Originally posted at the DL April 2015
Helloooooooo DCAU. The true question here for me is, is this peak DCAU, or will it instead go to JLU Season 1, because it's a nuanced and difficult question. One I'll probably have to come back to after a healthy rewatch of JLU 1, despite having seen that a lot more times than the Justice League seasons. Anywho, episodes in this season, excepting one set, fall into two basic categories: great and SUPER great. As always in DCAU works, we come back to continuity. We start off resolving lingering plot threads from Superman TAS, draw heavily from extant continuity from the last season of this show, feature the last appearance (in production order) of The Joker, and retroactively have the two parter that sets the foundation for ALL of JLU but we'll get to that in due time.
They also managed a much better character balance this time around (where Season 1 was basically GL's show sometimes costarring J'onn J'onz), and thanks to knowing in much more detail how Starcrossed was going to shake down from the outset actually made a season-long arc out of Hawkgirl's background. There was a minor undercurrent of just how fragile the League was to go along with it, making it feel much less serial in general which, well, refer back to DCAU Point 1.
They also stealthed in a straight up goddamned Christmas Special, which I think is the first since like Batman TAS Season 1 which at THIS point is 12 years prior for them. And it was weirdly good.
More than anything else every episode felt like it served a purpose and told a story that was enriched by the story's surrounding it. There's not too much else to say.
Best Episode: Hereafter. It's not even a contest which is not a statement to make lightly in this season, but yeah. Starcrossed is bigger, Wild Card is perhaps the perfect Joker episode, A Better World is the episode the franchise had to have to go forward, The Terror Beyond is a hella fun ride, Secret Society is the first time the series made proper use of having so many villains and making them effective together. And it doesn't matter because in Hereafter they killed Superman, built in a reasonable explanation for why he wasn't actually dead, made him have to earn his way back to the realm of the living, had a great use of a villain type I've always been a sucker for, told a reasonably effective post-apocalypse tale. In 45 minutes they hit every emotional beat they were ABLE to hit and it works every. Single. Time. And I mean, Lobo was there too. C'mon now.
Weakest Episode: Eclipsed. Also no contest, because it's the only episode that isn't great. So everyone is possessed instantly by the magic diamond and come the fuck on. No internal struggle, no sleight of hand, just rarr ancient lizard race kill puny humans jesus fuck. The only remotely redeeming aspect is it degenerates into Flash vs Everyone Else and is the first serious demonstration that yeah, Flash is actually the strongest Leaguer and is too cripplingly terrified of his own abilities to realize it most of the time.
Grade: 9/10? Yeah, I think so.
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