We’re back with Titans, will they find a subject to talk about that isn’t Dick Grayson? Let’s find out
The Asylum
Adamson is still locked in a cell in the safehouse, refusing
to talk to anyone but Rachel. Rachel wants to talk to him and despite Dick
taking some convincing, it’s eventually agreed to give her 5 minutes. He tells
her that her power is not only to destroy and kill but also to heal. And to prove it
he smashes a glass thing that’s conveniently in his cell and slashes his throat
with it.
Rachel quickly bursts in and heals his injuries, seeing that
she can do that for the first time. Roll credits.
He’s now apparently open to talking to the others, telling
them she will ‘purify’ the world. On further interrogation, there’s a plan to
reunite her with her father. He mentions a person named Angela, and on further
questioning, he reveals that she is Rachel’s birth mother. His claim is that
Angela Azarath is her mother and has been held prisoner at an asylum for some
time.
They apparently know which Asylum, which is news to me, but
whilst Rachel wants to go and break her out, the others are hesitant to walk in
an enemy stronghold without scoping the area out and determining that it’s not
all a trap. Gar on the other hand was lying to stop Dick and Kory being on
their case, he agrees to come and help.
Of course, when you’re in a Bat-safehouse recon doesn’t take
that long, Wayne-tech satellites and all that, there’s a dozen guards and lots
of security cameras on the outside but there are tunnels heading from
outbuildings into the main asylum that they can use. That may be all for nought
when they find that Gar and Rachel are missing.
Gar and Rachel arrive at the asylum and are quickly
captured. Dick and Kory head through the tunnels but the Guards and Doctors
surround them and force them to surrender by holding a gun to Gar’s head. With
the gas lines above making Kory’s flames bad idea, they’re soon captured.
Dick is stuck to a chair and is injected with a huge
quantity of an orange serum. Kory gets some movement options but the barriers
are flameproof, she soon exhausts her flame allowing the doctors to gas her with
something. Gar is chained up and being prodded with electricity, with the
Doctors wanting him to transform.
Rachel finds herself in the company of Dr Adamson, who
escaped somehow. He verifies that her mother is here and alive, as long as
Rachel co-operates of course. Kory is now in the operating theatre, and the
doctors begin to perform surgery on her, whilst he’s still conscious. Dick
awakens, in his Robin suit. Even with huge amount of drugs already in his
system he’s resisting. The head Doctor decides to double the dosage, despite
that being a deadly risk. They administer another dose of the drug but Dick is
able to resist, faking a heart attack to get the Doctors close enough for him
to attack, the orderlies open the door when Dick threatens one of them.
He’s still stumbling around and comes against a locked door.
He sees a figure in front of him, it’s his younger self who knocks him down. He
wakes up in a hotel room and young Dick tells Dick that he hates him for what
he did to him. He pushes Dick through a window and he lands in the batcave, but
young Dick is waiting for him and contains to wail on him. Telling him
essentially to stop blaming everyone and take accountability for his own
actions.
It’s revealed here that Dick was still in the chair the
whole time. Dr Adamson tries to convince the Titans to join them or they will
continue to suffer. Rachel unleashes her dark side again, and withdraws the
healing done onto Doctor Adamson, killing him. With free reign in the office,
she searches his computer for Angela Azarath.
She uses Adamson’s key card to make her way to the secure
wing and to cell 732, but Rachel’s escape didn’t go unnoticed for long, the
head Doctor finds the body and orders Rachel found. Angela Azarath sees her and
after taking some convincing, sees that is indeed her daughter. She wants to
run and hide but the others are still in danger and Rachel needs to help.
Gar is first and lucky the guards have a spare set of keys
right by to let him escape. Unfortunately, the guards are onto them. Gar mauls
one of them to death making him the 3rd of the 4 current members of
the team to have a body count. Though, you could make an argument for 4. We see
Gar transform back for the first time, having to process what he just did.
But trauma can come later, as the others have to be rescued.
Dick is still tied to the chair but though they can release his physical body,
he’s still trapped mentally in the battle with his younger self. Rachel manages
to break through to him and get him moving. Kory’s wounds from the surgery have
healed, and wanting to test that regeneration, the Doctors order a finger cut
off.
The rest of the team manage to rescue her with Gar’s
experience with the surgery equipment proving useful. And Dick releases his
pent-up rage against the coming guards. All of them are apparently alive but it
was a savage attack, even for Dick. Dick hears the hissing gas and tells Kory
to light, blowing up the building with likely everyone inside. The fire is
pretty terrible looking but I’m putting that body count on both Kory and Dick.
But there’s one more thing to burn as Dick burns the old Robin suit. He doesn’t
get a new identity till the end of season 2.
I really don’t like the body count the series is racking up.
