Titans S02E13 Review: A Shitty Death

Titans, Season 2, Episode 13: Nightwing

Oboy, what an episode, huh? There are many parts of this that I liked, and an equal -- perhaps more -- that I disliked. And just as I feared, piling both the major confrontation between Dick and Deathstroke (and also Rose and Deathstroke, and also Jericho, and also Nightwing's debut) as well as the whole Cadmus/Superboy/Beast Boy storyline in a single episode leads to a very awkwardly paced episode. And so it's really hard to digest everything that's going on... especially when you consider the fact that those aren't the only 'big things' that happen in this episode.

And I say 'big things' disdainfully, because let's not mince words here -- Donna Troy's random death at the end of this episode? It was utterly terrible, came out of nowhere, and doesn't even have any sort of thematic significance that necessitated her to die like a bitch. She could've died rescuing other people in a different way than being electrocuted by a falling tower, really. You had two major villains running around, and, sure, maybe you don't want Superboy or Beast Boy, mind-controlled or not, have Donna's blood on their hands... but Deathstroke? Really? You couldn't have had Slade be the one to kill Donna, if you wanted to have a cheap shocking death at your hands? The fact that we talk immediately about potential resurrection later on is yet another narrative flaw, I feel, and honestly it really cheapens Donna's death. And, for me, highlights how little Donna does this season in the present day, mostly having the bulk of her characterization in the flashbacks. For someone who lost her loved one to Slade, she had scant little to do with anything involving Slade in this episode.

The first ten minutes of this episode wraps up the Deathstroke storyline. Except... it kind of really highlights just how little the rest of the Titans have any sort of stake in this. Deathstroke just shows up to interrupt the four Titan ladies (Starfire, Donna, Dove and Raven) on their car, and... none of them go out to fight. Sure, Kory's powers are fritzing out, but really? Donna Troy can't at least muster a token resistance with her magic lasso? Rachel can't summon her demon soul-self? It's all just there so we can have that admittedly very, very badass moment when Nightwing shows up in his full costume as the camera pans up on him. And I don't want to be that SJW guy, but the scene is kind of blatantly the dude hero showing up to save four women superheroes... all of whom have superpowers. And it would've been a lot less egregious if Dick simply told them to 'go, I'll handle Slade' or them realizing the Jericho situation or something like that, but no. All four of them just sit in the car watching the battle. Narratively, I do agree that it's Dick and Rose's fight. Slade has the biggest beef to pick with them. But the fact that the Titans just sort of act all panicked and then watched while Nightwing and Deathstroke took their time to fight each other instead of dog-piling with their weapons?

Throw in the fact that Donna doesn't even say a word at the sight of her dead boyfriend's killer, making that whole Aqualad thing earlier in the episode feel particularly empty. Throw in Rose's arrival, and... and, sure, last episode certainly tried to give her a motivation (said motivation is... Jason Todd, I guess?) but the confrontation here really felt like we're missing an episode or two. Rose tries to get through with Jericho despite the two of them never ever sharing a scene together on-screen. Dick also tries to get to Rose, and while we did get a bit of attempted mentoring from Dick early on in their meeting, I really didn't feel the same vibe of mentorship that Dick/Rachel or Dick/Jason had.

On the other hand... that fight scene is awesome. The Ravager suit looks cool, and the closeup with Nightwing's escrima batons and those lightning jolts dancing around and Deathstroke's twin swords... they're all very, very cool. But then the confrontation and the death (again, if it sticks) happens very abruptly. Dick and Rose just call Jericho's name a lot, Rose stabs Slade seemingly to death, and Jericho jumps into Rose and the two of them are sort of sharing a body. Ooookay. I dunno. I really felt we could've cut out that whole prison episode, moved everything up one episode, and have a proper sendoff for Deathstroke instead of this.

And then we just move on to the next fight, which is Cadmus. Mercy is trying to sell pre-programmed super-soldiers, and Superboy is her proof of concept. Okay, sure? I didn't quite realize that this was what 'Phase Two' or whatever meant, because all this while I thought that Cadmus/LexCorp were going to create their own army of superhumans to fight the Justice League or something. But nope, seemingly out of nowhere, Mercy sics Superboy to fight Beast Boy in a carnival as a demonstration, and poor Gar gets beaten up by Superboy.

The Titans then arrive, and... again, the action scenes are actually good, even if the Superboy fight lasted a lot shorter than the Deathstroke one. The banter between Dawn, Donna and Kory are neat, and eventually a combination of Donna and Rachel restraining Conner, and Dick going into Conner's mind to play therapist is pretty well-done. It is a bit cheesy, and granted, it fails a bit more since I don't think Dick and Conner even shared much screentime beyond their original introduction scene... but this one feels more like Dick is offering a hand out to Conner in the same way that he 'picks up strays'. Okay, sure. With Superboy on their side, they clean up the remaining Cadmus goons, Bruce Wayne hacks into the bidding, Kory socks Mercy in the face, and... that's it?

Oh yeah, there's that terrible Donna Troy death. Sure. Y'know, at least in the comics she went out fighting a fake robot with Superman's powers.

And this ending sequence is really just abrupt. Nothing is really said about how they handled LexCorp, or what happened to Eve Watson; or the fact that the public saw both Beast Boy and Superboy go on rampages multiple times. Gar got turned into a killer that murdered multiple people and ate them as a tiger, and all Dick gave him is the lamest pep-talk ever... and he's fine? The group, including Bruce Wayne, salute Donna. Bruce tells us that apparently the Bruce Wayne that showed up at the diner wasn't actually him, but another Rachel projection. Rachel goes off to help resurrect Donna in Paradise Island. I dunno. There are great moments here -- Dick and Rachel's goodbye; Dick and Bruce's father/daughter talk; the badass walk down the street of the full Titans team (including Krypto!), even the Blackfire cliffhanger is decent.

But ultimately? It's kind of a shame that the pretty poor pacing of the rest of the season results in a narratively very rushed ending that felt like a lot of its plot points didn't pay off, whereas the ones that got payoffs in this episode felt unearned. Jericho wasn't even mentioned after he jumped into Rose, was he? I dunno. I really do liked a lot of the parts of this season, and I did like this episode a lot, but throughout this season I really felt like I was reading a book with multiple issues missing. And it's not that there isn't a lot of things to like here, because there are... but I just feel like they need to step up their game significantly next season.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Dick Grayson, after long last, makes his debut in his most well-known persona as Nightwing. Introduced in the pages of New Teen Titans/Tales of the Teen Titans, Dick assumed the mantle of Nightwing during the Judas Contract storyline. His costume here is based on his most well-known 'modern' costume, however, introduced in the late 90's. 
• The idea of a brainwashed Superboy rampaging and attacking the Teen Titans takes place in the 2000's Teen Titans run, where Lex Luthor exploits the dormant commands in Superboy's brain to take control of him. 
• In the comics, a major storyline for Rose is having to choose between working with her father or working with the Titans, a decision that Nightwing had no small part in. 
• Donna Troy did die in the comics during the Graduation Day miniseries, killed off by a malfunctioning Superman robot, leading to the disbandment of Dick's Titans. (She would get better.)
• In the New Teen Titans series, it was Beast Boy that died at the hands of Deathstroke, and was sent to Themyscira for a resurrection attempt. In both this episode and the comics, Raven went along to assist with her magic.

Titans S02E12 Review: Weaponized Children

Titans, Season 2, Episode 12: Faux-Hawk

As the penultimate episode of this season, this brings me into getting similar vibes to the same problems that another recent superhero season I reviewed, The Punisher's second season, into mind. They had too many storylines going on, multiple major antagonists running around, and everyone is jockeying for screentime and nothing is resolved until the last episode. The difference is that the Punisher's cast was a lot smaller; and there were a lot less flashbacks in the past that needed to be explored. Not so for Titans's second season, which, while offering enjoyable fight scenes and individual episodes, really ended up feeling very wobbly as a whole. Like, okay, the flashback episodes were really solid. The two Titans 1.0. flashbacks, the Conner-centric origin story, and this time around, the Rose Wilson one. The individual acting scenes for most of the cast is great. But all of the meat in-between the fancy gimmicky episodes... don't really hold together all that well, particularly in this second half of the season.

And it's kind of a shame to really be so down, because the individual episodes are still very entertaining. It's just that, again, the cast is so cluttered that it's hard to really get a grasp of half of the cast since so many of them end up becoming second-stringers.

This episode basically deals with the fallout of the previous episode's revelations, while also exploring Rose's backstory. Dick goes off to meet Adeleine, who tells him that she also only figured out Jericho being alive and trapped inside Slade's weird monochrome mind recently. And after getting Adeleine's approval, Dick goes off to meet a very irate fruitcake-maker Stu (how dare you burn his expensive suit) who apparently has had the Nightwing suit prepared under Bruce's orders. That was a fun scene.

Rose, meanwhile, tells all about her backstory to Jason, because Jason Todd's whole role is to be an asshole, bounce back and try to be nice, and then get a tragic, traumatic backstory from people close to him dumped on him. The backstory is honestly feels very exposition heavy. Young Rose figures out that she can't die because of the healing factor inherited from Deathstroke, presses her mom for answers, and eventually tracks down Deathstroke on her own. Slade proceeds to basically be dad of the year and gaslight Rose a whole bunch, being initially a dick to her before faux-apologizing and giving her the illusion of choice. Some very neat showcases of emotional manipulation here, and one that isn't really explicitly pointed out... which I do appreciate. We also get to see Rose in her full Ravager outfit fighting with Slade, which was a cool fight even if I laughed a lot when Slade shows off his goofy handgun-with-a-hidden-dagger. I'm not sure if the backstory actually works, because Rose herself has been so stoic and static throughout the season, but I guess it's meant to be that Jason wins her over to the side of the angels? Or something? It doesn't work that well, I feel, mostly because in order to preserve the twist that Rose was a mole, Rose herself didn't get too much action scenes. Shame.

