Titans
DC Universe
Season 1, Episode 11
Following Trigon’s arrival on earth, Dick storms into Angela’s house to save Rachel while Kori and Donna are stuck outside. Upon entering, Dick is thrown into a dream world by Trigon in an effort to control him. Dick now believes he is in a post-Titans world where he is married and has kids with Dawn, Gar and Rachel are in college, and Kori is a federal agent. Then, a paralyzed Jason Todd interrupts Dick’s picture perfect life to tell him that Bruce has gotten out of hand and Gotham is worse than it ever was before. Dawn convinces Dick he needs to go Gotham to “save” Bruce, but things take an unexpected turn after he arrives.
The episode we’ve all been waiting for (sort of): the finale. If this had been the penultimate episode as originally planned, it may have been something enjoyable that sets up the final conflict well, but no, things changed and now it seems the original finale will be the first episode of season two. The lack of resolution to any and all plot lines absolutely ruined this episode beyond belief. The ending was more than a cliffhanger, as there was absolutely nothing that signaled this would be the final episode. Spending 40 minutes of a 43-minute finale inside a dream world is not something that should happen. It was incredibly unsatisfying and destroys any good will this show had bought with fans after that marketing fiasco. The whole thing was just pointless. It was obvious they were trying to do an adaptation of Terror of Trigon, but all the characters should have had hallucinations, not just Dick. If they had, maybe the wretched pacing wouldn’t have stood out so much. Did we really need to spend five minutes watching Dick check into a hotel room? Another big issue was the inclusion of Batman. The trailer implied we would see a lot of him, but that was misleading. We saw every single one of his scenes in the teaser. I think the biggest problem with Batman was the suit. From behind, it looked fantastic and given how great Robin’s costume was, I thought it would be one of the best live action bat-suits ever. Sadly, I was mistaken.
It was obvious they were trying to do an adaptation of Terror of Trigon, but all the characters should have had hallucinations, not just Dick. If they had, maybe the wretched pacing wouldn’t have stood out so much. Did we really need to spend five minutes watching Dick check into a hotel room? Another big issue was the inclusion of Batman. The trailer implied we would see a lot of him, but that was misleading. We saw every single one of his scenes in the teaser. I think the biggest problem with Batman was the suit. From behind, it looked fantastic and given how great Robin’s costume was, I thought it would be one of the best live action bat-suits ever. Sadly, I was mistaken.
The front of the suit looked like advanced paintball armor (or, the little glimpse we saw of Batman from the front. They really wanted to keep the camera behind him.) and there was no bat symbol! How does a Batman who has been operating over 20+ years not have a Batsuit with a symbol on it?! It’s still nice to know that Batman could show up in a non-dream world down the road, though. The Batcave, on the other hand, was fantastic and easily one of the best we’ve ever seen. The modern architecture mixed with the cave wall, the blue glow, the different rooms, the Batmobile, it was all perfect. The performances from Brenton Thwaites, Anna Diop, and Minka Kelly were the saving graces of this finale. Hell, the acting is what has salvaged most of the episodes that haven’t been great. The writing may not be the best, but you’ve got to hand it to the cast, they sure do the best with what they’re given. On a separate note, the post-credit scene is fantastic and the possibilities in season two excite me. Despite everything, I still love seeing these characters and I’m along for the ride now.
Overall, the finale for ‘Titans’ would have been a lot better if it weren’t the finale. We should have seen more of Batman (especially since this episode was marketed as Robin vs Batman), but the performances from the cast make up for a lot of these issues. Hopefully, the writers and producers have found their footing with this show, as season two has a lot of potential that I would hate to see go to waste.