Young Justice: Invasion - Beneath

Young Justice: Invasion

Beneath

  The team working on this particular series, definitely thought things through when putting a time jump in between seasons. One would normally assume that they'd half ass their way forward and introduce minor and disposable characters to lay off. But, as we've begun to notice over the past few weeks, that is far from the truth.

  Beneath is an episode focusing on two characters. Jaime Reyes gets most of the focus, as Cassie Sandsmark follows as a close second. Her character development is downplayed a bit, because of the fact that she is working with Squad A, whilst Jaime is dealing with matters on his own. 

  Warning, Spoilers ahead. 

  Jaime's friend calls him up in the middle of the night, and tells him that he is running away from home. His mother's boyfriend is making his life miserable, and he just has to go. Jaime asks his friend to wait for him, so that they can talk. Before Jaime gets there however, his friend got kidnapped. 

  Searching for his friend proves to be a pain in more fronts than just one. There's the investigation side, which is pretty straight forward. We get to see more about Jaime as a person, and more about who his friends are and where he grew up. On the other side, we also find out that the Scarab is also linked to him when not in the Beetle suit. Meaning that throughout the investigation, Jaime has to deal with a more than aggressive Scarab, which sometimes activates part of the suit on its own.

  It reminds me of the interaction between Bruce Banner and The Hulk. Specifically in Earth's Mightiest Heroes, where Bruce Banner is "haunting" The Hulk. I'm very much a fan of this character, as Jaime is pretty might two sides of the same coin. One is a kind and warm individual. Whilst the other one is basically "shoot first, shoot bullets later".

  The other story revolves around Squad A, sent out to Quraq to investigate Boomtube something or other. Yeah, that's merely the plot device to get them to Quraq and face what's really going on. As it seems, there is a lot of military activity surrounding a warehouse. 

  Squad A consists of Megan, Barbara Gordon, Karen Beecher and Cassie. The latter being the focus of this episode. Cassie is more than eager to go in and investigate the place. Buuuuut, they need to be stealthy. Barbara is a ninja, Karen can make herself tiny and Megan can make herself invisible. Cassie, whilst having the right heart, is just not much of a stealth squadmember. 

  Throughout the episode, we learn more about her as a person. How she thinks, how she is like and how she deals with a situation. Whilst she was bummed to be nothing more than a look-out, she did think things through and made all the right calls. Uuuuup to a certain point, as she does manage to accidentally blow her cover. However, Squad A as a whole comes through, and Cassie never once fumbles. 

  I very much liked this part of the episode, and not just because of the story implications. (I'll get to that in a minute). It shows that the new member are already more than capable to hold their own as a team, and that they are bright, young people in the right place. 

  The major plot point comes in that Queen Bee is a middleman, taking rogue teenagers of the streets and sending them to the mysterious partner we've already been introduced too. Both Jaime's and Cassie's stories intertwine, as Jaime's friend was kidnapped by these people. Whilst Cassie does manage to save one batch of kids, a second one didn't quite get saved. 

  I like how the stakes are raised by this. And not just by a little. We still have no idea who this Partner is, what The Light is up to or what is going on as a whole. All we know is that "shit just got real".

/Spoilers

  All in all, another very strong episode. It had great voice-acting, great animation, great sound and terrific writing. I am SOOOOOO buying the DVD box when I can get my hands on it.