When sitting down to write this intro to my thoughts on last week’s Titans premiere, I feel the obligatory need to use the line that almost every other article and review has used.
But I won’t, because I don’t succumb to peer pressure.
Okay fine: “Titans are back, bitches!”
Well, now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the episode. The premiere served to wrap up last season’s storyline (very quickly and kind of anti-climactically for all the drama Trigon served in S1) and introduce us to where the season is going from here. Because they used footage originally intended to be at the end of S1, some of the pacing felt a little off. But it was a decent start to what feels like is going to be a great season.
Here are a few things that I enjoyed:
Girl Power
Rachel, of course, saves the day, destroying her father and freeing everyone from their infections of evil. All the ladies were awesome in this episode.
Maybe I didn’t notice it last season, but in this episode, Dawn had this smirk/smile going on throughout all the drama. I kept telling my husband that it looks like she thought all the end of the world drama was amusing. I hope that if I was a superhero, I would be the same way. Dawn is super chill and I love her more after this episode.
On the flip side, Donna was dropping the sassy one-liners everywhere. And she had some lovely banter with Starfire. I’m hoping we get lots of lady team-ups in the season to come.
Starfire’s “were you hoping the sheer force of your criticism would save us,” made me laugh. I need this on a T-shirt.
Gar’s nine lives
No offense, bad guys, but can we leave poor Beast Boy alone for a few minutes? In last season’s finale, he was offed, then revived by Trigon. And now all the converted dark side Titans beat the ever-loving snot out of him to break Rachel’s heart to unleash her full power.
Good thing he can become a cat because that might enable him to have nine lives. I don’t enjoy when someone is always the damsel in distress, even when the damsel is a dude. Can we just let this poor sweet boy live?
Dick Grayson is the ultimate troll
Can we talk about how Dick went to go meet Batman while leaving Gar and Rachel (and probably Jason) somewhere? When they are leaving on the epic road trip with the three youngsters and their newly-adopted guardian, Gar asks if he finally gets to meet Batman.
A few scenes later, Dick shows up at Wayne manor alone. Harsh, dude. We know they are all still traveling together because in the very next scene they are all on their way to the old Titans headquarters.
And it’s kind of funny that Bruce is like “sure, you can restart the Titans, but I need a break from Jason.” Poor Jason. Hope he is able to build a found family with the Titans.
Freedom from baggage
When Trigon was defeated, my first thought was – why the heck was it necessary for Rachel to “free” Dick from the darkness and not anyone else?
But watching the rest of the episode, it became clear that Dick needed to overcome the darkness, not just be cured from it like the others were when Trigon was defeated. Dick could have stayed in the dark and let Rachel fall from the trapeze, but he chose to save her. The result – a free and calmer Dick Grayson. Now we are going to see him become the hero and leader he was supposed to be.
Bruce Wayne
The conversation between Bruce and Dick was a lot chiller than I thought it would be – mostly thanks to the latter’s new outlook on life. I LOVE Iain Glen as Bruce Wayne. I’m sad that we only get him in a few more episodes after this week.
Looking forward
I liked the first glimpse of Deathstroke. That shaggy beard was lovely. Can’t wait to learn more about his history with the Titans and why he is so mad that they are back.
Titans Tower, while not a cool T-shaped building like in the cartoons, still is pretty cool. The first three members of the team are there, but we know there are more to come. Connor Kent, AKA Superboy, was not even in the premiere. And we saw Ravager training there in the season’s trailer.
And Jason was 100 percent Team Bruce when he was in his dark hallucination and went head to head with Dick over it. Now that Bruce has passed him off to the Titans, methinks there will still be some residual conflict between the two.
No matter what happens, I think we are in for a fun ride.
The next episode will stream on Friday, and you can watch a sneak peek here.
