Hi! Welcome to my episode-by-episode recap of, and reaction to Justice League. There will be no spoilers beyond the current episode. As is my custom with recaps, I will give you a short summary recap followed by a long and unnecessarily helpfully detailed version. My reaction will follow at the end if you just want to scroll past all of the recap.
If you want to see my prior Justice League episode reviews, click HERE:
THE QUICK AND CLEAN SUMMARY:
While the Justice League are quarreling about the value of mutual trust and teamwork, Gorilla Grodd organizes a Secret Society composed of Giganta, Killer Frost, Sinestro, Parasite, Shade, and Clayface. The Society captures most of the League, but Martian Manhunter frees the others, and the Society is defeated in front of a crowded stadium.
THE EXTRA DUSTY RECAP:
The episode opens with a robbery in progress. GL and MM are called and arrive to stop Shade and some henchmen. They don’t work well together and though they prevent his theft, Shade is able to get away. Outside, a car pulls up and Giganta offers Shade an escape ride. They flirt with each other and she drives him to a meeting with her unnamed friends.
At the meeting, we find several other super-villains, including Sinestro, Killer Frost, and Parasite.
Shade: Now I get it. You’re trying to set up another Injustice Society, aren’t ya?
Giganta: We call it a Society. A secret society.
As Shade tells her that this won’t work, because he has tried it twice and it hasn’t worked, in walks Gorilla Grodd to say that “the third time’s the charm.”
GL and MM do a quick press briefing, wherein they explain what they did to stop Shade. After, they fly away, with GL complaining about how he can’t stand hero worship stuff. MM asks if that isn’t what they are though, and GL responds that they aren’t heroes tonight, if two of them can’t even stop Shade.
Later, GL calls a meetings of the entire JL to make the case that they aren’t working well together as a team and he attributes a lot of their success to luck. He suggests that they start practicing. Batman declares that this is a waste of time, but the others vote to do it.
Elsewhere, Grodd has the Secret Society practicing, too. He notes to Shade, who is with him observing the others, that this is not the easiest thing for sociopaths and psychos. Grodd sets to work convincing Shade to join them, noting that they’re both aging and need the League to be out of their way once and for all.
The JL stages a practice in what looks like an Old West town, with criminals and children popping out at random. They have to learn to rely on each other to stop the bad guys and keep everyone else safe.
The Secret Society visits criminal Morgan Edge. We see their progress working together as they face opposition. Meanwhile, the JL is struggling with cooperation. Batman leaves the practice altogether and tells the others to call him when it’s important and not before. The Secret Society, meanwhile, successfully captures and robs Edge. They find a secret vault containing two large cannisters. When they’re dumped out, the contents of the cannisters unites to form the criminal Clayface – who Grodd announces as the final member of their Society.
The rest of the JL practices and we learn that their biggest hurdle is Superman doing too much, when letting one of the others work would have been more efficient. He argues with them that he is the invulnerable one.
Superman: Every punch I take is a punch they don’t have to.
Hawkgirl: Are you saying we can’t cut it?
Flash: That’s what it sounds like to me.
MM interjects that they are a team, and Superman shouts that they are, but they are not all equal. GL tells everyone to stop arguing and says they’ll keep going until they get it right.
Batman is flying around in the Batwing, listening to the news about the robbery of Morgan Edge, wherein the reporter says nothing appears to have been stolen. The reporter notes that a hazmat team is on site investigating mysterious empty canisters found at the scene.
Grodd convinces Clayface to join them. Clayface says he just wants to be normal again, but Grodd asks about his powers and suggests he can help him to be normal again and to keep his powers.
Batman investigates the Edge robbery and learns about Clayface being released. He goes to a company that possesses the things Clayface needs to find a cure and finds Clayface there, too. He tells the villain that always trying to find a cure makes him predictable. However, Batman is them ambushed by the Secret Society. The JL shows up too, though, and the two groups fight.
The Secret Society beats the JL and gets away. After the JL bickers about what went wrong.
Batman: So much for practice makes perfect.
Superman tells everyone to shut up and argues that he’s had better luck facing entire armies, alone, because he didn’t have to worry about anyone else while doing it. Flash points out that this whole group was his idea. The bickering continues until MM leaves. Batman follows him. The group seems to break up, with everyone going their separate ways.
[Part 2]
We open with two criminals about Shade not giving them what he promised. One of them notes that he guesses his mom will have to continue dancing for a few more years to pay the bills. Flash arrives asking about Shade and they laugh at him, telling him to go look under a tree. Flash mutters as they drive away that he can do this on his own and that he doesn’t need the league.
