Young Justice: Outsiders season 3, episode 22 recap: Antisocial Pathologies

All hell breaks loose when uncomfortable truths about the heroes and their associates come to the surface in episode 22 of Young Justice: Outsiders.

Thanks to Nightwing and Black Lightning, Granny Goodness is aware of the various superheroes of Earth working together – the Justice League, Young Justice, and the Outsiders. She reports the same to Vandal Savage and the Light in episode 22 of Young Justice: Outsiders.

Another member of the Light, Slade Wilson/ Deathstroke, tracks down Terra to find out why she’s been holding back on informing them about the Outsiders. She tries to brush it off, but Slade insists that the people she’s with are only trying to control her and will take away her powers the moment she steps out of line.

The Cracks Begin to Show

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Dick Grayson is still suffering the after-effects of Granny’s ministrations. Jefferson Pierce healed, but for some reason, Dick didn’t. Surrounding Dick is his family – Bruce, Tim Drake, Barbara, and Alfred. Aquaman is also still here. When Dr. Jace is unable to do anything further for Dick, she takes a coffee break with her partner, Jefferson, and suddenly everything clicks for him.

As we’ve learnt over the past several episodes of Young Justice: Outsiders, Batman is working with a covert team of operatives for a clandestine mission to take down the Light. His team includes his family, as well as Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Miss Martian. Black Lightning is furious about being lied to, and honestly, Batman Inc has been up to some seriously shady business. Since the senior superheroes are distracted, they don’t notice Jace putting a control device on Tara and Brion, and taking Violet and the siblings to see her ‘mentor’.

Everyone at Outsiders headquarters is mad at everyone else, especially Black Lightning, who feels the heroes have lost their moral integrity. All this shouting seems to have awakened Dick, who decides to try and apologise to Jeff himself.

Bruce wishes Jeff would understand his point of view, but Barbara reminds him that he’s made Batman Inc almost completely out of his protégés – the only exception is Wonder Woman, who only receives reports after the fact. It seems like Bruce is too used to people following his orders and his line of thinking. He can’t see clearly any more.

Jace’s Confessions

Jace brings Violet to the Light, where Granny Goodness subdues her with Apokoliptic tech. Ultra-Humanite had wanted Violet’s power, but Granny has need of her. She offers Ultra-Humanite Victor in her stead, because Violet is the key to solving the anti-life equation. And we all know how obsessed with that equation Darkseid is.

Violet’s organic energy infused with mother box tech helps fulfil the equation, which, according to Granny is the result of life minus free will. Granny tests out Violet’s powers on Dr. Jace who spills the beans about what she’s really been up to.

Tara was abducted as a child and brought to Jace, who turned her into her first meta. This made Jace feel like she had claim over Tara as her ‘daughter’, but Baron Bedlam took Tara away from her. For some reason, Jace decided to wait years before re-creating the experiment, successfully, on Brion, and hence believed he was her son.

Jace also had a hand in Violet’s death – she believed killing Gabrielle activated her meta-gene and re-formed her into Violet, but when Jace realised that Violet was something completely different, she decided she had to separate Violet from Brion.

Jace has been lying to Jefferson to stay close to the meta-kids, and she’s been lying to Violet about her condition as she waited to hand Violet over to Ultra-Humanite. She wants to continue her experiments so as to expand her ‘family’, but since Brion and Tara wouldn’t have willingly gone along with her, she’s put control chips on them. This ‘evil mother’ conceit is so outdated it doesn’t feel like it belongs on Young Justice. Honestly, couldn’t Jace have just been evil – did the creators have to justify it by making her some kind of maniacally brood-y woman? Again, the show has so many positives, but female characterisation is not one of them.

Granny is no longer interested in helping the Light – her mission is to get Violet to Darkseid and make her master happy. Granny thinks she’s got the upper hand, but Tara isn’t under the sway of the control chip. When Slade had met her, he’d given her an antidote. Tara frees Brion and attacks Granny, but Granny disappears with Violet, while Ultra-Humanite vanishes with Jace.

The Light have orchestrated much of this – at least with regards to Tara and Brion’s escape. Slade is making sure he’s in Tara’s good books and she falls for it too. Tara is willing to do whatever Slade wants because she no longer trusts the heroes. Everything is falling into place for the Light, but when Ultra-Humanite mentions the anti-life equation, Vandal Savage appears distressed.