Monsters of Television

“Yes on the Red,  no on the Tornado!“

I don’t have too terrible much to say about “Homefront.”

It was a better episode than last week’s “Terror,” but there isn’t much about “Homefront” that is terribly remarkable either. It’s a pretty standard chase episode with two of the show’s more interesting characters, Robin and Artemis, at the center of it, which gives the episode stakes. As the only two non-super-powered members of the team, they are, as Artemis becomes fixated on, far more at-risk than the others.

But there’s also some a little bit of fleshing out of the characters, and I will say that the episode, at least, does a nice job of giving Artemis some development in a more organic way than what they attempted to do with Superboy last week. And that I can appreciate.

Considering that Artemis was the obvious choice for the mole in the group (and, hey, she could still be!), I liked that we got a bit of her background, at least her relationship with a sister(-figure) who appears to be Cheshire (I mean, there’s an Alice in Wonderland poster still in the room from when Cheshire was living there, what other conclusions should I draw?).

On the other hand, of the group, she’s the one who perhaps has the most backstory to flesh out (apart from Aqualad), given her largely original presence compared to the other members of the team. But, at the very least, Artemis’ crisis point, being left to fend for herself against the two Tornados, and then breakthrough, helps not only give her a nice character moment, but demonstrates the show is possible of earning these character moments when they make an effort.

The notion of Red Tornado being the mole, however inadvertently, would be an easy way out of the plot since you never really kill Red Tornado, and he can always be re-programmed to behave better. It does, however, undermine any value the show derived from putting together a team of folks don’t necessarily get along, and that does slacken what little dramatic tension the show had created.

Of course one of them can still be a mole (I’m still nominating Kid Flash, but think that M’gann could be a possibility! (What if she’s a white Martian posing as a green Martian? (Who is, of course, working for the Light)), and the Red Torando thing could just be a massive feint to draw out the story line. In any case, now if it is one of the kids, it’ll have to be really surprising to work (hence my selections).

FINAL THOUGHTS

• Aqualad is really not at all subtle in who he thinks the spy is: “Artemis starts school today. Do you think she’ll have problems maintaining her loyalty to the team?”
• More not-so-fun with Robin playing with words: “Get raught.”
• Hi, Barbara! You were certainly the episode’s highlight! </fanboy> (We also had Bette Kane as Artemis’ student liaison at Gotham Academy, and in-universe confirmation that we have Dick Grayson as Robin.)
• “How random that you’re in Gotham City! Instead of Star City! Where your uncle Green Arrow lives!”
• “I agreed to cover for Green Arrow. He has an interpersonal-event with Black Canary. A ‘hot date.'”
• What do you mean you didn’t already have Mount Justice’s floor plans in your computer glove, Robin? Batman would not approve.
• “Haven’t you learned anything? In this family, it’s every girl for herself.”
• I do love that fire was used as weakness here, for both Aqualad and M’gann (I was always a bit irked that fire never bothered J’onn during Justice League). But I have to wonder what the hell was holding Kid Flash and Superboy that they couldn’t break out of it, either through vibrations or sheer strength.