‘Hank and Dawn’
Writer: Geoff Johns
Director: Akiva Goldsman
Starring: Minka Kelly, Alan Ritchson, Teagan Croft
Titans has reached its closing quarter. After the apparent end to Kory’s amnesia, we can finally expect a dramatic conclusion to the series. Until then we get this episode as a temporary break from the tension.
This chapter does a wonderful job of providing a calm before the storm, giving backgrounds to characters seen earlier in the series. It also does the great job of distracting the audience and throwing this far away from the superhero genre. I’m not usually interested in life dramas, which this episode certainly was, but I was pulled in from the very beginning.
The near perfectly realised Hank Hall and Dawn Granger were key in the early episodes of the season and we get this story as a way to look back at their past.
The departure from the superhero genre is stronger here than anywhere else in the season. We see Hank’s past, including working relationship his step-brother Don – the first Dove, like when they were created back in the 60’s.
We see the siblings acting as vigilantes, targeting a particularly awful sector of humanity. Before the change that brought Dawn into the vigilante life. The majority of the episode is seeing how the pair live their lives around the horrors they’ve shared. Seeing all the trauma they’ve suffered, and how they dealt with it, it’s easy to forget this show is meant to be about the Titans.
Conclusion
This episode, could be one of the single best acted and written pieces of drama I’ve seen all year, but not what I expect from a Superhero show. I also don’t think a focus on these two characters, great as they are, is fitting for Titans. Not to mention that their cosmic powers are nowhere to be seen.
Having them is great, and I’m sure there’s room to grow into their powers and dynamic. Right now however, it muddles what I thought was the intent of the show.
This series as a whole, has been about the Titans only in part. That would have been better if made clear upfront.
I hope that the final batch of episodes is filled with everyone we’ve seen so far coming together. I want to see the team in full force make their presence felt in this rich DC universe.