GUIDES – EPISODE REVIEWS – “ARTEMIS THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS”
Artemis Through the Looking-Glass
Original Airdate – November 11, 2021
Tigress catches up with her sister, Cheshire, as a Shadowed history catches up with them both.
Written by Brandon Vietti
Directed by Christina Sotta
Review by Yojimbo
Media by Warner Bros. Animation
Please note our regular reviewer, “GregX,” is currently on sabbatical.
Review:
Written by Yojimbo, edited by James Harvey
The notion of old habits die hard continues to be prevalent heading into the second part of this arc. Leaning to being pragmatic, Artemis keeps Jade around by leading with Lian potentially being in danger in light of current events. Artemis knows she can’t get through to her any other way at this point. The flashbacks highlight how Artemis always comes through but Jade… not so much and this is smartly used in the present. But as the episode’s title “Artemis Through The Looking-Glass” implies, like “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found”, the episode is appropriately about two mirror opposites and running backwards.
While Jade helps gather intelligence Artemis would never have been able to and interrogates both Cassandra and Onyx, she outright refuses to get involved in the prisoner exchange. Yet, she uses the same “mad as a hatter” code that she used in the flashback – hinting this may not be the last we’ve seen of Cheshire and she could be a wild card appearance on Santa Prisca next episode. Or will she? She didn’t show up to pay back Artemis (side note: it was funny Jade gave her a controversially naughty book to read and if you freeze frame, it’s from the Gotham Public Library, lol). Still, a whole episode that was essentially about Artemis and Jade and further explores their dynamic felt like a long time coming.
I loved the stalemate from the interrogation. You get a feeling that Artemis found a trump card in her sister: a former Shadow that knows all the Shadow tricks backwards and forwards. Instead, both defectors seemingly rebuff her efforts with all too familiar scenarios. Cassandra offers a storyline of a selfish and abusive father fracturing her hopes of a real family. Onyx touts Jade as the one who gave her hope to escape from the Shadows and says something familiar, recruited by Sensei under the promise she would be trained to be the best version of herself. As if a mirror was held up to her, it was riveting to see Cheshire’s anger and frustration boil and simmer more and more with each scene until she pops and takes it out on Onyx.
The interrogations also carry over a story progression from last season, namely Deathstroke and Lady Shiva taking over the Shadows and relocating headquarters from Infinity Island to Santa Prisca, not to mention a neat little name drop to DC hero Amazing Man as well as bring up a seemingly innocuous still shot of the Team fighting Manta Troopers from last episode and reveal here there was more to it.
Still, the juiciest callbacks was that look of shock when Cheshire sees Shade extract Lady Shiva and the others. As we know, she was the one who liberated Shade, last season at the end of “Triptych,” from the control of Simon Stagg. And there was also the revelation to Tigress that Orphan is Lady Shiva’s daughter, something most of us, the audience, knows from the comics but was never addressed until now and adds to the recurring theme of dysfunctional families.
A nice little extra was the reveal of who Artemis’s new boyfriend was, which is Jason Bard. And, actually, he technically appeared once before on this series. Back in season one’s “Failsafe,” Jason was one of the Marines in the simulation. Jeff Benett also returns to reprise the voice role. There’s the visual reveal that Jason is an amputee and later admits he is ex-military. Further neat little nods to the comics, he reveals he’s a private detective and working on a degree and becoming a college professor. Those in the know are aware in the comics, he was a private detective with a degree in Criminology.
Also, Jason’s line about how his ex fixed him and Artemis up when she dumped him for her ex is also an amusing nugget for comic book fans. In the comics, he was a love interest of Barbara Gordon. Filling in the dots, on Earth-16, they were an item as well but she started dating Dick Grayson again as the end of season 3 implied as much. I loved Jade in this scene. How could a Cheshire Cat not take a chance to poke fun at her sister with a little innuendo. To cap it off, Jade invoking the Wicked Witch and Artemis half-jokingly telling Jason run was a lovely bit of humor in an otherwise serious storyline.
I didn’t expect anyone from the Mars arc to show up but in hindsight, it was a brilliant move. Whereas Tigress is working through her grief by her tried and true formula of helping others, we are given a stark contrast with Beast Boy. He doesn’t exactly have a formula and has accumulated tragedy after tragedy with his multiple families. Withdrawn, morose, and wallowing in his room. Not even a massive hurricane threat can jilt him out of his depression. The question remains of who or what will help Beast Boy move on or will he come out of it himself?
There’s also the mystery of what’s going on between him and Perdita, which makes little head way either other than the fact that he can’t even watch a re-broadcast of her. Garfield’s segment does address Brion Markov’s current status and builds on the final moments of last season: he has an open border policy on metahumans and is using Markovia as a sanctuary state. This is no doubt seeding an upcoming storyline with our heroes eventually coming to blows with our puppet-on-mental-strings Brion and likely a Light-backed metahuman army/Infinity Inc.
“Artemis Through The Looking-Glass” centers on the Crock sisters, day and night mirror opposites of each other, and expands on their storied past at long last while taking Tigress’ current predicament with Cassandra Savage and Onyx to the next level. However, the police interrogation suddenly morphs into a prisoner exchange which will no doubt put trust and benefit of the doubt to the test with deadly repercussions. Tigress heads into enemy territory with two enemies, who may or may not both betray her, and no back up. Or does she?
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