Teams are a hard formula to crack. You have to find a way within your story telling to properly build everyone up and give them another development. Though, the challenge is you have to divide all of that development between each characters. With its’ first season, Titans attempted to give us just that and yet, as you can hear in our review episode, they fell slightly short. Making the decision to world build rather than character development. Chararcters like Hank/Hawk (Alan Ritchson), Dawn/Dove (Minka Kelly), Donna Troy (Conor Leslie), & Jason Todd (Curran Walters) that were all introduced into the show. However, brought nothing really significant to the larger narrative. Again, teams are a hard thing to crack. When you’re doing a show on one of the most beloved comic book hero teams of all time, its hard to focus on the story at times. Instead looking to build up these characters, that for many are making their live action debut.
Though, a large portion of those issues seem to fade away within its second season. Titans picks up immediately after the season one finale, quickly giving closure to the season one big bad in Trigon (Seamus Dever). The second season is roughly split between two narratives. The first being the current generation of titans facing off against Deathstroke (Esai Morales), a ghost from the team’s past. The team at this point has become multigenerational. Having your original team of titans in Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites), Ritchson, Kelly, & Leslie. All of which have an extraordinarily strong bond within the confides of this season. Flashbacks to their Deathstroke ties and ghost really help to flesh out this team and their chemistry. Though, its’ not always warranted.
The flashbacks seems so oddly placed throughout the course of these episodes. Continuing to breathe life into these larger narratives, then stopping to do a flashback episode. It starts to give the team’s second outing a bit of a disjoined feel in the storytelling department. As much as they are needed, they could have been woven or told better within the larger narrative. On the flip side of that narrative you have the newer generation of the team in Walters, Rachel Roth (Teagan Croft), Kory Anders (Anna Diop), Gar Logan (Ryan Potter), Rose Wilson (Chelse Zhang) & Superboy (Joshua Orpin). When we got a post credit scene to the end of the first season’s finale teasing Superboy, I was hesitant. It seemed to quick to introduce more characters without first fleshing out your current world.
With the addition of this new team, the narrative can be crowded at times. Much like the flashbacks within the original titans team, the addition of Cadmus and the Superboy arc almost completely stops everything that the larger narrative is aiming to say. While it does eventually get fleshed out by the finale, the major focus on the big bad organization, does beg the question, who truly was the big antagonist of this season? With their ties to the past, it feels like Deathstroke. Morales as the one-eyed mercenary is incredible. Morales completely makes the character his own. Making him both sympathetic and absolutely brutal at the same time. Current generation has the mysterious organization Cadmus who is responsible for the creation of Superboy. It does breathe beautifully into the world building aspect but can make everything feel a bit crowded at time.
Overall, Titans: Season Two, continues to show improvement for the famous DC heroes. The larger narrative manages to deepen both the mythos of the team and the build-up the world around it. Having the multiple generations of Titans in first and second face off against their own big bad. The former face off against Esai Morales’ Deathstroke. Morales is both sympathetic and brutal. Which in turn makes him an unstoppable force to be reckoned with on screen. The latter facing off against the mysterious organization of Cadmus. While the latter can make the narrative feel crowded, it does help build the world and flesh out the Superboy character a bit much. Brenton Thwaites as Dick Grayson continues to be the standout actor of the show. Marvelously fleshing out and bringing depth to Grayson as a character and the road that leads to Nightwing. While this team still has some holes, they are learning. Season Two is an improvement over season one and worth the investment of time.
RORSCHACH RATING:
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