Titans season 2, episode 11 review: E.L._.O.

Titans continues to persecute Dick for imagined wrongs done to his team, while Gar suffers on his own at Cadmus Laboratories in the eleventh episode of the season.

When we last left off Titans, Dick Grayson was helping his cellmates – refugees escaping ICE – break out of prison, but he himself didn’t flee. The rest of the team weren’t faring any better: Gar became a guinea pig for Mercy Grave’s Project Rakshasa, while Superboy had disappeared in Cadmus Laboratories. Hank and Dawn broke up, Starfire’s sister revealed she’d killed their parents and banished Starfire from Tamaran. Finally, Donna was desperate to locate Rachel, whose soul-self was busy killing people.

Those are a lot of arcs to complete in only three episodes but, judging by how episode 11 was paced, it doesn’t look like the showrunners are in any hurry to conclude these plotlines. Instead, “E.L._.O.” adds more layers to viewers’ questions, as we discover deeper dynamics between many characters.

We return to Jason Todd and Rose Wilson, who’ve been off-screen since the entire team disbanded, and the ladies of the show get a little more screen time. Unfortunately, they’re still only talking about Dick Grayson.

Dick’s Slow Transformation

Now that season three of Titans has been announced, the countdown is on for Dick to transform into Nightwing. The season three logo is blue like his comic book outfit, and it seems like everyone – showrunners and viewers alike – are holding their breath till this bird finds his wings. So how does Dick take flight?

Titans season two started off strong but has devolved into the “persecution of Dick” show. After being beaten up by the prison guards for helping his cellmates escape, Dick is placed in solitary confinement, where he starts hallucinating Bruce Wayne again. Bruce’s role is far more focused this time – he wants Dick to remember something about his meeting with Deathstroke – but the episode retreads similar themes. It’s also too on-the-nose with its intent – Dick is going to become Nightwing, and all the symbolism attached to his transform is played out in this episode.

It seems like Dick’s entire arc this season has been the discovery that he’s a poor leader and shouldn’t have reformed the Titans. Everything in the run-up to him finally taking on the mantle of Nightwing is so contrived. The team turning against him; his belief that he caused Jericho’s death – it seems like the creators like seeing Dick suffer, rather than develop his character naturally to the point where he understands that he is a hero and needs to step out of Batman’s shadow. The trouble is that the Nightwing arc has been squeezed into less than two seasons, which doesn’t allow for the character of Dick or the rest of the Titans to grow.

Titans Together! Almost

Rachel Roth has always had a strong connection to Dick – it was her dreams of him watching his family die that led her to Dick in the first place in the pilot episode. Her connection resurfaces in this episode when she dreams about being at Dick’s grave and watching him be murdered by Deathstroke. Rachel’s dream is also the reason for this episode’s strange title.

E.L._.O. doesn’t stand for Electric Light Orchestra, but Elko – a place where several members of the team convene. Donna Troy, Dawn Granger, Starfire and Rachel are all called to Elko’s Diner to make a decision about the team. But how was this rendezvous achieved? Who knows!

Apparently, Bruce Wayne managed to get the ladies together, but no explanation is given for how he did it. Bruce isn’t a magician and, though the realm of magic isn’t beyond Titans, that aspect hasn’t been explored yet in the series. The Elko Diner meet was far more convincing when we believed that Rachel was behind it – but then it’s revealed that she wasn’t. Someone on the writing side got their wires crossed along the way.

Also, if you’re going to call out Bruce Wayne for mansplaining, maybe do it while he’s still in the room.

The Romance No One Asked For

Jason Todd became an immediate fan-favourite from the moment he arrived on our screens. So much so that the showrunners made Curran Walters a series regular for the second season. But like several other parts of this season, Jason’s been underutilized and poorly written. And his characterization continues to drag Rose Wilson down with him.

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In episode seven, “Bruce Wayne”, Jason was ostensibly suffering from PTSD following his capture by Deathstroke but, instead, the showrunners decided to shoehorn an uncomfortable romance between him and Rose. One hoped that it was a one-off incident caused by two lonely young people finding a kindred spirit, but no. Episode 11 suggests that Jason and Rose have been living it up in Gotham City, and Jason looks hopelessly in love with Rose. Suddenly, Rose is the light at the end of the dark tunnel Jason’s been running along. It’s all so twee and soap opera-lite; the romance simply doesn’t fit with the feel of the show. Not to mention, neither character needed a romance to add credibility to their characterizations.

Romantic arcs are often hard to handle – even ones that are canon in comics, like Starfire and Dick’s – aren’t well written on screen. It’s because romance is seen as a shortcut to redemption, and that redemption for Jason and Rose hasn’t been earned yet. Rose’s decision at the end of the episode to cut ties with her father has little gravitas because she hates the guy anyway. Or does she know something that the Titans don’t?

Titans Tidbits

• Can the showrunners stop torturing Gar? There’s something about the brutality with which Gar is treated that makes one shudder. He’s just a child and comes in for punishment that none of the other characters have.
• In the comics, Nightwing gets his name from a story Superman tells him. Since the character on the show doesn’t have these connections, Dick sees “signs” of his future as a “bird of prey”: the raven in the window and Dick’s shadow turning into the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
• Rachel made new friends in the previous episode, but they were more plot devices. Who else is tired of the tarot cards revealing the truth in a show? Also, inanimate characters coming to life for jump scares? Titans needs to be more original.
• Some fans had already guessed the Deathstroke revelation. But one can’t help but wonder if it doesn’t turn Dick’s suffering into a fruitless endeavour.

Episode 11 of Titans proves that it’s still too caught up in telling Dick Grayson’s story, at the expense of all others. Why didn’t DC Universe just make a Nightwing show to begin with? The premise would have still worked. Instead, most of the other characters continue to fall by the wayside and disappear for episodes on end, while Dick’s characterization is dragged along slowly. The character is interesting enough to keep viewers coming back for more, but the storyline is way too contrived.