Titans S02E10-11 Review: Emo Dick

Titans, Season 2, Episode 10: Fallen; Episode 11: E.L._.O

Episode 10: Fallen
With four more episodes before the season ends, episode ten, "Fallen", is... a bit of a strange one. It's pretty clear at this point that the show treats Dick Grayson as the main character almost to the exclusion of the rest of the cast, which is kind of irritating... but on the other hand, I do like Dick Grayson, so having him deal with guilt and assuming a brand-new mantle and eventually becoming Nightwing (presumably at the final episode of this season, if episode titles are anything to go by) is pretty well-done. I'm just not convinced this self-torture, angsty nonsense in prison is the right way to demonstrate it... especially since all the prison stuff is so far removed from everything else happening in the show. I just... I really don't care about anything that goes on in the prison as Dick continues to be emo and get himself uninvolved with both the guards and prisoners, and I guess the moral of the story is if you don't help out, people that he could otherwise help are going to die. Or something.

And, again, in a vacuum, the story in "Fallen" is a decent one. The side-characters are set up well even if they're clearly unimportant beyond the scope of this one episode. Thwaites performs pretty well and carries the entire episode on his back, and an emo 'superhero no more' arc is pretty keeping with members of the Bat-family. But everything is dragged on for so long, and it's hard for me to care. Particularly when everything else is going to shit around the Titans, and Dick's selfish self-imposed emo punishment is far, far more damaging to them. And honestly? With Hank, Kory and Donna being more or less also removed from the board and just disappearing off-screen to mope for the majority of these two episodes, I'm really not convinced that all the prison stuff couldn't have had the same effect with Dick coming back to Titans Tower and realizing his fuck-up when he sees Gar and Conner having been abducted.

Conner ends up also moping because he fucked up and attacked a bunch of policemen, and Gar is also panicked because he didn't become a proper mentor or handler for Conner. It all ends up with naught as Mercy and her Cadmus hit-squad show up, tranquilize both Conner and Gar, and during a second assault on Titans Tower, take them in. Conner is apparently placed in stasis, while Mercy wins Gar over with promises of doing what Niles Caulder couldn't and help him explore his full potential and stuff... and I know that Gar's not stupid enough to fall for this, but on the other hand Gar's character has been paper-thin throughout these two seasons so I feel like it's kind of unfortunate that his big role in this season is basically fucking up and getting manipulated by Cadmus.

The B-plot of this episode also feel like they're just random filler, really. Again, we haven't seen a whole lot of focus on Rachel this season and it's nice to have that since I do like Rachel... but just like the Dick-in-prison subplot, this one doesn't feel particularly interesting and felt stretched out. Rachel befriends some girl called Dani in a soup kitchen, uses her shadow powers to beat up her abusive dad, Dani finds Rachel cool... but a remnant of Rachel's soul-self possesses a gargoyle and murders the abusive dad.

And a good chunk of the non-Dick scenes really highlight how Donna and Gar try their best to call Dick and ask for help, being basically lost without Dick... and I dunno, I feel like in addition to the whole Dick-taking-up-screentime factor, ends up making the show be ultimately spotlighting a single character too much. At least the fight between Superboy and Beast Boy against the Cadmus goon squad is fun to watch, and the episode itself, in a vacuum, is pretty entertaining and enjoyable. It's just that when you step back and look at the season as a whole, I really do feel like the season has a whole lot of pacing problems, and this is yet another symptom of it.
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Episode 11: E.L._.O.


So after the Titans breaking up a couple of episodes ago, they come back together in perhaps one of the more eye-rolling ways as the ladies of the Titans all gather together at Elko Diner. And, again, I'm unconvinced that taking so long (and shining the spotlight on Dick) is all that engaging. Like... all Dawn does in the space of these episodes is just drive on her truck and angst whether she should toss out Hank's things or not. Kory basically just sort of gets fucked up at an arcade, tries to fuck some random dude (who is that) while thinking of Tamaran and destiny. I'm genuinely unconvinced that somehow, when you remove Dick and the Titans out of the equation, all of these characters just absolutely lose it.

