With the bulk of the team out of commission, it’s up to the two generally non-powered individuals to deal with the invaders.
What They Say:
Homefront – Artemis and robin must save the team when The Cave is attacked.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With a lot of the series focusing on particular characters in order to give them each a chance to be humanized a bit, Homefront decides to spend its time working on Artemis and Robin. A lot of time has been given to others, particularly with Miss Martian and her slow but now growing romance with Superboy, but it’s dealt with others to a good degree too. I’ve liked the plots as they’ve unfolded so far and the way it’s also kept the team apart during it so that the individuals have time to shine while still working with some of the others though not as a whole unit. That’s an understandable complaint though since you’d want to see the Young Justice team really working as just that, a team.
This episode does take an interesting angle, though it’s poorly executed at first. The opening piece in showing us Artemis going to school after being harraunged by her mother is cute, and having Dick snap her picture at school while getting a dismissive look from Barbara has plenty of little inside joke material to it that makes an old comics fan smile. Where it goes awkward though is when later on the two meet up in costume to head to the Cave and arriving there shifts it quickly into them being on the run as something has invaded it and is causing trouble. Though the others are hanging out at first, unaware of what’s going on, it doesn’t take long for them to get taken by surprise and captured, leaving Robin and Artemis as the only two that are free to try and save the day before the whole place is blown up.
Though it’s intended to be the main focus, Artemis’ past isn’t dealt with all that well as it’s given a couple of scenes overall from when she was younger and when her sister left, who it actually turns out to be Cheshire, one of the villains we saw in the previous episode. It’s a nice twist that personalizes things a bit and will make for some fun coming up. And she does turn out to be the one to save the day, which isn’t unexpected either. Where the episode really falters though is that the villains on hand simply aren’t all that interesting, kept to automatons that we don’t know much anything about and offer nothing interesting personality wise, and the whole thing is just forced.
In Summary:
Young Justice has had a lot of good episodes and some solid ones that had good moments, but this is the first one that really left me feeling cold overall. I like the cast involved here and the focus on Robin and Artemis, but the story is very weak and the explanations don’t do much since it’s not a self contained episode. With only a small focus on Artemis and her background, the bulk of it is on the action as she and robin leap to and fro. They do it well but the pacing is off at times and the things that happen simply seem to happen with no real rhyme or reason. It’s the kind of episode that definitely disappoints the more you think about it and the more you rewatch it as the failings are even more evident.
Grade: C-
