Director: Tim Divar
Writer: Kevin Hopps
In the Pacific Ocean on March 30, 18:28 HAST (Hawaiian-Aleutian Standard Time), a full week after Impulse, Beast Boy and Blue Beetle were captured and taken to a Reach ship in the Atlantic Ocean, we check in with our poor heroes via an Aqualad tour. Kaldur is introduced to the three leaders of the Reach, known only by their titles — the Ambassador, the Scientist and Black Beetle. They show him one of the members of the Team, Lagoon Boy, is held in a lab next to a villain named Shimmer and a handful of other teenagers who haven't had their meta-gene activated yet. Beast Boy and Impulse are in a separate room, being electrocuted so the Reach can study metahumans under stress and see if their abilities can be duplicated or extracted. But the Reach does not allow Aqualad to see Blue Beetle, saying he is of the Reach.
Luckily for our heroes, a rescue operation is finally underway. Batgirl, Robin and Bumblebee go undercover and join a group of teenagers being transferred to the Reach. Nightwing, Wonder Girl and Miss Martian use the cloaked bio-ship to dive down to the Reach ship. M'gann phases into the ship and quickly locates Gar and Bart. She telepathically links with Batgirl, who has been brought into the other lab with all the teenagers. They can't find Blue Beetle, but Nightwing orders them to begin their escape plan anyway.
As soon as M'gann frees Impulse and Beast Boy, Bart says he needs to find Blue and takes off before M'gann can stop him. While the rest of the heroes start loading the teens onto the bio-ship, Impulse vibrates into each room until he finds Jaime. M'gann tries to follow Bart, but she runs across Aqualad. In Nightwing's infinite wisdom, he chose not to tell M'gann that Aqualad and Artemis were secretly working for the team. So, M'gann believes Aqualad had killed Artemis, and he destroys his mind in a blind rage. By doing so, she learns the truth, and is devastated by her actions.
After Impulse knocks out the Scientist and frees Jaime, Bart tells him what life was like in the future. Bart was a slave, wearing a power-suppressing collar, being bossed around by an adult Blue Beetle. Bart says that in his time, the Reach got the scarab back on mode and Blue Beetle became the biggest, baddest, Big Bad in history. And that's the main reason Bart came back to the past — to stop Jaime from betraying the human race and bring on a Reach apocalypse.
Black Beetle has sealed off our heroes' escape route and began knocking them all out one-by-one. When Bart and Jaime get there, the scarab takes control of the armor and actually does a decent job of keeping Black Beetle occupied. This allows Impulse to help the others get onto the bio-ship. But Shimmer decides to remain a bad guy and idiotically help out the aliens who kidnapped and experimented on her. However, she doesn't realize her meta-gene was activated, and she inadvertently melts a hole in the Reach ship, causing a huge wave of water to come rushing in.
The water starts flooding into the bio-ship, as well, and when Impulse realizes Blue Beetle isn't on board yet, he tries to go back for him, but is knocked back by the wall of water. Batgirl decides to seal the hatch, reasoning that they can't save Blue Beetle if they drown or are crushed by the pressure at this depth. However, Blue Beetle is fortuitously knocked out of the hole Shimmer created, and Lagoon Boy is able to pull him into the bio-ship. Black Beetle is forced to remain behind and repair the hole.
When Jaime wakes up, the first thing he sees is Impulse standing over him. Jaime immediately powers down his armor, crying out, "It's me! It's me!" Bart smiles and says, "Of course it is."
It sure is a good thing that Bart and Gar are such good-natured kids, because I'm sure just about anyone else would be pretty upset that it took the Team a whole week to rescue them. And Jaime's too busy dealing with the bombshell Bart dropped on him to be feeling any other emotions right now. Anyway, this was a great, action-packed, mind-blowing episode. Bart's reveal is huge. And confirmation that every interaction Bart had with Jaime, every time he mentioned his name, was all part of his master plan to prevent the Reach from taking over the Earth. But judging by Jaime's meltdown in this episode, one could argue that Bart shouldn't have told him all this.
On the other hand, though, Bart's (delayed) honesty might be the best policy. Nightwing's secrecy essentially destroyed both Aqualad and Miss Martian. Why didn't he think he could trust M'gann with this secret plan? As frustrating as it is, though, it does make a more compelling story to have characters make mistakes and have to deal with the ramifications of them. This episode was a turning point in the season. The Reach is finally out in the open. We were introduced to the delightfully evil Black Beetle. And now we have a clear goal to work toward at the end of the season.
Next time, we'll return to Smallville: Season Eleven.
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