It’s philosophy that it’s adult so there has to be murder left and right, and
the heroes have to perpetuate some of it feels flawed at best. Then I always
thought aiming a Titans series at an older audience was a daft idea.
Rating 6/10
Donna Troy
We flash back to young Dick meeting with Donna Troy for the
first time. Diana (Wonder Woman) is discussing League business with Bruce and
Donna decided to tag along. Dick and Bruce had just got back from a
confrontation with the Joker. Dick went along despite Bruce’s orders not to and
despite the fact they chased him away, he racked up a good number of victims.
Dick feels like quitting but Donna knows the exact way to
stop and goddamn it, I wish I was watching a series about these kids. They’re
not the best actors but dammit at least they can goddamn smile. After the
credits we’re back in the present with Rachel preparing breakfast. Gar is up
early and prepares to make the coffee. Angela is also awake, enjoying the sweet
taste of freedom.
As the two sit at the window, I think the eggs might be
burning. Meanwhile we’re reminded that Kory is still suffering from the most
overused plot in history. Dick also needs to find an identity and to do that he
needs help from an old friend. With Rachel ‘safe’ with her mother, and whatever
group was operating in the asylum defeated (read: burned to death). Dick feels
she lead a somewhat normal life.
The group eat their breakfast, as Angela suggests that they
move operations to her home in California. But it doesn’t look Dick or Kory are
staying, Dick needs to make his own next move, a move that takes an entire
season to make, by the way, and Kory is going to try and live her own, new life,
after escorting the others to the house.
Donna lives in a pretty shoddy neighbourhood. Donna had
apparently stopped operating as a hero and offers to give Dick a few tips. On
the train heading to California, Kory gets flashes of her memories, she goes to
get a drink but is noticed by a suited individual. Donna had become a
professional artist and omg, Donna Troy has been on screen for all of 3 minutes
and she’s already my favourite. She’s snarky, she makes jokes, it’s not all
grimdark all the time with her.
Rachel and Angela talk together on the train about what
fleeting memories she has of her and how Rachel ended up where she did. It’s an
emotional moment that rings a little false to me, but that might be intentional
given what’s going to be. Gar’s a bit freaked out after the Tiger attack and
reveals he doesn’t have complete control over it. Bullsh*t, moving on.
Kory notices the suited guy from earlier is not longer at
the bar and goes to investigate. He’s just some schmo who thought she was
attractive and Kory’s paranoia had her on edge, or so it seemed. Dick making
small-talk is just as painful as Donna believed it would be. Also, how much did
Nikon pay you to namedrop one of their cameras?
Donna gets a text message with an address and replies that
she will be there. The suited guy phones the FBI telling them that their wanted
fugitive is currently aboard the train. Dick follows Donna as she’s blindfolded
and taken to another location. The train stops, apparently because of an
obstruction. Donna meets with the contact, he’s been shooting animals and
smuggling in their parts.
He’s almost manages to bring in a live bear which he has
chained up in a second van. Their plan is to sell the bear to someone to hunt
it for sport, and then sell body parts to a market in china. As their business
is concluded, Dick arrives and begins laying the beat down on these guys. Donna
asks Dick to take photos of her lying unconscious with them as proof she wasn’t
involved.
“Wonder Woman was created to protect the innocent; Batman
was created to punish the guilty” here we go again. This fallacy is what irked
me about Zach Snyder’s Batman, Burton’s Batman, even Nolan’s to an extent too.
Batman’s drive is to save people from going through the trauma he did. Making
criminals afraid enough that they won’t gun down innocent people in an
alleyway. He was created not just to avenge his own tragedy but to protect
others from the same fate. He exists to protect the innocent too. He just has
to go about it in a different way.
When Dick gives her his phone so she can deal with the photos she finds the ones he took of Kory’s bunker, she says the language is an offshoot of Sumarian that’s been lost for centuries. Naturally, that means she’s able to translate it.
The train stops again, and Kory realises something is amiss.
She’s not wrong as the FBI have the train surrounded. Thankfully she has enough
juice to blast her way through and blow up the carriage, providing a
distraction so he can escape. They arrive at the house, right in the middle of
nowhere, so no-one gave a sh*t that it was abandoned for years. Kory continues
to get flashes of her memories and Rachel offers to help heal her. Rather
lacking for alternative options, Rachel agrees to do so.
The symbols are a mission statement as Kory is revealed to
have a name of Starfire, which is interesting because her tamaranian name is
Koriand’r but that’s neither here nor there. The mission is to ‘secure’ the
Raven but that might mean capture or kill. And we’re quickly informed that it’s
the later as the moment Kory gets her memory back, she grabs Rachel by the
neck, her eyes glowing ready to strike.
Donna Troy for a while was a breath of fresh air, but it
sadly didn’t last as it reverted back to everything being miserable and
melancholy
Rating 7/10
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