Then we get the events of the first half of the season put in perspective, where Rose helped Slade break Dr. Light out, before setting up the whole fight to get Rose in with the Titans... and also Slade's such a dick he tells Rose that cutting out her eye is totally necessary. And as for the present day... well, Jason gets absolutely angry, and ends up leaving... and after all the poor brat has suffered through the season, getting betrayed and information hidden from him by everyone, could you blame him? And as Jason pointed out, as cheesy as the previous episode was, he did open up a lot to Rose. As much as I do feel somewhat disappointed by how little superheroing the Titans actually did, I actually buy into the writing for Jason in this season, and this is an interesting way to get him into being an anti-hero like Red Hood if we're going in that direction.

As the title might imply, Hawk (remember him? He hasn't been around for two or three episodes now) gets some focus here, but it basically amounts to him being self-destructive, fighting with his superhero suit in a fight pit, fucking some lady and falling asleep during the sex because of the pain, and then tracking down some teenage impostor that Hank sold the suit to... it's weird, bizarre, and... we get it, Hank's a destructive addict. But I really can't find myself caring for this storyline, particularly when the episode gives us a far more interesting alternative -- Dawn showing up to beat Hank out of his self-flagellation... but of course, despite shooting a whole action scene, it's all just a dream. Stop with these interesting-but-not-real dream sequences, Titans.

The Titans' lady quartet are sort of just... regrouping? We get an actually very great and emotional argument between Rachel and Kory in the car. That was actually a short but very, very well-done scene, and it's just such a shame that these two characters were otherwise kind of wasted throughout the season. Kory's also losing control of her powers, unable to summon it at times, but is hiding it from Rachel. It's really kind of a shame, the writing for Kory is a lot better in this season, but being kept away from the rest of the cast in its first half and having her Blackfire storyline clearly just seeded for season three doesn't give her a whole lot of exciting scenes.

Donna and Dawn, meanwhile, go off on a buddy cop adventure, flirt with random Cadmus guy Walter while pretending to be sushi delivery girls, before using Donna's lasso of truth to figure out what's going on with Cadmus, who is basically turning Beast Boy and Superboy into mind-controlled super-soldiers. We also get to see a bit more Beast Boy, and it's a shame that one of the longer and better-acted scenes for Beast Boy involves him being mind-controlled.  I'm not sure if this is going to be part of our finale and we're going to be jockeying for time between the Deathstroke plot and the Cadmus plot, or if we're going to repeat season one, take out one of the antagonists (Deathstroke, probably) and have Cadmus be the cliffhanger for season two.

Overall, a lot of it is set-up and last-minute exposition. Again, it's not an un-entertaining episode, but taking it as a whole and considering the fact that this is a penultimate episode in a season... yeah, probably not the thing we've seen.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• She doesn't get called that, but Rose dons her Ravager outfit in this episode. The Ravager was an identity first assumed by Deathstroke's short-lived son Grant Wilson, and various other people related to Slade have donned the identity until Rose became the character most well-known for it.
• In the comics, Slade had tried (to various degrees of success) to try and turn Rose into being his apprentice and successor. 

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. 

Titans S02E09 Review: Deathstroke's Vengeance

Titans, Season 2, Episode 9: Atonement

So, uh... an interesting episode? It feels like more of a 'what happens after a huge climactic moment' catch-up episode, except the climactic moment is apparently just Dick telling the previous episode's events to the gathered Titans, almost all of whom leave the tower in disgust thanks to various levels of betrayal that they feel from Dick. And, sure, it's thematic and stuff, but on the other hand I do really feel that this episode underscores just how little we actually see of many of the present-day cast members and that honestly leads me to shrugging when some of them leave. Like... Rose really doesn't have any sort of real bond with the rest of the cast; Gar's larger role in this episode is more than he had over the past eight episodes; Kory, while better than the previous episode, is also pretty detached from the rest of the cast. 

And... there are some neat, decent moments here, but also some that just ultimately made me shrug and go 'yeah, I get the gist, can we move on?' Gar getting some actual spotlight as he does a Star-Trek-inspired log as he watches over the Tower, the comatose Conner and just plays video games is an interesting one but one that ultimately didn't have a whole lot of real oomph beyond giving poor Ryan Potter something to do. Conner's little walk and trying to really comprehend how to do this superheroing thing with Gar is adorably and predictably disastrous, but ultimately that doesn't really feel as epic as the episode wants it to be. 

And... I dunno. I feel like a lot of the characters could've done more? Rachel, Donna, Jason and especially Rose sort of disappear from the plot after leaving Dick behind (Rachel also leaves Donna behind), and I genuinely do feel like they probably could've highlighted at least Rose's response to Dick's role in her brother's death a bit more. Instead, we choose to highlight Hank and Dawn, who... uh... goes singing in a small town pub in which they instantly get recognized, and Hank decides their relationship is toxic and drives off. Also, Kory ends up being embroiled in a B-plot with Faddei, who gets mind-controlled by some parasite courtesy of her sister Blackfire, who staged a coup d'etat in Tamaran, seemingly killed the parents, kills Faddei and blows up Starfire's ship. I really want to say that I'm invested in this B-plot, I really want to, but while it's a bit more exciting than Gar's Star Trek logs, it's also so far removed from anything that's going on in this season that it's really hard to care. 

The writing, at least, is relatively well-done for Dick, whose guilt leads him to try and seek forgiveness and absolution from Adeline... who absolutely refuses to grant him anything of the sort. Deathstroke also shows up and gives a grand speech about taking from Dick the same family that he took from Slade, and basically drives and condemns Dick to leave the Titans forever and ever knowing that the team and family is fractured. It's a great take, and this mourning, vengeful and utterly spiteful daddy Slade is a very interesting take on the character that makes him no less manipulative and scary, but a lot more tragic. Ultimately, Dick ends up having a bit of a breakdown at the airport, refusing to leave America and ends up beating up random beat cops and getting arrested for his troubles. Which... okay? Sure. 

Again, the episode itself isn't bad or terrible, it's just perhaps a display of the endemic problem in this season -- the show has a lot of characters, but at least one-third of its total screentime is devoted to flashbacks, more than half of the characters jockey and struggle for screentime, and while the show does a great job at fleshing out Dick, Slade and the backstory of Titans 1.0... it perhaps needs a bit more push in the right direction in terms of everything else. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Blackfire, a.k.a. Princess Komand'r, makes her debut in this episode. Starfire's psychotic sister, Blackfire was born without the innate powers of flight that the other Tamaraneans have, causing her to grow up with an immense inferiority complex and bitterness towards her sister and the rest of her family, and ultimately would cause her to commit multiple plays for power at the cost of her family.

Titans S02E07-08 Review: A Poisonous Robin

Titans, Season 2, Episode 7: Bruce Wayne; Episode 8: Jericho

Episode 7: Bruce Wayne

Episode 7, "Bruce Wayne", is a very, very interesting one. What I originally thought was going to be the obligatory Batman guest star episode with Bruce Wayne showing up to give some important advice... doesn't actually star the real Bruce Wayne himself. Instead, we get the glorious Iain Glen... as Dick's imagination of Bruce Wayne, mocking and judging every single thing he does with some particularly hilarious choice words that the real Bruce Wayne (probably) wouldn't make, basically combining both the angel and the devil on Dick's shoulder into one sarcastic package. And it's pretty fun! As always, Dick ends up being the focus of this episode, and, unless something changes drastically in the next couple of episodes, his old sins and his guilt is going to be the focus of the season. Part of me really don't like it when stories sort of fall back into using a very dramaticized version of real-life mental disorders just to make a funky, unique episode... but on the other hand, these sort of episodes are almost always a delight to watch. And it's in no small part due to Glen's performance as Bruce Wayne, and between actually helpful advice, constantly talking about how everyone gets the amount of years since the flashback era wrong, or when he makes a gag about how Dick's superpower is knowing his cell phone; he's a delight to watch. Ultimately, Ghost-Bruce tells Dick that he needs to confess the truth to someone about the sins that only he (and Slade) know about. 

Granted, though, other than that... the episode is mostly just catch-up, and your mileage may vary whether seeing Ghost-Bruce talk shit to Dick is enough to carry the entire episode. Sure, there are some obligatory catch-up moments. Jason is having some PTSD and anger issues coping with his hostage situation; most of the old guard Titans are still not happy about Dick's recent decisions... and, well, the plot of the episode is mostly just Dick bouncing around talking to random secondary characters until it leads him to Wintergreen. Again, the fact that Bruce is commenting on Dick's behaviour is fun, but ultimately it doesn't really make for the most engaging episode of Titans.

The B-plot with Eve deciding to fuck LexCorp, free Krypto and eventually rendezvous with the Titans and help them cure Conner (via a combination of Kory's Starfire powers and Rachel using her soul-self to keep it from blowing up the building) is pretty neat. It's nice to see Eve have some character development, but ultimately it's... it's just there. 

Something that's perhaps a bit more depressing is the fact that Rose's attempt to befriend and flirt with Jason ends up in disaster because... Jason borrows Dick's records and Jericho's record is among the collection? Poor Jason. Also, Hank, Dawn, Rachel and Donna all find some sensitive micro-aggression beverages and photographs all over, and they sort of immediately assume that it's Jason that's being a douche... and Jason goes off to almost toss himself off of the rooftop because he thinks that he's "poisonous", corrupts everything and no one can help him. It's utterly depressing and I really wished that the buildup to this was actually done better -- I feel like Hank and company blaming Jason for it feels particularly immature and abrupt. And seeing poor Jason completely frazzled ends up with Dick confessing to Jason his crime of 'killing' Jericho, which is the next episode. 

The huge revelation is that apparently Deathstroke is the one sneaking around leaving beers and sodas and drawing angry goth crosses on Raven's room is... mostly unintentionally hilarious, I feel, and the fact that his huge plan is to have the other Titans be douchebags to Jason, and the immediate jump to Jason being suicidal feel very awkwardly handled. I dunno. I feel like if done properly this one could've been a home run, but instead it's just kind of a mediocre episode. 

