Titans season 2, episode 10 review: Fallen

Following the disbandment of the Titans, Gar Logan has to deal with an attack at Titans Tower, and Dick Grayson is imprisoned.

“Fallen,” the tenth episode of season two of Titans, opens with Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) registering his fingerprints and taking mugshots during a criminal profiling, following his assault on a federal officer in the last episode. He is thus detained at the Kane County Correctional Facility for a seven-year sentence without any possibility of parole.

The Fall of a Former Robin

Upon being sent to his quarters, with  “What Makes A Good Man?” by The Heavy playing in the background just before the main title sequence, the scene then cuts to Mercy Graves (Natalie Gumede) driving across the Golden Gate Bridge towards the city of San Francisco.

While attempting to reach out to her daughters on being more proactive, Graves receives a message from the VP of Special Projects, Walter Hawn (Raoul Bhaneja) of Cadmus Labs. He informs Graves about the appearance of Subject 13, otherwise known as “Conner,” who is possibly at large somewhere within the city. Graves orders Walter to “put a team together,” then abruptly ends the call.

Elsewhere, within another part of town, Conner Kent (Joshua Orpin) attempts to stay low-profile with Krypto. While out, he spots a newspaper that reports him injuring four SFPD officers, with another two having received critical injuries. Conner insists that he and Krypto separate, as he expects Cadmus to return for him. Krypto mopes but vacates him soon after he dishes an insult.

Back at the Correctional Facility, one of the guards discovers Dick was a detective back in Detroit. The guard attempts to bribe Dick in exchange for making his time in prison more comfortable. Acknowledging the guard is seedy, to say the least, Dick refuses to help the him, so he moves from a private cell to a cell full of Hispanic detainees. The guard even spills the beans to the other prisoners he is a cop in front of Luis, Rafael and Santos.

Breakout Plan and the Persistent Ostracism

Back at Titans Tower, after viewing Conner’s assault on the SFPD officers from Dick’s Alienware laptop, Garfield “Gar” Logan (Ryan Potter) attempts to reach his mentor but to no avail, that is until Krypto reaches the building. Meanwhile, Donna Troy (Conor Leslie) is searching for Rachel Roth (Teagan Croft), who is otherwise M.I.A. Donna tries reaching out to Dick. Rachel is in a homeless shelter and befriends a homeless youngster.

At the Correctional Facility, Dick notices the fellow inmates are circling the entire perimeter of the courtyard for the easiest path to escape. One of them, Santos, notices Dick while playing dominoes with the others. Santos then questions Dick on whether or not he’s spying on him, to which Dick denies.

The crooked guard breaks up an incoming fight that could have erupted. He takes Dick to the side and opens up about the previous dealing he had with criminals as a teenager. He proceeds to goad Dick to let him in on information happening in the prison. Dick still refuses and would rather stay in prison than help the guard fulfill his unlawful agenda. The guard threatens Dick. Later, Dick discovers there will be an attempt on his life from inmates from his cell, particularly Rafael.

The Attack on Titans Tower

Back in San Francisco, Conner is wearing a dark trench coat at a local supermarket near a park. Gar soon finds Connor and confronts him about his resisting the Titans and the assault on the cops. Gar pleads with Conner to come back with him. Gar admits that he had killed someone before and encourages him to reconsider being part of the team. A black ops team then arrives, and the two escape.

Meanwhile, Rachel continues to get along with the young girl at the shelter. She discusses the grown-ups and that when it comes down to life, adults still are figuring things out as much as pre-teens and adolescents are. Back in the alley, the young girl is driven out by an older guy to run errands. Rachel intervenes and conjures the guy into a brick wall with her telekinesis and releases him. However, a part of the dark energy absconding from Rachel attaches itself to a gargoyle statue and reanimates the object later and kills the man as he runs off.

Inside the cell, knowing that Rafael will get the drop on him, Dick plays Santos’ game and plays the inmates. Dick suggests how they are going about the prisonbreak wrong. Dick then alludes to their plan to off him, deterring the murder attempt. However, Rafael backs Dick against a wall and decides against killing, but forces him to keep his mouth shut.

At Titans Tower, Conner lets Gar know Cadmus is still going to come after him. Gar dares them to come and explains that is what the Titans do — protect individuals with heroic attributes, skills and special abilities from evildoers, warmongers and evil corporations. Conner asks when the other Titans will return, to which Gar suggests turning Conner over Bruce Wayne. Suddenly, Cadmus’ black ops soldiers break in.

This is a decent follow-up to the last episode, as Dick’s arc progresses a lot here. Even though, for a short moment, you often wonder how will he escape the prison complex.

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In comparison to “Atonement,” which is a mess, this is a lot more coherent in tone, character development and overall theme. This episode, in many ways, is about the loss of faith, gaining hope and starting anew. Dick lost the will to be a hero, Rachel lost faith in the Titans, and Gar is steadily losing hope to re-form the entire team.

Plenty of things really held up in “Fallen,” such as the “Dick in prison” scenes, along with the Conner, Gar scenes and the eventual brawl with the task-force of Cadmus. This really showed Gar to be holding his own as one of the optimistic members of the Titans.

Some of the cinematography and visual effects were composited sufficiently and the production designs of the Titans Tower and Kane County prison sets are brilliant. It would be great to explore more levels of the headquarters than we have seen thus far.

While “Atonement” suffered from a few pacing issues, distracting sequences and unfocused character arcs, the direction, thanks to Kevin Sullivan, is at a constant. However, the weakest parts were the scenes with Rachel, and it’s become clear that Teagan Croft suffers from a character poorly written.

Though Croft is gradually exercising her role as the series progresses. Although her character has the most potential of the group, Rachel is only as good when paired with Gar. On her own, her arc is cliché, dull and devoid of interest – with an emo vibe.

Finally, the VFX with Gar’s tiger form are off in between animations. For some reason, while the animators gradually seem to be improving over time, Gar’s morphing has never been quite perfect.

Titans Takeaways:

• Dick Grayson is in self-imposed exile in Kane County Prison.
• The forces of Cadmus Labs capture both Gar Logan and Conner Kent from Titans Tower.
• Mercy Graves and Cadmus may have plans for Gar and the rest of the Titans.
• It appears that Rachel Roth continues to lose control of her supernatural powers and her Shadow Self may be growing stronger.
• Dick’s experiences in prison appear to be molding his Nightwing persona – with a South American folklore – Alazul.