Fighting With My Family in the 4th Episode of Titans

Titans’ third season continues with ‘Blackfire’ where Dick takes matters into his own hands and Kori takes Gar on an impromptu roadtrip.

Liz Large: We’re back for episode four of Titans, which will hopefully answer some questions raised in last week’s three-episode drop. You know, stuff like “why is Jason Todd doing this?” and “what’s causing Kori’s vision episodes?”. What are you hoping to hear more about, Jason?

Jason Large:  Do you think Starfire and Blackfire ever played Crossfire?

Liz: This is how I become the Joker. 

Jason: Which of the three? Okay, so after the explosive conclusion to the last episode, we now get to see how everyone gets together and tells their favorite Hank story…

Liz: I don’t remember that…

Jason: Because no one has a favorite Hank story. Let’s get to what actually happened.

Fear and Loathing in a Cabin

Liz: In a very relatable move, an Arkham staff member attempts to shank Scarecrow. Look, I get that he’s allegedly helping people out now, but he is Extremely Annoying. Maybe he deserves a little murder. 

Jason:  Yes, but given the laws of television reveals, the fact that this happened to start the episode instead of end the episode usually means not everything is the way it seems. This is then further stressed with Barbara then let’s Dick know what happened over a phone call, making it clear to Dick and the viewers that Scarecrow is being moved… AKA time for a prison break.

Also, every mention of B.O.P. (Bureau of Prisons) this episode made me think that the Birds of Prey are going to show up.

Liz: We can only dream. Anyway, of course Dick doesn’t take the sensible suggestion that he take some time to grieve his friend coworker, and decides that he needs to take this opportunity to add a replacement jerk to his inner circle. 

I know that when I’m sad, I like to cause problems for everyone around me, and Dick takes this to the fullest when he knocks out all of the guards and kidnaps Crane. Oh—and he does this AS DICK GRAYSON, IN FRONT OF A CAMERA. Have we just given up on secret identities at this point?

Jason:  If the last season of Titans taught me anything, it’s that Dick Grayson does not fully understand the concept of prison sentences. It seems to be more prison suggestions. Putting aside inherent issues with prisons and the prison-industrial complex (maybe that doesn’t exist in the show’s universe?), the only ideas are that he wants Barbara (and anyone who can access the security footage) to know, or just doesn’t care.

But we  both get to see Red Hood watching and then get an episode of increasingly bizarre discussions between Crane and Dick.

Liz:  It was extremely weird! Look, Scarecrow, as a supervillain who has psychological-related issues, has a lot of leeway to be a creep who makes conversational leaps and brings up weird topics. Dick is a person who, while he is a superhero, is also meant to be a normalish, likable guy. They’re really leaning into the dark and twisted aspects of Batman here, and I understand that’s the intent. However, the writing is all coming off very Riverdale—which I personally love! But I don’t think the intended reaction of these scenes was helpless giggling. 

Jason:  I would like more than the 2 ‘Crane runs off and hits a trap’ gags, but we get a very-special confrontation with the villain scene. This scene was actually pleasantly surprising, if only for seeing that Dick has put together the puzzle pieces and knows Scarecrow is pulling the strings. 

With the move to being more plain-spoken about who they all are, Crane pushes further into the mind games, with less success than he realizes.

Liz: Crane has never known the highs and lows of high school wolf murder. Seriously though, Crane isn’t saying anything incorrect. The Robins are messed up, and Bruce wasn’t a good dad. The only thing Crane is wrong about is that Dick isn’t reacting the way he hoped. 

Dick is older than Jason and has had a lot more time to sort of figure his life out. He’s still a mess, but he’s more self-aware. I don’t think he’s looking for an adult mentor in the same way that Jason was. Crane (and Batman) think the Robins are interchangeable when they’re not. 

Jason:  I mean, Crane isn’t saying anything incorrect, but he’s also describing what he himself does as the Scarecrow. Dick has a lot more experience with himself as a hero, villains, and Bruce than Jason ever did. He has been able to use what he learned from Bruce in a way that better suits him. 

