Sunday, May 8, 2022

Netflix (HBO Max) Retrospective: Titans Season 2 Episodes 12-13

After a month-long break, we’re back with Titans and we last had 2 of the series’ stronger episodes back-to-back, can it end on a strong note, let’s find out

Faux-Hawk

We flash back to 5 years ago with Deathstroke killing his son, and we get confirmed that Jericho jumped into Deathstroke’s body but for some reason is not able to control it like his other victims and also for some reason, there’s some kind of barrier in Slade’s mind stopping him from jumping out into another body.

Oh and Jericho can talk in the mind palace. Slade has decided that since the Titans are reforming with or without Dick he’s just gonna hunt them down and kill them. Jericho tries to get him to walk into traffic but no such luck. Hope he had an exit plan, you need eye contact to switch bodies. Gar is now out in public again and ordering his favourite coffee, but of course at this moment, Mercy activates his switch and it’s a violet green tiger assault. Pity the CG is still shit.

He jumps straight into Mercy’s van and returns to human his mouth covered in blood. The incident makes the news and the Mayor calls it the work of ‘rogue vigilantes’ and has hired CADMUS to hunt them down. We cut to a guy getting his sushi delivered by Donna and Dawn. His name’s Walter, he works for CADMUS and Donna and Dawn know about him because he was on their security footage. They charm their way in and then it’s out with the lasso.

He tells them about how they performed brain surgery on both Gar and Connor and weaponised them. Outside Donna remarks that they could use Hank’s help but Dawn is not interested. He walked out on her.

Speaking of Hank, Hawk is at a cage-match arena and is winning all his fights as you might expect. Of course, he’s spending his winnings on cocaine so you can tell he’s not ok. In the next fight, the audience throw weapons into the arena and whilst he takes a battering he makes it out, and gets a girl to bang afterward, although the extent of his injuries make sex a less pleasurable experience than normal.

Meanwhile Kory is struggling with being all burnt out and is frustrated over well, just about everything really. Hearing what’s happened with Gar and Connor, she decides to make a break back to San Francisco. Though with Rachel’s pestering she eventually breaks down and admits her issue is feeling like she’s lost control of everything. Rachel relents so they’re off to San Francisco as well.

Meanwhile Jason is preparing a beautiful life for him and Rose, onion dogs, there are worse ways to live. Anyway, Jason gets an alert about Gar and decides fuck them but the topic turns to Deathstroke and Rose decides it’s time to come clean. We flash back to 3 years earlier to see that Rose inherited part of her father’s regenerative abilities. She confronts her mother about this and says it’s time to learn who her real father is.

Within 3 weeks she manages to track him down so he covers his tracks pretty poorly. He reveals it was a one-night stand and she does not want to see him again. 10 days later she’s dressed up ready to meet a guy named Todd, it ends up being Slade, offering her a partnership and answers about herself. She accepts and he provides her an outfit akin to the classic Ravager outfit in the comics.

Naturally, training with Slade can be pretty brutal, especially when both parties have the knowledge the other can heal. The Slade tells her about Jericho and that they were killed by a gang a psychopaths called the Titans. 3 months ago, after they busted Doctor Light out of prison, Slade explains the rest of his plan. He plans to make it look like the two of them are at odds, so Dick will take her in and she will be the mole that helps disband them by slowly turning everyone against each other.

Oh and he tells her point blank he’s gonna cut out her eye (in the comics she did that of her own accord whilst pumped up on steroids). And Jason is rightfully pissed off about all of this, especially realising that he was basically the fall guy, literally in this case. Rose gets a call from Deathstroke telling her to come back to LA. He’s already there with Wintergreen with a full arsenal to back him up.

Dick meanwhile pays Jericho’s mother a visit, obviously she knew that Jericho is inside Deathstroke and her demeanour is a lot less cold toward Dick, implying that her original coldness was another part of Slade’s plan. She tells him that Slade has gone to LA to finish the Titans off, and reveals that Rose was in on the plan. Hank has a dream he’s fighting Dove in the arena and she wins.

Dick heads to a place called Stu’s handmade shoes. Stu is not happy that he burnt the Robin suit, of course Bruce had already called ahead believing he might need a new one and he’s got a whole team of people working on it. A whole team that know that Bruce is Batman… this feels rather out of character.

Anyway, Hank wakes up to the news that someone robbed a store whilst wearing the Hawk costume. Oh yeah, the title of the episode, so glad this story’s coming up with less than 10 minutes to go before the episode’s conclusion. Hank sees that his suit is gone, and the idiot who stole it has been livestreaming like a fucking idiot. Except as it happens, he didn’t steal it; coked out of his mind, Hank actually sold it to the guy, who isn’t even an adult by any legal standard, for $200.

