Episode 18: Intervention
Takes place on May 30, June 13 - 14
The episode opens with Green Beetle assisting Black Beetle in putting Mongol back in stasis. They immediately check up on the crystal key afterwards, finding it missing. As such, they decide their next objective should be to guard the key chamber so nobody could reactivate the WarWorld without their approval.
On Earth, we learn that Jaime Reyes is conscious while under Reach control, but all he can do is communicate with the Reach and his controlling Scarab. After defeating Toyman in Metropolis, he is accosted by Batgirl and Impulse. After a little analysis, the Scarab defeats the two and prepares to kill them under the Reach's orders. However, this was just a distraction for Rocket and Zatanna to combine their powers into a containment field that the Scarab doesn't know how to break out from. The Reach impotently threatens the Team members, Jaime snarking back the whole time.
To the Reach's frustration, the Team does not return to their home base, but instead heads to Bialya. After swiftly dispatching of some of Queen Bee's minions, they head into some ruins with scarab-themed architecture. Zatanna begins a ritual on the retrained Blue Beetle, but Green Beetle is sent to intervene. He is countered by the rest of the Team, who were secretly keeping guard over the site. The Scientist asserts that Black Beetle should join the fray, but the Ambassador insists that he has everything under control. He doesn't; Zatanna completes her ritual and frees both Beetles from Reach control.
Jaime resumes a non-hostile partnership with his once-again independent Scarab, Green Beetle enjoys freedom for the first time in a long while, and the Team exposits on the ritual and the Scarab's background. Meanwhile, Queen Bee talks to her beat-up minions, revealing that they actually threw the match and that while everyone else is struggling, the Light's plans are still running smoothly.
- And I Must Scream: "On mode" agents of the Reach are conscious of their actions, but unable to do anything besides communicate with the Reach.
- Chekhov's Gun: The temple from earlier in the season turns out to be involved as to why the Scarab's been off mode so long.
- Defiant Captive: Jaime may be a meat puppet for the Reach, but he can still sass them all.
- Didn't See That Coming: The Reach figured for everything... except the Cooperative tech Rocket uses, since they'd never seen it before.
- Foreshadowing: Early on, the Scarab acts a little unusually, much to the Ambassador and Scientist's frustrations. At the end, it turns out the Scarab wasn't any happier being a Reach goon than Jaime was.
- It Gets Easier: Twisted around; the Ambassador assures Jaime from experience he'll get used to watching his friends be murdered.
- Obstructive Code of Conduct: As a Lord of Order, Nabu cannot help perform the spells needed to break the scarab's conditioning... but he can provide the translations for what to do.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Ted Kord's cause of death involved him fighting off Deathstroke and Sportsmaster at the same time. Given Ted is usually on the low end of the Badass Normal scale, it's an impressive way to go, even if he didn't win.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Invoked by Toyman, who whines that Blue Beetle shouldn't be dealing with him. Metropolis is Superman's turf!
