Date: January 20, January 21, and January 22.
Locations: Hollywood, Gotham City, Shayeris, Ivy Town, Western Mongolia.
When a recon mission goes awry, Kaldur and the team have to confront Gretchen Goode.
Tropes in this episode:
- Ambiguous Situation:
- Jace is unhappy about Brion and Violet reconciling, but also mentions she needs to get her 'kids' away. Violet is obviously one of them, and she's referred to Brion similarly, but her comment would imply that she doesn't want them close together when that would make it easier to get them both away if she wanted them both. She could mean Violet and Victor, the other character she previously took an interest in, but it's not made clear. The following episode reveals Violet isn't one of them; she lost interest in her the moment she realised Violet wasn't her own creaton, and has just been concealing it really well. "Her kids" are Brion and Tara, and she wants Violet kept away from them.
- It's unclear if Jace is aware she's actually still working for the Light. Ultra-Humanite is a newer member that the heroes themselves aren't aware is now one of the ringleaders.
- Arm Cannon: With his newfound control over his technology, Cyborg manifests an arm cannon, having learned it from Blue Beetle.
- Big Little Man: Overlord is shot from a perspective that makes it look like a giant robot. At the end of the episode, we see that it is mere inches tall, kept in a box on Granny's coffee table.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Granny uses Overlord to brainwash Nightwing and Black Lightning into fighting for her. Violet uses her powers to cure them. Though 'curing' them only breaks the mind control, Nightwing is still in a rough state afterward, though Black Lightning seems mostly better.
- Call-Back: Karen was visibly pregnant in "Home Fires".
- Delicate and Sickly: Mal and Karen's baby is born with a heart condition.
- Deus Exit Machina: The Team is inconveniently off on some mission, and therefore can't be sent to help Nightwing and Black Lightning. The same applies to Batman and anyone else who would normally be able to handle this.
- Does Not Know His Own Strength: Beast Boy decides to test the strength of Cyborg's artificial arm. When Cyborg struggles to lift the weight, his implants respond by increasing his strength dramatically, sending all the weights through the ceiling in a single motion.
- "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: Karen shrinks down to microscopic size so she can apply a patch to the hole in her daughter's heart.
- Five Stages of Grief: As Victor notes to Garfield, he's reached the Acceptance stage, now enjoying having cybernetic enhancements since he's in full control of them.
- Gunship Rescue: Oracle uses a remote-piloted Batwing to drop a flashbang on Granny, giving the others an opportunity to flee.
- Headbutt of Love: Between Kaldur and Wyynde at the end.
- Internal Reveal: Black Lightning sees the Batwing exiting the scene after Oracle's flashbang, showing that Batman Inc. is still working with the Justice League.
- Is It Always Like This?: Silas asks Vic this when he sees how the Team and Outsiders usually act, to which Vic sheepishly replies "Yeah, pretty much".
- Loophole Abuse: Averted, then played straight. Nightwing claims that Motherbox pinging Apokaliptan tech is "probable cause" to excuse their intrusion into Granny's home. Both Aquaman and Granny acknowledge that this wouldn't hold up in a court of law. Aquaman just knocking on her door and getting permission to come inside, however, is completely legal.
- Mundane Solution: Rather than risk getting caught like Nightwing and Black Lightning, which would be especially bad for a member of the Justice League, Kaldur goes right up to Granny and asks her about their disappearance as a member of the League. She gladly reveals what she's done, aware that Oracle is watching through a drone.
- My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Violet and Cyborg can both sense when a Mother Box is in pain, allowing them to boom tube to Granny's manor and rescue the others.
- Mythology Gag: Karen and Mal had a baby daughter in DC Rebirth.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Cyborg can now open boom tubes, which came in handy as he opened the tube to rescue Aquaman and the others. Presumably, he could always do that, since he's made of Fatherbox tech, but never tried before now. Also Downplayed since Violet was there and could have done the same thing.
- Open Heart Dentistry: Downplayed. The doctor delivering the baby is forced to help Karen perform a heart operation when the official surgeon is snowed out, but she's at least witnessed enough surgeries to guide Karen into performing a very basic fix that'll hold until the real doctor can arrive. She lampshades it as the most stressful thing she's ever had to do.
- The Reveal:
- Jace's mentor is Ultra-Humanite, but it's not clear if she knows he's with the Light.
- The language Halo uses to cure others is the tongue of the Old Gods, and holds the key to the Anti-Life Equation.
- Shipping Torpedo: It would seem Jace didn't wish for Brion and Violet to maintain their relationship, if her text message to Ultra-Humanite is any indication, finding their reconciliation creates a "complication." This puts a new light on some of the 'advice' she's given to them in previous episodes.
- The Stinger: Granny reports to Darkseid after the credits, telling him she's found the Anti-Life Equation.
- Thinking Up Portals: Cyborg can use boom tubes now.
- Transhumanism: Karen and Mal discuss this, as Karen's research has shown her how to genetically improve humans, possibly even give them the metagene. Mal wonders whether they could turn their daughter into a metahuman, but Karen decides to leave it up to Mother Nature. When Mother Nature gives her baby a hole in her heart and the hospital surgeon gets snowed under, however, Karen enters her daughter's body to carry out a stopgap in measure and toys with the possibility of altering her daughter's genome. Whether or not she actually did it is left unresolved.
- Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Vic seemed happier since being cleansed of Father Box in the previous episode. He notes that he has reached the acceptance stage of grief with his transformation.
- The Unreveal: Near the end of the episode Mal asking Karen what she was doing between patching up Rhea's heart and returning to normal size. She just says "The right thing by our daughter".