Rachel, meanwhile, gets creepy dream-visions and after meeting Donna (who's the only competent one among the older Titans and checks out Titans Tower) they sort of go off to Elko's Diner... and thanks to what I'm going to assume is Rachel's weird magic powers, Dawn, Kory and Donna all get messages from the radio or TV screen telling them to go to the diner. At the diner, they meet with honest-to-goodness real Bruce Wayne, who catches the Titans ladies up on all they need to know before giving them a pep talk about how lies can tear a family apart and they need to stick together. Bruce would know. And... I dunno, I'm unconvinced that this is actually the real Bruce, or is just part of Rachel's powers, whether subconscious or conscious. I'm not quite convinced that Bruce wouldn't talk to at least Donna on the phone first, or that he would take that jelly donut and stuff. It doesn't quite feel right, and maybe it's just Ghost Bruce Wayne from Dick's hallucination showing up thanks to Rachel's powers. Or maybe I'm overthinking stuff, and Bruce is just doing the guest star curse of never doing anything important and just there to dispense advice.

Of course things go pretty south because the Titans split up. Donna and Dawn are as sick of Dick's grandiose drama-queen antics of getting himself arrested, and go off to save Gar and Conner who might actually be in danger. Rachel (who is tormented by dreams) and Kory go off to save Dick... a side-quest that ended up meaning absolutely jack shit because after beating through the guards, they find that Dick's already escaped. Yeah, that's kind of a waste of time, huh?

The B-plot has Dick Grayson still in prison, in solitary after trying to help his prison buddies escape, and because the show really likes to bring in Ghost Bruce Wayne as an excuse to get Dick to self-introspect, Ghost Bruce Wayne shows up again and talks shit to Dick and notes that his self-flagellation isn't going to help him find penance at all, and tells Dick to pay attention to his meeting with Adeline. And... sure, the Bruce/Dick fight with batarangs in the theater of Dick's mind is cool and all, but ultimately all this leads to is telling us that... Jericho is alive, stuck in Slade's mind and fighting to send out messages via sign language. Not the most unexpected twist, honestly, but at the same time it is one that was done well, and one that raises a bunch of interesting questions. The angelic shadow imagery on the prison cell floor is a bit too much, though.

The other B-plot? Jason and Rose are shacking it up in a villa in swimsuits and stuff, beating up drug rings off-screen and we get this elaborate scene of Jason taking Rose to an auditorium that he lived in as a street urchin, watching theater nerds thespians perform. It's a surprisingly sweet and vulnerable scene for good ol' Jason Todd, and the two, despite everything, do bounce off each other pretty well since they both tend to be dicks and push each other away. And turns out that we get to see the other big twist... Rose is actually working for Slade all this time, infiltrating the Titans under his orders (so he was the one drawing crosses on Rachel's mirror, that makes more sense although less funny than imagining old man Slade doing it) but her spending time with Jason makes her reconsider her stance. It's... it's not terribly told, and I do like this little twist too, but at the same time we know so little about Rose (a recurring theme for our characters, yeah?) that you really could go either way and it would've made just as much sense. I'm not going to be too hard on this particular plot, though, it's a nice bit of writing.

Oh, and Cadmus basically operates on Beast Boy's brain in a particularly nasty, prolonged scene showing us Gar's skull cut open and his brain pulsating beneath. I thought we outgrew this sort of unnecessary gore, Titans. Disappointing. Also, while it certainly works in terms of the narrative, it's also again pretty disappointing that poor, underutilized Beast Boy's big role is going to be a mind-controlled drone under LexCorp. Ditto for Superboy, but at least Conner got a spotlight episode for his own.

Ultimately, this is a huge 'get the band back together' episode, but at the same time it really feels kind of hollow? Things just sort of happen between visions or arguments about the diner not having donuts and the Cadmus plot just sort of bouncing around in the background. Again, Iain Glen is entertaining as all hell acting as Bruce Wayne both real and imaginary, and the twin plot twists regarding Jericho and Rose are well-revealed. It's just that... well, we have two episodes left and we have so many things to cover, and I get the feeling that the pacing of this season's not going to be satisfactory at the end.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Somewhat prominently featured in Arrow, the fictional nation of Corto Maltese, originating from The Dark Knight Returns, is referenced multiple times in episode 10, with Dick's two prison buddies hailing from that country. 
• Dick seems to be taking reference from a legendary, mythological bird figure to assume his Nightwing identity. In the comics, Dick also does this, taking his name and inspiration from the legendary figure Nightwing of Kryptonian lore. 
• Niles "Chief" Caulder of Doom Patrol fame is referenced here. 
• Jericho being secretly alive and trapped within Deathstroke is a plotline that has also happened in the comics.