Monday, March 21, 2022

Netflix (HBO Max) Retrospective - Titans Season 2 Episodes 4-5

We’re taking another look at season 2 of Titans, the last season before the show moved to HBO Max

Aqualad

We flash back to 5 years ago with Slade Wilson, there’s a major trial going on right now and 2 key witnesses are being flown in to testify, and following the Netflix superhero code, if you try and testify against anyone, you're dead. Without key witnesses, several involved police officers and even the judge, whoever the guy was got off scot-free. Slade is delivered a new assignment in San Francisco, which just so happens to be the place where his ex-wife and son live.

Now, for those not in the know, Slade’s son, Jericho, had his vocal chords severed and whilst he’s capable of understanding human speech, he needs to sign to communicate. His mother returns home and it turns out Jericho knew Slade had been watching, his mother warns him that they can never let their guard down.

After the credits we see a family be attacked by thieves who could probably find easier prey than people with a car. Easy to conceal weapons, or the car itself could be used as one, just saying. Anyway, these poor and probably mentally ill people have the crap beaten out of them by Robin, Hawk and Dove. Oh, and Aqualad and Donna have arrived too, Aqualad using his hydro-kinesis to take down the last guy.

Back at the tower, they’re celebrating Aqualad’s birthday and they’re celebrating it by getting pissed, except Donna for some reason until Dove persuades her otherwise. Meanwhile Doctor Light is looking for something called an activator as we get treated to a lot of exposition, I’m sorry, I’m all out of fucks to give. They’re trying to update Doctor Light to be more intimidating but he’s still saying shit like “anyone who gets in my way will suffer the consequences” it’s almost sad.

They’re interrupted by power fluctuations and it’s time for Dawn to flirt with Dick and Donna to run to run from her feelings toward Garth. Donna had broken ties with Aqualad as she’s been told to return to Themyscira. Garth tries to convince her to stay and she texts a mysterious J saying they need to meet.

Doctor Light and 2 crummy henchmen break into a bank as Donna enters an art Gallery to meet with J. Apparently she doesn’t have to go, at least for another 6 months but for whatever reason she wants to. J agrees to arrange her travel to Themyscira in 2 weeks. Once again, our Titans make the brilliant decision to talk about their super-hero work out of costume.

They’re at the bank, but apparently no money was stolen, just a safety deposit box. Garth and Donna both agree to check out the security footage, so did they even have to go to the bank to do that? The thief had already come and gone; they could’ve done all this from the tower. Still, Garth and Donna get time to talk and reminisce and also to stare at the photo.

Garth asks for some advice with Dick apparently since Dawn rebounded to him after falling out with Hank. This is gonna make for some awkward conversations. Dick’s advice is to stop trying so hard. Donna comes to Dick immediately after, telling him that J, which we found out here is short for Jillian, is summoning her back early. And we seem to have gone from 2 weeks to tonight in an impossibly short amount of time.

But before then they got a lead on Doctor Light, turns out the activator is for a laser capable of taking down nuclear missiles because of course that exists and naturally the security for such a device would be pathetic. He places the activator on the laser and begins absorbing its light. Hawk and Dove take down the henchmen, with Garth coming in for the save when a third one arrive. Robin stops him absorbing the laser, Aqualad is cable to take some of Doctor Light’s blast, keeping him distracted long enough for Light to be taken down.

Jillian texts Donna telling her they’re departing a midnight. Garth invites to celebrate with the others, just as friends, and she passionately kisses him, which soon becomes full sex. Donna leaves in the middle of the night, with only Dick knowing and able to say a silent goodbye. Garth is starry-eyed from the sex but then Dick has to tell him that Donna is leaving.

And Garth is fast enough to catch up

“Can we please not do this right now”

When else are you gonna do it, Donna? You had to know that this was using him, right? Garth confesses that he loves her but before things get anymore intense Deathstroke shoots Garth and kills him. Garth’s death feels really unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. If they’d put him in hospital and forced him to return to Atlantis it would’ve have the same impact and open up his return in future stories because he’s was a fun character who honestly might’ve lightened the mood in this very dour show. Plus, it would make what happens in the next flashback episode more on the backs of the Titans rather than an eye-for-an-eye situation. But I’ll get more in to that next time.

