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

Netflix (HBO Max) Retrospective - Titans Season 2 Episodes 10-11

We’re back with Titans, and seriously, there are 4 more episodes to go. Rule of thumb, if a show wants to tell one continuous story, it should do so over no more than 6 (at a stretch 8) episodes. If it’s a mystery story, I’d drop that to 3 episodes. There are exceptions, of course, Daredevil seasons 1 and 3 managed to be riveting over 13 episodes and I’m excluding stories that tell smaller stories whilst weaving in a larger one, like Young Justice or the like. And Hell, Doctor Who Flux managed to be a confusing mess in 6 episodes and likely would’ve done better with more time. But enough preamble, let’s take a look at the next 2 episodes of Titans and see if something actually happens in them.

Netflix (HBOMax) Retrospective - Titans Season 2 Episodes 8-9

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.

Netflix (HBO Max) Retrospective - Titans Season 2 Episodes 6-7

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.

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

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 23-26

We’re looking at Young Justice Outsiders one last time for the final run of episodes. As I write this the newest season, co-titled Phantoms hasn’t come out yet but it due to soon. [Time of posting the first half of the season has come out, and has its pros and cons]

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 20-22

Hope you enjoyed the last 3 episodes with the Outsiders, they do not have another mission until episode 24, in the meantime, we need to catch up with everyone else as we dive into episodes 20-22 of Outsiders.

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 17-19

OK, let’s get back into Young Justice Outsiders and, in the 6^th of 8 reviews for the season, finally get to the debut of the titular Outsiders.

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 14-16

OK, we’re back with the second half of Young Justice Outsiders and I decided to bite the bullet and buy the episodes individually, after a I got a voucher for some money off them. Part 2 was released a bit differently to part 1, episodes 13-15 were released in one block, episodes 16-23 were released weekly and episodes 24-26 were released as another block. I’m guessing it was trying to keep interest in DC Universe, and it kinda worked. Let’s see what the writers have for us this time

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 10-13

We’re back for another look at YJ outsiders, how will the first half of the season be capped? Let’s take a look.

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 7-9

We’re back with another run of Young Justice, more episodes done from memory, with a little help from the wiki summaries so again things may be out of order or condensed. Sorry, I only have so much time for these.

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 4-6

We’re back for another run of Young Justice and it’s happened again, I did the reviews then lost them, this time thanks to word glitching. I decided to have a go at doing these from memory and whilst the actual plot points are definitely from the episode, they may be a little out of order or condensed.

Young Justice Outsiders Retrospective - Episodes 1-3

 So, Young Justice Outsiders

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to talk about this show, the last time being way back in 2016, when I did an editorial one what I wanted to see from this show… and I’ll say I got 1/5.

My thoughts have shifted a little on Young Justice. It did an exemplary job in season one balancing the overarching storyline with its cast of main characters. By majorly expanding the team in season 2, it also really torpedoed the balance in favour of plot as opposed to character development, making certain characters feel like pieces on a chessboard. Outsiders, as I’ll explain, suffers from a similar problem, but I’ll get to that later.

What’s interesting is that fan demand and the launch of a DC streaming service lead to the announcement of YJ Outsiders in 2016, the show would ultimately be released in 2019, which is quite extensive gap, DC announced the show’s renewal literally days after the creators found out.

So minor changes before we get into it, James Arnold Taylor has taken over from Tim Curry as G Gordon Godfrey, who has also permanently taken over the role as the Flash from George Eads after voicing him in the season 2 finale. Could be a cost saving measure, voice actors are portraying multiple characters across the board this season, and there are other budget-saving measures as we’ll get into.

According to a source I can’t seem to find now, Logan Grove was likely off in the military at the time of Outsiders’ production, so Beast Boy has been recast with Greg Cipes reprising his role from Teen Titans (and TTG). And for what it’s worth he does a decent job.

I’ll be covering the first 13 episodes of the series now, with the hopes of doing the other half in the later half of the year. Part of the problem is that there’s no series purchase option on Amazon for the second half, if I wanted to buy the second half at present, I’d have to buy every episode individually and at £2.49 an episode (I live in the UK so HBOMax isn’t an option), I am not doing that.

#83 - Titans Season 2 Episode 1 - Trigon

Yes, I’ve ranting about Titans for 5 weeks now, this is the last one, I swear this is the last one I’ll be doing for a while, even I need a break.

So, let’s talk a little about my history with the Titans. Teen Titans by Geoff Johns was the first superhero team book I ever read. I wasn’t collecting monthly issues at the time but I bought every trade of the series until the travesty that was Felicia D Henderson’s run on the book. No iteration of the Titans since has come close to the book’s peak quality and whilst recent events make this statement unfortunate for many reasons, Geoff Johns’ writing deserves credit for that.

I was a late bloomer to the Teen Titans animated series but I very highly enjoyed it. The show has a unique style that no-one’s managed to fully capture since, although there have been imitators, it has a unique blend of comedic and serious stories. And because of its popularity, I understand why Robin, Starfire, Raven and Beast Boy were chosen as the main Titans for this show. Cyborg regrettably gets left out, though he apparently is in the Doom Patrol series, despite Robotman basically serving the same role. It’s understandable given that Cyborg has been ‘elevated’ to the Justice League.

But the Titans has been a comic aimed at a younger audience, it’s kids and teens that are supposed to aspire to these characters. But it seems like they wanted a tone akin to Arrow but without the restrictions of being on the CW channel. This was always a bad show to go for this tone. Doom Patrol actually probably would be a better fit, though I haven’t seen that show.

But I can forgive a lot when it comes to this show, but Dick Grayson has been royally screwed over by it. I get him and Batman parting ways on not-so-great terms, that’s definitely happened in the comics but Dick Grayson is usually the upbeat one, it’s such a shame to have him so moody and miserable in this. And do I have to go over the whole debacle with Zucco again?

Titans was originally conceived as a 12-episode series, but just as the show was about to premiere, the episode count was dropped to 11, with the final episode now becoming the opening episode of the then recently announced second season. I’ll get to my suspicions as to why this came about later but for now, let’s dig into the season finale and discover why I felt this was worthy of a Rage4Media review.

Netflix Month 2 - Titans season 1 episodes 9-11

 OK, we’ve got 3 episodes to cover to draw this season to close, kind of.

Netflix Month 2 - Titans Season 1 Episodes 7-8

We’re back with Titans, will they find a subject to talk about that isn’t Dick Grayson? Let’s find out