Teen Titans, Season 2, Episode 10: Betrayal
This is the key point between Terra's Good or Evil arc, with a good chunk of it being spent on Beast Boy and Terra bonding and growing to truly like and love each other. It's told partly through a montage, which is nice and saves time, and eventually boils down to Terra asking Beast Boy the damning question of "would you be my friend if you knew something bad about me?" Of course, Beast Boy says yes. The kid's in love, and would you blame him? Plus the something bad that Terra mentioned probably wouldn't be "I just disabled security in Titans Tower and allowed Slade to send his robot army to murder the other four Teen Titans."
Slade attacks Beast Boy and Terra in a ferris wheel, culminating in a pretty awesome and atmospheric fight as Beast Boy battled Slade while transforming and jumping through the wheel, before the battle continues on into a house of mirrors, where Terra sadly reveals that, yes, her true allegiance is with Slade. The battle is raw and Beast Boy and Terra's voice actors really sold the scene, with Terra's conflicted and distraught emotions being brought up to the surface, while Beast Boy clearly is angry, confused and felt betrayed over the fact that Terra has been a double agent. Understandably, Beast Boy walks away, ignoring Terra's pleas for Beast Boy to always be her friend... but one can't help but think if Terra would've been redeemed or switched sides if Beast Boy had stayed and trusted Terra. It's a big case of "what if", because real-life relationships are as messy as this. Terra's in the wrong, Beast Boy's in the wrong. We can relate to Terra, we can relate to Beast Boy. No, the real villain in this all is Slade, who corrupted Terra in the first place, sent the robots to murder everyone else, and throughout the battle against Beast Boy delivers such chilling taunts and lines that probably screwed more with Beast Boy's head than Terra's actual betrayal did.
Man, Slade's awesome.
This is another episode that ended on a somber note, just like 'Masks' did in season one. We had images of Titans Tower trashed with robot bodies strewn all over -- I didn't have time to mention what a fun battle sequence that was, the four other Titans defending the tower from Slade's army -- ending with Starfire musing that this doesn't feel like a victory, with Beast Boy curled up around the empty heart box he had planned to give to Terra.
Honestly, who expected Beast Boy, prankster and irritating clown of the team, to be the source of such feels? To articulate his anger and betrayal, to make me feel for him and buy into his love story with Terra? It's great, and the fact that it's all achieved in the span of an episode is awesome. And unlike a lot of the Slade/Robin stuff, this was actually really comedic and fun and light-hearted until the last five minutes with lots of memorable locations for Beast Boy to fight Slade -- the house of mirrors and the Ferris wheel -- and there is a pretty cool balance between the two tones. It's a great setup for a final climatic confrontation between the Titans, Terra and Slade.
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