Liz: He’s still not great at this, though. Dick’s big plan is to put Crane in his clothes and wait for Jason to show up, then attack him when he goes for Crane (thinking it’s Dick). Unfortunately, Dick still thinks that the Batman “with planning I can handle this alone” way of working is the best method. 

Instead of reaching out to one of the super powered people who live in his house and also want to take down Jason, he simply waits in the woods to fight someone who’s outsmarted him before. Superboy is eating your groceries! Ask him to help you with one thing!

Jason:  I keep waiting for something to come up to sideline Conner because he is completely over-powered for a Red Hood story, but maybe they will get around that by just having no other characters include him on any updates? In the meantime, we get another Nightwing vs. Red Hood fight in the dark. 

These seem to become rather predictable and a bit disappointing considering we just had Dick ‘outsmart’ Scarecrow to then be easily tricked by Red Hood and that just doesn’t track. 

I know the point of Hank’s death was to treat Jason as a legitimate villain, but I still just don’t. Also now that the show is presenting him as Scarecrow’s protege, it just isn’t doing the character any favors. Maybe Red Hood will kill Scarecrow and escalate further, but right now this seems like a bit of a dud, which is disappointing.

Liz: Right? Like look, I am not the biggest DC person, so maybe I’m missing out in the true depth of scarecrow, but this show cast a guy who just plays annoying losers and had him prove his worth by knowing one (1) chess move and getting one (1) sad teen to open up to him. Like Jason turning to this man is tragic. Is there nobody cool in Gotham? 

Also, I know HBO isn’t giving this show unlimited money, but surely they could afford another light or two. I just want to see who’s getting punched!

Jason:  Regardless, Red Hood manages to escape thanks to a poorly placed sniper bullet hitting Nightwing. It’s not clear if Crane is still unconscious next to the force field he ran face-first into, or if Red Hood got away with him in tow. I guess we’ll find out next episode.

A Tamaranean Family Reunion

Liz: We should probably talk about the main plotline of this week’s episode, Starfire’s visions. She’s been having them throughout the season, but this episode she unintentionally shoots fire at Gar. 

Gar was making a delicious looking homemade pizza for the team, and I would like to make it clear that I love him. Kori feels awful about this, and it’s not like there’s a guidebook for having weird visions hanging around Wayne Manor (or if there was, it blew up with Hank).

Jason: Gar is wonderful, but I feel like his character is forced through tonal whiplash between playing the straight man in most scenes and also getting scared/upset when bad stuff comes from people with superpowers. I feel like his time with Doom Patrol should have left him more prepared to handle these things.

Anyway, after Starfire checks in with the recurring therapist character who I honestly don’t remember having a name, but we get reminded he exists, so I’m sure he’ll be more important later in the season. Or not, I mean, this is Titans.

Liz: His name is Justin, and while I love the idea of a nice romantic partner for a superhero who has like, a real job, I’m much more inclined to believe that he’s in some way going to be evil. Because this is Titans and nobody is allowed to have nice things. 

Gar thinks that embracing the visions might help Kori understand what’s happening, in a sort of lucid-dreaming way. He suggests she check out Batman’s sensory deprivation tank, which is made out of a bunch of strong-sounding material. Surely this will be fine. 

Jason: Yea, I don’t know if I missed something but I went back and rewatched with subtitles… and it still seems like it didn’t make any sense. After initiating this process, Starfire wakes up in the driver’s seat of a car parked in the middle of nowhere. With a bruised Gar in the trunk.

There are some bits here that stood out to me as odd:

First, how does she not recognize his voice? You’ve been spending time together for months and the voice was surprisingly clear from the inside of a trunk.

Second, I don’t know if it was the script or Anna Diop’s performance, but the unsure, apologetic Starfire seemed like an entirely different character to me. I was half expecting her to throw up her arms, say “Whoopsie” and mug at the camera.

Finally, if my space-alien sister was sending me visions to go to a specific place that is also a large field, I would assume the already established invisible space ship would make more sense than being parked directly on a hidden hatch in the ground.