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Episode 8: Jericho

And just like the previous episode, the second completely-flashback episode in Titans season two is kind of... it could've been better, really. Again, one of my bigger problems is perhaps just how the season handles pacing, because it's pretty inconsistent with multiple episodes just taking a huge, huge break from the main cast. Whether it's the two flashback episodes or the Conner spotlight episode, it does make the main cast (particularly Rose and Conner, who really didn't do anything after their respective debuts) feel kind of neglected. The thing is, though, the revelations about the specifics that only Dick and Slade knows is... pretty interesting.  We last left off the flashback with Dick meeting the cheerful, non-superhero Jericho in a records store, and turns out that in this disastrous first conflict against Deathstroke, the original Titans might've been a lot less forthright than they could've been. 

And it's... it's kind of interesting, really, to see how much they waver between wanting to use Jericho as a tool to get back at his dad and how much of them are uncomfortable with the prospect. The revenge-seeking Donna and the "be Batman" Dick are the biggest proponents for utilizing Jericho, but the show can't make its heroes too shady so at around the halfway mark they all decide to come clean to Jericho. 

A good part of the episode is mostly just exposition to the audience, and admittedly as someone who knows Deathstroke's backstory inside and out multiple times, it's perhaps not the biggest revelation... but it's still a pretty fun, compelling retelling of the dynamic that Deathstroke has with his son, who is completely removed from any shady stuff that Deathstroke does. They cut ties long ago... but then Jericho shows off his mutant body-jumping powers, the Titans decide to give all the information, and Jericho gets it in his head to help the Titans out and eventually has to choose between Dick and Slade. 

And... and honestly? Slade does have a point. Sure, the Titans are right to be angry at Slade after Aqualad's murder (and Slade brutally beats down Donna in this episode, and also kills her Amazonian museum curator mentor), but as Slade points out... they're basically just weaponizing Jericho in a way that's not too dissimilar from how Slade was worried the government people would treat his mutant son. And, yeah, they did eventually reveal everything to Jericho and didn't force him to do anything, but there's no small part of emotional manipulation in how and when they revealed the information to poor Jericho. 

The fight between Deathstroke and Robin is particularly nice to watch here; I feel like Titans is just a lot more comfortable with showing martial arts melees than trying to incorporate superpowers into a fight scene. The brief one-on-one scuffle between Donna Troy and Deathstroke earlier on is also pretty well-done. The fight in the church is set up pretty well (even if it's pretty obvious), and while Robin and Deathstroke are embroiled in fighting, Jericho ends up taking a killing blow from Slade and dies trying to protect Dick. It's a tragic, shitty death that could definitely be prevented if they had communicated better, and it's the huge event that both gnaws at Dick's conscience and also the event that caused the dissolution of the original Titans. 

And... you know what? This one is actually a very solid one. I wasn't too taken in with the episode the first time I watched it, probably mostly because a lot of the Slade/Jericho information are stuff I already know from prior comic-book knowledge, but incorporating it and making the Jericho situation feel pretty ambiguous, feeding into Slade's self-righteousness and Dick's guilt while not vilifying the Titans is a neat, delicate balance. It could've been done better, I feel, but it is still very solid.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Bruce Wayne does the Batusi dance with the burlesque dancers, the infamous dance that Adam West's Batman did in the first episode of the 60's Batman TV series. 
• In the comics, Rose did flirt a lot with a Robin, specifically the third Robin, Tim Drake, actually sneaking into his room in an attempt to get intimate (albeit she was drunk at the time). 
• "Jericho" condenses a lot of Deathstroke's backstory in the New Teen Titans comics, having Slade be transformed into a super-soldier by a military experiment; him having a son with body-possessing powers; Jericho/Joey being wounded and rendered mute after having his throat slit when Slade refuses to tell his rivals some information; and Slade's ex-wife Adeleine forcing Slade to go away from his son. 
• That said, "Jericho" seems to be the given name of Slade's son instead of his superhero name, and while he does have superpowers, this incarnation of Jericho never actually donned a superhero suit and didn't know about his dad's supervillain tendencies until joining the Titans. 
• Comics Jericho displayed his power in the comics by taking over a body of a Teen Titan (Nightwing instead of Hawk in the comics) and making him dance. 
• While the circumstances are wildly different, both this Jericho and his comics counterpart were killed via Slade stabbing him with a sword. 
• Wintergreen was the best man at Slade's wedding in the New Teen Titans comics. 

Titans S02E06 Review: A Good Boy

Titans, Season 2, Episode 6: Conner

See, I really like Superboy. The 2003 Teen Titans run is a personal favourite of mine as it was a comic run I grew up with, and more recently, the Young Justice cartoon was also a huge series that I love. So when Superboy was teased as the post-credits scene in the first season of Titans it was truly unexpected since the show was mostly drawing from the 1980-1990 New Teen Titans run.

...And I completely forgot about him as we jump into this season. Whoops! I think in the first season, I had expected the Superboy teaser to mean that he's going to swoop in and help to beat Trigon up... and this Conner-centric episode randomly show up in the middle of the season, he's going to be the deus ex machina that's going to save Jason Todd.

The thing is, though, as much as that bit of eye-rolling plot convenience ends up being, this episode is a very, very solid origin story, condensing and summarizing a lot of Superboy's story, still having Superman be a huge shadow behind him while making it well and truly Superboy's story. Or, well, "Conner" or "Experiment 13" at this point. The Superboy moniker hasn't stuck yet. But Conner ends up breaking out of Project Cadmus, freeing Krypto the Super-Dog and stealing the name written on the clothes he came across, and ends up wandering the city.

The problem? While certainly not entirely a child, Conner has the brain faculties of a child. He doesn't really understand money, he doesn't really understand right and wrong, and in the words of Cadmus's scientist Eve Watson, he's like a child that will absorb everything like a sponge. The child-like-adult is a trope that we've seen many, many times, but Joshua Orpin's performance as Conner really ends up feeling like something unique. He's genuinely earnest and sweet even if at one point he basically accidentally mugs a woman that's terrified by his manhandling of a robber, and sees nothing absolutely wrong with it. And the fact that he also comes into the show with an absolute good boy of a dog doesn't hurt either.

Meanwhile, though, as Connor goes around exploring the world, things aren't quite sunshines for the people who created him. Lex Luthor himself doesn't show up, but his right-hand woman Mercy Graves sends out a tactical team and the scientist responsible for Connor's creation, dr. Eve Watson, who is also a pretty fun character. While clearly not entirely innocent, it's clear that Eve is far more fascinated with Conner more than anything, and is justifiably wary about LexCorp's seemingly far more militant attitude towards him. Eve's story is pretty fun -- it's clear that she's way over her head, thinking that she's signed up for a simple cloning project before realizing that Luthor has basically done what she is working on theoretically just to create a Kryptonian weapon.

Conner, meanwhile, is beset by two series of memories, one that is Clark Kent's and another that is Lex Luthor's. The problem is that Conner has no idea who Superman is, or who Luthor is, or who Clark is... and just sort of follows the memories to their logical conclusion, where we get to meet Lionel Luthor, Lex's terrible piece of shit dad. And, sure, I totally believe that Lex's a right ass when he was a kid, but Lionel's no peach either. And I really do love that the episode still has the presence of Lex and Superman in it without making them domineering. The LexCorp goon squad eventually show up, allowing the amazing action sequence where Conner explores his powers almost instinctively, driven by an interesting combination of a desire to protect the beaten-down old man and simple, unadulterated rage. It's a very, very interesting way to put in the Jekyll-and-Hyde theme that I don't think the original concept of Superboy had, and without falling back to the all-too-tired multiple-personalities trope.

Also, Krypto totally gets a badass move of catching a rocket mid-flight and spinning it back towards the goon that shot it. Krypto is a GOOD BOY.

It's at this point that Conner and Eve's paths converge, and, as much as Eve is loathe to admit it, she is Conner's 'mother' in more ways than one, and Eve tries her best to... educate Conner. If nothing else, trying to teach him to control his impulses and teach him about consequences (or thinking about how to handle, say, an abusive boyfriend fighting with his girlfriend). And the acting here is particularly great, with Eve herself not being in the best mindset at the moment and having to deal with a man-child who is struggling with controlling his very, very dangerous temper. Eventually Eve ends up confessing all about her guilt, about how she thinks she can control it, how she thinks she's the one good person keeping Luthor's will at bay... and ends up bringing Superboy to an abandoned Cadmus lab to show him what he really is. The fact that Superboy is obsessed, initially, with meeting Lex Luthor, is also an interesting motivation.

Also Krypto totally is a smart good boy and he tries to stop Conner from seeing the hard truths what a GOOD BOY.

Eve tries to tell Conner that, no, he's not a monster. That's not the point of the journey, the point is to make him realize that he's part-Superman, part-Luthor, and while there's potential for great destruction in Conner... there's also potential for great good. That's an amazing story that takes the same general concept of Conner's comic-book counterpart but totally brings it in a different direction. Eve also impresses on Conner the importance to run and not make a scene, and near the end of the episode Conner and Krypto are forced to leave Eve behind.

Being Superboy, though, Conner can't ignore people in peril for long, leading to... of course, him saving Jason Todd when he got chucked out of a building. And in an almost hilarious moment, immediately gets shot with Kryptonite bullets. It is admittedly kind of anticlimactic, but I suppose it fits with the theme of 'consequences' and 'running' and all that jazz that has been impressed on us this episode.

Worst of all, though, Krypto gets collared with a Kryptonite dog collar and taken away. NO!

