We’ll always have Bialya.
What They Say:
Beneath – Jamie Reyes searches for a missing friend; Miss Martian, Batgirl, Bumblebee and Wonder Girl return to Bialya.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Being in the Ted Kord camp when it comes to Blue Beetle, I was definitely glad to see some references to him in the previous episode that helps to tie the costumes that Jamie wears to him rather than just being some new iteration. There’s a lot of fans of this Blue Beetle but he’s not been one that I could get into in the comics, but I’m finding him to be pretty accessible here in the animated form as he plays off against the other members of the team. Giving him more of a role here definitely is good, even as it plays out in a supporting way for awhile as another team is going into Bialya for a bit of a sneak and peek mission.
What’s interesting about that mission is that since it is in Bialya, Nightwing has set it to be an all female mission since Queen Bee can manipulate men’s minds. And the women involved here are quite fun and playful in a way as the mission gets underway which helps to show them as being pretty good friends overall. The mission is fairly standard stealth stuff that has Wonder Girl working backup in case things go wrong to provide the strength. Naturally, she’s young and impetuous and doesn’t like this, causing her to get into trouble along the way which causes trouble for everyone else as well. It’s a pretty simple mission overall that plays to the Bialyan military well and a few villains that get involved along the way as well. Since Bialya was an early part of the first season, it’s a nice call back to that and some of the villains early on there.
Jamie’s story is interesting in very different way as he’s mostly just searching for a friend who believes has gone missing after an encounter with his mothers’ boyfriend. Jamie knows the trouble that his friend has been having and can’t help but to feel that things have gone badly. It’s a story that keeps him out of costume for the majority of it, but it’s instructive because we get a lot of the mental conversation that’s going on between him and the Blue Beetle suit. The suit definitely views a lot of things as threats and just wants to go to action more than investigation, which gives Jamie something to push back against and to try and work with.
In Summary:
Bringing back Psimon for a bit is definitely welcome here, as well as some of the other villains that showed up in the first season. The mission they’re on works well to show how some of the characters work together as well as how they screw up and cope with it. It’s a solid mission, one that will likely be leading into other things, but for the moment it stands on its own. Jamie’s story is one that I found myself enjoying more than I thought since the character still hasn’t won me over, but here he gets time to be developed on his own, out of costume and away from superheroics. The focus on a missing friend and his own internal conflicts paints him as a much more accisble character here.
Grade: B
