Oh god. The time has come for our final piece of coverage for Titans Season Two with “Nightwing.” Remember last week where I left you all on that cliffhanger of whether or not the show would be able to stick the landing? Hahaha hoo boy THEY DON’T! Let’s go through it together and beware spoilers ahead!
1. Cadmus is a thing still!
We’re gonna go through this episode in chronological order because maybe you can get a sense of the INSANE pacing of the episode this way.
We open with Mercy Graves giving a speech to a bunch of bored-looking extras who are supposedly world leaders. She talks about good triumphing over evil and says that the insurance to that is her new programmable Super Soldier, Conner but with Cadmus on his chest instead of the “S”. Also wild we haven’t seen Conner in two or three episodes but whatever. Mercy hands Conner a gun and instructs him to shoot her. He does the Superman thing I like where he races the bullet and stops it. Mercy tells them to tune in at 9pm Pacific to see a further demonstration. Walter walks in and says “Hi remember me I am also here–” then Mercy tells Conner to throw the bullet at Walter and Walter is dead.
RIP Walter.
Anyways cut to the fair from last episode. Apparently they let Gar out of the van to get a snow cone but uh-oh classical music made Gar drop his snow cone. Ruh-roh. Tiger Time!
Back at Titans Tower, Rachel, Donna, Dawn, and Kory are planning their gameplan to get Conner and Gar out of Cadmus and Dick’s weird prison break. During the planning sesh, Kory reveals her powers are kaput for some reason while Rachel’s are off the chain. But all this planning for the facility is a waste because they get a notification of a tiger attacking a fair. It’s Gar! They all pile into…someone’s(?) SUV until–
2. Deathstroke’s One Scene in This Episode
Deathstroke appears and shoots up the SUV. Kory tries to draw fire but she’s vulnerable now and gets grazed in the arm. The shooting stops for some reason. And that reason is Dick Grayson as Nightwing spawning on top of the car. Dick and Deathstroke start fighting while the rest of the group stay in the car I guess.
This fight is fine? Dick flips more as Nightwing and kicks Deathstroke’s guns out of the way and at some point, Deathstroke makes his one katana into two katanas which is silly as hell. Dick calls out to Jericho who is still chilling in Slade’s head. Jericho tries to bust out but his hands keep getting all burned. Rachel heals Kory in the car and Dick pulls out his electric Escrima Sticks right out of the Arkham Video Games. Deathstroke gets the upper hand but is stopped by Rose in her costume that is either pretty good or really bad. I truly can not tell. Slade’s happy to have her by his side but she claims the Titan’s as her family.
They fight for like 30 seconds before Rose stabs Slade through the chest and Jericho hops out and into Rose. Jericho chats with Dick and the rest of the group finally get out of the car! And yeah…We are less than 15 minutes into the episode and Deathstroke who has been the focus of this whole goddamn season is dead. Ok. Fine. Sure. I am sure the rest of the 30 minutes will be worth it.
3. Fair Fight
So this fair. Cadmus. Yeah, sure.
Gar has made a real mess of the fair and before attacking another person, Cadmus rolls up with Mercy and Conner. Conner and Gar are about to go full Dawn of Justice while Mercy opens uo the bidding. Conner punches Gar then throws him across the fair. Luckily the Titans show up to confront Conner (In Costume!), whom none of them have met. Truly none of them have interacted with this boy in any substantial way other than Kory for like five seconds.
Meanwhile, Rachel tries to calm Gar down but Gar is brainwashed and isn’t receptive. Donna tries to reach out to Conner and has a fun little banter but is met with little super strength dust-up ending in Donna getting knocked into a pole somewhere. Kory speaks in Kryptonian to Conner (why not try that first?) and then throws a punch even though she has no powers. It doesn’t go well, but Hank shows up (also in costume!) and also doesn’t help. Conner is about to kill them until Dawn shouts his name and his heat vision is reflected back at him.
Continued belowMeanwhile, Mercy’s Twitch stream of the fight is shut down by Bruce Wayne and his Batcomputer. Conner is back up and catches some gadget that flashes and Nightwing is in his place. What the fuck? Is that a fucking teleporter? WHAT?
