Now that season 3 is on its way it’s the best time to rewatch the show, preferably on the DC Universe streaming service if you’re in America as that helps support the show directly and hopefully get us more than just season 3. This Re(af)Watch series is not quite a review, more of an opinion piece about each episode as I rewatch them. Covering all 46 episodes of the show’s first 2 seasons, and maybe more. Continuing on with season 2 episode 7 Depths
Written by: Kevin Hopps (story), Paul Giacoppo (teleplay)
Directed by: Tim Divar
Episode synopsis: Artemis rejoins the Team for one last mission, which ends in her death. The mission was to stop Kaldur from destroying a Mars/Earth communications satellite, which they also fail at. Lagoon Boy gets captured. We find out why Conner and M’gann broke up. And we get the shocking revelation that Kaldur hasn’t turned, he’s a double agent working with Nightwing, they faked Artemis’ death and now she too joins him under deep cover. Only the three of them and Wally know the truth.
This episode… oh-boy this episode is a roller-coaster, So many things happen, and I think part of that is playing towards the series strengths of character focused drama. Sure it does big superhero action very well, but what it excels at is the character drama. That and seeds planted and sprouting, things set up in previous episodes coming to a head and setting things up for future episodes. This episodes does both of those, as one flower blooms so does it spread seeds for other flowers.
I think we’ll start with the main reveal, double agent Kaldur. This is seven episodes into the season, almost halfway through the season, that’s how long they wait and let the audience believe Aqualad has become full villain. Granted this is the second appearance of evil Kaldur, so it’s not too bad, but it still feels like a long time to let people think it’s real. Pretty gutsy. Then there’s the fact that no one else on the Team besides Nightwing knows about it, so there’s now even more character drama for Kaldur’s friends hating him over ‘killing’ Artemis.
They don’t shy away from the consequences of this; Kaldur’s out there helping to kidnap teens and blowing up aliens, just from what we’ve seen on-screen, and making who knows how many other moral and ethical compromises to complete his mission. He managed to save La’gaan’s life, just like he saved the Team at the expense of the Kroloteans, but there is a cost. He just hopes it is all worth it in the end. Nightwing too. This is a very Batman move, even if he said he doesn’t want to be like Batman in season 1 things are certainly not turning out that way. Nightwing does look like he’s shouldering a lot of burden from this, he is on the outside after all, only reacting to what The Light and Kaldur are doing and hoping he’s doing the right thing and not messing up any plan Kaldur has.
Then there’s the hard and brutal reasons for why Conner and M’gann broke up, she tried to wipe his mind of him being mad about her abusing her telepathic powers. She literally tried to make him into a perfect boyfriend for her and still doesn’t see why it’s wrong. She knows she shouldn’t have tried to tamper with Conner’s mind, but justifies it when “it’s the bad guys” and she was only going to tweak Conner’s mind and not callously rip information out of his head so hard it leaves him in a catatonic state, like her other victims. Even after Conner caught her all she did was change where she drew the line, now she just does it to “bad guys” or at least whoever she labels as the “bad guys.” She doesn’t understand that if it’s wrong for her to do it to Conner then it’s wrong for her to do it to others too. The ends justify the means to her.
Funny thing is that all the way back in the third episode of the show, when she’s still learning about the boundaries and personal space of living with non-psychic people, and she sees that her new friends don’t like her in their heads she stops and apologises. Then they fight Mr Twister and Kaldur tells her to read his mind and Dick says “it’s OK if it’s the bad guys.” Obviously that’s not entirely the reason why this happened, but she’s certainly internalised that attitude. Five years on a black ops team, plus more than likely seeing plenty of American pop culture reinforcing those ideas, and there’s a recipe for her thinking any action is justified so long as it’s “bad people” she does it to. She’s headed for a fall and it’s entirely one of her own making.
Poor La’gaan too. Despite what she says he is totally her rebound guy. He might have a bit of an obnoxious personality but he pulled a “you’re breaking up, I’m on a broken radio” bit on a psychic link, so you got to respect him for that. He’s a rookie, he screws up and gets himself captured because of his pride and jealousy of Conner. Even he can see things aren’t going to go his way in this relationship. He’s a creature from the black lagoon who just wants someone to love, and also to not be “stereotyped as the water guy.” I feel for the guy.