Overall... easily one of the strongest episodes in Titans, and it's almost kind of a shame that the strongest episode also is the one that has barely anything to do with the ongoing plot and the established characters. Conner's story, even without taking in the fact that I really do like the character, is well-told, his interactions with Eve and his growing confusion about his place in the world is amazing, and while it does come in arguably an odd place in the season, I really did enjoy the episode. A solid one.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Superboy, a.k.a. Kon-El, a.k.a. Conner, first debuted in the comics in 1993's Reign of the Supermen mega-arc, being one of the four mysterious superheroes claiming to succeed or be Superman after the death of Earth's greatest hero. Created by Project Cadmus, a group of scientists, had their thirteenth experiment (Titans!Conner is also 'Experiment 13') succeeded in being a half-human, half-Kryptonian clone that is able to emulate Superman's Kryptonian powers with a form of 'tactile telekinesis'. While originally working independently, when Superman returned, Superboy was taken in under his wing. Superboy would join the 'Young Justice' team, and later on graduated to join Cyborg's incarnation of the Teen Titans. 
• Superboy's true backstory, that the human half of his DNA actually came from Lex Luthor instead of Project Cadmus's leader, and this is explored throughout the 2003 Teen Titans run. Superboy's appearance, with a simple black T-shirt with the Superman symbol, is taken from his appearance that debuted in that run of comics. 
• In his first appearance in the comics, Superboy was inspired by a similar black T-shirt with Superman's symbol on it in creating his original costume -- those shirts were created to commemorate Superman's death. 
• Krypto the Superdog debuted in the Golden Age, and was originally Kal-El's dog on Krypton and was sent on a rocket to Earth as a test subject by Jor-El. His rocket was knocked off-course, and Superman wouldn't be reacquainted with his old pet until much later. For the most part, Krypto stayed in the Fortress of Solitude, but is able to use his Kryptonian powers to assist its master in fighting crime. Post-Crisis-of-Infinite-Earths, Krypto was retconned to arrive from an alternate, idealized version of Krypton that was created by Brainiac 13. 
• In Superboy's original run, he hung out with a stray, earthen dog named Krypto. Later on, however, this was dropped and the Kryptonian-dog Krypto ended up being particularly associated with Conner.
• Mercy Graves, debuting in Superman: The Animated Series, is Lex Luthor's hyper-competent secretary, chauffeur, bodyguard, enforcer and right-hand woman. Lex Luthor himself is mentioned several times, although he doesn't make an appearance.
• Lionel Luthor and him being a major presence for Lex came from the TV show Smallville, before being adapted into the comics. 
• The Daily Planet's distinctive globe can be seen in the background of some scenes, particularly when Mercy and Eve were talking to each other. 
• Conner briefly sees a file and reads the title as 'Project Rakshasa', but I can't find any reference to it in the comics, and briefly looking through Cadmus's projects, I can't find anything. Likewise, Eve Watson seems to be originally created for the show. 

Titans S02E05 Review: Fractured Titans

Titans, Season 2, Episode 5: Deathstroke

A shorter review today, mostly because I don't really have a whole ton to say about this one. It's honestly a pretty solid hour of superheroing, but at the same time, episode 5, "Deathstroke", is mostly just action scenes and things happening. And that's okay since the past couple of episodes have been pretty big on buildup and exposition, but at the same time when I do sit down to type this review I realize I didn't really have a whole ton to say here.

"Deathstroke" serves mostly to be the climax of this first arc of season two, the mystery behind Deathstroke and the ever-growing rift between Titans 1.0 and Titans 2.0. And within all that we have Dick, who's blaming himself for whatever clearly happened to Jericho, and also blaming himself for Jason's kidnapping. The tension is palpable among the older members of the group, who clearly went from angry to absolutely crazy-concerned and panicked that one of their younger charges have been kidnapped and potentially hurt by a pair of psychos.

There are some brief bits of action that happens here and there that feel more obligatory than anything. Jason escapes by tricking Dr. Light only to be captured immediately. There's the whole series of scenes showing Kory finally arriving into the main plot after her diversion. There is the argument between the older Titans with them finally referencing Garth because the audience knows about it, Gar is apologetic and stuff, and there's the obligatory Rachel-can't-control-her-Raven-powers scene. The first act is ultimately kind of a red herring, with the older Titans casing out the sewers, Dr. Light and Deathstroke getting into an argument (Light wants to kill them all himself) and Deathstroke just boom-headshots Dr. Light and shoves Jason's tracker into Dr. Light's corpse. It's neat, I guess, even though I'm bummed out that Dr. Light ended up doing absolutely jack shit in the show.

The show's also really leaning in to pushing Kory as someone that's the glue for the team, but I don't think that it displays it particularly well. The speech between Kory and Rachel about how they both have powers that they can't control (Kory's 'Starfire' powers are especially powerful even among Tamaraneans) is great. And Kory being a more mature member of the group but without the emotional baggage of the rest of Titans 1.0 does put her in a unique situation where she can advise Dick without being caught up in emotion, but ultimately while it's a significant improvement to her role in the first season, I really did wish that we saw Kory have some interaction with this current group.

The Titans come to a conflict when the older Titans argue whether to hand over Rose to Deathstroke as he threatens them to, while Rose gets to trick Gar and Rachel (mostly Gar) into letting them eavesdrop. There's a bit of a conflict where Hawk fights Rose for a bit, but then Rose gets into conflict with Rachel... who loses control of her Raven powers, kills Rose... but then Rose's bones just snap back together because her regeneration powers in this show would give Wolverine a run for his money.

And at this point it's just some buildup as the Titans have conversations with each other, but I didn't find any of them particularly interesting (Donna and Kory catch up; Dawn threatens Dick that she'll burn down the tower if he doesn't stop the experiment; Dick exposits to Kory about the previous episode) save for Hank admitting and being ashamed for being so hard on Jason, knowing that having a troubled childhood himself, he totally knows what it's like to be afraid. Hank's got an amazing actor, and he really doesn't quite get put in the spotlight enough. The rest of this montage is kind of bland, though, and after the huge fight against Rose it feels like the writers just shrugged and had the characters randomly interact before the final act.

And then, when the final act comes... Dick sort of betrays everyone by taking everything into his own hands, and goes off to confront Deathstroke solo. Which is stupid, but pretty on-brand for the Dick/Slade relationship from the comics. It's just that arriving without weapons or a suit, and thinking that Slade would just make the trade ends up backfiring, and only Kory pre-empting Slade ends up saving Dick from certain death. Perhaps for the first time this season the action scene is genuinely cool to watch and doesn't end too quickly, with the close-combat scene between Deathstroke, Dick and Kory being pretty fun.

The episode, however, ends with the cliffhanger (ledgehanger?) of Slade using a detonator to blow up the ledge where Jason is hanging on to and dropping him from the skyscraper. Oh no, a cliffhanger!

And... I dunno, the action scenes and the acting are great. I don't think that I have too much of a complaint about any of the acting here, and the dynamics between the characters are explored pretty well. The rift between the Titans are pretty fun to see, too, with Dawn being absolutely tranquil-but-furious at Dick's "experiment", Rachel being out of control, Rose mistrusting half of the people there who are ready to give her up... and there's still the mystery of what Deathstroke's specific beef with Dick is, since it seems way too personal, and I'm going to assume that something actually did happen between Dick and Jericho -- something that happened after the events of episode 4. It's just that the structuring of this episode moves a bit too fast, I feel, and while it's not actively messy or terrible, I feel like a better version of this episode could've rearranged or omitted some events to make the Dick/Slade confrontation or the hectic Rose argument in Titans tower work better. Ultimately, while an entertaining episode... it's also a bit... shallow, I guess? 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Is this the first time that "Starfire" has ever been spoken outright in the show? And done to describe Kory's powers instead of being used as a moniker? It might very well be. 
• The circumstances behind it is certainly wildly different, but,  of course, Jason Todd is most well known as the Robin that died in the arc Death in the Family. 

Titans S02E04 Review: Year One

Titans, Season 2, Episode 4: Aqualad

So, in a bit of a surprising change, we end up having a whole episode telling us what happened to the original Teen Titans, something that the past couple of episodes have been great at hinting at some sort of old encounter with Deathstroke and some huge fallout that caused the team to be fractured. And this episode ends up showing it all to us and it's... it's an interesting one. I'm certainly not opposed to seeing what Dick, Donna, Hank and Dawn acted like when they were rookies themselves (let's pretend they're actually teenagers and they didn't just wrote teen dialogue for the adult actors) but for this to work I really would've liked a bit more of contrast between the OG Titans when they were rookies against the New Titans as they are now. And it's kind of a shame. The episode itself isn't bad by any means, but I kinda felt like maybe it could've been placed a bit later on in the season.

The episode itself ends up sort of being more informative than epic, highlighting the dynamic between the original Titans (the four we know, plus Aqualad) and... there's not a whole ton of surprises here. Aqualad not showing up in the present-day scenes while the original team having a huge grudge against Deathstroke makes it not difficult to connect the dots, and while the episode itself doesn't really treat its audience as idiots or whatever, it also means that I did feel like this episode didn't have a whole lot of oomph for its runtime.

And the episode itself is a pretty solid story, yeah? We see the Titans when they were all fun and games and all happy and making jokes and birthday parties and the biggest problem they had was whether Donna Troy will lighten up and finally return Garth's affections. I did feel like they perhaps overplayed the Donna/Garth romance angle because I really didn't care much for it, but considering this incarnation of Garth basically only exists to be a backstory death-drama character, I guess they had to lay on the romance thick to make Garth's loss feel like it meant something major to one member of the main cast.

A good chunk of the episode is basically setting these characters as basically being the happy-go-lucky teenage heroes that would fit better in a more optimistic setting, or at least a show or story that has its focus more on teenage drama. We don't actually see much conflict in the Dick/Dawn/Hank love triangle at this point, but Donna is basically kind of an introvert and Garth really is in love with her. There are parts where Garth's dialogue does feel rather dumb-sounding, but at least he's supposed to be a dumb teenager, y'know? Plus, as with most costumes in Titans, his Aqualad costume is pretty cool. He's really trying to get it on with Donna, while Donna's basically all confused and stuff because she's not ready to commit to a relationship or whatever. At the middle point of the episode Donna gets so flustered about this that she tells her fellow Amazonian, Jillian, that she needs to go home to Themyscira and please act like mommy told her she needs to come home.

While all the Titans are hanging out in their fun teenage romp, we get a neat, smooth scene of Deathstroke being shown to be this super-badass taking out a bunch of dudes connected to a murder trial with his sniper rifle, and while it's not quite the degree of superhuman awesomeness that these supervillains are usually portrayed with, it's a cool scene for him. Meanwhile, Dr. Light is arguing with his former scientist friend and is torturing him for an 'activator', and after a series of crimes heads off to attack a military convoy. The action scenes are... they're serviceable, but not particularly spectacular.

