So, we’re continuing season 2 of Titans, and so far the quality has been decidedly meh, can you believe we’re half way through at this point but it feels like almost nothing has happened. Still, the strongest episode this season so far was the flashback and we’re starting this retrospective with part 2.
Jericho
Kudos for casting Chella Man as the titular character. He
isn’t a well-known with acting experience, more for his modelling and Youtube
career but they chose someone who has had difficulty with hearing since the age
of 4. Whilst Joseph is not deaf, either in this show or the comics his
inability to speak means having someone gifted with signing was important for
the character. And they beat the MCU to it by over a year, though just in 2021
the MCU have had 2 deaf characters played by deaf actors.
We open with Joseph walking home through a rough street.
Like, they really make San Francisco look like a shithole in this show. OK it’s
a dream but the inspiration had to come from somewhere. He heads out to visit
Dick and you might realise that it’s a campfire cookout with 4 grown adults and
one child, this only gets skeevier the more you think about it.
They talk and play ball into the
night and talk comes to fathers and we see Slade’s origin. He was a military
war hero who was subjected to experimental treatment, possibly to give him an
edge in an undercover op. I don’t know what he was there to find because upon
escaping he guns everyone down. He lost his eye at one point or another. And
that’s more or less all they get before they start digging a bit hard, way to
keep your cover, guys.
After the war, he went into
business with a man named Wintergreen and that’s when things went south. A
group of mercs had entered the house and held them both hostage to force Slade
to talk. Slade refuses and quickly kills them, but in the process, Jericho gets
his throat slashed. Not a deep enough cut to kill him, just sever his vocal
cords. He never saw his dad after leaving the hospital.
The Wintergreen name coming up is a
lead they decide to follow up on however Wintergreen appears to be one step
ahead of them and has cleaned house by the time they arrive. Donna is keen on
continuing to use Jericho but the others are more reluctant. But it’s revealed
here that Garth was not the intended target.
Donna is called to Gillian who
reveals that she was the intended target. She’s also been given full blessing
by Themyscira to deal with the problem, much to Donna’s chagrin. At the record
store, we see that Jericho can possess others as he uses it to deal with an irritable
customer. Dick, who had been sent to cut ties with Jericho notices him using
said ability and decides he might be useful.
So, he brings him to the tower and
demonstrates his ability to the Titans, with him possessing Hank to
semi-humorous effect. He suspects his power is a result of the drugs his dad
took and he’s had them since he was a kid. His dad is the only other person who
ever knew after he used them to stop an altercation between some idiot and his
father. Slade took it well, believing that this gift would put him in danger
and telling him never to use it or at least never tell anyone he has it. His
mother knows but beside the 4 of them, that’s it.
Dawn’s annoyed that Dick didn’t
cut off ties and you could certainly compare what they’re doing to grooming
which is not really a good look for our heroes. Dawn only agrees to continue
with this if they reveal everything to him, all cards on the table, which is
better though not by much. They reveal to him their alter-egos and he’s hugely
excited. But then the other shoe is dropped, that they were using him to get
information about Slade.
And of course, with that he wants
to know everything about his dad, and I guess he finds out because he’s packing
his things to go live with the Titans the next day. This would be so much
easier to sit through if the Titans were younger and they probably should be
considering that this is a flashback but god the Titans being adults makes
everything more uncomfortable and I get that this is partially intentional but
they are supposed to be our heroes, regardless of their regrets and this is
pushing it.
Jericho’s mother talks to Slade
directly, telling him he needs to fix this. And he sends Wintergreen to
confront Jericho at the record store. He gives a time and place to meet.
Jericho feels he needs Dick’s approval to go ahead with the meeting and asks
for it through Dawn, it’s clear all this putting a strain on their
relationship.
Donna gets a text from Jillian
telling her to meet her at the Gallery as she needs to leave urgently for
Themyscira. It’s in fact from Deathstroke who has already killed Jillian and
her entourage which honestly would’ve been a great action scene if they’d
bother to show it. I don’t doubt Deathstroke could beat them, just not that
easily. Dick gives Jericho permission to see his father.
But we then cut to Donna finding
Jillian’s corpse and then having to fight Deathstroke on her own. Donna is left
gravely injured and with a message from Deathstroke to stay away from Jericho. Robin
finds her and whilst the others tend to her, Dick goes after Deathstroke,
effectively breaking his word to Jericho. Deathstroke and Dick comes to blows.
Dick is far more accomplished fighter than Donna but doesn’t have the advantage
of enhanced strength, not to mention Dick is hardly in the right mindset either
so like Donna he gets his ass handed to him. Slade is ready to strike the final
blow but Jericho gets in the way and falls to his father’s sword.
