Titans returns for a fourth season that once again promises to finally be the show audiences thought they were getting from the start. The groups road trip back to San Francisco takes a detour to Metropolis where Conner finally gets the chance to meet his dads and they might not be leaving so soon.
1. Superboy has something to do!
A little bit after the first act, the series gets slightly meta as we cut to a couple sitting down to watch a show and eat take out. One of them makes the comment that they aren’t feeling all these new characters and to just give them the original main cast and let them kiss finally. This could be read as a critique of the series up to this point. While the shows willingness to cast a sprawling ensemble of heroes and villains has largely been fun, it also hasn’t resulted in what I would consider functional televisual storytelling. Main cast members like Joshua Orpin would just sit in the background or be sidelined in favor of recurring and guest spots. Conner’s relationship with Komand’r last season was the first real thing that character got to do outside of being a VFX shot during a bland group action spot. Things are looking up for Conner at the start of Titans season 4 as he is the center piece of the premier episode! Less so by the end of the episode as he stands hands up covered in one of his father’s blood.
At least so far based on casting announcements, Titans season 4 will be centered around our core cast of characters without any major new heroes coming into join for an arc. It’s taken them 4 seasons but the Titans is finally about the Titans. Which I mean as faint praise considering that feeling was the basis for opener and closer of season 2, as well as the end of season 3.
To showrunner Greg Walker’s credit this first episode, written by Richard Hatem, and directed by the underrated Nick Copus, is one of the more functional episodes of TV the series has produced. The use of “Dancing with Myself” contrasts with melancholic Kishi Bashi cover of “This Must Be the Place” from season 2. The opening act of this episode is plainly well done and sets up the episode that follows. The use of Gen-X nostalgia falls flat for me as a viewer, but its juxtaposition with the looming darkness and blood effects worked.
As with all things Titans all I want is functional television.
2. Daddy Issues: Waiting for Superman and Lex Luthor
Titans begins to work through their Superboy problem, mainly that he isn’t much of a character outside of having to famous-infamous Dads. Fathers who have been absent his entire life. That stops this episode as “Lex Luthor” introduces us to the title character and we begin to see what this version of Superman looks like.
Though it leads to a characterization of Superman that I dislike, “Luthor” juxtaposes the deific and humanity of Conner’s fathers effectively. Without the godly absence of Superman this abstract idea of pure goodness, only represented through VFX statues and balls of light, the fatigued quality of Titus Welliver’s performance. Welliver’s Luthor is at the end of his rope and has decided he wants to be the Father his Dad never was to him. Which means getting Conner to live with him for 6 months … before he dies of kryptonite poisoning.
Oprin’s blank slate performance has led to the character coming off as too naïve at times. As he shared the screen with Welliver he affected an air of someone who is knowledgeable but isn’t sure how to best put that knowledge to use. The classic high intelligence low wisdom. It actually turned me around on the character and actor. While the science fiction of Conner Kent might not mix with the mystical Church of Blood there might be room to explore this character and how he feels about all this.
3.Action
The action in Titans has been consistently boring for me. I wouldn’t call it bad, more the choreography and blocking of hand-to-hand sequences lack the visual flair and intensity one would expect. “Lex Luthor” has two sequences that highlights what is possible and what happens more often than not.
Continued belowAfter receiving Lex Luthor’s request to meet, Dick and Starfire go into parental mode and decide to try and figure out what his designs on Conner are. Starfire takes the direct route and blasts through to his penthouse apartment running through a series of henchmen in the background, the camera intensely focused on Titus Welliver just trying to eat his pasta in peace. This sequence was excellent as it used the camera to highlight through exclusion the action going on so that when mixed with basic sound design it sounded way cooler than it was from a imaged stand point. It’s better that we think Anna Diop is a badass than see her cut to ribbons in editing around choreography that does her no favors.
