Titans – S1 Ep11 – Dick Grayson Review

Wow just wow!! What an incredible end to an amazing season!

Ok so I don’t want to say too much about this episode because it just needs to be watched but I will give a brief rundown, so the episode is set a few years in the future but it’s clearly an illusion created by Trigon for Dick, we get a Gotham city even more broken than usual and we are even introduced to Batman, but not a Batman we’re used to seeing, this one has crossed a line and its up to Dick to try and save him, if he can!

That’s all I’m going to say about the story, but the episode is great, we get Supermans name dropped, most of Batmans rogues gallery is shown in one form or another including The Joker and Batman himself is so well done, you don’t get to see him super properly but the way they’ve done that is so clever that it just fits the character perfectly!

This was a very clever way to end the series, even though the whole series has been about Trigon and he’s finally here, the last episode wasn’t actually about him really, it was more about Dick and using Batman as the finales villain as it were, so we still have the next series to find out more about Trigon and how the Titans are going to stop him!

This episode was kinda everything you would want in a series about Gotham a little bit down, an older Batman an older Robin and what being vigilantes does to them, amazing work!

Now right at the end there is a post credits scene and as much as I don’t want to spoil too much I have to talk about it, so if you don’t want to know stop reading now………….

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Next season we are getting the Cadmus labs version of Superboy and Krypto!!! I am blown away by this, adding Superboy to a show containing Robin is a great idea and having this version is awesome, in the comics this Superboy is cloned from Superman and Lex Luthors DNA so I’m very interested if this is the actual back story they’re going with, whatever they do its gonna be crazy!! Bring on Season 2!!!!

Titans – S1 Ep10 – Koriandr Review

Ok so this episode we are back to our team and the whole Kory trying to kill Rachel scenario! Luckily, she is saved by Dick and Donna getting there just in time and Donna using her Lasso!!! Rachels mum quite rightly tells Kory to leave and she does but Dick and Donna follow her.

Everything is not as it seems in Rachels mums house and things are getting weird!!! Gar is seeing things, Rachel is not doing great and her mum is getting weird phone calls, somethings going on!

Meanwhile Kori has driven to a abandoned warehouse and Dick and Donna catch up to her, Korys memories are flashing back faster and she knows something inside is important, inside she speaks some alien words and her spaceship appears out of nowhere, the three go on board at which point we start to get a full on rundown on what the hell is going on!!

So, it would seem that Kory has been sent to Earth to stop Trigon (yay we finally get a full on namecheck!) from destroying planets including her home planet of Tamaran! Trigon has been banished to another dimension but before that he sired a child, Rachel, and only she can bring him back over to our realm to destroy everything but conversely, she is also the only one who can stop him! Also, in a picture we see Trigon, Rachel and Rachels mother all together, it would seem her mum isn’t as innocent as she first seems!!

Back at the house Gar isn’t well and is bleeding all over the place, at this point I’m assuming its from the soup Rachels mum gave him earlier! She says that Rachel can save his life if she uses her powers, but it doesn’t work, this is where it all falls into place! Rachels mum tells her that the only person that can save Gar is her father, she just needs to bring him over. Rachel of course agrees as she doesn’t want her friend to die and opens a portal in a mirror and pulls through Trigon in the form of a man who saves Gar and is thanked by Rachel, this is not going to end well!!

This episode was great, this series is fantastic and I love it, its quickly becoming my favourite DC show and I just want more, alas only one episode to go! It was great to finally get to Trigon and for Kory to get her memories back, it also seems as if she’s finally ditching the shiny dress she’s worn every day haha.

I don’t want this series to end!

Titans – S1 Ep9 – Hank & Dawn Review

Ok well, this episode was not what I expected at all!! After the end of last episode I expected things to pick up from where they left off instead things jump back in time to a young Hank and his brother Don.

This episode is the birth of the original Hawk and Dove which was very cool to see as I kinda assumed they were just going with the second incarnation with Hank and Dawn, this episode deals with a lot of issues including PCS, grief and abuse, its all done very well and in a very real way and it uses these themes to show how ordinary people could be driven to vigilantism by what they have been through and what drives them to do what they do and in a more real way than on say Arrow (I love Arrow by the way but this show is dealing with things that are much darker!) I’ve said in other reviews that this series is dark but this episode just by the nature of the themes is possibly the darkest yet.

