TV Review: TITANS: Season 1, Episodes 1-7 [DC Universe]

Titans Jason Todd Review

Jason Todd is the best episode of Titans so far. I say it’s the best so far because it presents the viewer with almost equal parts past and present capped with the new Robin and that role’s previous inhabitant. This episode gives Titans what it needs for itself and its main character – history, a reason why. The viewer learns the answers to many barking questions about Police Detective Dick Grayson and his life immediately after his parents’ death and their burial.

Jason Todd takes the time to show the viewer how happy Dick Grayson is with the circus, with the circus performers, before his parents are killed. It is a direct contrast to Grayson’s cheerless, morose life in the present.

Jason Todd takes pains to show that though the Robins are different ages they are similar. One of those similarities stands out above all others – their extraordinary level of brutality and their willingness to inflict it. Jason Todd / Robin 2 has a youthful arrogance to him and an eagerness to use his training in a civilian environment (e.g. picking a fight) just because he can. Dick Grayson / Robin 1 is long past that desire – the need for braggadocio with his fists and feet. Dick Grayson has matured and because of that, he is a better, more controlled Robin (which isn’t saying very much since they are both out of control when it comes to certain fisticuffs engagements).

Besides the tragedy that befell Dick Grayson’s family, what Jason Todd does to responding police officers (beating, maiming, paralyzing them) after Nick Zucco / Melting Man (Kyle Mac) is taken down is crazed retribution on a scale that only a psychopath and/or Dick Grayson could appreciate.

What should have happened in that key moment after Jason Todd beats up the police officers is for Dick Grayson to take down Jason Todd, truss him up, haul him all the way back to Batman, and inform him of his new protégé’s conduct and serious personality issues. Or Grayson could have handed Todd over to the police. Instead, after seeing the horror that Todd unleashed, Grayson speaks words and does nothing (and Dick Grayson is a police detective). His fellow police officers are laying beaten and crippled on the floor all around him and Dick Grayson does nothing. A villain is staring back at Dick Grayson wearing a Robin mask and Grayson takes no punitive action. It is unbelievable and shows how morally corrupt both Robins are. Perhaps Grayson is impotent in that moment because he is just as bad, just as guilty, for the “justice” that he deals out.

After the events in Jason Todd, Dick Grayson now knows that though he still wears the costume, he is no longer Robin. Batman and the world that he created for Robin to inhabit has moved on, an abortive step beyond Dick Grayson’s control, setting him adrift, even-though Grayson thought that he had already fully stepped away. That thought in the back of Grayson’s head, of always being able to go back, is extinguished during Jason Todd‘s run time, especially at its conclusion. Even contemptible Jason Todd sees it, that Dick is holding onto a past, to a role that has moved on without him.

The scene with Dick Grayson’s Robin in the Batcave with the Batmobile in Jason Dodd is excellent (but also pure fan-service). Titans continues to do the little things right (like the aforementioned Batcave scene). It left the viewer wanting more (more Batcave, more Batmobile, more past) and added to the mythos of Titans. I hope more pre-Batman-Robin-break-up moments are shown in future episodes of Titans.

The pinnacle of the flashback sequences in Jason Todd is Dick Grayson coming face-to-face with the man that murdered his parents. What would you or anyone do in that moment? Grayson’s reaction is both understandable, predictable, and fascinating (when Grayson reveals himself to Tony Zucco (Richard Zeppieri), Zucco making it off that  bridge alive is not a narrative possibility). Is this moment in his past why Dick Grayson left Batman and Gotham? Because he violated the one cardinal rule – no killing, even-though someone else pulled the trigger? Is it murder-by-proxy because of Grayson’s skill set? Dick Grayson can easily save Zucco but chooses not to. Because of that faithful choice, almost all of Grayson’s old circus friends are horribly murdered by Zucco’s vengeful son. Now Dick Grayson has to live with that as well on top of all the other emotional issues he has.