This was exactly the wake-up call Hank needed as he resists the temptation to take more cocaine. Mercy discovers that the interrogation happened and decides to move up the timetable, setting Garfield loose in a Theme park.

This episode was about Rose’s backstory first and foremost, the faux Hawk plot was a tiny spec of the episode’s runtime. Still, another solid episode.

Rating 7/10

Nightwing

Mercy is advertising Superboy as a super-soldier to governments of the world. Basically she’s gonna pit Connor against Gar in a no holds barred match to make Superboy look good and raise the price. As soon as the cameras are off, she has Walter killed.

A fair is all up and running and Garfield is exploring the place, enjoying his snow cone, but the trigger is pulled and he begins his naturally off-screen transformation as the titles play. The Titans are at their HQ planning a full assault on CADMUS, none of them really sure what to make of Dick’s message. But their plans are interrupted by an alert of an assault at the fair, reports of a wild animal.

They’re on their way, still not in costume when they’re attacked by Deathstroke. With Kory’s powers out of action, they seem to be sitting ducks. Until a blue-birded hero enters the scene. Nightwing debuts and fights Deathstroke, going toe-to-toe in a way he really couldn’t the last time they fought, and also trying to call out to Jericho.

But Jericho can’t save himself, and its time for Rose to conveniently enter the scene and makes this a two-on-one. Rose stabs Slade and takes off his mask, allowing Jericho to jump into Rose’s body. And their relationship seems to be more a time-share with Jericho and Rose sharing control. It is a bit of a fizzle for Deathstoke’s plan to end on, we’re less than 1/3 of the way through this episode.

Still, the CADMUS plot continues. They say that Slade is dead but I’ve seen him survive worse so I wouldn’t count on it. Oh yeah, the rampaging Tiger, CADMUS arrives with a full army of goons and of course, their pet Superboy. Mercy watch as his price tag goes up. The Titans arrive, now finally in costume, well, Donna and Dove are anyway and Mercy deides to let Superboy attack. Rachel meanwhile approaches Gar and tries to connect with him.

Donna tries to reason with Connor but then Mercy gives the kill order and it’s a no holds barred brawl, but it’s not exactly a fair fight, Kory might’ve given him a challenge if she were at full strength but right now it’s just Donna that has any chance, even Hawk suddenly showing up doesn’t really alleviate how hosed they are.

Though, Dick pulled some favours with Bruce and the feed that was connecting Mercy to the bidders is cut, stopping their auction. Nightwing arrives on scene and stuns Connor with a grenade that shouldn’t really have done anything at all. All hope for rescuing him depends on Rachel but she’s busy trying to save Garfield. She makes contact and eventually manages to bring him out of his tiger form.

Donna holds Connor in the lasso allowing Rachel to get Dick into his mind, represented here by a big black box. Connor tells Dick he can’t find the light and Dick punches a hole in the wall because he’s the rational one of the two. With light now clearly visible, he basks in it and suddenly we’re in a cornfield. And at least in his mind he can fly. The private army who have done jack shit so far do jack shit to stop Superboy and the others capturing Mercy.

The park give their applause despite 2 of them murdering innocent people during that exchange but more tragedy to follow as a pylon collapses down, threatening the crowd. Donna stop it but takes the full brunt of a lot of electricity, and she dies pretty quickly. The pointlessness of this scene is what really bugs me. We didn’t need to cap this off in tragedy, there’s plenty they could have done with the loose ends they had.

Rachel provides Gar some comfort but she’s heading off to Themyscira with Donna’s body, hoping she may be resurrected. It’s a nice goodbye with Dick if none of the others. Jason watches from afar but decides not to join them. Bruce pays Dick a visit and lays on him some advice that feels like stuff Bruce has learned along the way.

Dick takes the first step in healing with Garfield, apologising him leaving him alone in the tower, which began a lot of the CADMUS mess to begin with. Time for Hank and Dawn to make amends, still Dawn isn’t ready to resume their relationship, at least not in civilian identities. And we get the bombshell that Bruce has no idea about Elko, leading them to conclude that was Rachel’s subconscious plan. Oh, the holes I could poke into that, starting with the obvious that Rachel and Bruce have not met.

Dick gives a speech about Donna and family and well, the Titans. The episode ends with the family dinner being interrupted by a mission and a slow-mo of them walking down a foggy street.

But before we get there, Blackfire taken possession of someone else because Tamaraneans do that now. But why tho? You have the throne, you’ve stranded Kory, so why are you doing anything on Earth?

Questions to be answered another time, but it’s another solid episode all things considered. It’s far from perfect but that could sum up the entire show.

Rating 7/10

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