Titans S01E08 Review: We're Not Them

Titans, Season 1, Episode 8: Donna Troy

Yeah, Donna Troy is easily one of the best parts of this episode. I've been saying throughout the season that honestly, the guest characters have been mostly be more interesting than the main cast. I'm not sure if it's the fault of the writing team extending the core four's character development over the entire season while these side characters inspire the writers to make the most of the one or two episodes they get, or something, but I genuinely feel far, far more attachment to this version of Donna Troy over around half an episode's worth of screentime compared to this show's take on Beast Boy and especially poor, poor Starfire.

Let's just blaze through the B-plot for this episode, yeah? After the events of 'Asylum', Dick decides that the cult hunting Rachel is sort of dealt with, and leaves Rachel to go off with Angela, Starfire and Beast Boy while he figures things out. And the Titans basically spend almost the entirety of the episode in a train, and it genuinely feels like utter filler before the huge 'twist' at the end of the episode. We do get a bit of an emotional talk between Rachel and Angela, a fun little comedic bit involving Gar and alcohol, and Starfire jumping at shadows... but ultimately, I honestly don't think any of these are engaging in their own.

Turns out, though, that the dude eyeing Starfire is a US marshal, and he summons the FBI to come and arrest Starfire because she's still a criminal for killing all of those dudes in the first two episodes, something that I honestly kind of forgot all about. After a brief and honestly unremarkable action scene, the Titans are seemingly home-free at Angela's house. Rachel decides to use her healing powers to try and heal Starfire's mind... at which point she remembers that her original mission is to kill the Raven host, prompting Starfire to choke Rachel. Oops!

But the star of the show has to be Dick and Donna's almost sibling-like relationship, and I am pretty impressed that it doesn't even cause the episode to detour too much from the Raven mystery main plot (as much as I've felt that said plot hasn't been handled as well throughout the season). The flashback to the young Dick and Donna hanging out in the Wayne Manor, with young Dick basically freaking out over the Joker, while Donna basically acts as a nice supportive figure even back then.

And, of course, thankfully Dick takes Donna up on her offer of 'talk to me' whenever things get dark. Dick gives the declaration of having finally quit being Robin and even burning the suit, to which Donna gives the hilarious reply of "that's... dramatic. Mine's in the closet! These things are expensive." Oh, Donna, you're glorious. After a fun bit of using their superhero skills to race around the city, they arrive on some huge exhibition show for Donna's photography lessons, and it's a genuinely hilarious bit where Dick is utterly intimidated and confused about the whole 'mingling' thing. It's perhaps a bit too exaggerated since it makes Dick out to be utterly inept about socializing when previous scenes show him to be at least more competent than the rest of the Titans, but him babbling about obscure photography trivia to one of Donna's clients is just gloriously well done. Dick's such a dork and I love it.

Of course, Donna is contacted for a mysterious job, which Dick follows... and turns out that Donna Troy, under the guise of a journalist photographer, is slowly trying to undermine some animal poaching operation, meeting with some creep called Graham Norris, who is under the impression that Donna's going to help him bring down his poacher rival. It's a fun bit of worldbuilding, and while Dick swoops in all guns (well, fists) blazing, we get an utterly furious Donna. Not because Dick helped out, no, but because Dick should've known better, and that Donna definitely has a plan.

After managing to help fix Donna's cover by faking some photographs, we get a genuinely well-done conversation between Donna and Dick. Donna notes how Wonder Woman is all about love and protects the innocent, while Batman is all about rage and punishes the guilty. Both of their respective mentors and parents may have laudable goals... but "we're not them", and that has always been the core theme running throughout the 'sidekick' Titans in the comics, and it's put into words so, so well by the script of this episode. Donna notes how neither of them can ever truly return to being a civilian due to their past life (so the whole 'mingle' exercise was implied to be a way to hammer this home to Dick's mind), but the whole 'Robin' bit, including how his justification for helping Donna is 'we can't let a single villain escape', is just an echo chamber for Batman's mission, not Dick's own. This leads to Donna telling Dick to not be Batman or Robin, but be someone else.

And the way this is delivered by Donna Troy, from both the acting and the writing, is genuinely well done and natural, persuasive but not preachy. Honestly, I don't think I'm exaggerating by noting that Donna's probably my favourite character in this show, and I actually like this show! And turns out it's not just building up to Dick Grayson adopting a new superhero identity, but Donna actually recognizes the mysterious alien language -- it's an offshoot of the Sumerian language lost for decades, and barely remembered even in Themyscira. It's perhaps a bit inelegant to shoehorn this little answer in, but hey. Donna ends up finding out that Kory's real name is "Starfire", and her mission is either to 'take control of' or 'take care of' Raven, which, in this case, appears to mean murdering her.

Overall, while Titans is still somewhat of an uneven show, this is definitely some course correction. The episode's definitely centered on Dick and Rachel, and this definitely works amazingly well on the Dick part, building him up even further as a character while also doing some well-done worldbuilding. Good stuff.


DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Donna Troy is the first Wonder Girl in the comics, and one of the original five founding members of the Teen Titans, alongside fellow sidekicks Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad and Speedy. She was the sister of Wonder Woman (the exact specifics of how she's a sister differs due to her various origin stories), and, like Robin, would eventually graduate from being a mere sidekick into being her own woman, adopting the mantle of Troia. Just like her comic-book counterpart, she, too, is a photographer here. 
• Batman, Wonder Woman, the Justice League, the Joker and the Penguin all get name-dropped even if they aren't seen. Robin's comic-book nicknames, "Boy Wonder" and the less flattering "Birdboy", are apparently nicknames that Donna gives him here.