Dick and Hank have some good bants mate before the team decides they need Rachel to get Conner back (from the other dimension he was teleported to?) Rachel recaps the finale/opener of this season when Gar touched Rachel and brought her back from Trigon and the writers–I mean Rachel announces that is what’s going to happen here. It works and just in time as Conner has found his way back from WHEREVER he went. Donna lassos Conner and Rachel VFX’s Conner and Dick also links up so he can get into that Kryptonian noggin.
Inside Conner’s head, he’s in the fetal position in a dark void as Mercy’s voice rings in his head. Conner tells Dick about her voice and that he can’t find the light. Dick then punches a hole many times into the wall revealing light. I would have liked this moment more if they didn’t use the same sound effect for the punch over and over which made the moment much more silly than it needed to be. The two are in a field where Dick tells Conner that he’s a part of the Titan’s family now and all better. The Titans all close in on the van of Mercy Graves and call this thing over. Kory punches Mercy announcing that it’s for Lex Luthor. Do they know each other??
The day is saved…until *sigh*.
4. Hahaha What?! aka the Death of Donna Troy
Fairgoers come out and start to applaud the Titans until a big electric…thingie falls out of nowhere leaving Donna to catch it. She catches it and is electrocuted. She drops it to the ground and then flops on top of it in the dumbest death I have seen on television in a while. It was bad. Not only was there no real reason or anticipation for the thingie to fall, but there’s also no reason Donna had to be the one to catch it like Conner wasn’t right there. Furthermore, no one was underneath it! And Donna’s belly flop onto the thing…Conor Leslie, I don’t know what projects you have lined up after this but I hope they do you better than this.
There are also 20 minutes left???
There’s a “sad” montage narrated by Bruce Wayne but I couldn’t hear it over my rabid screaming. Then Donna’s funeral(?) at an airstrip where Dick places Donna’s lasso on her casket before some Amazons and someone I thought could be Cassie Sandsmark put her on the plane. Rachel says that she should go with Donna so she can bring her back from the dead and Dick says “nah” but then Rachel says “I probably could do it” then Dick says “aight” then Rachel goes. Hahaha what?? This is…stupid?
Dick looks off into the middle distance and sees Jason on a motorcycle. Jason attempts to look cool before putting on a big ass motorcycle helmet that made him look like a baby and drove off.
Emotional Beats that take up the rest of the episode: Dick and Bruce talk about what’s next for the Titans and that Dick needs to be an extrovert. Dick talks to Gar about his guilt and Donna’s Frida Kahlo book. Hank and Dawn talk about their whole thing deciding that Hank and Dawn are done but what about Hawk and Dove..?
Ok now they are eating dinner. Kory thanks Bruce for getting them together in Elko, but Bruce says he’s never been there, and Dawn and Kory casually conclude that it was Rachel’s powers which is kinda wild but I will give the show credit for solving that mystery I found so frustrating episodes ago. Dick makes a speech about Donna and family when Gar comes in announcing a bomb squad in the mission district and one by one the Titans roll out and they all walk in slow motion into the night.
5. Oh yeah season 3
Elsewhere a mother is putting her kids into a car for what feels like a while, then some purple goo hops in her ear and turns the woman into Blackfire and abandons those children in that car. 🙁
Phew. We did it. Season 2 of Titans. We started off strong and exciting and by the second half I couldn’t tell if I wanted the show to be over just as bad as the show wanted to be over. This finale defintely wasn’t great but already its a step up from last season’s finale in that it was a finale. “Nightwing” sure made some choices. The pacing of this episode felt like when you are taking an exam and you turn it in early, not because you did well but you just wanted it to be over but also you can’t leave until a certain amount of time. That’s what Deathstroke and Cadmus felt like, rushed to just be done but whoops there’s still twenty minutes. The emotional beats were well done and well written, they were just attached to the most poorly done death in the show so they felt so meaningless.
But anyways that’s Titans Season 2. Thanks for sticking through it with me! Watch Watchmen now I guess?!
