For Tigress, saving everyone may not be an option, unless help is offered from an unexpected source. Meanwhile, Lois and Clark have to explain to their toddler Jonny why Conner can't visit anymore.
Tropes:
- Berserk Button: Shiva deliberately pushes Orphan’s by threatening those she loves. Cheshire calls it a bluff… but then Shiva threatens to kill Barbara, and Orphan furiously attacks.
- Bittersweet Ending: Artemis, Jade, Onyx, and Orphan managed to survive Lady Shiva's attack and escape Santa Prisca, with some unexpected help from The Shade. However, despite Artemis' best efforts, she is still unable to convince her sister to live with her and Lian. They chase Jade down to Infinity Island before she attempts a suicidal fight against Sensei. After a much-needed talk, and some convincing from none other than Ra's Al Ghul, Artemis agrees to let Jade and Onyx stay on the island for some rehabilitation. Meanwhile, Clark is forced to give his son Johnny a sensitive talk about death involving Conner, and admits later that he failed Superboy.
- Blatant Lies: Lady Shiva tries to get Orphan to stay with her, saying that the Shadows are everywhere, and unless she stays she will order her Shadows to hunt everyone Orphan cares about. It was already discussed by Shiva herself previously that the Light sees killing the loved ones of the heroes as a "nuclear option" which pretty much invites mutually assured destruction. Cheshire even says that it is a poor bluff on Shiva's part.
- Call-Back: Shade's Makes Us Even moment is because he owes Cheshire a debt from freeing him from mind control in "Triptych".
- Conner Got Sent To A Farm: Averted. Clark explains to Jonny the basics of what death means, but not how or why he was killed.
- Exactly What I Aimed At: Tigress shoots an arrow at Rictus's feet...before it explodes.
- Gone Horribly Right:
- Shiva tries to goad Orphan into attacking by threatening those she loves. It works so well that Orphan nearly kills her, to Shiva’s sheer grinning delight, only refusing to strike the finishing blow because it would make her just like Shiva.
- Sensei notes that his role in the Shadows was to create loyal fanatics, though he did too well a job of that on Lady Shiva.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Lady Shiva basically slices two of her own Shadows in half when she leaps through Shade's portal at the same time Onyx and Orphan throw them back through it.
- Hellish Copter: Cheshire crashes her stolen chopper on Infinity Island. Sensei laments that his meditation garden has been trashed again.
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Just as Orphan beats Shiva and prepares to finish her off, Barbara convinces Orphan to spare her.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Orphan runs Lady Shiva through the stomach with her sword in a rage, but decides not to kill her. Shiva is patched up later, but is also furious at Orphan not killing her.
- I Owe You My Life: The Shade helps Jade and the team escape because he owes her for freeing him in Season 3, even if it means angering the Shadows.
- Jerkass Realization: Clark regrets keeping his distance from Conner at first, and wishes he'd overcome his initial aversion to him more quickly.
- Just Between You and Me: Justified. While at the mercy of Lady Shiva and surrounded by Shadows armed with automatic weapons, Artemis has Cassandra and Shiva explain their evil plan to stall for time, while Orphan escapes her bonds. The two go along with it because, in this situation, they think they've won.
- Literary Allusion Title: The title's a reference to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which Artemis is shown reading in a flashback.
- Makes Us Even: Shade saves Cheshire, Artemis, Onyx, and Cassandra Wu-San from Lady Shiva and quits the Shadows because he owed Cheshire one.
- Not So Stoic:
- Lady Shiva snaps in her attempt to bring her daughter back under her control after Shade betrays her to help Cheshire, threatening to kill everyone she cares about and ranting when she flees.
- Later in the episode, we see Clark is struggling with his grief over Conner.
- Pet the Dog: Ra's offers Infinity Island as a home for Onyx and Cheshire to help break them of the fanaticism they were instilled with by the Shadows.
- The Power of Hate: Orphan initially fares poorly against Shiva, and it's only through the Shade's intervention that the team is able to escape. During the second fight on the beach, however, Orphan is driven by anger at Shiva threatening to kill Barbara, and wins that fight handily.
- Revenge by Proxy: Lady Shiva threatens to kill Orphan's friends if she doesn't stay, specifically citing Barbara Gordon. Cheshire calls it a bluff, presumably because she'd have done it already if she had the means/will, and the point seems to be more to push Orphan's buttons than a serious threat.
- The Stinger: Artemis reads a passage from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings while the shot focuses on two picture frames. One of Artemis and Jade as kids, the other of Wally and Artemis.
- Suicide by Cop: Cheshire tries this by attacking Infinity Island, but Sensei deduces as much and refuses to indulge her, instead setting her on a better path.
- Three-Point Landing: Cheshire lands on foot, hand, and bent knee after leaping from a helicopter.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Artemis had Cheshire tagging along the whole time, allowing the Shadows to think it was just a three-man team while Cheshire infiltrated the compound undetected.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Artemis almost talks Jade into rejoining her family, but Lian showing off a Cheshire mask spooks Jade and causes her to flee, fearful of being too like her father to be a good role model.
- You Will Be Spared: Shiva intends to allow Artemis to leave the island, but Cheshire, Orphan and Onyx will be staying.