Jillian manages to save Donna and Deathstroke chooses to retreat for now. With this Donna decides to stay and help the team take Deathstroke down, I mean, they only discover that it is Deathstroke thanks to Dick spotting him on security footage. Donna is warned that vengeance can be a dangerous path.

One week later, at a record store, we see Jericho at a record store run into and befriend Dick Grayson.

Beyond the ending, I quite liked this episode, it still has the usual issues this show runs into frequently but it has fun to it that’s generally lacking in the present-day stuff.

Rating 7.5/10

Deathstroke

22 minutes after being abducted by Deathstroke, Jason wakes up, arms chained to the ceiling. Unfortunately, they didn’t chain his legs down and with some talking, Jason is able to choke out Doctor Light and easily escape the chains by dislocating his fingers. Unfortunately before he can leave, he finds himself on the sharp end of Deathstoke’s sword.

Kory tries to call Rachel but Rachel is asleep, with black goo swirling around her. Gar decides to go to Rachel and not immediately to Dick because he’s an idiot. Gar tries to wake her up and whilst he does so, he cuts his wrist in the process.

Gar catches everyone up to speed on what happened with Jason, or at least what he knows. They can’t find the signal from any of the dozen trackers Batman embedded into him, indicating that he’s deep underground. The OG team head into the tunnels and bicker…, before discovering that Slade had a camera on the tunnel. So they overhear that Jason has a tracker in him. Doctor Light has become impatient and storms off, but Deathstroke does fuck all until he leaves, he then cuts out the tracker with a knife. Hope he cleaned in before-hand, very unsanitary.

Before Doctor Light can drive off, Slade kills him… so he went out like a bitch. Now for the Gar guilt to start rolling, first with him projecting himself onto Rose, and now Rachel projecting onto him. Just as everything blows up Kory arrives at the door, and Jason’s tracker becomes visible, leading them right to Doctor Light and a cell phone that… who uses phones like that anymore, those have been outdated for a decade now.

Also, they call him Jason to Slade, this group is really f*cking stupid. He’s a kid and his secret identity could compromise him. Slade tells them he wants to arrange an exchange, Jason for Rose, and to meet him at 3am.

Rachel is honest with Kory about what’s been happening, Kory says that on her planet something similar is called Transfiguration… is that referring to Transformation, the Tamaranian equivalent to puberty from the Teen Titans animated show? She theorises that the longer Rachel suppresses her abilities the more violently they’ll lash out.

The OG Titans have a meeting, discussing how best to handle this. Hank is all for handing her over to save Jason, but the other Titans are a little more reserved or outright against this. Dick’s trying to be the pragmatist, if they give her up or let her go they lose any leverage over Deathstroke, but it’s a road they’ve been down before and it didn’t end well last time.

Gar, Rose and Rachel overhear the conversation and Rose takes off. She manages to take down Hank with superior combat training but has no idea what to do when Rachel loses herself. Rachel ‘kills’ her but her body seems to quickly heal itself. Rachel runs off. Lots of drama follows and I can really not be bothered to cover any of it. All this Titans are finished crap would have a lot more impact if new Titans did anything of relevance other than Jason getting himself captured.

So Dick comes up with a plan and contacts Deathstroke, the others work to cover the Plaza but Dick goes off-plan, intending to surrender himself in exchange for Jason. It’s not a deal Deathstroke wants to accept and he’s about to execute Jason when Kory arrives for the save, able to take most of his bullets with her powers, but grenades are another matter and she’s knocked down. Still, now Dick can get in on the fight and the two of them manage to hold their own, until Deathstroke stuns them with a flash grenade and sends Jason falling. Dick manages to hold on but his grip is slipping and he does eventually fall.

This is one is really bogged down by the melodrama. I get needing to fill in 45 minutes but geez, lighten up a bit, this show is still so morose.

Rating 7/10

No comments:

Post a Comment