Teen Titans S04E11 Review: Daddy Issues

Teen Titans, Season 4, Episode 11: The End, Part 1

So season four of Teen Titans was kind of weird and awesome at the same time. On one hand, it tried its best at going off the deep end and doing something utterly desire. On the other hand, it tried to rein in on the wacky insanity and tried to tell a far more structured and episodic overreaching plot with its 'serious episode' quota. And considering that the producers intended the show to end with this three-parter, man, they certainly went for epic.

See, Teen Titans is honestly unique. It doesn't take it seriously more than half of the time, but still manages to tell stories that engage and when it switches gears and brings in Slade or Trigon to get serious, it manages to really do it well because of how well-developed and fleshed-out the five core Titans are. The show might not build a well-interlocked and rich, comic-book-homaging universe like the DCAU, but it certainly works well in other ways.

The ending of the fourth season takes place in a three-parter event, starting off with the prophecied date of Trigon's return finally arriving, and the demonified Slade goes off to murder the Teen Titans. But we then cut away to nearly a good, sizable chunk of the episode having Raven just... try to hang out and be a nice, good friend to the four people who cares for her. She tries her best not to be the creepy emo goth girl -- despite the other Titans making it clear that it never bothered them, subconsciously Raven knows what would please other people and this was the only way she could think of. She tries to make pancakes and fail terribly about it. She fights Plasmus, one of the Titans' most recurring villains and takes him out while saving the team. They eat pizza, she suggests all sorts of activities that Raven won't be caught dead doing...

Only for a solar eclipse to happen, and all hell breaks loose. Literally! Raven knows that for all her defiance in the previous episodes, it's only against an agent of her father. Azarath is razed to the ground and for all her bravado, she's a scared little girl who has absolutely no idea how to deal with Trigon coming, and she ends up just trying to make her friends' last day the most comfortable and happiest day of their lives.

Of course, the Teen Titans have Robin on their team, and Robin's nothing if not prepared. The Titans built this super-magic-proof room behind Raven's back and keep her in it, ready to face off against anything Trigon sends towards her... which, well, is Slade leading an army of Magma Ragers. It's the most PG they could get with demons, I guess, but flaming fire elementals are cool, it's just a shame that the animation team doesn't bother to animate their flames nearly most of the time, making them look unimpressive a good chunk of the time after they were summoned by Slade.

And, holy shit, we get one of the most awesome action sequences ever as Robin and Slade to battle that mirrors a lot of their most epic confrontations in seasons past. We see Starfire let loose with the terrifying strength and firepower that the alien princess has. We see Beast Boy embracing the werebeast form from 'the Beast Within' and just wreck house with the fire demons. And, most cool of all, Cyborg combines with the Titan Tower to unleash a gigantic cannon blast.

Trigon's manipulation of Raven, plus her friends being in danger, ends up causing her to be forced to give in and be taken away by Slade. We get a pretty cool exchange between the two. Slade thinks he's a villainous partner or at least a hitman to Trigon, but Raven knows her father. Trigon betrays and uses everyone as a pawn -- and if he's willing to turn her own daughter into a portal, honestly just why will he keep Slade around? Slade demands Trigon honour his bargain, but Trigon doesn't give a shit and just allows the fire demons to drag Slade away, before literally unmaking him. Honour among thieves and all. It's a nice little character moment for Slade, who has spent a good chunk of this season being menacing and glorifying in his newfound hellfire powers.

What happens next might cause you to debate a bit about how Raven's actions are justified or not, but she decides to embrace her inevitable destiny -- if nothing else, Trigon's show of power with the fire demon army has shown that, yeah, even without being in this realm, he's still pretty powerful -- in exchange for her friends' lives. If they keep fighting, I guess Raven assumed that the demon army will eventually overwhelm them and kill her friends? This way, Raven shields the other four Titans from the upcoming apocalypse as she transforms into the portal upon which Trigon is brought into the world.

End part one, where we get the obligatory 'let's try to fight destiny and fail' part of the plotline... but we get some really great moment from Slade and especially Raven, and Robin also gets a couple of great moments in too. Add a very wonderful action sequence to top it off, and honestly the only real weak point of this three-parter is Trigon, who... is just a big angry demon that's super-powerful and Raven's daddy, but not much of anything else. It's a common of three-parters in general, where the first part barely does anything but set up the next two parts, so yeah.


DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The coin that Beast Boy gives to Raven reads 'Liberty 1964', a reference to the year that the Teen Titans team first made their appearance in the pages of The Brave and the Bold.
• Trigon has appeared and been hinted at several times throughout the series, first showing up as a cameo in the season one episode "Nevermore" before being relatively central to the plotline of season four, but let's talk about his history now that he actually shows up in the show. Trigon is one of the main long-running villains of The New Teen Titans, the second incarnation of the Teen Titans team that this show is based off of. Trigon is a demon (apparently quite separate from the likes of Neron, Satanus, Blaze and the other denizens of a more traditional hell) born in an alternate dimension due to the mating between a god and a human. He was summoned to our world by Arella, Raven's mother, a member of the Church of Blood (a sick demon-worshipping blood-ritual cult led by Brother Blood, which is understandably adapted out here) summoned Trigon and conceived a child with the demon, who his his true nature in the form of a handsome human. When she found out that her baby-papa is a psychotic demon, Arella very nearly committed suicide when she was found by the mages of Azarath, a mystical interdimensional plane, who rescued her and raised Raven and taught her to control her emotions. Trigon is aware of Raven's whereabouts but left her alone to allow her to grow and be a potential gateway to our dimension, and the Justice League turned her away due to her heritage. This led her to become the catalyst of the formation of the New Teen Titans to combat Trigon and seal the demon in an interdimensional prison. Trigon has then continued to try to break free of his prison and destroy the world and the Titans, with his relationship with Raven generally being portrayed as an abusive 'daddy knows what's best' kind of deal.