The rest of the Titans aren’t forgotten about completely though throughout  the episode we are given glimpses of Rachel calling out to Hank for help, in mirrors and reflections, but as these is a flashback episode its actually done in a very clever way as the flashbacks are seen as memories in the minds of Hank and Dawn while they are still in hospital from the last time we saw them. Dawn is still unconscious and Hank is passed out from taking pain killers

This episode is a great origin ep and while I was chomping at the bit when it first started to get back to the Titans and what was going on there, I found myself pulled into the story and totally forgot about everything else, which to me shows how well this show is written, I was invested in this episode and has made me want to see more from Hawk and Dove, i really liked seeing Don and seeing how Hawk and Dove came to be, both incarnations!

The last thing we got was Dawn waking up after a vision of Rachel and telling Hank that they need to find Jason Todd, things are about to kick off!!!

Titans – S1 Ep8 – Donna Troy Review

So this episode is full of name drops!! We get Diana, Justice League, Wonder Woman, Themyscira, Joker, Penguin, the whole universe is building and I love it!!

This episode is a lot more low key than the last few, no crazy fights or intense battles, more an episode of reflection and understanding. This show just keeps getting better, the build of who these characters are and who they want to be has been told so well, we get to meet Donna Troy aka Wonder Girl and we find out that she has left the world of superheroes behind to try and make some semblance of a ‘normal’ life, Dick leaves the team to go to her to try and find out how she does it so he can do it too, but as she explains, she hasn’t quit, she’s just stopped and that’s a tough thing to do! They joke about needing each other cos they’re both sidekicks is cool when they are younger and i’m looking forward to seeing what they do with Donna.

Meanwhile the rest of the team Kory, Gar, Rachel and her mum head to Rachel’s mums house and their new base of operations, Kory is beginning to get glimpses of her other life and its making her super paranoid, but its not paranoia if someones really after you!! Its great to see that coming in to play and the emergence of Starfire coming to be, things take a turn when Donna is able to translate some of the alien language and she figures out that Kory might be here to actually kill Rachel, just as Rachel helps her get her memories back eeeeek!!

So this was a great ep, seeing Donna help Dick figure out that he cant be Robin and he cant be Batman he has to be something else, all this leading to Nightwing I’m hoping! And the expansion of Kory and her finally seeing who she really is is cool, she’s a very different version to the innocent comic book version but I’m enjoying that, it’s good to see these characters really getting fleshed out.

On to the next!

Titans – S1 Ep7 – Asylum Review

So, this was an interesting episode, not as action packed as previous ones but very reflective in ways.

It all starts when the guy Dick tracked down and kidnapped from the organisation tells Rachel that she’s a healer and not the monster she thinks and proves it by cutting his own throat and Rachel heals it! He tells her she needs to find her father to cleanse the world, now her father is Trigon, so I don’t think that’s the cleansing they should be after!! He also tells them that her mother is alive, so obviously her and Gar set out on a mission to rescue her even though Dick said to wait and bide their time.

Obviously the minute they get to the Asylum where her mother is being held they are caught and not long after so are Dick and Kory trying to rescue them, what follows is the organisation putting them all through tests, Dick a mental test to see how far they need to go to break him, he sees himself in the Robin outfit and the younger him upset and starts to beat him up telling him that he hates what he’s become, this is all the more cementing the idea of Dick not wanting to be Robin anymore. Kory is being physically tested, they have her strapped down on an operating table with doctors cutting into her to see how quickly she heals all while she is awake. Gar is being tested too, they keep electrocuting him to make him turn into an animal, but he won’t give in.

Rachel is in the boss’s office and he tells her she can save her friends if she just calls her father, she doesn’t agree with this and takes back the healing from earlier and the guys neck splits back open and blood pours from it till he dies, she then grabs his keys and sets off to rescue her mother and the rest of the team, no I have to be honest, her finding and rescuing her mum and the rest of the team felt really easy, considering the place was supposed to be crawling with guards, didn’t feel like there was much tension at all.

Right at the end Kory uses her powers and blows up the asylum so they can’t hurt anyone again and Dick is stood over the flames where he has thrown the Robin suit and watches it burn, Robin no more!!! He’s still gonna need a suit, maybe one in black with some blue designs…….

This ep was good, not as good as the rest if I’m honest, definitely the weakest ep so far, but it still had some good moments and its great seeing the team really pull together and need each other, oh and the corridor fights are very akin to ones seen in the Daredevil tv show which is no bad thing!

On to the next episode where we should meet our newest member…..