That said, while the Dr. Light stuff isn't anything particularly exciting beyond establishing Dr. Light's history with the old guard Titans, it's a neat way to basically take up the plot-of-the-week. Garth and Donna eventually sleep together at the very night that Donna heads off and leaves the world of mortals to return to Themyscira, and Garth follows up to try and talk about true love and stuff. And just as Donna decides to return with Garth... Deathstroke shows up and shoots Garth dead. It's kind of obvious, really, and while there's nothing particularly wrong with the episode, I do wonder if maybe it would've worked better if Deathstroke was a bit more involved with the episode, either with Dr. Light or with the Titans. Eventually, as Dawn tells Dick to 'be Batman', they track down Deathstroke and as all of the happy birthday party and teenage love drama nonsense get torn down, the final scene is Dick befriending Slade's mute son Jericho and I'm curious how far their manipulations will go towards this relative innocent.

Ultimately, there are definitely parts of this episode that could've been done better, but I'm not complaining too much. It's a pretty solid offering all around.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Aqualad, a.k.a. Garth, is the sidekick of Aquaman. Garth was born with purple eyes, a bad omen in Atlantean culture, causing him to be banished and left to die until he was adopted by Aquaman, himself also an outcast due to his mixed-race heritage. Aqualad would form the original incarnation of the Teen Titans in the comics alongside the first incartnations of Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash and Speedy. His relationship with Donna (Garth was IIRC the only one out of the original team to not be involved in the love triangle mess) and his death at the hands of Slade is original to the show, though.
• Aqualad's costume in this show is heavily inspired by the original Aqualad costume in the comics. 
• Donna Troy mentions both Diana (Wonder Woman) and Themyscira, the mystical homeland of the Amazons.
• Jacob Finley is the creator of the Dr. Light suit that Arthur Light accidentally killed and eventually stole the suit from in the comics, only appearing briefly in Dr. Light's origin story. 

Titans S02E02-03 Review: New Titans, Old Enemies

Titans, Season 2, Episode 2: Rose; Episode 3: Ghosts

Episode 2: Rose
So "Rose", which technically acts as the season's proper season premiere, doesn't waste time in throwing us almost immediately into the new status quo. As the "New Titans" settle in with Dick teaching the younger members (Rachel, Gar and Jason) in Titans Tower, things happen in the background. Mostly, it involves training to fight while blindfolded, which I'm sure will come into play in the future. I do also like that there's a couple of months of timeskip between the whole Trigon stuff and this episode, making it truly feel like a proper fresh start. We get to see what the other older Titans are doing -- Hank and Dawn are hanging out helping kids on rehab, while Kory and Donna are out being vigilantes, staking out in vans and stuff. It's neat stuff. More importantly, it allows the New Titans quartet to feel a lot more settled in. Rachel probably isn't full-on Raven yet, but she feels more settled in after the trauma of banishing her father and everything that happened in the previous season's finale, and Jason has a bit more of a rapport with the rest of his teammates.

There's still a fair amount of conflict between Dick and Jason, mind you -- we get a scene where Jason, in frustration, gets angry at Dick for essentially sidelining him (something that's far more prominent across episodes 2 and 3 combined), and calls them only a 'bunch of sidekicks'. Dick, on the other hand, apparently agrees with Bruce that Jason's not quite ready yet. There is of course the question of who Dick is now that he's no longer Robin, although the show stops short from giving us a Nightwing suit just yet. We get an amazing scene between Dick and Bruce yet, with Bruce going into length about how, yes, his parenting methods might not be the best one ever, but his intention was partially to give Dick a target to focus his anger at instead of lashing out at the world. It's done out of good intentions, and while even Bruce himself admits that it's not perfect, it's also something that Dick seems to take to heart when dealing with the newest recruit... a mysterious one-eyed white-haired girl called Rose Wilson who they catch doing cool action scenes while escaping the cops. (Bruce doesn't suggest nine trackers implanted into her, but at least to keep her safe until she's in a frame of mind to be making decisions)

That's the main focus of our episode, really, and there's something to question Dick's immediate willingness to see a girl with above-average martial arts skills and decide "okay, she's our next recruit for the New Titans" without running a background check on her. But I suppose that spontaneity was also how he and Rachel came to hang out together. As anyone with any sort of knowledge on DC's Teen Titans would be able to tell you, though, the enigmatic "Rose" turns out to be the daughter of Slade Wilson, a.k.a. Deathstroke the Terminator. Who, judging by Jason's commentary in this episode, is well-known and well-dreaded by the superhero community. And, well, Rose gets to be the target of Dr. Light as well in this episode when Dick plans to cut her loose as she chooses to.

The rest of the episode mostly deals with the rest of the cast, cutting back and forth between the New Titans and the rest of their crew. Kory and Donna gossip around and throw around fun easter egg names like Roy Harper and beat up the supervillain gangster Shimmer in a pretty subdued scene (especially compared to the very impressive Rose Wilson ones) but then Kory gets kidnapped by a mysterious person. Kory's a lot more improved now that the show doesn't focus exclusively on her being angry and amnesiac, and allowing her to come to her own character as a buddy-cop with Donna is a lot more likable. She's easily the worst part of the first season, but thankfully the show writers seem to be intent on fixing it, if these two episodes are anything to go by.

Hank and Dawn hang out as retired heroes helping troubled youths, but turns out that Dawn is going out at night and beating up drug dealers that are putting pressure on Ellis, the kid they're helping right now, and this leads into a fight between the two... just as Ellis gets tragically murdered via exploding light-bomb. Pretty tragic for sure, and while I'm not especially invested in Dawn and Hank's little argument about addiction and stuff, the idyllic scenes we see the Hawk-and-Dove duo in do make it a lot harder when the nice kid that they're helping gets burned inside-out and explodes.

Because, well, Deathstroke's not the only game in town, and Dr. Light gets to break out of prison in a pretty creepy scene. We get to see that this version of Dr. Light is able to absorb light from like, lamps and stuff and then direct them as energy beams to burn people, and this Dr. Light also has beef with the original Titans. Poor Ellis gets to be the first casualty of Dr. Light's seeming roaring rampage of revenge against the Titans, and between Deathstroke and Dr. Light, the show's building up to the old guard confronting the sins of their past.

Ultimately, this is a pretty strong, if slow-paced, premiere, setting up the dread for the two villains and bringing in the various members of the cast together with a shared premise -- if nothing else, Dick, Rose, Hank and Dawn are all being targeted by Dr. Light one way or another, and while the younger "New Titans" are mostly kept in reserve, it's a matter of time before they get caught up into things. We get a lot of great scenes between the characters, and while there are some that still feel like the weaker links of the show (Gar, Kory) a lot of the cast work and balance off each other a lot better.
____________________________________________

Episode 3: Ghosts
"Ghosts" is a relatively somber episode, and I really do like this direction that Titans has been taking across these three episodes. It's still more melancholic and 'dark' compared to most of the other DC live-action shows (particularly the CW shows) but it's no longer falling back to gratuitous violence and eye-rolling "we say bad words now 'cause we are R-rated" scenes. Hell, even Rose's off-handed 'pussy' line feels very natural in this episode. I do think that after essentially shooting their load with making everything a bit too grim'n'dark last season, this one can finally be allowed to breathe a bit more easier.

All the Titans sans Kory reunite in Titans Tower, and they gather together initially to form a team-up to take down Dr. Light... who, as the audience learns and the Titans figure out, is actually working alongside Deathstroke. Dick also immediately shares Rose's existence to his old teammates, and none of them are particularly pleased that they have to deal with Deathstroke again. Hank's abrasive and angry as usual, but I do really like that there seems to be something that's deeply personal about their fear of Deathstroke. There's a scene between Dick and Donna around halfway through in the episode where Donna keeps reminding Dick about some mysterious 'old sin' that they had to deal with and how they need to tell the New Titans about it if they don't want the younger heroes to repeat the same mistakes that they did. I also really like the dynamic between Dick, Donna, Hank and Dawn -- there are a lot of scenes between them that really do highlight that they are brothers and sisters in arms, despite the friction that are clearly between some of them.

More importantly, Dick seems to be taking this particularly personally, shutting out Gar and Rachel from a lot of the information dump regarding Deathstroke, and even the actually-established Jason, which adds to the growing rift between the Robin and the ex-Robin. Speaking of conflict, during a spat of training, a particularly aggressive move from Jason causes Rachel to transform into a demonic Raven form and very nearly shishkebab Jason with a rack full of swords.

Rose, on the other hand... is somehow avoiding conflicts? She gets a pretty cool scene with Dick, and between the previous episode and this one, Dick's basically everyone's big brother figure. Rose helps supply us with some neat exposition about Deathstroke, but her best sccene has to be her bonding with Rachel over terrible fathers, and I absolutely love the impressed look on Rose's face when Rachel nonchalantly tells Rose about how she 'dealt' with her own villainous demon father.

The rest of the episode mostly deals with some back-and-forth about how they're going supervillain hunting, putting Gar in charge of hunting for power surges, while Deathstroke and Dr. Light make their plans to basically divide and conquer after they have a better grasp of the Titans' power structure (and also, making eye puns). We do get a cool action scene in a stadium where the old Titans fail to take down Dr. Light. Eventually, with Jason feeling inadequate and chomping at the bit to prove himself, ends up convincing Gar to go with him on a solo mission to totally just 'recon' the place they found out, which leads to Dr. Light (in his dumb-looking Iron-Man-meets-Sparctacus suit) beating up and abducting Jason. I do like that the writing and the actor balances Jason being a massive twerp and also needing desperately to prove himself, giving him a neat balance of sympathetic and unlikable qualities.

