Teen Titans, Season 5, Episode 11: Titans Together
While the quality of the fifth season has been... fluctuative, with several really good episodes and several underwhelming ones, episodes 10 and 11 at least ended the series with a huge, explosive finale that, well, isn't all bad! Considering the sheer amount of heroes and villains being featured in the two-parter (and let's not kid ourselves, it's a two-parter), they juggled it pretty well. While the show did get into a bit of an awkward phase by introducing like six or seven new Titans last episode, this episode tried their best to make do with Beast Boy leading a smattering of new characters and returning supporting characters in an attempt to infiltrate the Brotherhood of Evil.
It's a pretty cool opening as we see a montage of the Brain's minions take down a good number of the Titans -- including Cyborg, Starfire and Raven -- as the Brain monologues to a captive Robin and noting how this is all his fault and how his soldiers are stronger than Robin's soldiers... cutting away to a pretty badass scene of Beast Boy, having proven victorious against the villains that ambushed him (he apparently survived a second wave of robots after beating Kardiak last episode) blowing up the robot goons.
Beast Boy, after establishing a base in a hidden Titans base in a jungle (really wished this was foreshadowed, but no matter) leads the group of ragtag Titans -- Mas (who is more or less useless since he's unable to activate his powers without his twin), as well as newcomers Jericho, Pantha and Herald -- to infiltrate the Brotherhood. The 'we've lost' bit hangs over their head with so many of their comrades captured by the Brotherhood, and Beast Boy is easily one of the least responsible among the core Titans, but he manages to rile up the group to fight. Jericho, who was dismissed by Pantha, ended up being the centerpiece of their plan with his before-unseen powers of possession allowing him to hijack Cinderblock and allow them entry into the Brotherhood's base. Speaking of which, how cool is that ambush scene with Beast Boy's splinter team taking down Cinderblock?
Now no idea why the Doom Patrol isn't mentioned anywhere here, but hey, seeing Beast Boy as a leader is pretty cool, innit? Pantha is also awesome, remaining absolutely UNDEFEATED, and, of course, Jericho's pretty cool with his possession powers -- proving himself after almost everyone thought he was useless. I still cannot understand a thing Mas is saying, but thankfully Pantha translates the gist of it. Why couldn't we have this in, like, Mas y Menos's second appearance? Jeez. Also, side-note, Herald's Gabriel trumpet is funny.
It's a nice bit of spotlight for Beast Boy and the new characters, and while the villains eventually discover them, Beast Boy leads the five against decidedly outnumbered odds. While it's a bit of a foolish plan considering that, well, they are easily outnumbered five to one... they did deliver a pretty cool fight, taking down a fair amount of the lesser villains. Pantha just beating the fuck out of everyone, Mas punching Puppet King, Beast Boy just rampaging as a T-rex, Herald creating random portals to send villains through, Jericho possessing Control Freak and taking on villains with a four-bladed lightsaber... of course, numbers do overwhelm them.
But it's not all lost for them because apparently Cyborg, Starfire and Raven manage to best their foes, and arrive with reinforcements. Kole, Gnarrk, Bumblebee, the three babysitting kids and, um, a suddenly-alive Red Star. Granted it's a bit stupid that the villains leave them behind after their ambiguous demise (Cyborg drops down a crevice, Raven gets thrown into a random Psimon portal, Starfire get swarmed by moths) but hey, the episode is so energetic that I didn't mind. Huge action scene! And then the other captured Titans are freed, and what follows is a pretty awesome beat-them-up starring like forty characters unleashing all sorts of powers at each other and it's definitely very fun to see. Some highlights include Pantha doing a huge wrestling press down onto a group of villains, the three toddlers riding a giant demon teddy bear to fight Mallah, Aqualad creating a tsunami to take out General Immortus, Raven one-shotting Plasmus using her soul-self, Mas managing to escape in all the chaos and free his brother, Killowat sucking all of Overload's powers, Thunder simply clapping and sending like five villains flying, Mallah and Beast Boy's gorilla war, Pantha ripping off Wrestling Star's mask after defeating him, the big orchestral rendition of the main theme as the core five Titans stand together and take down a crapton of villains...
