With the end of Young Justice: Outsiders fast approaching episode 25 of this season, titled “Overwhelmed,” was the calm before the storm. There were a lot of chess pieces that were moved into place for the final episode. Some of those moves were violently done, mostly from The Light’s side of the episode. The strong focus on character progress was provided a lot of great and heartbreaking moments. Though the ongoing issue with the entire Young Justice: Outsiders season continue to be a wall that can’t be avoided.
Getting the monkey out of the room first. The big thing that “Overwhelmed” highlighted was that the size of the cast that Young Justice: Outsiders has tried to juggle has been far too big. There are too many main characters on this show to just have disappear for several episodes or act as background characters. It has never served this season well and it once again showed with how Artemis, Zatanna and Superboy were suddenly thrust into the spotlight as the main driving forces of this episode.
That said, this did not stop “Overwhelmed” from delivering some of the best character development this series has had. One of the major sub-plots that has not been addressed this season was Artemis getting over Wally West’s death at the end of Young Justice: Invasion. Even though it has been two years since Wally passed away it has been clear that his death has continued to weigh heavily on Artemis. Throughout Young Justice: Outsiders we’ve seen Artemis push herself past it. And to her credit she has handle it well with the others around, as we saw when she embraced Nightwing in “Terminus” when addressing Wally’s death.
Still, there was a part of Artemis that has clearly not moved passed Wally’s death. Having a kiss shared with her love interest/brother-in-law Will Harper was a spark for Artemis to explore this fact. Artemis freak out showed that she needed to get over what happened to Wally.
Bringing Zatanna in to help her was a cool callback to their team-up episode back in the first season of Young Justice, “Secrets.” Having Miss Martian and Rocket along to help Artemis was also nice reunion with some of the original members of The Team. The constant appearances of Zatanna, Miss Martian and Rocket in Artemis limbo-like state was a reminder that these four share a strong friendship with each other.
Seeing Wally back was also just heartbreaking. It was a reminder how Wally and Artemis had developed such a strong relationship over the course of the first two seasons of this show. The chemistry between them made it heartbreaking to see how quickly Artemis accepted her life in limbo with Wally. Artemis acceptance made Wally calling her out towards the end a strong moment in this episode. It pushed Artemis to accept that while she’ll never get that full life with Wally she can’t keep living in the past.
All that said, the most heartbreaking moment in this portion of the episode was the revelation that Artemis was never actually interacting with Wally’s spirit. It being all a trick by Zatanna and Miss Martian to help Artemis finally get over Wally’s death was a strong pull at the heartstrings. The show’s staff handled this revelation with great care as it was clear that Zatanna and Miss Martian were doing all this to help their close friend through the toughest period in her life.
With Artemis pushing past Wally’s death I was glad that it was not used as an excuse for her to jump into a relationship with Will Harper. Even though we’ve seen signs of attraction between the two it always came across as the two settling for each other because of their situation. It would also be odd that they would suddenly be a couple given that Artemis is Lian’s aunt and Will’s sister-in-law. Having them keep their family relationship intact is a much better route in the long term for both of them.
For as much attention as Artemis character arc got, this episode was also a great spotlight episode for Superboy. Superboy hasn’t been a major presence in this season, especially in comparison to Nightwing, Miss Martian, Aquaman and Artemis. But in the times he has stepped up we’ve seen the focus of Superboy’s development be on what role he wants to actually serve in the future. That questions was spotlighted as Superboy took Forager to the secret Genomorphs town.
Bringing Dubbilex back into play was a great choice to start Superboy’s push to accepting what he should be. This once again used the developments from the first season of Young Justice to amplify the current character arcs for both Superboy and Forager. The sense of acceptance in what both characters should do by the time Young Justice: Outsiders comes to close creates yet another intriguing sub-plot for the final episode of this season.
While it didn’t get a lot of attention in “Overwhelmed,” we did see yet another push to the endgame with The Light going all in on their plan. They are obviously pushing The Team into the corner as Lex Luthor knows they can’t avoid what is going on in Markovia. Especially with Geo Force on the Outsiders the crisis on Markovia clearly now takes priority. How The Light ends up using this to their advantage will be interesting to see in the final episode.
It’ll also be interesting to see if Metron’s warning to Cyborg and Halo comes into play for the final episode. That is something that came across as a more long-term story as Darkseid is likely to take a step back after how badly Granny Goodness failed. Still, there is a possibility that Darkseid will try to get his revenge on the Team and Outsiders for spoiling his plans with the Anti-Life Equation.
At the end, all of these developments that take place in “Overwhelmed” nicely sets up Young Justice: Outsiders season finale to wrap things off on a strong note. There are so many players on the chess board that it is still not fully clear which side will win.
Episode Rating: 8.5 Night Girls out of 10
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