Perhaps the scene that doesn't work quite as well for me is Kory's scenes, once more. Thankfully, none of them are actively terrible (like Kory's subplot in the first season), and the chemistry between Kory and the Looney-Tunes-watching royal guard Faddei help us to establish that this version of Kory isn't just a bounty hunter, but also shares her comic-book counterpart's 'reluctant princess' backstory. There's a lot of fun dialogue between the two, but every scene we see of Kory and Faddei flirting with each other just feels like it's a bit of an interruption in an episode that deals more about the Titans dealing with the 'ghosts' of their past.. But hey, Kory locks Faddei in her ship and sends him back to Tamaran when Donna calls for her help later on, so hooray, that's all members of the Titans together.

Not a perfect episode, but still a pretty well-done one. Titans is really a lot more cohesive in this second season when it's not just jumping back and forth between guest characters, huh? Again, the younger squad (and that includes Rose) does feel a bit off of the spotlight this time around, but keeping the focus on the original Titans is admittedly a very smart move that does make us get really interesting as to what this mysterious 'ghost' that Dick is covering up.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Rachel briefly floats the name "New Titans" when referring to the group, which, of course, is the title of the comics run (New Teen Titans) that this show draws the most inspiration for its material from.
• In various discussions in the second episode, a lot of the point is noted to how the original Teen Titans are just a collection of sidekicks, which is also true regarding the first incarnation of the Teen Titans in the comics. Aqualad is name-dropped, as is Roy Harper (Speedy), and they are sidekicks to Aquaman and Green Arrow respectively. 
• Starfire joking about going to Florida is a reference to her 2015-era title, where she does exactly that.
• Rose Wilson, sometimes known as "Ravager", is the daughter of Slade "Deathstroke" Wilson, born out of wedlock and inheriting part of her father's superpowers. After finding out of her existence, Slade would leave Rose at the care of the Titans in hopes for something better for her, although their relationship would vary from comic run to comic run. 
• Shimmer, a.k.a. Selinda Flinders, in the comics is a member of the supervillain group Fearsome Five, a metahuman born with the ability to transmute the elements of any object she touches. As part of the Fearsome Five, she faced off against multiple iterations of the Teen Titans many times. 
• Dr. Light, a.k.a. Arthur Light, was introduced as an enemy of the Justice League, having the ability to control light beams, having stolen a prototype suit from his STAR Labs scientist. Later depictions would be inconsistent whether Dr. Light needs his suit to access his powers. Throughout a good chunk of his career in the comics, Dr. Light keeps suffering from more and more embarrassing losses at the hands of the Teen Titans, before eventually being recruited into the Suicide Squad, and then being prominently portrayed in the sometimes-controversial Identity Crisis storyline.
• Blackfire, Starfire's evil sister, is name-dropped by Faddei. 
• Deathstroke is noted to be formerly associated with HIVE in episode 3, and Deathstroke does notably work under the employ of HIVE during his more notable appearances in the New Titans run.
• Deathstroke's son Jericho, a.k.a. Joey Wilson, is briefly mentioned when they were going over his files, and it's implied that in this continuity, Slade is responsible for Jericho's death? I'm not going to say too much here since it seems like we're going to actually be covering this in the show itself. 
• I can't catch any of the other names on the cell doors in Dr. Light's prison breakout scene, but on Deathstroke's dossier you can make out ARGUS typed as one of Deathstroke's old affiliations. 

Titans S02E01 Review: Last Season's Finale

Titans, Season 2, Episode 1: Trigon

Well, I've been catching up on other shows that I've missed in catching up, and... we'll see where we go from this, whether we'll be doing episodic reviews or if I'll just do it in bigger clumps like what I did for my recent superhero TV binge in the past couple of months. The premiere episode of Titans' second season, though, is a bit of a strange beast in that it doesn't really feel like a season premiere, but more of a finale. Of course, part of it has to do with the first season of Titans ending in a pretty abrupt manner, ending in a huge 'villain wins, huge cliffhanger' moment. And while I don't expect the second season of Titans to all be about taking down Trigon, it still feels odd when this is basically the last chapter in a book presented as the first chapter in the next one.

And sure, last season's cliffhanger was pretty neat, with this bizarre 'worst timeline' style nightmare where Dick wanders around a version of the world where Batman's gone all loco, and we cut away at the end of the episode to reveal that it's all just an illusion created by Trigon to take over Dick's mind. And this episode... sort of concludes that storyline. All of the Titans and their allies show up and try to save Dick, but a lot of that segment feels a bit more like the show going through the motions? Maybe if I watched this episode immediately after the previous one (like how it was probably originally intended) I wouldn't feel this bizarre gap of detachment. Like, okay, Hawk, Dove, Robin II and Donna Troy show up to try and save the heroes, but Trigon then transforms into his full CGI demon form, takes control of everyone, and only Rachel and Gar are left uncorrupted. We do get a pretty spooky house-of-horrors running around, but ultimately Gar ends up getting beaten up by the rest of the mind-controlled Titans, and Rachel ends up using the power of her bond with Dick to free Dick from Trigon's mind-control.

Which... it's certainly well-acted, and the parental/big-brother figure that Dick has been to Rachel throughout the first season is certainly well-served, but throughout the episode it really does feel like the rest of the cast that's not Rachel, Dick or Gar end up basically as window dressing as Trigon takes control of them very quickly and they basically end up just being puppets for a good chunk of the climax. Rachel confronting Trigon is great, though, as is the fact that she basically stops running and walks up to confront her literal demon of a father. That said, it's pretty obvious what was going to happen and there's no like huge twist or anything, but the visuals of Trigon causing an aura of decay, Rachel and Trigon confronting each other on that barren field, and Rachel basically eating/banishing Trigon and storing him in that iconic Raven forehead crystal is pretty cool, even if it's kind of the most basic way that the story could've ended. Like, it's paced relatively well and at least we had a full episode to see this, but I can't help but feel like we probably could've gotten more? I dunno.

And I feel like that's perhaps the biggest weakness of this episode? It's a functional ending to the first season, but that's all it is, and I'm not sure if that's enough. There's just a missing je ne sais quoi that I feel is lacking in this second season premiere. The bad guy seems to have everything under his control, 'breaking' Rachel and taking control of all the Titans, the power of love comes in and makes everything better, Rachel gets her big character moment of taking down Trigon. And we even have like one-thirds of the episode's runtime devoted to foreshadowing for the next (well, rest of) season!

And don't get me wrong, I'm a longtime fan of the Teen Titans, and so it's always cool to see Raven fight Trigon on-screen, or the nice little showcase of Wintergreen informing an old, grizzled Deathstroke that the Titans are back. And, of course, we get Bruce Wayne showing up as an older man (played by Iain Glen of Game of Thrones fame) meeting with Dick for a brief, fun scene where they really do feel like an estranged father-and-son pair trying to make up after an awkward argument. There's a certain... gruff and somewhat arrogant vibe in this show's Bruce Wayne, as all Bruce Waynes are wont to, but there's undoubtedly a nice warmth and an attempt at reconciliation between Bruce and Dick here. Bruce doesn't feel needlessly dickish, and ends up being more of a father who's trying to do right by his son. And, well, there's of course the episode ending with the New Titans (Dick and the three younger kids) gathering in the Titans Tower, albeit it's just a regular tower and not T-shaped. It's interesting that they decided to shuffle the cast around, too, having Hawk, Dove, Donna and Kory head off to do their own thing, and it seems like we're going to have a bit of a reshuffling of the cast in the next couple of episodes. I approve.

Still, being seemingly filmed or at least edited way after the first season has ended, I do actually like that this episode doesn't quite have the same amount of unneccessary grittiness and violence that the first season has. I feel like the critics do exaggerate a bit on just how much ultra-violence was around in the first season, but it is something that I could definitely do without in this second season. It's ultimately a bit of a shrug as far as huge, eventful season premieres go, though -- in no small part because it feels so much like it's something that we should've gotten in the first season. I dunno. I'm just sort of underwhelmed, but at the same time there really isn't anything particularly glaringly wrong with this episode. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Batman and Alfred (!) are explicitly noted to be running around the globe with the Justice League. Hawk also snidely remarks that they should've gotten "fucking Superman". 
• Throughout the episode, Trigon assumes the horned, four-eyed, red-skinned demonic form that he is usually depicted in the comics. Raven also gets the iconic forehead gem that she has in the comics. 
• Deathstroke, a.k.a. Slade Wilson, has seen a rapid resurgence into one of DC's A-list villains, but he debuted as a Teen Titans villain in the pages of New Titans, before rising to prominence in the 2003 Titans cartoon, and eventually branching out into multiple other projects like the Injustice and Batman: Arkham Origins video game, a recurring main antagonist in the Arrow TV show, various other DC animated movie projects, and recently as part of the stinger in the Justice League movie. He's a one-eyed ex-soldier mercenary that was subjected to a super-soldier project that has a massive fixation with defeating the Titans after several encounters with them, and was basically conceived as an "Anti-Batman" nemesis for Dick Grayson. 
• Billy Wintergreen in the comics is Slade's trusted butler and housekeeper, and, again, is essentially conceived as a counterpart to Alfred to Slade's Batman. 
• The various incarnations of the Teen Titans have been based on Titans Tower, a T-shaped building off the coast of a city. 

Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part 1 [Supergirl S05E09] Review: Worlds WILL Die

Supergirl, Season 5, Episode 9: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Hour One

Finally, we get to the Crisis! It's... it's taken a while for me to actually get to reviewing the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Arrowverse style, and it's taken a long, long while, hundreds upon hundreds of episodes of Arrow, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl and a couple of Batwoman before we finally build up into this massive crossover. And, like most crossovers, there's the inherent amount of flaws that goes into it, namely the lack of focus thanks to the sheer amount of characters involved, and this being a live-action crossover, it also suffers from the same problem that previous CW crossovers have -- absent actors from each show's respective cast. Plus, there's the whole bit about how so many of the main characters -- Barry and Oliver in particular -- have character arcs that are tied into the Crisis itself, and those are honestly the ones I have the biggest expectations for. Writing these reviews up as I watch these episodes for the first time, these are more of my reactions to the episodes more or less scene-by-scene than an actual review. It's a bit of a departure from my usual fare, but I would argue that this huge crossover is cause for something like that, right?

