1.Closing the Circle
One of my biggest complaints about the streaming era has been how despite all the pretensions towards being of HBO-like quality, so many streaming-first shows seem to whiff on how to function as television. HBO shows are often these complex dramas or irreverent comedies, narratively. From a structural point of view, they were still arched in the basic ways episodic television was structured, just with a greater emphasis on seriality and the lack of commercial breaks made act transitions a bit more fluid. Early HBO scripted originals were still readily understandable as television, even if HBO protested too much about how it “was HBO”. The first season and to a large degree the second season of Titans had these structural quirks to them that made them fundamentally hard to appreciate as television. Shocking ending your first season on a cliffhanger that was originally the penultimate episode of season 1 and finishing that as the start of season 2 throws things for a loop. But as the series progressed, it found its footing and became a functional show. Maybe not the greatest, most beloved thing in the world, but one that could stand on its own feet and be honestly recommended to viewers.
“Titans Forever,” written by co-executive producer Richard Hatem, does EXACTLY what a series finale should do. Classical Hollywood storytelling could be geometrically represented as a circle, a closed loop. Your story starts off and it’s open to all these possibilities (read: the second act), but as the narrative progresses, it eventually returns home, and you begin paying off the setups from the first act in a positive mirror. “Forever” does just that. Starfire fulfills the destiny she started the show with, destroying the heir of Trigon and saving Tamarin from their destruction. Rachel finally gets to go to college and maybe have a bit of normalcy. Dick has reconstituted the Titans, and they saved the day. Which is also why the Titans must break apart, for now, in a “I’ll see you later” not a “goodbye” ending. Connor, after making peace with one of his Dads decides its finally time to go see the patriarchal figure that has been looming over him since he first got out of that tube. Gar accepts his destiny, having matured from the irreverent go-on vibes animal man, and becomes a protector of the Multiverse.(Which is a concept Geoff Johns will introduce into DC Comics if he ever gets to write Titans again.)
“Forever” pays off everything and closes the loop on the series. Everyone has fulfilled their destinies and matured. There is no more story left to tell for this iteration of the team. Well, until they get brought back for a reboot – there are always pitches for more stories in Hollywood. But this is a good ending to volume 1. Which is why I now have no problem recommending people watch this series. Is it rough in spots? Undoubtedly, but TV production is found just as much in the doing as it is in the planning. Titans is a good example of that.
2.Beating Your Big Bad (Dad)
I’ve never been a fan of Trigon for this show or in the comics. He’s just a big dumb alien demon thing that is only nominally interesting for what can be inferred about how he affects Raven’s character. How do you deal with and tell stories with the character just inevitably makes things a bit too large in scale for the “Teen Titans” comic iterations and for this show. Mass and Spectacle are great, but you know all the beats you can play with this character. Which is why I conceptually like the idea of Brother Blood committing patricide and eating his Father’s dark heart. While the show needed to bring in Trigon as part of the narrative closure above, they couldn’t just brush Blood to the side. He was the primary villain of the season. It would also give the actors something more human to work with, even if the grand finale was a big VFX explosion.
Conceptually what the writers had Brother Blood do made sense. How it was executed left me wanting. The staging both “makes sense” form a production standpoint, but that doesn’t change how it was blocked and edited. Trigon is essentially stuck standing in a hot tub portal to Hell. A static target for Blood to just start hacking away at him with Mother Mayhem’s axe. We don’t really get a good visual sense of the carnage and viscera swinging an axe into that body would bring; we get a couple of long reverse shots that fill the center of the screen with Trigon’s digital backside as the demon just kind of takes being betrayed. There is no extended Kali Ma-esque sequence, just a tight close-up of Blood double-fisting his way into Trigon’s stomach. It didn’t look like his chest cavity, but what do I know about transdimensional demon biology? Aurally the effects work better than what little it is we see. This sequence felt like it was out of the late 90s or early 00s.
Continued belowIt’s a bummer, to since the makeup team do a good job of splattering Joseph Morgan and the costume designers’ work in blood effect. It’s just a material referent totally disconnected from the VFX heavy nature of the sequence.
3.Waiting for Superman
So we didn’t get to see Superman in Titans, not even a Supergirl Season 1 style over-the-shoulder face-hidden appearance. Maybe it was a COVID production issue, but the absence of Superman is sorely felt. They could’ve just had Tyler Hoechlin show up and cameo as an iteration of the character (just say multiverse it’s all the rage these days).
Still I like that he’s out there, Titans of all the Berlanti shows did a good job of just running with existing in a DC Earth versus having to slowly build one up.
4.In Praise of Tim Drake
Maybe Titans leaned a little too much into the Batmythos side of things. However, that was all mostly an outgrowth of the angst of the series Robins. I wasn’t quite sure how they’d handle introducing yet another Robin back in season 3 but Jay Lycurgo as Tim Drake really won me over. Nonchalantly exploring the character’s sexuality this season was a nice surprise. It was kind of the only thing the character did, but there was the interaction with Jason in the previous episode. Lycurgo’s performance and the writing for this character is a good example of how the show could put its own twist on the DC mythos. Even if it also highlights the hard balancing act of running an ensemble show like this can be.
5.RIP The Berlanti-verse
With the end of Titans and The Flash ending next week, the Berlanti-verse of series is effectively over … for now. Who knows what will happen in 18 months, WBD could be bought by Comcast and well, the last decade’s worth of corporate stuff continues. There are legions of people who do not like these shows and mock them, and sure there are some ticks that they all had. But in terms of marshaling all these productions and meeting both corporate demands as the television industry has reorganized itself is a real accomplishment. Stan Lee was right about one thing: every comic is somebody’s first. Well, every show is somebodies first, and the Berlanti-verse was that for a lot of people.