This being Lex Luthor he expected this. Which is why he sent a not so crack team of ninjas after Dick and Tim. I’ve rarely been impressed by Brenton Thwaites fight sequences, through no fault of his own it’s clearly the stunt cordinators shortcoming. Barring the infamous “fuck Batman” sequence and his two showdowns with Red Hood early in season 3, both of which are the byproduct more of good sound design than choreography, he just hasn’t had a sequence that stood out as Nightwing. The sequence tries for some comedy as Dick must protect the still novice Tim, but it lacks punch. Which is saying something since Dick grabs a sword and slashes a ninjas upper chest-neck unleashing some rather nice arterial spray. Of course, this show can’t let you think about how that ninja is clearly at best just bleeding out because Titans has fully committed itself to ignoring the nature of the violent lives they’ve chosen. And for record keeping sake Dick than knives another ninja in the back with some stars and at least gives another a bloody concussion. But don’t worry he’s using violence for “good” now and the show is following a PG-13 mainstream depiction of violence that is built around moral-ethical justification rather than physical cost. These moments of actual violence fall flat because the sequencing that leads up to it isn’t of the same intensity or visual interest.
4. Visiting Star Labs
Getting to see another iteration of Star Labs was nice, there was some easter eggy text in the background. It is also the kind of place that the show can just say exists without having to exposit an origin story considering how developed this story world is. It’s a good example of the decision to frame Titans as the second iteration of the team paying off.
The Titans received new suit and tech upgrades. Tim got his own bo staff from Benard! The queer coding of one man handing another an extending and retracting rod and giving him his number if he ever needs help making it work was obvious. I’m here for it bring on live action bi Tim. We also saw the beginning of Beast Boy having a connection to the DC concept of The Red. The Red does not appear to be happy with all the spooky blood magic going on.
5. Where in the Multiversus is Titans
Warner Bros. has playing in a DC multiverse since the 90s, at least in a live action sense if you go back to the history of the various animated incarnations this is more obvious, even if the corporate branding would never say as much. And to a degree that is understandable it is a slightly more convoluted message you have to get out there. It can quickly make things existential and verge on nihilistic if we must ask as audience if this actor playing the character, they’ve played previously is the one we have been watching or a variant, to borrow an MCU term. Technically at the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths the show was labeled as Earth-9 but that was before Superman & Lois committed to being on its own earth separate from Earth-Prime in the Arrowverse where the previous incarnation of the Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman and company existed. With Superman’s presence getting more physical and Luthor entering the fray the question did cross my mind is Berlanti Prods subtly shifting the Arrowverse and their output of DC shows onto one more or less cohesive new earth without telling anyone?
Continued belowSet photos have revealed a crossover between Stargirl–Titans–Doom Patrol at some point (shows who were designated as Earths 2, 9, 21 at the end of COIE) in Stargirl season 3 it seems – or possibly Titans.* So what if we get a reveal at the end of the season and Tyler Hoechlin shows up to say high to his new son? Joshua Orpin kind of looks like Hoechlin. As of this episode I don’t think we’ll be seeing Hoechlin make a cameo appearance. Not because the statue doesn’t look like him, as previously stated the treatment of Superman in this episode was mythic and idealized so why would you try to make a statue an exact likeness. During the episode it is mentioned that Luthor has been battling this superman for 40 years, no wonder he’s so morose. While the Superman of Superman & Lois has been going at it a while, I want to say they said it was 15-20 years in season 1. That’s not 40.
That said it’s the Multiverse which Specter Oliver Queen described as “every existence multiplied by possibility.” So, perhaps, Hoechlin will make that cameo in the end, but he will just be a different version of himself? This potential, the persistent what if? Is why more through sheer weight of content than corporate strategy it is only recently that Warner Bros. and the various showrunner-producers have only begun to dip its toes in recognize a multiverse. It always leaves fans the dangling possibility unless stated otherwise.
*technically the iteration of the Doom Patrol could be the ones from the backdoor pilot for the series from the first season of Titans but that still doesn’t change them suddenly being on Earth-2