The glorious one himself, G. Gordon Godfrey, is back again this episode to give us hard hitting truths about how we should never try to communicate with anyone ever because someone entirely different might be mad at us, and that he doesn’t even respect other reporters from his own network. That last one is because he barged in and stole a question from an annoyed looking Cat Grant who is also at GBS, and has talked to G. Gordon on air before. Iris West-Allen also works at GBS, but that’s probably as a local news reporter in Central City and not the national side of the corporation that keeps saying her husband, friends, and soon to be children, that they are all disgusting people who aren’t really human, and that her alien friends need to be shot into space, or worse. But maybe she should think about trying to get a job at a different network, for the principle of the thing. Also ironically enough GBS stands for Galaxy Broadcasting System.
But yes Godfrey’s rant this time was about how they shouldn’t be trying to communicate with Mars because they are aliens and all aliens are bad. It is like saying “you shouldn’t talk to Japan because Russia is evil.” The two don’t have anything to do with one another except for the fact that they are not us, and that is his point. He does not want people humanising anyone else except Earthlings, because if they see the Martians are just like them then they will start to realize all the other aliens are just like them. ‘Everyone else is bad and awful and don’t bother trying to check on that yourselves, just trust good ol’ G. Gordon, he’d never lie to you.’
Also just like in episode 1 he implies anyone who does like aliens are not ‘good and true Americans Earthlings.’ This time it’s him saying “any decent Earthling [would agree with him,]” meaning that anyone who doesn’t agree is indecent, and not a respectable Earthling like he is. Giving just cause for his supports to go after any one who likes aliens and trusts Superman and the Justice League. He’s not saying that right now, but he’s planting that divide between his supporters and the rest of humanity. All he has to do is keep feeding that rhetoric, keep pushing that divide till they feel like the ends justify the means, and that it’s OK because “they’re the bad guys” who support aliens like Superman. That’s how this indoctrination works, not tell you the big lie first but by lots of little lies and half-truths, things that sound true, then reinforcing that over and over till you swallow the bigger lies.
This episode’s redesigned character is, Carol Ferris. OK she’s a minor character in this episode and probably not going to turn into future villain Star Sapphire (though you never know with this show), but I’m guessing at least a few people reading this don’t know who she is (and I spent three paragraphs talking about Godfrey and really need a pallet cleanser). Carol is the main lover interest for Hal Jordan, Green Lantern, and is sometimes possessed by space gemstone to become the villain Star Sapphire. Then more recently Star Sapphires were retconned to being one of the many rainbow coloured Lantern Corps, but that’s neither here nor there. Carol herself runs Ferris Aerospace, making brand new state of the art aircraft and spacecraft. Here she’s in charge of the communications satellite between Earth and Mars, and just watched all their hard work go up in smoke. I’ve not got much to add, just wanted to highlight that a lot of these minor characters are pulled from the comics and it does make the show feel richer knowing that it’s not just some random space agency but someone connected to our heroes, Green Lantern in particular, and she is an important character in here own right. There’s history that we don’t see but know is there.
Also Tom Kalmaku showed up too, best friend to Hal Jordan, started out as a racist stereotype called “Pieface” (yes really), and was played by Taika Waititi in the live action film, who went on to direct Thor Ragnarok. Just some random trivia for you.
This episode is a pure distillation of why people love this show. It’s got character drama that’s been building and building with Conner, M’gann, and La’gaan, something that doesn’t just appear for one episode, is solved and then gone by the next. It’s big story drama with Artemis’ death. It’s got your “wait, what?” moment with Kaldur that makes you want to rewatch episodes to see if you can catch the clues to it. It’s got villains who can win, and also the satisfaction of the heroes managing to get one up on such villains. That plus the excellent voice cast and animation.
Little things I liked: Seeing Dick perform CPR correctly (at least according to the old first aid course I went on, years before they changed it to only doing chest compressions. It’s just something I see a lot of movies/TV shows doing wrong, not interlocking the fingers in particular. Just nice seeing it done right). We learn Jay and Joan Garrick are looking after Impulse for the time being. We directly see M’gann being put off by the anti-alien talk, getting to see it affect a character rather than it just being words highlights why it’s never just words with this sort of rhetoric. Conner in the Superman costume, looking a lot like the more traditional Superboy, and of course his “I hate monkey suits” line was just perfect. The underwater missile platform is just cool. Ditto for Artemis using the Manta Men’s underwater helmets against them. M’gann’s mermaid tail she changes into when underwater, which we see her get in the tie-in comics. And finally Black Manta just being a good dad, he’s so nice and encouraging to his son.
Quote of the episode:
“After all we’ve been through how could you think I wouldn’t recognize your touch inside my mind.” Conner to M’gann
Quote that takes on a new meaning after watching the series:
“Maybe I’m the only one not drinking the space cola.” That one’s just funny from ol’ G. Gordon Godfrey.
