Teen Titans, Season 5, Episode 4: For Real
One of my least favourite episodes of the Teen Titans is definitely this episode. The premise of the episode is decent enough, bring back Titans East and have them fight Control Freak in wacky hijinks. Except that, well, the wacky hijinks that Control Freak designs for them are so underwhelming and non-threatening that it's hard to even enjoy it. A robotic shark? A bomb under a train? Please. They had so much insanity designing the last Control Freak episode, seriously, this one was absolutely boring. Add that to the fact that Control Freak is an insanely irritating piece of shit only salvaged by the weird pop culture references he makes... yeah. Control Freak in this episode is just utterly irritating. No, the odd fourth-wall-breaking doesn't immediately elevate a character to Deadpool-level meta fun.
The episode spends so much time having Control Freak talk about how the main Teen Titans team aren't around, zooming around with his new 'travel through TV signals' power... and then proceeding to do absolutely nothing with them. Yeah, the main Titans team are off on a mission to like Antarctica or something... but couldn't we have actually seen the Titans leave the tower and fight a little instead of two lines from Cyborg on the T-communicator? JLU had several times showing the main team doing stuff off-screen without really involving them, why couldn't the Titans move the main team aside more gently?
The Titans East team isn't one that I dislike, though there's a lot of hatred directed their way by the fandom. Possibly because their episodes kind of suck. Not the Titans East members themselves, but the episodes they star in generally tend to suck. Maybe because neither Speedy nor Aqualad really had much of a personality beyond being 'cool Robin clones', Bumblebee is just an exasperated Team Mom, and Mas y Menos is hilarious for like the first ten seconds you know them before they are just a borderline-irritating visual gag. The episode really could've given them actual focus, given Speedy or Aqualad something more distinctive beyond 'cool arrow guy' and 'cool fish guy'. But also the character receiving the main bulk of the screentime is Control Freak, which, wow, fuck that dude. Between his nasal voice acting, his silly fourth-wall-breaking "let's talk to people in internet forums" bullshit, it all adds up to nothing but irritation.
And it would be interesting, really, if this B-team was given something interesting to do, but after a boring and quick Control Freak chase scene, we get... 'threats tailored to fit the individual Titan'... which meant... Aqualad has to fight a robot shark, Bumblebee had to stop an exploding bomb, Mas y Menos had to press two buttons at the same time, Speedy had to... do some shit that involves saving people, I totally forgot and it was an hour ago that I watched this episode. This episode had such a boring one, and my brief notes end up being three dozen variations of "fuck Control Freak" and "Control Freak is annoying".
Overall... yeah, I dunno what else I can say. Control Freak is annoying. Thankfully this is his last speaking role, so he can fuck off and die. Compared to the Mad Mod episodes, or the Mumbo episodes, or even Control Freak's last outing, this one is just so bland.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
The episode spends so much time having Control Freak talk about how the main Teen Titans team aren't around, zooming around with his new 'travel through TV signals' power... and then proceeding to do absolutely nothing with them. Yeah, the main Titans team are off on a mission to like Antarctica or something... but couldn't we have actually seen the Titans leave the tower and fight a little instead of two lines from Cyborg on the T-communicator? JLU had several times showing the main team doing stuff off-screen without really involving them, why couldn't the Titans move the main team aside more gently?
The Titans East team isn't one that I dislike, though there's a lot of hatred directed their way by the fandom. Possibly because their episodes kind of suck. Not the Titans East members themselves, but the episodes they star in generally tend to suck. Maybe because neither Speedy nor Aqualad really had much of a personality beyond being 'cool Robin clones', Bumblebee is just an exasperated Team Mom, and Mas y Menos is hilarious for like the first ten seconds you know them before they are just a borderline-irritating visual gag. The episode really could've given them actual focus, given Speedy or Aqualad something more distinctive beyond 'cool arrow guy' and 'cool fish guy'. But also the character receiving the main bulk of the screentime is Control Freak, which, wow, fuck that dude. Between his nasal voice acting, his silly fourth-wall-breaking "let's talk to people in internet forums" bullshit, it all adds up to nothing but irritation.
And it would be interesting, really, if this B-team was given something interesting to do, but after a boring and quick Control Freak chase scene, we get... 'threats tailored to fit the individual Titan'... which meant... Aqualad has to fight a robot shark, Bumblebee had to stop an exploding bomb, Mas y Menos had to press two buttons at the same time, Speedy had to... do some shit that involves saving people, I totally forgot and it was an hour ago that I watched this episode. This episode had such a boring one, and my brief notes end up being three dozen variations of "fuck Control Freak" and "Control Freak is annoying".
Overall... yeah, I dunno what else I can say. Control Freak is annoying. Thankfully this is his last speaking role, so he can fuck off and die. Compared to the Mad Mod episodes, or the Mumbo episodes, or even Control Freak's last outing, this one is just so bland.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Andre LeBlanc is a master jewel thief from France that fought the Teen Titans several times. That's... all there is about the character, really.
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