Titans
It's been a long, strange journey these past 11 episodes. I admittedly wasn't in favor of this when I first saw the trailer and I was full of trepidation when I began watching. I'm definitely invested in the show and I didn't think that I would be. The quality of the episodes has varied, sometimes wildly from one end of the spectrum to the other. Everything has led up to this. Dick has entered to try to save Raven and stop Trigon. The final battle begins.
Episode 11: "Dick Grayson"
Jason Todd: "Gotham's gotten worse. Commissioner Gordon is dead. Batman is going to kill the Joker. You need to come back to Gotham and convince him not to do it."
Five years from now, Dick Grayson is living his best life. He and Dawn are raising a son with one on the way. He's FaceTiming with Gar and Rachel, who seem to be a well adjusted couple. Then, Jason Todd rolls up to his house on a wheelchair. Batman has gone off the deep end and he's going to go too far unless Dick can stop him. With some encouragement from Dawn, Dick heads to Gotham to try to save his former mentor/father figure. Once there, he meets up with FBI agent, Kory Anders, and it seems it's too late. Batman has slaughtered every inmate in Arkham Asylum and then he tosses the Joker out of a window. Dick leads a SWAT team to assault Wayne Manor. Is Batman too far gone?
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| It's Batman's shadow! |
I'm not really sure what this is aside from being a massive disappointment. We've spent an entire season learning about Rachel. Discovering her lineage. Trigon finally reveals himself and then for a finale we get an extended hallucination featuring Dick Grayson, the most boring character on the show. Ummm... what? It's not just that this has no connection to what has gone before. And like, it's fine to do something like this. If it's well done and if it's not a season finale. The whole time I was watching this episode, I had no idea. Clearly, it was a hallucination or dream or whatever, so why not maybe go back and forth between this daydream and the present. See what Kory and Donna are up to. Or Rachel, Angela, Trigon and Gar.
Nope. Instead we get like 40 plus minutes of who cares? There was momentum going into this finale. We had answers. The big bad had arrived. The Titans were going to come together and instead of seeing that we get to see Dick playing house with Dawn. There has not been nearly enough time given to that relationship for me to care about it in even a fake way. We know that Dick and Dawn had sex, but their relationship was so deep that Dick's fantasy is to settle down with her and have kids? What?
There is a lot of stuff here that leaves you scratching your head. Why is this the finale? It feels like an episode leading up to a finale and maybe it was initially. I know that they cut the episode count and moved some episodes to season 2, so that could be a big part of the problem. It doesn't make a lot of sense to feature Batman heavily and then just show him in silhouette or never really show him at all. It's the same with The Joker.
Then, there is the problem of Dick Grayson himself. All season long, Dick has been trying to change. To let go of the violence and try to not be the person that left Tony Zucco on the bridge to die. Five years on, he seems to have done that. He's determined to not let Bruce cross the line. But then in the Batcave, he snaps his neck. WHAT?! Like, it makes zero sense. I'm not sure what the show is going to say. That Dick can't change? That he is full of fury and will never forgive Batman? Or the writers needed to get Dick to be on Trigon's side and this seemed like the easiest way?
That's the cliffhanger. Dick kills Batman in his daydream and now he's on Trigon's side? Cool. It seems next season we will have the final battle with Trigon. So something to look forward to? Another thing to look forward to? Subject 13 who just decimated a STAR labs team and released a familiar looking dog with glowing red eyes. Yep. We will be meeting Connor Kent aka Superboy and Krypto in season 2. It's probably not great that my favorite part of the episode was this after credits tag.
So, "Titans" ends with a whimper rather than a bang, but the good news is that season 2 is happening and hopefully they will get it together and iron out these wrinkles.
Grade: D
So, that's it. I'm curious to see what others thought of "Titans." Let me know in the comments.
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