Two characters absent from the first part, Kid Flash and Jinx, show up too in this episode and while I would've preferred them to have done some more subterfuge beyond 'hey by the way I quit' and have Jinx make use of her double agent role to do... something... Oh, and the reaction that Gizmo and the other HIVE Five had to finding out Jinx's betrayal is hilarious. But it's pretty cool to see Jinx give a bit of a big fuck you against her idol Madame Rogue, simply snapping her fingers to disable Madame Rogue after she took out several Titans in one shot, allowing Wildebeest and Hot Spot to get their vengeance and knock the good Madame down.
There's also a bit of a theme from the starting scene of the previous episode, where Beast Boy makes clear his distaste for Robin's split-up plan, and here he advocates the small team to stick together... after Pantha and Herald both decide to bugger off after seeing none of the real 'Teen Titans' around... and ultimately, Beast Boy's "stick together and attack the enemy with tactics" plan end up working, even if it did end up requiring some rescue. It's a bit corny and thankfully not brought up too much, but it is the Titans sticking together that allowed them to defeat the Brotherhood of Evil. It's epitomized by the brief action scenes of Starfire and Raven combining their energy blasts, or Mas and Menos literally being stronger together, or Robin and Cyborg doing their sonic-boom combo attack all the way back from the first (or third) episode.
I've been talking about the Titans, but the villains themselves deserve some credit. Brain's monotone monologues are pretty cool throughout the whole Brotherhood of Evil episodes, and Madame Rogue gets a bit of a spotlight for her short scenes taunting the heroes. Granted, there's no real rhyme or reason to just why Brain is capturing all the Titans, no real master plan of domination or corruption, but who cares? It's fun, and Brain's monologues, despite being delivered in a neutral monotone, still makes him a lot hammier and interesting to listen to than Brother Blood.
It's just a big huge dose of action scene featuring a lot of Titans, the eventual freezing of every single one of the villains (having three superheroes with superspeed helps), Herald trumpeting Brain's 'I have left behind a bomb mwahaha!' plan, and the day is won, with the episode ending with a short scene of poor, luckless Doctor Light robbing a bank and facing a twenty-something-strong Teen Titans team. Robin's "Titans, go!" closes off the episode perfectly, showing how much the Teen Titans have grown both as a show and an organization.
Overall it's mostly a huge, gorgeous action episode after the initial Beast Boy and the remnants of the Titans scene, but it's all very decent fun and a huge, explosive action-packed end to the Teen Titans. There's just something seeing all the allies they've gathered over the course of the series (even if a good half of them only showed up this season) fight against nearly all of their enemies. It would've been a fine finale, if only it were the case. We've got two more episodes to cover, a trippy 'epilogue' final episode that's still contested and argued about even until now, and a big mo-vee.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Featured Titans: Cyborg, Pantha, Starfire, Argent, Beast Boy, Jericho, Raven, Herald, Robin, Kole, Gnarrk, Bumblebee, Cyborg, Aqualad, Tramm, Speedy, Hot Spot, Wildebeest, Mas y Menos, Tramm, Aqualad, Lightning, Thunder, Killowat, Red Star, Melvin, Timmy, Teether, Kid Flash, Jinx
- Featured Villains: Brain, Madame Rogue, Angel, Punk Rocket, Kitten, Killer Moth, Mammoth, Trident, Plasmus, Psimon, Kyd Wykkyd, Professor Chang, Cinderblock, Control Freak, Katarou, General Immortus, Monsieur Mallah, Andre LeBlanc, Adonis, Mammoth, Private HIVE, Billy Numerous, Mad Mod, See-More, Johnny Rancid, Master of Games, Mumbo, Atlas, Kardiak, Wrestling Star, Wintergreen, Overload, Fang, Gizmo, Cheshire, Warp, Steamroller, INSTIGATOR, Ding Dong Daddy, XL Terrestrial, HIVE Headmistress, Phobia, Malchior, Mother Mae-Eye
- Poor Phobia only shows up for a brief scene in Homecoming and a brief scene of running and fighting in this episode, not even a chance to get to show off her powers. In the comics she is Angela Hawkins III, born with the ability to manipulate people's centers of fear, and a member of Brain's second Brotherhood of Evil.
- "Titans Together", which Beast Boy actually called out in the episode, is the battlecry that the Titans use in the comics in the same way that the show uses "Titans go".
- Considering the huge amount of characters involved, there are a couple of animation errors -- Hot Spot is seen among the villains after the first battle, while Puppet King and XL Terrestrial are seen in different shots of the assembled Titans after their victory.
No comments:
Post a Comment