As the third season of Young Justice concludes, let’s celebrate double the Goodness, Metron gaining some grandchildren, the League, the Outsiders and the Young Justice finally coming together to bring down Darkseid’s plan and Lex Luthor’s plotting of the Light’s victory hitting a snag or two. But remember, #WeAreAllOutsiders

Let’s state right from the start, after getting a little lost a few episodes ago, these final six stories of Season Three are pretty darn brilliant. Lots of fun, adventure, story and great character moments. But…

There had to be a “but”. It’s not necessarily a bad “but”, depending on your point of view of what the series is actually about. Y’see, I was reminded, watching these in sequence, of the third season of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks a couple of years back. Utterly brilliant television, and unmissable – much like Young Justice Outsiders – but it also suffered from no one saying “Hang on a minute, are you sure everyone’s following this? Just how many plots and characters have you got running around here and are they all going to pay off? Is it satisfying for the audience sitting through this that before you chuck them an ending that makes them want more (a good thing) you haven’t wrapped everything up that needs wrapping up?”

Young Justice Outsiders has been, to be fair, a tad schizophrenic as its gone on. Is it a series about Young Justice? Or the Outsiders? Or indeed a thinly veiled attempt to actually redo Justice League Unlimited? The answer really is all three, with a good dose of 90210-style soap chucked in for good measure.

Like Twin Peaks, it cannot hope to please all of the people all of the time and for every viewer satisfied because Plot Thread A is resolved, another viewer will be dissatisfied because (for instance) we don’t truly get a resolution to the Artemis/Jim West story (he is soooo lying to her in their last scene in Overwhelmed). We never get to see what happens to Harper Row. Or the water-breather meta living in Atlantis. Now it’s perfectly fair to say that “well maybe that can be addressed in Season 4” or “it really doesn’t matter, their stories are over” – but in a show so utterly crammed full of characters across all three teams, plus more villainous superteams than you can shake a stick at, someone needed to lay down the law and say “no, let’s have a bit more focus”.

Now, all that said, what we do have in these last six episodes is very satisfying and has a fair deal of punch-the-air moments that reward long-time viewers. But dear god, a few “previously on Young Justice” moments wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Highlights of this batch? Well the wrapping up of Granny Goodness/Gretchen Goode and her plan to build an army of meta teens for Darkseid. The aptly named Terminus (although it’s not the last ep by the way) is the best of the whole bunch. Not a moment wasted as we see every superhero brought together to overthrow Granny G and Gretchen Goode (yes there’s two of them – sort of), plus Overlord, free Halo and then do the ultimate double deal by handing Granny Goodness over to Vandal Savage to deliver to Darkseid for punishment.

Equally good is Overwhelmed, the Valentine’s Day episode, which is a really nice study of grief and moving on (even if Zatanna is a total bitch!) as well as finding Forager a home with Doubllex and the survivors of Cadmus. There’s some good heartfelt moments in this, plus a nice sense of morality about letting literal outsiders finding their place in the world around them.

A running theme across all these episodes is Helga Jace’s betrayal of everyone, especially Black Lightning, and his subsequent sinking into depression as he realises everyone has let him down. Not just Dr Jace, but Batman, Nightwing, Miss Martian etc. He walks away from the superhero world, refusing to accept any overtures from his friends and colleagues as they try to explain their motivations – maybe if they’d also apologised, he might’ve been less angry? This is nicely plotted, layered across the various episodes, so that the show’s last five minutes make immense sense and provide a very satisfying ending to his story – and a good launch point for Season 4 (or better still, a separate new Justice League show please!)

Tip of the hat to the development of Victor Stone, who finally accepts his name of Cyborg in Into The Breach when he and Halo come to terms with their reliance of Motherbox and Fatherbox and how tied into Apokalips and the New Gods they are.

But the absolute highlight of the final episode, Nevermore, is of course the return to where it all started, with Halo, Terra and Geo-Force returning to Markovia, now under the control of Baron Bedlam, who betrayed them all those months earlier. And as Luthor loses control over the UN when his involvement in Markovia is exposed, so the Outsiders lose control over one of their own when politics and revenge (oh and betrayal) take precedence over morality and the “rules” of being a superhero. Live on worldwide television, one of the Outsiders murders Baron Bedlam in cold blood and takes control of Markovia themselves, leaving everyone else shocked at the brutality and savagery of someone they thought they knew better. Families, lovers and friendships are fractured for good and the whole thing leaves all three super teams questioning the consequences of what they have done. This kind of stuff wouldn’t have sat well in The Super Friends back in the 70s! Hell, it probably wouldn’t have gone this far in the Bruce Timm shows of the 90s. But that’s what makes Young Justice work – all three seasons have not been afraid to pull the rug out from under the viewers’ feet and challenge them in a way few cartoons will do.

Oh and kudos for bring Infinity Inc/the Everyman Project in too. I suspect that’s going to be a major plot next year too. Oh, and a nice cameo from Lobo suggests he’s not been forgotten either.

But please guys, slim the cast down significantly, so we’re not having to research past episodes on Wikipedia every week just to get the references.

Verdict: Ultimately, Season Three of Young Justice ends up satisfying, shocking and powerful. The status quo of everyone and each team is changed. The status quo of the villains – both the Light and the forcers of Apokalips are equally changed and so Season Four ought to be amazing. 9/10

Gary Russell