Well fuck Batman y’all, it’s time for Titans! This week we get the penultimate episode of the season with “Koriand’r,” which gets us toward a possible conclusion and brings Kory’s memories back to her. The episode both finally showcases the main bad of the season, and gives a standard-ish Kory origin. All in all, its the most subdued this show has been, minus the weird horror stuff that’s not wonderful. It also has me asking a lot of questions about what the point of the organization from the first half of the season was doing? Nonetheless, let’s dive in.
1. In the knick of time
Alright so apparently while Rachel was being choked, which you know, started back two episodes ago, she was able to see Dawn and Hank in the hospital. She was also able to peer into their memories for some reason? I dunno it didn’t make sense last week and it didn’t make sense kicking this episode off either but whatever. So Kory is trying to kill Rachel cause she’s remembered she’s supposed to do that. Cool, makes sense. She ends up fighting Rachel and Gar and Angela and luckily Dick and Donna get there right on cue for Dick to catch Gar as he’s hurled across the room and Donna can whip out her whip and knock Kory out. I was trying to figure out the timeline on how it is that all could’ve worked out and I guess both parties drove through the night and it just kind of worked out. Plot contrivances I guess. There’s a few of these in this episode between Angela still having a garden and meeting an old high school friend to Kory’s ship being in a nearby abandoned warehouse, etc. I think these are all things I wouldn’t notice, or be as inclined to question, if the show made me forget about them. There are contrivances in every story that’s why it’s a story and what makes it “extraordinary.”
Anyway, they get there in time, and Angela kicks em all out, Dick and Donna follow Kory. Cool. Now we’re split up with no communication. Everything after that just seems to run kind of slowly and listlessly. The stuff at Angela’s Horror House especially. This is a slow episode for a penultimate one. And a short one, clocking in at just 40 minutes, making it the shortest of the season. This episode was written by Gabrielle Stanton, who wrote “Together” with Bryan Hill which was one of the better showings of the season, and directed by Maja Vrvilo who has some Star Trek: Discovery, and Gotham credits. All in all it’s just kind of a bleh way to run in to the season finale (which based on the trailer is gonna be weirdly and tangentially related by either hallucinatory or other-dimensional means).
2. Mommy Angela is bad juju
Alright so I had talked some about Angela in the last few episodes. Namely how it was interesting seeing someone so kind on this show of not kind people, and also that it seemed rather out of nowhere that the group would go rescue her from the asylum she was in. Both of those were apparently good reactions to have, cause she’s definitely creepy and evil. Also creepy and evil: Tommy Carson. Man has the kind of unearned confidence of a white man in a position of power stalking a woman, bringing flowers to her door, and hoping to get some He definitely gets murked and he totally deserved it. Yeah, I think I could tell that something was fishy with her character for the last few episodes, mostly because all the mother/daughter time seemed sort of generic and voidless of emotion. Turns out there’s maybe a reason for that cause Angela is in cahoots with Trigon. Which I would be too if the demon is played by Seamus Dever (we’ll get there).
Anyway, I’m left trying to figure out how or why Angela was imprisoned by the organization the team was fighting in the asylum. Like were they the “good guys?” Cause Mr. Adamson said he wanted to use Rachel to “purify the world.” That could be either “wipe out all mankind” or “cure homelessness” rhetoric and it was vague enough that I’m not sure. I’m glad there’s a focus here in the end, Trigon is here and we have to stop him. But I wish the tracks to this point were laid a little neater, straighter, and you know, not all this episode.
Continued below3. Why the horror?
This is my main irk with this episode, mostly cause it’s weird and serves little purpose. Why all the horror elements? Or, why the bad horror? Rachel’s powers originally had a horror bent, bad that was mostly abandoned after the first few episodes. So why now? There’s a few short scenes with these vibes that seem to only add time to the episode. Angela stares in the mirror in the master bedroom and answers a landline that cuts out and then goes out to the garden. Is it implied that Angela was scared of Trigon and trying to keep Rachel safe but then the weird phone call happens and triggers something in her? Or she is subject to the haunted house for what seems like no reason since she is in on the whole plan? The scenes with Gar are the biggest culprits here. He sees his bloody mouth in the same mirror, and the doctor that he killed coated in blood in the front yard. But why? So that when he gets sick and dies in the later part of the episode those are conveyed as symptoms of whatever poisoned him? Why wasn’t Angela affected when she had her creepshow moment? Even some of the tropes with phones not working and cops getting killed are sort of classic horror movie tropes. They don’t add anything to the episode other than to pad out the scenes at Angela’s house. Wouldn’t it have been cooler to have spent more time with Kory and her space ship, you know the cool, fun and comic book-y parts of the episode? Speaking of…
4. Koriand’r of Tamaran
We get (mostly) Kory’s full origin story in this episode. She’s still sorting through the memories of her former life, and we still have no idea why she lost her memory in the first place, but we know now: she’s Koriand’r from the planet Tamaran. Apparently Tamaran also knows of Trigon (don’t know if that’s grounded in the comics anywhere or not). Kory was sent to kill Rachel before her body was used as a portal for Trigon to reenter this dimension. Apparently, a long time ago, Trigon ate a planet and was banished to an alternate dimension. Think demonic Galactus I guess. It’s the sort of vagueness that works. She tells Dick and Donna that Earth is going to get eaten first and that Tamaran is on the list of planets that would be destroyed so she’s here to wipe Rachel out. There’s no mention of the fact that she’s a princess (which is comic canon), or why she’s showing up alone if it would make sense to send an army to kill Rachel in order to save literally the whole planet. But, this plot is definitely the better one of the episode.
The tracking Kory down stuff give us more face time with Donna who I am hoping stays on for season 2. She seems to fit so naturally here, especially with Gar identifying her as Wonder Girl. It also gives us more insight into Dick’s love life, with Donna saying he goes after “dangerous woman,” and that he fucked it up with Dawn at one point, which posits Dawn as Dick’s lost love of this universe. Interesting. All in all its fun, and moves some of the mysteries forward and is the stronger of the middle-of-the-episode-side-plots.
5. Stupid Sexy Trigon
Didn’t realize this show was going full Twilight or The Mortal Instruments weirdness with sexy demons and such. So we now know who Seamus Dever (Castle) is playing: he’s Trigon. Thank God we don’t get big, bulky, ugly CGI heavy and probably awful-looking Trigon. This I’m more ok with. Although it veers things into a more YA realm where the demon is attractive but will be revealed not to be at some point. I dunno, I have no idea where this is going. Trigon is back, he could take over the world, devour planets, start being evil, and instead he heals Gar and gets Rachel’s loyalty. She must still be needed so he can absorb her like Cell absorbs all the Androids or something. Look, I watched the trailer for next week before this episode where Dick is in some alternate reality so I really don’t know where we’re going.
Continued belowTrigon leaves a weird mirror in the house that he came out of, and as Kory, Dick, and Donna get back there’s a weird forcefield around the property that only Dick is able to break through. Something tells me Trigon isn’t about the be defeated. This is just the prelude to the beginning. Enter season 2.
Additional thoughts:
– Line of the night goes to Dick: “Kory’s not a killer. She kills ppl sometimes.” THAT LITERALLY MAKES HER A KILLER DINGUS.
– I don’t really want to watch Dick and a very evil, very-much-killing-people Batman duke it out in an alternate reality that doesn’t matter but it looks like that’s how this is going down, so look forward to that.
That’s all folks. Sound off in the comments and we’ll be back Christmas Eve for the finale.
