So you remember in what turned out to be the concluding episode of season 1 they teased Superboy and Krypto. Well, we’re at episode 6 of season 2 so finally they decide to actually deliver on that tease, right as they have a big cliff-hanger to deal with.
Connor
We’re introduced to CADMUS Labs, a science lab offering a
better future for tomorrow, or so it advertises as a very naked Superboy
wonders around, throwing guards around. Superboy gets the name Connor off the
shirt he has covering his NC-17 region whilst Krypto had a mighty convenient
tag on. Apparently Superboy didn’t kill any of the guards or lab guys, he only
put them in the hospital in critical which is an upgrade on most characters in
this show.
We’re introduced to 2 characters of importance. First is
Doctor Eve Watson, the lead scientist behind Superboy and Mercy Graves,
personal security and representing the founder of CADMUS, Lex Luthor. He has
the emotional age of a 2-year-old, which in the writer’s room must’ve felt like
a good idea until you realise that it wasn’t.
What it means at the moment is he’s absorbing information
for the first time, so a lot is coming at him at once and his mind can’t
process it all, his super-senses likely making this even worse. He hears and
concentrates on a sound in the distance and not the sound of the cars tooting
as he’s standing in the middle of the road. He sees a black Superman shirt at a
souvenir store and is immediately drawn to it.
When the store owner confronts him about taking it, he gets
a flash of Lex Luthor’s abusive childhood… that’s not how cloning works no
matter how they try and justify it in-universe. It’s difficult to write someone
with the ‘emotional maturity of a 2-year-old’ because the line where emotional
intelligence is separated from just intelligence is a little blurry.
A simple notion like getting the dog to stay out of the way
whilst he stops a crook requires a level of empathy and hence emotional
intelligence beyond that of a 2-year-old. But he does have a bit of a one-track mind,
after stopping the robber he hears that the lady has money takes it for
himself.
Still, there’s a matter of… wait, was there a thing between
Eve and Mercy? It feels like it, and I don’t think it ended well for Eve. Eve briefs
Mercy’s team who are tasked with using any non-lethal means necessary to
capture Connor. Connor notices that this is happening and decides the sensible
thing is to hightail it out of there, which also stretches my belief that he’s
the world’s most dangerous infant. An infant would not have survived a bus trip
of several hours on his own.
He comes to Kansas, to the house of Luthor where he meet
Lex’s abusive father, Lionel. There’s a bit of back and forth which again would
require more emotional intelligence than a 2-year old. Screw it, make it a drinking
game, take a shot every time Superboy does something that requires some level
of emotional intelligence, in fact, don’t, you’d be dead before the end of the
episode.
Turns out though CADMUS had eyes on the place and Mercy’s
team storm the house. Of course they’re armed with regular rifles, and now
Superboy is pissed off enough to fight them. They’re so screwed right now. Oh
not because of Superboy, who’s a force to be reckoned with, but then there’s
Krypto, he disarms one of the guards with heat vision. I like Krypto. In fact
he gets one of the most awesome scenes in this episode where he catches an RPG
mid flight and returns it to sender. I mean, that does mean he has a body count
but this is Titans and that’s expected.
I think Superboy also killed a few here so, that was fun
while it lasted. Eve is outside and Connor spots her, melting the tyres of her
van so she can’t drive off. She’s scared out of her mind of him but in all
fairness to her, her display of vulnerability is also what calms Connor down.
She tells him that he's a genetic clone of Superman and Lex Luthor. Eve
believed that she’d get more time to study him and learn, but with what
happened here she’s no longer sure that’s the case. So last season it was fuck
Batman, this time it’s fuck CADMUS, somehow doubt that one’s becoming a meme.
She drives away in a car she suddenly has now with Superboy
and her discussing the ethics of his creation. She drew up the idea of
cross-species cloning but they went ahead and applied it behind her back. It turns
out that Superboy doesn’t just have memories of his genetic parents but also
some of their knowledge. I give up, this is beyond dumb, your memories and
knowledge are not encoded in your genetics, there’s no viable way that could
work. At least Young Justice had telepathic genomes to do that shit.
Take a shot, Superboy made a joke to crypto about hot dogs.
And you it’s odd when you feel uncomfortable in a superhero show when a
superhero is about to do something super-heroic. It’s not that this can never
work but they apply it almost constantly. Eve in this case stops him, but angers him enough that him shouting sets off a load of car alarms. She decides she
needs to show him exactly who he is, taking him right to San Francisco, back to
CADMUS, or at least an abandoned building. There was a chemical explosion and
the building was condemned after 16 people were killed.
Answers behind a giant metal safe that Eve recommends he
doesn’t open. So naturally he opens it, finding earlier versions of the project
that creating, mangled messes and one that looks decidedly human, my guess is
either Bizarro or Match. Anyway, this royally ticks him off and he chokeholds
Eve until he restrains himself. He’s gonna need to learn to control his anger.
I see the Young Justice influence there.
Eve’s advice to him is to run, don’t set down roots, be
careful who you trust and don’t use your powers. I’m sorry but without any
backing at all that’s an impossible way to live. He’d have to rely on homeless
shelters, if lucky he could get a dead-end job somewhere for a few weeks before
he has to leave. Mercy and her soldiers arrive at the lab, Eve tells Superboy
to flee then surrenders to Mercy saying that he forced her into taking him
here. Mercy doesn’t believe her and reveals she has a kryptonite bullet.
Krypto and Connor walk the shitty streets of San Francisco
until they run into the cliff-hanger from the last episode. Deciding to ignore
Eve’s advice, Superboy rushes in and saves Jason from the fall. Unlike
Superman, he can’t fly so takes the brunt of the hit when they fall to the
ground. Jason and Connor smile at each other but it’s short lived as Mercy
shoots Superboy with her kryptonite bullet and captures Krypto with a
kryptonite collar.
