in real life, and I can appreciate it, but we’re also just hitting these various points one after the other so there’s not much time for the audience to react to anything.

I’m increasingly convinced that Young Justice is a show more focused on assembling the pieces of the puzzles than on developing the characters through them. I thought the focus on arcs this season was going to help with that, but with Aqualad and Rocket’s stories, their changes of heart seem to happen mostly by fiat. Likewise, there’s not a ton of character in what’s happening now, with a little intrigue in the arguments between Zod and Zod Jr. over how to deal with the survivors of the House of El, but otherwise not much in the way of character stakes over plot.

And the plot is fine. There’s yet another weightless fight in the Phantom Zone between our heroes and some nameless, practically faceless bad guys. The Justice League reps meeting up with the Legionnaires and Flash helps assemble the team and leads to a couple of brief, but pleasant character moments featuring Phantom girl reuniting with her friends and Superman meeting other survivors of Krypton. The Zods arriving at the Fortress of Solitude is vaguely cool, albeit more from what it means in other works than something established by this show.

Speaking of which, the whole Emerald Empress shtick for Ursa Zod comes completely out of nowhere. I think we’ve seen that eye before, but otherwise, there’s been zero setup for what this means or why it matters or why Ursa would be a good pick for it. It’s just a random power upgrade for no reason.

Oddly, it seems like we’re setting up for a Zod vs. Green Lantern clash at some point, given how so much of the Phantom Zone and Zod’s philosophy is founded on strength of will, which is a key point for the Green Lanterns as well. But they haven't really built to that being a key feature of the battle to come, which, I suppose, won’t really stop the writers if past is prologue.

I’m also still not on board with the Superboy business. I can appreciate the idea that the zone sickness broke him down to his Cadmus programming, but it still feels undermotivated and just odd to this point. As with Brion, a character having their will overridden through science or magic isn’t especially interesting since there’s no agency to it. His fear that he’s killed M’gaan has some juice to it, and I assume she’ll be the key to snapping him out of it, but his whole story has been derailed.

That said, the idea of Zod beaming into Columbus Circle and threatening to have Conner kill Superman on live T.V. is at least a big hook, so I’ll give the episode that. Overall, I keep waiting for this climactic arc to snap into place, and with only one episode to go, it still all feels like a mechanical prelude to the finale rather than a story progressing and building chapter by chapter.