The screen pans away to the Secret Society observing this interaction. Grodd explains to the others that he spent months watching the JL and noticed through their facial expressions and body language that they were holding back considerable resentment for each other. He used his powers when they were fighting to cause those feelings to come out. They ask him what’s next.
Grodd: We’ve already divided. Now we conquer.
Flash drops one of the criminals we met earlier from a roof after he refuses to tell him where Shade is. The man – who had laughed at him just before, saying he is no Batman – finally decides to talk.
Flash arrives to where Shade is set to be, and runs into Sinestro. The fight proves difficult so he calls for Batman, asking for backup. When Batman arrives, it appears that Flash has won the fight.
Flash: Looks like I didn’t need you after all, yo.
Batman throws an electrified Batarang at Flash and it sinks into his chest. Batman notes aloud that the real Flash would have been too fast for that. Electrified, we see that Flash is actually Clayface. He asks Batman what gave him away.
Batman: You overplayed your part, yo.
Just then Grodd emerges from the shadows, noting that everyone is a critic.
Hawkgirl and GL argue over why practice did not work, with her telling him that his problem is that he sees them all as interchangeable, rather than as people. He argues back, saying he cares about each of them, adding he’d give his life for her. She says he doesn’t know what he’s saying and flies away.
After she leaves, GL notices a spy camera on some of their equipment. He calls the other members to meet him at the practice ring. WW, Superman, Hawkgirl, and MM congregate at the practice area, with each of them having been called to attend by someone else. They realize this is an ambush as gunfire erupts. Their problems working together persist and they are overcome, after a long drawn out fight with the Society. Everyone except GL is captured.
Later, Clayface argues with Grodd to kill the JL while they have them captive but Grodd counters that it has to be done in front of the whole world. GL arrives and spies on the group, but his efforts are noticed by the telepath Grodd. He evades them for a while before he is finally captured.
Sometime later, we see a massive space ship flying over a large outdoor pop concert. The Society exits the craft and Grodd monologues about his plans. He shows the crowd the JL, all imprisoned and captured. When he goes to kill them publicly, though, we find out that MM was never really captured. MM gets Clayface to destroy the lever Grodd was going to pull to kill the JL. Doing this also frees them. Grodd is not entirely upset about the change, though, because he thinks his team will now get to defeat the JL in front of this crowd.
In front of a large cheering football stadium crowd, the JL finally gets it act together and beats Grodd’s Secret Society. As a last ditch effort, Grodd tries to use his mind control powers on Superman, but he resists long enough to knock the gorilla out cold. In the aftermath, they ask about what they said to each other, and they decide that all they can do is apologize and move on.
REACTION:
This episode was just… okay. This is a typical team sports story wherein the god guys have to learn to work together to get the most out of their individual parts. Interestingly, even though they ultimately won, they never quite work that out. The biggest change in the final battle, as compared to the previous ones in the episodes, was a certain amount of luck with respect to which of them were fighting which bad guys. The reason they argued that they needed to practice was that they were winnig because of luck and overwhelming force. The fact that they were winning by luck and overwhelming power did not really change as this particular story was resolved. I kind of like that inasmuch as it means the story arc can be picked up again later if the writers so choose.
My favorite point of tension in the story is between Superman and everyone else. He accurately argues with the others that he can fight a lot of their team battles solo, and more successfully than they are doing so as a group. His existence and his sheer ridiculous power is always a point of difficulty and tension for JL stories. How do you create a difficulty that requires this whole team to face it, when Superman probably could also face it by himself? This story acknowledges their own writing dilemma without answering it.
Ultimately, I think the JL needs to exist as a backup plan (for the good guys) to Superman as an individual, but the team also means Superman as an individual must be less effective and powered down. That’s his internal tension, always, and it should be something just hanging around in the back of everyone’s minds as they watch. I don’t think this story quite gave us a feeling of resolution on that tension, though, so it should come up again.
I like Grodd as a villain. He’s basically Gorilla Lex Luthor. He’s smart enough to win, even against the Justice League, but usually finds a way to defeat himself. Could he have killed the JL? Probably not with MM secretly being free. But he could have tried to do so, rather than stage an elaborate public execution. Surely showing up and showing their bodies would have accomplished what he wanted, just as effectively. Again, the writers kind of acknowledge their own story-telling failures but having Clayface point out the flaw in Grodd’s plans before we get there. I took that as a “yeah, we know, but lighten up and enjoy the story” from the script.
I think the episode missed an opportunity to play up the tragedy of Clayface, and I thought the “good guys learning to work together montage” was a little bit cliche, but on the whole it was a relatively good two part story that opens some doors for better potential stories down the road.
