GUIDES – EPISODE REVIEWS – “OG HTROF DNA REUQNOC!”
Og Htrof Dna Reuqnoc!
Original Airdate – Dec. 23, 2021
Zatanna rallies the Sentinels of Magic before Chaos consumes the Earth.
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
“Og Htrof Dna Reuqnoc!” definitely had the trappings of a penultimate episode on paper, but the actual product is far from that thanks to the crazy revelation about that Metropolis Elementary school bus and a long-awaited origin story of Zatara. And if Teekl’s violent death wasn’t enough to visualize the stakes, it gets much more real with the very quick destruction of the Tower of Fate and permanent damage dealt to done to the Helmet of Fate by Flaw.
Even with all hands on deck, the Justice League, the Team, and the Outsiders can only perform mop up duty as Child and Flaw teleport from locale to locale leaving a fairly apocalyptic column of fire in their wake. And when Dr. Fate, Zatanna, and the Sentinels finally catch up to Child and Flaw, their combined magic doesn’t even make a scratch! What else can they possibly do or will a ‘chaotic’ move like allying with Klarion be the winning edge?
I admit I was skeptical last episode was the last we would see of Klarion. But boy, I did not see what was coming. In one of the greatest twists of the series, it turns out Klarion uses the recurring Metropolis Elementary school bus as a new anchor and traverses space and time, teleporting backwards and forwards in the timeline searching for find heroes to help him with his current plight. So all those times we saw the bus after “Schooled,” they were time traveling with Klarion!
Another neat treat was learning Zatara’s origin story. In an inspirational yet tragic exercise in how it’s all connected, Zatara was a stage magician who was yearning to do more. It’s not until the public debut of Superman in 1998, and seeing it through the eyes of his young daughter, that Zatara jumps into the hero game. Stopping bank robbers wasn’t enough though and he ends up being mentored by none other than Kent Nelson. However, he was away more and more from his family, a necessary sacrifice for the greater good.
The status of Zatanna’s mother, Sindella, has been a lingering question since season one and unfortunately, the answer is gut-wrenching. Cancer. On Kent’s suggestion, Zatara joins the Justice League and finds himself no longer alone. Still, he has to cut back on his stage performances with Zatanna. Nice to see that finally acknowledged other than I think Klarion calling her a stage magician once. And lastly, we see the events of “Misplaced” from his point of view. He once again made a sacrifice, but this time to save his daughter. Ten years later, Zatara is resolute on making one more sacrifice.
The episode does break away from the magic for little visits with some of the other Team members. When Young Justice: Phantoms premiered, it looked like something was going on in Garfield Logan’s personal life. He and Perdita were on some kind of break from each other. He wasn’t taking her calls, and he couldn’t even watch her on TV. And then … Conner died. Now, the Garfield’s professional and super hero careers are suffering. And he doesn’t seem to care. Something needs to happen, or Gar is definitely lost.
Aside from clearing up and recapping the magic school bus’s zany time travel shenanigans, hat’s off to the nod to Fleischer’s Superman short film “The Mechanical Monsters” when the Zatara family is watching Superman on TV. Always a treat to have all eras of DC being acknowledged on this show!
Child’s reign of terror is on full display here in “Og Htrof Dna Reuqnoc!” and any hope for putting a stop to it is in short order, but … there is Zatara. He’s aiming to restore the balance between chaos and order even at the cost of his own life, and we all know how tragically sideways that tends to go here on Young Justice…
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