The group depart and not exactly
on friendly terms. Donna heads to New York whilst Dawn breaks off from Dick and
officially gets together with Hank.
This tragedy is interesting. The
takeaway is supposed to be that mistakes were made and that’s what ended the
Titans. My takeaway is the Titans were dumbasses at best and groomers at worst
and that Dick blaming himself for Jericho’s death furthers that by robbing him
of any agency in the situation. Of course, they have a card to play when it
comes to Jericho and his body possession ability, and they will be playing that
card later, for now this is definitely the weaker of the 2 flashback episodes.
Rating 4.5/10
Atonement
So you’d think maybe with Dick revealing the truth there
might be a rational reaction that’s somewhat sympathetic to the load he’s been
carrying alone, at least about Jericho’s death but nope, Hank punches him in
the face, silly me, I forgot these guys were assholes as well as dumbasses. Rose
decides to leave and Jason goes with her. Rachel decides to leave with Donna
for reasons and Hank and Dawn leave too. Kory gets a message from Faddei saying
they need to talk immediately and he’s gonna be downstairs, Kory is honestly
the most sympathetic toward Dick, having the most distance from the issue.
Faddei managed to escape being trapped in the ship, then. That
leaves just Dick, Gar and Connor. Blackfire, Kory’s sister who doesn’t use her
Tamaranean name for some reason has seized control of the Tamaranian throne and
has sent assassins to kill them both. Thanks to Faddei having to escape Kory’s
ship, it’s not really a ship anymore so much as burnt scrap metal so it’s off
to Faddei’s to get moving
Rachel and Donna talk a little but as Donna’s stuck in
traffic, Rachel decides to leave. And Dick is leaving too, which means he’s now
leaving Garfield in charge of the tower, he’s underage and Dick was the only
adult there, and Connor is definitely not up to being the adult. He tells
Garfield to get in touch with Bruce to get Connor in contact with Superman,
which makes him geek out a little.
Day 1 of isolation and things are looking bad, he’s doing
Star Trek log updates already, Connor is still asleep whilst he recovers. Day 2
and we see he’s already getting pretty bored. Day 3 and he’s already becoming a
slob. This is the fun part of the episode.
We cut to a house in Wyoming which Hank and Dawn are fixing
up. And I don’t know what decade Hank is living but gas is far from cheap.
We’re now at Day 4 and Gar’s about to give up, but Connor’s
awake, and very naked. As he recovers energy with the world’s biggest bowl of
cereal, Gar answers all his questions. Oh yeah, I just remembered that
Gar has special abilities, how many times has he used it this season? He goes
to make the call to Bruce but disconnects the call before he can answer.
Meanwhile with Kory, they stop for gas as a purple blob
enters Faddei’s ear. Superboy punches a hole through a punching bag, again, fun
part of the episode. Hank and Dawn do karaoke… wtf is this? The point is that
outside Ellis’ sister appears promising to make their lives a living hell.
Republicans, am I right?
Superboy’s speed make him very good at video games, I’m
kinda surprised he didn’t break the controller. Moving to Nevada where Dick
pays a visit to Jericho’s mother because he can’t stop punishing himself. And
it goes about as well as you might expect, but Deathstroke is in the room next
door. He tells Dick he’ll leave the others alone as long as Dick is miserable
so naturally Dick is gonna go along with it.
Frankly it feels like this story is another attempt to stall
what the show should be about, the Titans. Gar decides to take Connor outside
and it goes about as well as you might expect. They hear a call for help, from
a criminal being arrested so Superboy assaults some police officer.
Back with Kory, nothing of consequence happens, next. Hank
has decided that them being together is essentially bringing a never-ending
cycle of pain. His solution is to break up with her and let them go their
separate ways. Back with Kory, they arrive Faddei’s ship, Kory had worked out
in the previous scene that Blackfire had taken possession of Faddei because
that’s something tamaranians can do now. Knowing that Faddei is dead, Kory
burns him to ash, earning some one-on-one with her sister. She wants them to
rule together but let’s slip that she killed their parents so… whoops. Kory
promises that she’ll come after her but Blackfire makes that more difficult as
Faddei’s ship explodes.
Hank’s falling to something, I’m not entirely sure what and
Gar is ringing to tell Dick he fucked up, but Dick isn’t answering as he
assaults airport security to get himself arrested.
So that was a lot of very little actually happening, though
I liked that we could actually check in with some of the Titans who have been
background characters for the last few weeks.
Rating 6/10
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