God, I really wanted to like this episode but it makes it so damn hard. I like Mercy Graves as an efficient antagonist… I actually liked Eve too, despite her flaws (partially in performance) and I liked Krypto. Connor himself is a bit of an enigma but that comes to how he was written and the episode stretches suspension of disbelief by countering its own stated logic on more occasions than I can count.
It really didn’t need to either, if they’d
said his emotional maturity was underdeveloped that would’ve been vague enough
for me to buy just about everything.
Rating 4/10
Time for the episode named after everyone’s favourite Titan
Bruce Wayne
We open with Jason Todd having PTSD flashbacks about
falling, and not any of the rest of it… Anyway, they really need to give Robin
a gliding cape like the Bat-family had in the Arkham games, would have saved a
lot of trouble. But he’s not the only one suffering with mental issues, par for
the course with the Bat-family really as Dick is hallucinating a berating Bruce
Wayne, but as it’s Iann Glenn playing Bruce it’s the most calm berating I’ve
ever seen.
Jason may be fine physically, but the same can’t be said for
Superboy, the Kryptonite bullet has done a number on him and… he looks
absolutely fine. Couldn’t he have had some green veins or something? I will
admit some of ghost Bruce is funny but it’s overplayed, and it'll be overplayed again once it returns in episode 11.
Jason is letting out his feelings by a punching a bag in a
dark room, again, par for the course for the Bat-family. But seriously, this
isn’t a cave, could you spring for better lights? Dick can’t get through to
Jason because Jason believes that Dick blames him for going out alone. And I’m
sorry, but I find it hard to invest myself in Jason’s struggle whilst I’m
laughing my ass off at every Ghost Bruce comment. Maybe if the show had found a
better balance between dark and funny in the past this wouldn’t be so jarring.
It’s dark humour sure but it’s more humour in 8 minutes of this episode than
there’s been in the last 18 full episodes.
Superboy wakes up grabs Kory’s arm and they begin conversing
in Kryptonian. Dawn should know who Superman is, right? Pretty sure him being
from Krypton is public knowledge, I get Kory not knowing, but Dawn has been
around for a while, surely she’d have some connections that could get her
Superman’s help. Connor is whispering out for Eve
Oh and speaking of Eve, she finds out from Mercy that
Superboy has been shot and left to die and she’s been sacked. Though she’s been
forced to hand over her badge, she quickly using a pick-pocket technique to
steal another one. Dick goes to find an informant named Benny and has to
interrogate him the hard way… He apparently is or at least was a supplier of
weapons to people like Deathstroke. Anyway, he doesn’t know where Deathstroke
but has a lead to find Wintergreen
OK, can we talk about how Rose is obviously working with
Deathstroke. It wasn’t obvious before this very scene but the moment she and
Jason talk it becomes blatant, even if Jason can’t see it. The two form a bit
of a rapport and it’s made very clear where it was going. Oh and Hank
discovered some traumatic thing in his laundry
Back in the lab of incredibly dubious security, Eve just
waltzes in and lets Krypto go, only then does the alarm go off, but all too
late as they manage to disable the Kryptonite collar and Krypto recovers
immediately, and bolts right through an upper window with Eve hanging on for
dear life.
More stuff with Dick goes down at a… burlesque club. Anyway,
Wintergreen is at a hotel and I bet Iann Glenn enjoyed every minute of this.
Donna is next to discover an object of triggering potential, that soda that she
gave Garth.
So, Rose and Jason are having their fun but then Rose
discovers a vinyl that belonged to Jericho. His actual name is supposed to
Joseph, just saying. Dick breaks into Wintergreen’s apartment and shoos off
more fanservice. He actually uses a gun he stole from Benny earlier, words
cannot express how much I loathe that. He knocks Wintergreen out but he can’t kill
him, instead Deathstroke sends out an invitation via Wintergreen’s phone.
Dawn is the next to get the triggering item, a photo of the
guy they failed to save in the opening episode. Donna, Dawn and Hank compare
notes. Kory has done all she can but thankfully Eve is at the front door with
Krypto. As it is, Connor needs a huge dose of sunlight and quickly if he’s to
survive, thankfully that’s Kory’s area of expertise. With Rachel to contain the
fire, Kory uses her solar powers to heal Connor.
And now Eve has to undo the damage she’s done and encourage
his altruistic potential.
Ghost Bruce is now busy trying to encourage Dick to tell the
truth to the others about what happened. And he’s certainly right about one
thing, this whole exercise was an excuse to get Dick away from the tower. He
finds a lot of photos from the tower, and makes haste back there. Rachel enters
her room finding a bunch of crosses hanging from the ceiling. Given her history
with religion, yeah… that’s pretty triggering.
And now for the bit where everyone loses rational thought. I
get Rachel blaming Jason, but everyone else, including Donna’s whose triggering
item is something Jason couldn’t possibly know about because they kept
everything that happened in the Tower the last time a secret! Donna Troy is not
that stupid!
Anyway, Jason, who’s mental state is already fit to blow, is
about to commit suicide from all of this. And it’s up to Dick to talk him down,
and the only way to do that is to come clean. This causes Ghost Bruce to
disappear until he reappears again in another episode. God this episode is
really piling it on, hoping you’ll be invested in the next because god this one
was boring. Oh the big revelation, he killed Joseph.
The Dick plotline and ghost Bruce is so padded it was beyond
a joke, unlike Bruce who was hilarious. Meanwhile Jason’s plotline is more
interesting even if everyone around him has to be an either an idiot or a plant
for it to work.
Rating 5/10
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