Liz: Yes! This scene was a weird setup. I’ll cut the characters some slack here, since I’m sure that having visions and waking up in surprising new spots would throw you off, but I actually want to complain about something else. Beast Boy can turn into animals. Not just a tiger, animals. There’s so many scenes where having him become something else would make sense—for example, they need to head down into a mysterious hatch in the middle of this field. Why not become a bird and fly down? 

Like, I’ve read the Animorphs, I know how useful being one of the smaller animals can be! If you have no idea what you’re heading into, why not become something smaller, faster, and with better vision? I know that HBO is not trying to realistically render the whole animal kingdom, but maybe just paint a seagull green and put some french fries at the bottom of a hatch. 

Jason: So Kori and Gar descend the hatch and discover that this is definitely the location Kori has been seeing in her dreams and there seems to be no one here. Until they find both Blackfire and an odd scientist/prison guard. I wasn’t sure if there was going to be more to this character, but it appears that he was just there to provide a bit of awkward exposition.

Knowing enough of why Blackfire is here, Kori enters her cell to find her sister defeated, looking less for a rescue and more for an execution.

Liz: Kori hates Blackfire— she killed their parents, and she was responsible for the death of Faddei. But there’s a part of her that definitely still cares for her. Blackfire has a lot of anger towards Kori that comes out here. It seems that their childhood wasn’t exactly idyllic for both of them. 

Kori was everyone’s favorite princess, and it seems like she got away with a lot, while Blackfire was often punished by being sent to a “pit”. Kori tries to sugar coat it, and blame Blackfire for her own punishments since she fought back. This whole interaction made me more sympathetic towards Blackfire. 

We don’t know much about what things were like on Tamaran, but anywhere that punishes kids by being put in “prison for a child” seems like bad news. (Not to mention that an idyllic home life doesn’t match the vibe of anything else happening on this show.)

Jason: Despite this, it is the revelation that Blackfire’s imprisonment is a life sentence which prompts Kori to break her sister out. While the other story of this episode had a prison break of a villain early on, this one saves the prison break for the end. Now, Starfire, Blackfire, and Beast Boy get to bond with a nice road trip of unknown distance ahead of them.

Liz: Did you think this escape was a little anticlimactic? I know that the scientist in charge was meant to be non threatening, but I was surprised there wasn’t more shouting from him about how the military or whoever would be coming from them. 

Jason: I was expecting when he took off running, it would be to alert someone higher up, and not just to get threatened with castration.

Liz: I was shocked he even came back to confront them. Kori does have a very “fight me” energy (and I love this about her!), I would have just let her take her sister away while I ran for a silent alarm or something. 

Everyone Else

Jason: That leaves us with the two heroes that got the short ends of the stick this week, Conner and Dawn. 

While Krypto is entirely absent from the episode, we do get an early scene with Conner, who’s usually happy demeanor has left with his feeling of defeat at the inability to save Hank.

While we got a little bit of characterisation of Conner and his inner-turmoil at the seemingly impossible task of trying to be Superman’s equal, he instead lashes out at Gar, who was attempting to sympathize with him.

Liz: Superboy is maybe a year old at this point, right? Yes, he had a lot of knowledge implanted into him, but the Titans are really his first sustained time with peers. Unfortunately, they’ve all got plenty of their own problems and can’t really devote their attention to him. I feel like one of his dads should jump in and take some responsibility here. 

Jason: While Conner departs the episode, it appears that Dawn may have departed the season, speaking with Conner and Dick, before boarding the old private jet to France. With Hank’s death and Dawn’s departure, the Titans era of Hawk and Dove appears to be over

An issue with a show like Titans is trying to balance out a large cast while still introducing new characters. Hopefully this opens up screen time for some characters (like Raven and Donna) to return while allowing time to further explore new characters that have been introduced this season, like Barbara and Tim.

Final Thoughts

• “The wolf should have been afraid of me.” Chef’s kiss.
• I hope Blackfire sticks around and they all team up against the real villains: bad parents and the US government. 
• The credits song was ‘Oh Bondage! Up Yours!’ by 70’s punk band X-Ray Spex.