Recap / With This Ring Episode 64

Episode 64: Resolution

Takes place September 12-13

Short version

Paul returns to Earth and reconnects with his friends - especially Alan, whom he gives a new personal lantern, and Jade, whom he gives an even more personal massage.

Longer version

Vril Dox expresses frustration with Paul's high level of involvement with Lantern recruitment, which is undermining Dox's authority and diverting Corps resources to areas he considers suboptimal. He sends Paul back to Earth until needed.

Upon arriving back, Paul first checks on Alan, finding that he's in hospital and not expected to survive. However, Paul has brought the first ever blue personal lantern, made by Kalmin; Alan is able to connect to it, reconfiguring his ring and rejuvenating his body, to the surprise and delight of his friends.

Batman is less pleased to see Paul. He is willing to let Paul rejoin the Team, but first wants him to find a replacement magic user for the League. Paul persuades Nommo Balewa to join, and makes plans to turn Angelica Blaze from a demon into an angel so that she can join too.

Paul then visits Jade, finding that she's still single and they're both still interested in each other. They spend the night together and are officially an item, though they aren't yet moving in together. Since she still very much hates her father, Paul visits him in prison and warns him never to contact her again.

The Renegade contacts Jack Knight about getting access to his Cosmic Rod technology for civilian power generation.

The title may refer to fixing Alan's lack of a personal lantern, and Paul finally getting a girlfriend.

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• Affably Evil: Kalmin is quite excited about how he was able to participate in killing a religion and have the devotees thank him for it. And from the experience, he built a blue personal lantern, intended to weaponise hope.
• Ascended Demon: Paul hopes to turn Blaze into an angel, not through moral reform, but by literally grafting on an angel's wings.
• Blood Knight: Deconstructed. Lantern Gardner stopped being a prison counselor because he found that he enjoyed hitting rebellious prisoners too much, and didn't want to risk becoming that man. Similarly, Grayven doesn't want to rejoin the Team because he feels that his own approach to problem solving is more violent than impressionable teenagers should follow.
• Comically Missing the Point: Paul teleports into the Sivanas' lab, and narrowly escapes being fried by their security systems. They're more concerned about who has to make the system work better next time.
  Thaddeus Jr: DAAAAAD! THE TELEPORT JAMMER'S NOT WORKING!
  Thaddeus Sr: You're perfectly capable of fixing it yourself, Junior!
  Thaddeus Jr: BUT IT'S YOUR DESIGN!
  Thaddeus Sr: I have every confidence that you can improve on it, my boy! Who was the intruder?!
  Thaddeus Jr: THE ORANGE LANTERN!
  Thaddeus Sr: Oh, that's a pity! I didn't think he was too bad! Still, if you can scrape up-!
  Thaddeus Jr: HE'S NOT DEAD, DAD!
  <beat>
  Thaddeus Sr: The teleport jammer and the turrets? Oh dear me. Perhaps I should take a look at them.
• Crazy-Prepared: Apparently Batman was making plans to act against Nabu, he was just slower than Paul. This could actually be a deviation from canon; later seasons of Young Justice show Nabu still in control of Mister Zatara, with no sign of that changing.
• Deal with the Devil: Paul makes a deal with a literal part-demon. However, since this deal is of his own devising, there's no particular sting in the tail - for him, at least. For her, well, this involves experimental arcane surgery, and since she draws her power from tormented souls in a miniature copy of Hell, Paul considers "things go wrong and you die" as an acceptable second-best outcome.
• Exact Words:
  • Alan tells his updated ring, "Why don't you tell me all about the 'Qwardians'?" The resulting info dump overloads his brain and knocks him out for several seconds.
    Alan: Why do I know what their poetry sounds like?
    Ring: Data burst in two, one-.
    Alan: No, you knock that off right now.
  • Upon hearing that Doctor Balewa is willing to join the Justice League but does not want to work with John Constantine under any circumstances, Paul, who has an established working relationship with John, pauses and then says "John Constantine is not a member of the Justice League."
• Eye Scream: Blaze's scrying countermeasures destroyed Ambrose Bierce's eyes. Fortunately, having hired him, Paul was easily invested enough to heal him.
• Funny Background Event: Paul tells Artemis about how he's recruited Doctor Mist for the Justice League. Kid Flash can be heard running a commentary in the background.
  Kid Flash: Who? No, it's Oh El, there's no way I'm gunna have heard of them. I'm gunna go look him up.
• Get Out!: Paul was already about to leave at Dox's direction, but when Controller Hinon realises that he's commissioned a blue personal lantern (which will greatly disrupt the Maltusian status quo), she hurries him on his way.
  Hinon: A blue personal lantern. Archor preserve me, you actually... Go!
  Paul: Hinon, what-?
  Hinon: Go! Shoo! Shoo! Before you... Do anything else!
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Inverted and exaggerated. Now that he's officially dating Jade, Paul visits her father in prison and warns him to never again have any contact with any member of his family, on pain of death. Sportsmaster doesn't seem inclined to take him seriously, so Paul tells him about the Citadelian Colony Drop and how he now holds the record for "human who has personally killed the most people."
  Paul: I'm trying to save your life. Because if you disobey me, I will kill you. I will not feel happy or sad about it, but I will not hesitate, and I will not lose any sleep over it. I will simply consider it necessary and do it.
• Impersonation Gambit: Paul makes contact with Jade again via a prank: he bribes her sports masseuse to go home early, then impersonates the man's voice and footstep cadence. However, Jade quickly catches him out because his skin texture is different.
• Just in Time: Paul finds Alan in hospital, with his power ring completely empty and his skin cold, not expected to leave his bed again. But he ain't dead yet, son.
• Leave No Witnesses: It's actually quite hard to prove that Sportsmaster has committed capital crimes, because like the professional he is, he leaves no one alive to testify.
• Magi Babble: Ambrose Bierce designs a scrying diagram to find Blaze, with the key influences being Order, Hell, mankind, fire, demons, conflict, and "mystic squiggles".
  Ambrose: They help me, alright?
• Mundane Utility: Grayven wants to get his hands on the design for the Cosmic Rod, so that he can hand it over to Lex Luthor - to generate electricity, cleanly and for a fraction of the cost of burning hydrocarbons.
• My Skull Runneth Over: Instead of just answering his questions, Alan's ring now sends a "data burst" that tells him all about what he wants to know. Which is basically a stun gun.
  Alan: Someone get the number of that bus?
• Relationship Upgrade: Paul and Jade officially become a couple.
• There Was a Door: Wonder Woman learns that Alan has been rejuvenated and is downstairs. She takes off at her maximum airspeed, right through her own office door, to go see him.
• The Virus: The insectoid Un-Men created as soldiers by Anton Arcane are designed to rapidly convert any biological matter they encounter into more of themselves. Fortunately Grayven is highly resistant to the effects, allowing him to help Cranius collect tissue samples. Not that Cranius plans to create any more of them.

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