And this episode starts off with a quote straight from the original 1985 mini. I have the TPB on my shelf somewhere, because I am a geek, and I remember this monologue. "In the beginning, there was only one, a single black infinitude." And we get to see a bunch of worlds, and here go the cameos! It's pretty interesting to see just who they manage to get back, and at this point it's clear that CW's Crisis is less about telling something epic and more about being a celebration of DC comics' history on live-action in general. We get the expected Earth-X cameo with the Ray from CW's own material, and Earth-9 being Titans with cameo of Jason Todd and Hawk from that universe is not too far-fetched. Titans is still on air, of course. But Earth-66? The '60's Batman show with Burt Ward as Robin making a "holy crimson skies of death" joke? Or Earth-89, the Tim Burton Batman movie in 1989 with Alexander Knox's actor of all people making a cameo? Anyway, all of these Earths get a quick glance and get wiped out. If you know who these people are, it's such a neat treat, and if you don't, well, these are, like, superheroes and other Earths being consumed by red skies and walls of white antimattter.

And then we cut to Earth-38, the Supergirl universe, where we get freaking Wil Wheaton from Star Trek playing a random domosayer yelling that things are about to get fucked because things are falling apart. We get a random cameo from one of last season's antagonists, Spike the shape-shifting alien dragon, who goes berserk, and Supergirl has to do what she usually does and fight the threat. Or, well, calm Spike down enough to return into iguana form. Since this is airing on Supergirl's time slot, we can get most of the Supegirl cast running around, and we get to see Brainiac, Alex and J'onn gathering together to face this huge Crisis. It's bigger than Leviathan, apparently, and from what we've seen of Leviathan so far... yeah, it doesn't really take much to be bigger than it. J'onn has apparently been briefed by the Monitor about the Crisis between episodes, and he basically shows up and gives everyone a bit of a recap, talking about how last year's crossover with Dr. Destiny is all part of a plan to get them a bit more prepared.

And Earth-38 basically ends up becoming the sacrificial lion, so to speak, similar to Earth-2 at the beginning of Arrow, because the Anti-matter wave has finally reached Earth-38. And it's not just wiping out Earth, it's wiping out other planets, too, zipping through floating Argo City. We cut to something that we don't really see much of in the actual Supergirl show, and that is Superman and Lois's daily life in Argo post-retirement. And that's dealing with baby Jonathan Kent's diapers without powers... something that's actually kind of an absolutely stupid move when you live in a superhero world, because this means that neither Superman nor any of the Kryptonians there can do much in the face of a wave of destructive anti-matter that's about to wipe out Argo City from reality itself. Joined by Kara's mom Alura, we get to see Superman and Lois shoot out baby Jonathan Kent into space on a rocket as Argo City is obliterated by the anti-matter wave.

And it's extremely effective. Sure, Superman isn't like, the most relevant character even in the history of Supergirl as a show, but he's been around enough for us to really care about him, and both Superman and Lois's scene of blissful peace is genuinely well-done enough that anyone who isn't caught up to Supergirl will still feel a pang of loss from seeing motherfucking Superman himself lose this peaceful life he's been living in. Alura's cameo is also welcome -- I honestly forget she's still alive considering just how rather poorly shoehorned-in she was in season 3, but it's still a welcome cameo and another familiar face we're piling up on the pile of corpses. After all, seeing all these other Earths get wiped out (which will be back in some fashion after the crossover, but still) is just kind of a statistic, but actually being able to put faces to the casualties is nice.

It's just slightly undercut by me laughing at how the literal first response of "shit, our planet is being destroyed" for a Child of House El is to launch their baby into space.

Anyway, Argo City in Earth-38 has gone kablooey, and Earth-38 itself is next. But we cut away to Earth-1, where we get a bit of a rehash with the final pre-Crisis episode of Arrow, with Oliver and the time-traveling Mia having a talk before the skies turn red and Lyla Michaels, now Harbinger, show up to gather them, and she bugs off to Central City to also pick up the Flash (who's just sort of running around trying to figure things out) and to Gotham City to pick up Batwoman (who's beating up random Wonderland Gang thugs to find Alice). Oh, and also, Ray and Sara are in a bar in Star City and Lyla just picks them up.

Lyla beams everyone over to Earth-38, and I guess these, plus Supergirl, are going to be our main cast that move from show to show and aren't burdened with disappearing off-screen because of real-life actor stuff. But apparently Harbinger also saves Superman and Lois Lane from being wiped out when Argo City blew up, and brings them to this gathering of the inter-dimensional super friends. Batwoman punches Lyla in the face for interrupting her search for Alice, and we get a glorious, golden line from Brainiac: "this one... speaks to rabbits."

It's just kind of a shame that all this actor-juggling stuff means that unless we pull off another Crisis on Earth-X, we're not going to get a full assembly of, like, all of the supporting characters. How cool would it be for Harbinger to actually bring in, like, Diggle, Felicity, Arsenal, Speedy, Black Siren, Wild Dog, Black Canary, Killer Frost, Vibe, Elongated Man, Steel, John Constantine, Charlie, Gary, Mia, Connor and so many other major supporting characters from the four main long-running shows? We could've had Kid Flash, or Jesse Quick, or Mr. Terrific, or Nyssa, or Firestorm, or Hawkman and Hawkgirl, or Lightning and Thunder or one of the Vixens, or Deathstroke, or Ragman, or Ultraviolet, or Ma'alefa'ak, or Guardian, or Mon-El, or Saturn Girl... I can dream, can't I?

Anyway, since this is airing on Supergirl's time slot and with a majority of her cast, Kara gets a bit of a focus here as she calms everyone down and tells everyone present that she trusts everyone in the room with her life. And... it's a bit questionable because she knew Kate for like, an hour in last year's crossover, but okay, sure. I'll bite. It's also a bit questionable that Kate apparently trusts Kara's declaration that she immediately unmasks in front of everyone. I did love the little "ooooh it makes a lot of sense" bit from Oliver, but I felt like Kara and Kate maaaaybe needed a bit more screentime somewhere because while the conversation between them in Elseworlds was sweet, we're suddenly asked to believe that they're suddenly Oliver/Barry or Barry/Kara levels of crossover-BFF and that feels pretty forced. (Also, Barry, Sara and Ray show up a bit later than others for no reason)

Anyway, with all our characters assembled and Kara handwaving anyone's suspicions, we go immediately to the Monitor and Harbinger briefing everyone about what the hell's going on. Earths are being wiped out, and they're going to make their last stand in Earth-38, where they have to protect a gigantic Quantum Tower, which the Monitor apparently had placed on some strategic Earths. Which... okay yeah sure why not. We get a bit of obligatory bonding between Brainiac and Ray (who 'speak the same language') and Ray trying to give Kate's suit an upgrade (which Kate refuses to let Ray touch) and later on we get Sara commenting on Oliver being a parent (which is heartwarming), but then things quickly get into moving the plot forwards. The Monitor name-drops the name of our antagonist, Anti-Monitor, and the fact that he has an army. Also, Jonathan Kent's pod gets sucked into a wormhole, so in this already fast-moving crossover we still have a side-quest.

Apparently Jonathan is stuck in Earth-16's Star City... which is also in the future, in 2046, and this is Legends of Tomorrow's "Star City 2046" episode. I'm sure like three people in the audience really wish that the huge crisis episode would address the discrepancies between the 2040 shown in Arrow's future vision and the one-off standalone episode from early Legends of Tomorrow, and how it would totally be a great thing to finally address that Star City 2046 is a completely different Earth. Like, I feel like this could've been something we address in an episode of Arrow or Legends or the upcoming Canaries. Like, I'm all for bookkeeping, but this one feels particularly random and shoehorned in. Anyway, Lois, Sara and Brainy go off to get Jonathan from Earth-16, and Brainy claims that he's great with children. I believe him.

We're still in Supergirl-the-show, and apparently the alien refugees from the past couple of seasons are lending their alien ships to help evacuate Earth-38, loading up everyone on Earth into their ships. The cast of Supergirl realize that they need to get Lena Luthor's help to rebuild that huge Daxamite Portal from way back in season two to evacuate everyone to Earth-1, but they're not on good terms with Lena! Oh no!

Superman, meanwhile, is absolutely morose. He just lost Argo, and his son is off in some time-lost dimension or whatever, and he has a huge feeling of guilt that they are seemingly giving up on Earth-38 and we get a neat little speech from Kara about how Asgard Krypton isn't a place, it's the spirit of hope and the people and whatnot, and Krypton will never die if they keep fighting for it. Pretty standard stuff, but it works in context. Meanwhile, Oliver gives Mia a brand new Green Arrow suit, which is a nice small moment and one that builds up well from the Oliver/Mia stuff in the pre-Crisis Arrow episodes.

And then... Oliver and Barry! Oliver snarks about how Barry is late for the Crisis (he's been doing recon, apparently), and Barry just shrugs off about how he's supposed to die in this Crisis. Oliver is absolutely angry and calls out the Monitor, demanding to talk, and apparently despite being on their side, the Monitor's sort of... duped Oliver with some specific choice of words. Apparently the deal that Oliver made with the Monitor in Elseworlds only extended to Barry and Kara's deaths in Elseworlds, and Barry's death in this Crisis is still apparently set in stone. Oliver is absolutely angry, but with the whole 'we need to stop the worlds from ending' stuff is sort of taking priority.

Kiiiinda think that this could've been a better plot point to be explored in Arrow instead of, oh, I dunno, the little search for random trinkets that sort of go nowhere. Like, all the Arrow episodes leading up to the Crisis are great nostalgic pieces, but then we get rushed moments like this that I feel would've been a better fit for the "do we trust Mar Novu?" episodes instead of something ambiguous like "oh, the League of Shadows kinda-sorta have myths about him maybe".

Alex, meanwhile, meets Lena and all but begs for her help, but Lena's clearly not up to forgiving Alex or the Superfriends just yet, still sore about the whole Claymore incident. It's actually neat -- considering how rushed so many events that happen in the Crisis ended up being, I do like that we're not rushing through one of the more slowly-built-up character developments in Supergirl just for the sake of 'everyone's working together'.

