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 8 Satisfaction
Written by: Greg Weisman
Directed by: Doug Murphy
Episode synopsis: The other Roy is awake in a hospital after 8 years of being on ice and he’s not happy, not happy at all. After driving Ollie and Roy away he takes off to get his revenge on the man who took his arm and his life, Lex Luthor. After an intense fight with Mercy he finally gets his shot at Luthor, and Lex talks his way out of it. The other Roy gets a shiny new arm and a new name to go with it, Arsenal. There are other vignettes, Conner talking to Wendy on his birthday, the ladies going to a bridal shower crashed by Captain Cold, the Team mourn the death of Artemis along with their other fallen heroes, Bart and Jaime hit it off, Wally and Artemis’ mom visit her grave, and Sportsmaster and Cheshire watch on and plan their revenge on Kaldur and Black Manta.
Satisfaction is my favorite episode of the season. It’s a fun character focused ride as we see what the other Roy is capable of, and how damaged he is, with an amazing Lex Luthor not even perturbed by the whole ordeal. The vignettes are nice, reminding me a little of Downtime, just little glimpses into the lives of these characters when they are off-duty. It provides a much needed buffer between heavy episodes.
Arsenal, the other Roy, he’s living proof that Roy’s anger issues in season 1 weren’t just from The Light’s programming, he’s just one angry fellow. He’s got every right to be, eight years of his life have been stolen from him, his arm is gone and an ever present reminder of what was done to him. But he needs therapy and maybe some anger management sessions, not running around with enough weaponry to level a building. At least Red Arrow’s doing a lot better now it seems, he’s the calm level headed one in this, which is a mark of improvement. Here’s hoping he keeps it up and is a good example for the other Roy.
I’m not sure what Green Arrow’s training is like but it’s a little impressive and scary how much damage Arsenal caused, coming within a hairs breathe of killing Lex flipping Luthor. He’s only recently come out of a cryopod and has had eight years less training and experience than Red Arrow (though the last couple of years weren’t exactly Red at his best). This is also an Ollie who has giant weapons stockpiles hidden throughout Star City that make it possible for Arsenal to do what he did, so maybe it’s not too surprising given that knowledge.
Ollie, poor Ollie he’s had so much bad luck in this series. Red Arrow turns out to be a clone and a mole, Artemis winds up dead, he thinks Arsenal is dead and then he turns up alive wondering why Ollie stopped looking for him. He’s a nesting doll of guilt and bad choices. The sad thing is this Ollie seems like a nice cool, laid back guy. Alan Tudyk voicing him certainly helps with that. So it’s hard not to feel sorry for the guy as he’s sitting in the chapel blaming himself for everything. Red Arrow’s got a good pep talk though, and tries not to let Ollie wallow in his guilt and to go help Arsenal now. Here’s hoping Ollie manages to help him after the episode is over, because he’s really not in a good place, despite what he says.
Back in Mount Justice we get a look at The Grotto Of Dead Heroes and see how many people have died during the last five years. It’s just Tula, Blue Beetle II (Ted Kord), Artemis, and Robin II (Jason Todd). This is the first time we’ve seen or heard about Jason, his name doesn’t get spoken here, just a shot of his memorial. We got a hint of it in the opening episode with Nightwing’s “Just don’t die” line to Tim, but now we get confirmation Jason was Robin and has died. How long was he Robin? How long has be been dead? Because those five timeskip years now encompasses Dick growing up from Robin to Nightwing, Jason becoming Robin, Jason dying, Batman mourning, then taking on Tim as Robin. That’s a lot going on in those five years. The timeline for multiple Robins always gets a bit screwy if you don’t want a Batman that’s 50 years old. But hey this isn’t a Batman cartoon, we’ve got plenty of those, so I’m fine not focusing on the Batman side of things too much to untangle that timeline. Unless it’s for characters that don’t get used in cartoons (like say Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain) then I’m all for them getting the focus, just not the characters who show up all the time in the cartoons and movies.
Jaime and Bart also strike up a friendship, with Jaime lamenting his lack of mentor-ship unlike the other members of the Team. Without Ted Kord he’s got to deal with the Scarab on his own and try to figure out how to get them to not kill everyone they fights, or even just people Jaime talks to in general. Given that he believes Ted invented the Scarab he probably is really lamenting not having a guy with a quick fix for him, someone to just switch the Scarab from “evil” to “good.” But things aren’t that simple, as he’ll find out later. But for right now he’s got a new friend to confide in and maybe help him out too.
We also get a little more of the Conner and M’gann drama hour. This time it’s just giving some coding that they do miss each other, with Conner missing the birthday parties she always threw for him and M’gann missing throwing those. I’m not particularly fond of the idea of them getting back together given the betrayal and horrific things M’gann has done. Them being friends, sure, but that was a massive breach of trust M’gann did and a hard thing to just forgive and forget.
Conner does have a fairly cute scene with Wendy, and she chastises him for not out growing the Superman shirt which is a little funny given how many adults I see in real life walking around with superhero and geeky shirts. Just randomly on the street too, not at some geek convention or convergence of nerds. But alternate Earth, one that probably didn’t have a Marvel Cinematic Universe to make it “cool” to like Iron Man and wear shirts with Avengers on them. How many superhero comics would there even be? Pirate comics would be the in thing, probably. Superhero fashion and culture in a world with real life superheroes is certainly something to try and get your head around.
