Titans season 2 premiere review: Opening with a finale
Picking up from a tense cliffhanger, Titans’ “Trigon” focuses on the villains. However, the season premiere reads more like a delayed finale that gradually transforms into a true opening episode.
After teasing us with a whole season of demon content, the Titans season two premiere doubles as a personal attack against everyone who has thirsted over a big bad demony villain, as well as a finale-premiere hybrid episode.
If you’re self-aware of your conflicting feeling for wanting to hold Trigon’s hand, “Trigon” will snap you back to a more sensible fictional crush. But don’t worry, the episode makes up for its discretions by setting up our new villainous flame: Slade Wilson (i.e. Deathstroke). And we’re already in love.
Hot villains aren’t the primary criteria to critique any television production, but we’re changing that starting now. Yes, from this point moving forward we will review Titans episodes based on how hot the villain content is. In case you’re wondering, A+ fight scenes and villainy monologues definitely turn up the hotness factor. Apart from our new review criteria, the season 2 premiere wraps up that cliffhanger in an interesting way, which is both good and ugly. (Yes, we said ugly.)
As soon as the embargo lifted, everyone and their intern Tweeted about the lackluster first 37 or so minutes of the Titans season two premiere. However, I’m here to defend it — to an extent. The first large portion of the episode isn’t bad. It actually packs a lot of action into it. Plus, it better illustrates some of Trigon and Rachel’s vital abilities.
Watching Rachel instinctively channel her rage into sheer power to take down her father and save her friends is the moment we’ve been waiting for. She still has a lot to learn about her powers and herself. Witnessing her singlehandedly banish Trigon back to his interdimensional plane moments after her heart was literally ripped out of her chest is more than metal. It makes us more invested in her future character development.
Speaking of having your heart ripped out, watching every character experience their worst fears during their possession was heartbreaking. Delving into each character’s psyche took us back to “Asylum.” With the strong parallels to “Asylum,” we can assume the character will experience some residual apprehensions later in the season. As if watching Kory kill her adoptive daughter (Rachel) in her illusion scape wasn’t bad enough, Trigon’s lingering effects solidify him as a terrifying villain — even if his physical screen time was brief.
In a story with such high stakes, “Trigon” is filled with tragedy for our beloved heroes. From the sorrowful flashbacks and illusions to unnecessarily morbid attacks against their own friend (Gar), it’s hard not to get emotional during this episode. After watching the depth of Trigon’s possession destroy the team from the inside out, there are plenty of soft moments that give us a break from all the morbid moments. Garfield saves Rachel. Dick and Kory act like parents at the end of the episode. Dick catches Rachel. And Rachel breaks Dick out of his illusion. During the same action meant to tear the team apart, “Trigon” shows how powerful this found family is and it reminds us why we love this show so much.
The whole Rachel vs. Trigon standoff is very different from any comic book variation. The episode itself changes a lot of Rachel’s lore and ensures that we might not ever get answers about why Angela is basically an evil twin version of her comic counterpart. Seriously, the only things they have in common are their names, the fact that they’re Rachel’s mom, and that Trigon inevitably kills both versions of the character. Beyond whatever happened to Angela, the fight scenes build up some exciting foreshadowing and a lot of WTFery. Let’s review:
- Instead of imprisoning Trigon in her jewel, she sends him packing through the portal he came from. This gives us a clue that Trigon will back on the series at some point. After all, he hasn’t been defeated yet, so Rachel’s attack just postponed the Terror of Trigon.
- Apparently this version of Rachel is an only child, which seems odd seeing as Trigon made a point to say he only has a daughter. He could be lying, but Trigon typically uses his sons to do his bidding. So, this is an interesting change in his mythos, especially since he has an actual army of offspring.
- Seriously though, what the heck happened to Rachel’s heart? Is she literally heartless now? Did she grow it back like Swamp Thing? Or does her forehead gem just dual as her heart now?