And then we cut to the Quantum Tower, where the main character squad basically suit up and do a badass walk. Oliver calls the shot, telling them to defend all of the strategic positions from 'enemies we know nothing about'. Okay, sure. There's an earthquake and the Super duo fly off to contain damage.

And then we cut to Earth-16 and I can tell you that I really didn't give a shit about this part of the crossover. It's well-acted and all but I feel like more Oliver/Barry/Monitor stuff, or literally any interaction between any pair of characters that are running around in the show would've been far, far better. Old Oliver (Oldliver?) of 2046-Earth-16 has taken the baby and he's absolutely baffled when he fights Sara, because she's supposed to be dead. Didn't Sara meet Oldliver in Legends? I can't be arsed to check. Basically we sort of cut back and forth between the Quantum Tower scenes and this one and it's a nice, heartwarming conversation between Sara and an old Oliver ("You became a hero, a father, and the Gambit set off a chain of events none of us could've ever dreamed of" and "You're a good man... on every Earth") but at the same time Ikind of wonder why or how this is relevant to anything that's going on. Considering what happens in the episode, I'd definitely like it better if this was done to Earth-1 Oliver, y'know? It's well acted for sure, though.

Anyway, in the Quantum Tower, the Anti-Monitor's forces is just a massive swarm of Fake Dementors called Shadow Demons. It's absolutely accurate to the comics' version of Crisis on Infinite Earths sans context, but it also kinda feels lazy? Again, I understand why this must be done, we need action scenes and the Shadow Demons are probably a lot easier to animate, but still. We do get Ray and Kate teaming up and Kate allowing Ray to 'improve' her Batarang, using some sort of light beam combo to blow up a swarm of Shadow Demons. We get a particularly awesome sequence as the Flash and the two Supers actually enter the battle, two god-like superhumans that zip around and unleash eye beams and stuff.

We also cut to Earth-38's evacuation efforts, where Dreamer is yelling and telling people not to panic via large screens, Dreamer and Kelly Olsen are also running around helping the evacuation (for all the good they do), and I do like the random bits where we get a cameo from Brainiac's old Legion ship. Lena and Alex... sort of basically begrudgingly work together and go through the staple of spouting a bunch of technobabble because if the quark galleon theory whatsits is applied inversely then it's sure to open the portal even though it's risky. Lena's kind of obviously happy to have someone smart to bounce ideas off of, but at the same time not even Alex rescuing her from a half-collapsing building is enough to make her be in a forgiving mood.

There's a bit of neat superheroing bit as Flash zips around and murders Shadow Demons, while the two Supers fly up and unleash their heat vision to activate solar panels and get the Quantum Tower operational or whatever. It's action scenes and whatnot, and eventually Superman and Supergirl fall from exhaustion, but they manage to buy enough time for the evacuation portals to be opened by Lena and Alex. Also, apparently Kelly randomly has James's old Guardian shield. Yeah, bet you're feeling so much better being a small-town reporter instead of helping people evacuate a dying world, aren't you, James?

I kinda wish we had a better sense of the conflict, though, because the Monitor shows up at this point yelling about how the battle is lost, and they have to retreat and save their resources for battles to come. The Monitor then slowly teleports Batwoman, Atom, Supergirl, Superman, Mia and the Flash away... couldn't you do that for the other populace of Earth-38? I kinda wish we had known about the limits of Monitor's powers, even if they are arbitary ones. Anyway, as everyone gets teleported away, Oliver refuses to go until the planet is evacuated, and somehow manages to zap the Monitor with an arrow, stunning him and preventing him from teleporting Oliver away.

Y'know what would've been better? Maybe instead of hunting for some random sci-fi technobabble in one of the Arrow season 8 episodes, wouldn't it be better to foreshadow the fact that Oliver made this anti-Monitor arrow, and he chooses to use it to save people or something along those lines? Again, I feel like the pre-Crisis episodes really could've been a lot better at building up the actual huge events that happen in the Crisis.

As it is, the Monitor is unable to zap Oliver away, while Oliver Queen drops his arrow, and charges straight towards a swarm of Shadow Demons, making his final stand as the ships evacuate Earth-38.

The Monitor reveals to the Crisis Crew in Earth-1 that 3 billion souls out of the 7.53 billion people on Earth-38 had been evacuated. (Did Nia and Kelly on the ground bite the dust? Or Alex and Lena in the lab?) Yeah, but what about all the other planets in Earth-38's universe, Novu? We then get the random appearance of Pariah, a.k.a. Nash Wells, who has been... transformed and is serving penance to bear witness because apparently he was responsible for freeing the Anti-Monitor. Was that what happened in the sewer temple of doom scene in the Flash? It's the scene that gets replayed over and over in the pre-Crisis episodes of all the other shows and I really didn't realize that it was what was going on. Again, as with a lot of the other things about this Crisis crossover, I think I'd like it better if this had been foreshadowed a bit better. Like, buildup is nice, but when you jump from the oblique mystery to an exposition, I feel like they could've set up that the Anti-Monitor is masquerading as the Monitor and talking to Pariah, or that he actually let something loose instead of being sucked into the random sewer-rune or whatever.

Pariah's arrival is sort of met with kind of a shrug and a slap on the wrist by those present. Oh, and Lois, Sara and Brainy return from their Earth-16 side-quest. And... well, Oliver's dying body is teleported by the Monitor and ends up dying as he gives up the mission to Barry and Kara specifically, and his final words are to his daughter Mia, telling her to find her mom. And then Oliver Queen dies.

...that's not how I expected Oliver to go out, and certainly not how the Monitor expects him to, either, because this was not the ending the Monitor or Pariah foresaw. Obviously there's more to it since we have four more parts to go through and I'm pretty sure Stephen Amell is billed as a star in all of them, so it's going to be interesting to see where it goes. But at the end of the episode Supergirl's world is gone, Oliver Queen is allegedly dead, and we don't even have any idea what the Anti-Monitor is and why he's destroying worlds! And... and, well, I think some of the complaints I make this episode sort of sums up what I feel about this crossover so far. It's fun, it's hype, it's energetic and all, but I really do wish that for this huge grand finale for at least one facet of the Arrowverse, I really do feel like they could've done a lot better in making the buildup to Oliver's fate, to Pariah, to the Quantum Towers or the Shadow Demons or Anti-Monitor a fair bit more coherent. And, of course, that Earth-16 side-quest was utterly random.

Still, we have four more episodes to go, and despite my grievances, I am still excited enough by this episode to continue on with this!

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Pariah, a.k.a. Kell Mossa in the comics, was one of the couple of original characters introduced in 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries, and Pariah was the greatest scientist from his unnamed Earth -- his experiments in attempting to view the creation of the universe resulted in the Anti-Monitor learning of his existence, and destroyed his Earth with waves of anti-matter, and indirectly caused the Anti-Monitor to begin his crusade in wiping out all the Earths in the multiverse. The Monitor saved Kell from the destruction of his Earth, but also cursed him to be Pariah as punishment, causing him to teleport from Earth to Earth to witness the destruction of each and every Earth as the Anti-Monitor moves through the different universes.
• That "single black infinitude" speech is lifted basically verbatim from the 1985 Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries. The visuals aren't exactly the same, but they're close enough! Huge towers appearing all over the world, as well as Shadow Demons being the enemy, are also part of the comic-book Crisis. A character was also evacuated via a spaceship in the comic-book Crisis in the same manner as Jonathan Kent, Alexander Luthor Junior of Earth-3, the first Earth to be destroyed in the comic-book Crisis. 
• The earths that are destroyed in the opening montage:
• Earth-89 is the 1989 Batman movie, with Robert Wuhl reprising his role as the reporter Alexander Knox from that movie, while the Danny Elfman theme plays in the background. A newspaper notes that "Batman captures Joker" -- Joker, of course, was the movie in the 1989 movie, even though he, um, died at the end of that movie. We'll forgive this goof, since, y'know, it's the Joker. The image on that newspaper was apparently lifted from the movie's official comic adaptation.
• Earth-9 is the currently-running Titans show, with Hawk and Jason Todd showing up via archival footage. 
• Earth-X is featured in 2017's CW crisis crossover, "Crisis on Earth-X", where the Ray is among a bunch of heroes fighting a world overrun by Nazis and evil versions of CW's superheroes
• Earth-66 is the '60's Batman TV show, with the location identified as Gotham City and Burt Ward reprising his role as an elderly Dick Grayson (apparently walking Ace the Bat-Hound?) and delivering one of his signature "Holy [insert something ridiculous here]" lines.
• Wil Wheaton's character proclaiming doom'n'gloom is a homage to a similar scene from Superman II, holding a replica of a sign from that movie.
• As I mention above, Earth-16 is the Legends of Tomorrow Season 1 episode 'Star City 2046', where the time-traveling Legends meet a future where Oliver Queen is an old cyborg and is working with Connor Hawke, the Green Arrow of the future, to fight against a dystopian Star City. As Arrow's seventh season has its own future-Star-City (circa 2040) it's gotten increasingly difficult to reconcile the two, and this episode officially decanonizes 'Star City 2046' from being Earth-1's future. 
• Spike last appeared in the Supergirl season 4 episode "Call to Action". 
• Plot references!
• The whole Dr. Destiny stuff was part of the Monitor's attempt to test the mettle of the heroes, which happened last season's "Elseworlds" storyline. 
• Alien refugees have been around in Supergirl since its inception, but really became a plot point in season four. The Daxamite portal, meanwhile, was a huge plot point in season two. 
• We've seen both Luthor and Zod (in a sense) before, but Lois Lane name-drops Doomsday as another one of Superman's greatest enemies while he's dealing with baby Jonathan's diapers. 
• Sara and Ray lampshade how the crew of the Waverider apparently insisted on 'no more crossovers'. They did miss out on the previous year's crossover, and I wonder if there's some internal conflict that ended up with most of the Legends cast being unable to show up for most of the Crisis.