“Jason Todd”
Writer: Richard Hatem, Jeffrey David Thomas
Director: Carol Banker
Starring: Brenton Thwaites, Anna Diop, Teagan Croft, Ryan Potter
I’m probably missing something, but isn’t this show called Titans? We’re six episodes into this season, and so far we have been seen very little of the team together. I understand that this is all for the purposes of laying a foundation – a team needs time to come together – but we just went from seeing them start to solidify… and now they’ve been separated again. This is extremely frustrating.
I can’t complain too much, though. The show is still doing an excellent job of portraying characters I have always known and loved, but with grit and realism. Bigger brush strokes are given to us in every episode. The mentions of more key characters and their origins fill in the blanks of a big universe, nicely coupled with the realism of a circus folding after the loss of their biggest stars. I feel as exasperated about all these name drops as Dick does introducing everyone. Let’s not trade names anymore, let’s watch the action unfold.
Saving Grace
The true stand out this episode is Curran Walters’ Jason Todd. The actor’s done a great deal of research, and perfectly walks the line of unnecessary confidence, and his zealous following of Batman. This is exactly how the early Jason Todd responded. When you couple this with his foul mouth, and calling people ‘bro’ all the time, you get a faithful but updated vision of the second Robin.
Conclusion
This episode gave us a break from the eternal mystery pushing the series forward. Doctor Adams maintains that Rachel is the most interesting girl in the world. The problem with that is the things that should be driving the series plot forward are given the cold shoulder. Instead of seeing the Titans progress as a team, we get the (welcome) shoehorning in of Jason Todd. It’s annoying that we got a greater team spirit from three quarters of an episode with the Doom Patrol, than in six episodes with the Titans.