- Obviously, the Trigon’s CGI form… well, happened. If only Titans had gone the costume-demon-suit route like Swamp Thing’s Blue Devil.
We love the fight scene between Rachel and Trigon. We love how the episode builds up his sinister abilities. We love how all the comical banter and the tragic moments help balance the tone of the episode. However, when we assess Trigon’s involvement in this titular episode is just reminds us that the pacing is off — at least for a premiere episode.
For such an epic villain, the big fight scene should’ve really been last season’s finale. After all, is there really a better way to signify the temporary demise of a tyrannical demon than in the final episode of a chapter?
Sure, the premiere needs to wrap up that awkward cliffhanger from the first season. In fact, this premiere was partially meant to be the original season one finale. Because Trigon is incapacitated again, illustrating his wrath appears rushed and misplaced. It leaves us wanting more of Trigon because we never really got to see much of him on the show. With the entire first season leading up to his big reveal, it only seems natural that he should’ve had a longer stay on the series. Granted, we should assume that the interdimensional demon will be back at some point.
The pacing for a season premiere is far from being a perfect match, but the premiere finds its tempo at around the 38-minute mark — you know, when Slade Wilson shows his face. With the Wilson family taking a central focus for this season, the last ten or so minutes of this episode has us whelmed for the next big bad of the Titans-Verse.
Que TTG’s Robin’s voice because Sssssslade is officially here, and he’s already a scene-stealer in the now-former reigning villain’s titular episode. Sorry, Trigon, but all villainous plots must come to an end at some point. Trigon isn’t the only character who had an abrupt ending to their character arc though. Dawn’s hospital visit came to a sudden end, and we have questions.
It’s odd enough that Dawn suddenly healed from her series back injuries — especially when she had to crawl from her hospital bed to Hank’s side in “Hank and Dawn.” However, this spontaneous recovery highlights a deeper issue on the series with female-focused arcs. While Dick and Hank have had the chance to explore their mental health with a lot of brooding and tender reflections, Dawn didn’t get that same opportunity in regard to her physical health.
Falling off a building and just being OK without explanation just doesn’t make sense. And Dawn deserved some character growth through her recovery. While last season gave us the opportunity to look into Dawn and Hank’s plight with grief, Titans focused on Hank’s addiction, mental health, and his path to recovery. Yet, Dawn hasn’t had to chance to just be vulnerable while healing.
Sure, mental health and physical recovery are quite different. But Dawn hasn’t been given the Hank Hall treatment where she can work through her physical and mental health treatments. Unlike Hank and even Dick (to a degree), we didn’t get the opportunity to watch her recover. She just did. Though there’s still a chance we could see a flashback into her recovery process both with her physical and mental health, it seems unlikely seeing as the premiere just poofed Dove out of the ICU and into the battlefield.
Dick has spent an entire season working through an existential crisis. When characters like Dawn and Garfield, still haven’t had time to process through his trauma after killing a man, aren’t given the same opportunities to process their emotional and physical trauma we feel more than a bit cheated. With an array of stray ends and lingering questions, the Titans season two opener reimagines the titular team.
Titans does more than just reinvent Rachel’s comic origin story. By adding two out-of-character team members, the last few moments of “Trigon” set up an entirely new team that our comic collection could never properly prepare us for.
In the Teen Titans and New Teen Titans comic runs, Batman only had offshoot cameos at best, and seeing him help the DC Universe Titans start up their team again is an out-of-character move. However, Jason’s involvement in the onscreen Titans lore is even more of a curveball, especially since there are so many canon Titans team members who aren’t apart of this season’s lineup (plus, two of the main characters — Garfield and Kory — have yet to receive proper screen time and character arcs). But there’s still plenty of time for season two to streamline Batsy and Jason’s positions in the series.
As the final moments of the episode set up a season’s worth of character development, conflict, and team building, we just hope to see more in-depth backstories from a couple of the main four characters (i.e. Kory and Garfield). After seeing Garfield slither off to save Rachel, we hope he discovers more of his shapeshifting abilities soon.
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