M’gann’s scene is nice that turns to bittersweet as the bridal shower toasts to “absent friends” in memory of Artemis. Also turns out Rocket is getting married to a mystery someone, something for season 3 to reveal maybe, and it is a good reminder that these characters have lives outside the 20 minutes we see of them every episode. Rocket in the comics had a child during the course of hers and Icon’s comic run, and that happened here too, there’s a subtle reference to this in the tie-in comic, it’s just that no one mentions him here. Another missing detail is that we were going to have two more members of the bridal shower, Donna Troy and Mary Bromfield, the first Wonder Girl and Mary Marvel (or Sargent Marvel as they were going to name her in the show) who is the sister of Captain Marvel. They ran out of time to design them (both civilian and hero costumes, which is four total designs that needed making), and consequently they didn’t show up in the season final either like had been planned since the designs weren’t done here.
Meanwhile Wally has to comfort and take care of Artemis’ mom, Paula Crock, as she deals with her daughter’s death. That’s rough, having not just to lie to your partner’s mom, but also to try and be there for a grieving mother knowing full well that you can take that grief away and tell her that her daughter is alive. Even if it risks Artemis’ deep cover and her life the temptation to tell Paula must be great.
Then just a little ways away her husband Sportsmaster and her other daughter aren’t being much help to her. They are too busy plotting their revenge plan. At least Jade is doing it for the memory of Artemis, Sportsmaster on the other hand decides to make his daughter’s death all about him. The big important tragedy here is to his reputation and standing in the villain community. “The son of Black Manta cannot kill Sportsmaster’s daughter. Not without running it by me first.” If they’d told him about it first then he’d have been cool with his daughter being killed, but since they didn’t go through the proper channels it hurt his little reputation. He really is a dirtbag of a father, and all of his family rightfully hate him. He might be a cool villain but he’s still scum.
Lex Luthor on the other hand is a cool villain who is high class scum. He is calm and collected under pressure, always certain he’s got every angle covered and that he’s out-thought his opponent. He still has a giant ego, as demonstrated by the massive portrait of himself in his office, but it’s also expressed through his thinking he’s smarter than everyone because he’s got everything thought out, got all the contingencies mapped out, that nothing can touch him. He’s got a slimy self-confidence as he talks about how he’s got everything in hand.
I can’t see this Lex donning his green and purple power suit and trying to go toe to toe with Superman, he seems to consider such things beneath him. He pays other people to do that sort of thing, after all. If he has all these contingencies in place, and since he considers himself such a smart guy, then he’d never need to physically fight anyone. That’s be him conceding that he wasn’t smart enough to think his way out of that situation. I think this quote sums up this Lex quite well, “I don’t believe in risk, I believe in preparation.”
Now this version of Lex has been compared to David Xanatos, from one of co-creator Greg Weisman’s other shows Gargoyles, and this episode had Lex say a version of one of Xanatos’s lines, “Vengeance is a suckers game.” I can see similarities, both are brilliant billionaire industrialists who are known for planning contingencies and coming out ahead in the end, but the similarities end there. Xanatos is a man who is a fighter as well as a thinker, he got a suit of power suit armor made so he can fight the Gargoyles and other threats when the situation calls for it. More than that we see that Xanatos cares about his family, he truly loves Fox, his wife, and values her as his equal in everything, including intellect. I can’t imagine any version of Lex, including this one, doing the same. Xanatos’ full line is, “Revenge, as they say, is a suckers game. Robots are nothing, Fox my dear. I can build a dozen more like this one. True love is so much harder to come by.” That’s not a Lex line and it would feel very weird having him say it. The only time we see Lex have any concern about another person is briefly when Mercy has cybernetic arm blown off by Arsenal. And it was surprising to see Lex genuinely concerned about another person.
Speaking of Mercy, she’s our redesigned character for the episode. She was created for the 90s Superman The Animated Series cartoon to be Lex’s chauffeur, assistant, and bodyguard. She was a good foil to Lex and that’s why she’s become known as Lex’s bodyguard throughout Lex’s many appearances. Much like another fan favorite character created for a cartoon, Harley Quinn, she got put into the comics as well. For some reason they made her an Amazon as part of her comic origin, something that hasn’t stuck for any of her other adaptations, thankfully. She’s certainly proved her staying power, appearing in multiple cartoons, live action TV shows and movies, she’s up there with Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya as top characters created for cartoons that have become an inseparable part of the franchise.
Before Mercy Lex did have other assistants in one form or another, one of them also showed up in this episode, Otis. He was created for Superman The Movie in the 70s, and was a comedic bumbling but lovable assistant to Lex. Here he’s Lex’s head of security and while the comedic bumbling is gone he still has his trademark of referring to Lex as “Mr Loothor.” It’s just a really cute cameo.
What more can I say, this is just a great episode filled to the brim with clever moments, witty dialogue, brilliantly staged action sequences, and fun cameos. Just a spectacular episode from start to finish.
Little things I liked: Ollie being hurt that Arsenal doesn’t like his goatee. Captain Cold’s reaction to all the superhero women there to stop his heist. Jaime’s musing on why the League doesn’t want memorial statues, they don’t want the public to see them as mortal. Just nice to see the League portrayed as flawed and not completely perfect. The entire Arsenal Mercy fight. Captain Cold’s reaction to seeing how doomed he is.
Quote of the episode:
Lex’s quotes are pure gold, here are just a few standouts:
“Who knew enabling an alien invasion would entail so much paper work.”
“And that, my dear, is why I spent top dollar for a customized desk.”
Quote that takes on a new meaning after watching the series:
“You and I have more in common that you thing.” Bart. Mostly for Jaime and Bart’s entangled future.
