Teen Titans S01E13 Review: Robin's Father

Teen Titans, Season 1, Episode 13: Apprentice, Part 2

What an explosive finale! While the Titans are all worried about where Robin has disappeared off too, Slade sends Robin in to steal something for him, with explicit instructions not to say anything to his friends and to fight them, lest Slade blows them up with the little nanoscopic probes. This goes for a bit as the Titans go from shocked to reluctantly defending themselves, and I really loved how the Titans tried their best to fight non-lethally, but Robin being forced to, well, go for the figurative kill makes it really heartbreaking when they had to fight each other like that. 

We get a truly brutal moment as Robin aims his newly-acquired thermal blaster at Starfire, who stops fighting and tells Robin that if he truly is evil, she will allow Robin to shoot him. It's a very heartwarming (and shippy!) moment, and Robin actually lowers his gun right until Slade threatens to kill everyone with the nanobots and forces Robin to reluctantly shoot Starfire. Yes, the injuries are non-fatal, but the voice acting and animation make it convincing that Starfire is really hurt -- physically and emotionally -- by this.

Slade encourages Robin to actually fight him like a Starscream, because, well, Slade isn't stupid. He doesn't expect immediate obedience, and rather he wants to break Robin down. The fact that Robin ends up getting outclassed by Slade in this confrontation is excellently done as well, delivering the great show of how creepy and manipulative of a villain Slade is. 

The other Titans aren't completely useless as Cyborg discovers the little nanobots and ends up heading down to confront Slade, wanting to take the risk to bring down Slade, probe or no probe, and this touch of friendship, injects himself with the same probes and makes a gamble. Slade hates to lose, and if Robin dies like this, then Slade's main objective and goal -- to corrupt Robin -- would have failed. Granted, Slade destroying the controller instead of simply shutting it down is a bit of an odd plot development, but it's dramatic all the same, and it's great that it ends up taking the entire team to defeat Slade, showing that, yes, Robin is strong because of his friends and not weakened because of it. 

It might not be perfect because why Slade doesn't have a backup plan for activating the probes, or why he can't just selectively activate them or whatever, but it's a great emotional showdown between Slade and Robin, highlighting how different they ultimately are where it counts, and how despite Slade's attempts at breaking and conditioning Robin (clearly still in its early stages), he's still entirely uncorruptible. Plus, Batman references!

Overall a great first season finale and it exemplifies that even with the kiddification and the more comedy-centric tone that the series has, it's not afraid to explore darker themes and is great at storytelling. Robin doesn't get a lot of chances to really shine in later seasons and takes a bit of a backseat while the spotlight focuses on other characters, but, man, these few plot episodes really work at selling Robin as a really interesting character to me, and it truly is a climatic and exciting season finale. Can't argue with that. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner

• The battle against Slade and Robin happens on the rooftop of a Wayne Enterprises building. Wayne Enterprises, of course, is the company owned by Bruce Wayne/Batman, who is Robin's adopted father and mentor.
• When Slade tells Robin that he may come to see Slade as a father, Robin replies "I already have a father", which immediately cuts to a scene of bats flying across with a little riff of the Batman: Animated Series theme playing. Again, a little sneaky reference at Batman. 
• One of the comics that Beast Boy shows the other Titans in his conspiracy theory for Evil Robin has the title 'Static Shock', a lesser-known DC superhero who had a TV show at around the same time.