Well…this is a weird one. For the second time in four episodes, Titans hit us with a crazy cliffhanger and then went off on a dark dream tangent rather than follow through on said cliffhanger. Just as Kory trying to kill Rachel was followed by a disturbing journey through the tortured pasts of Hawk and Dove, so was the arrival of Trigon followed by an in-depth look at the dark psyche of Dick Grayson.
I actually like how Titans spent its first season slowly introducing new elements of the DC Universe episode by episode, though I think they should also be comfortable letting their plot play out a bit. Then again, it’s easy to understand the show’s obsession with Dick and Batman. The DC Universe is big and strange, full of all kinds of weird characters and inexplicable elements, but Batman is without a doubt the star of the show. As soon as he’s in play, it’s hard to focus on anything else. So after weeks of teasing, we finally got a look at what Batman is like in the world of Titans. Guess what? It’s not pretty!
This is an alternate-reality episode. It actually felt like FX’s Legion, which is not really a vibe Titans has gone for so far. The opening shot of Dick relaxing by a California pool strongly resembles shots of Jemaine Clement and Aubrey Plaza stuck in the Shadow King’s mind prison from the most recent season of Legion (and these situations aren’t actually that different, as we’ll learn by the end). In this fantasy world, Dick is happily married to Dawn; they have one kid, and another’s on the way.
Dick and Dawn’s idyll is interrupted by the arrival of Jason Todd, now in a wheelchair after a nasty run-in with the Riddler. As he explains to Dick, Jason actually got off lucky with that (doubly so if you’re aware of the character’s fate in the comics). While he was paralyzed, Commissioner Gordon was brutally tortured to death by the Joker, and Alfred, too, is no more. Jason tells Dick that Batman is now all on his own in his war on crime — and is not taking it well. Dick is adamant about leaving that life behind, but after some nudging from Dawn, he agrees to return to Gotham.
Gotham City is, indeed, a nightmare. Dick’s cab drives through riotous streets in order to get to a hotel where he has to pay extra for clean sheets and ends up with a front-row ticket to domestic violence in the room next door. After calling the police on his neighbors, Dick overhears the cop’s radio talking about a “mask” incident. When he follows the directions, he finds the Joker lying beaten and bloody on top of a cop car, with the obvious implication that Batman threw him down from above. Dick thinks his old mentor has finally broken his number one rule, but the Joker’s still alive! He always did have a talent for cheating death.
NEXT: Embrace the darkness
from Top Viral News Blog http://bit.ly/2rRzs8q
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