Between the demonic possessions, the psychic possessions, the star-crossed politics, the
brainwashing, the drug abuse relapses, and all of the drama between the team's members,
Titans can get a little complex.
Dick Grayson's evolution from Robin to Nightwing has been simmering ever since the very first
episode of Titans.
While he's still dressing as Robin in the beginning of Titans' first season, the rude
phrase that shocked fans as soon as the first series trailer dropped was a signal that the
Boy Wonder needed to get out from under the Dark Knight's shadow.
He eventually burns his Robin costume an act that earns him no end of ire from Bruce Wayne's
suit-maker Stu in season 2's penultimate episode and assures Jason Todd that he's no challenge
to Jason's role as Robin.
Eventually he's forced to ask himself exactly what Todd asks him: if he isn't Robin, who
is he?
"New costume, but the same old Dick Grayson."
Dogged by his own inner Bruce Wayne, Dick eventually comes to terms with the need to
evolve beyond Robin, as well as beyond being merely Dick Grayson.
When Dick gets himself thrown in prison, he finds more inspiration from a fellow prisoner
who carves an image of his home village guardian Alazul, or "blue wing" in Spanish onto their
prison cell wall.
Once he finally realizes Jericho is alive within his father's body, Dick breaks himself
out of prison.
Eventually he makes his way to Stu who, along with Lily, has already been busy making Dick
his new outfit.
In "Nightwing," the titular hero finally arrives and gives Deathstroke the fight he deserves.
While we see Slade Wilson accidentally kill his son in the flashback episode "Jericho,"
there have been hints for a while that Jericho was alive.
"Body hopping…
There's so much you could do with that."
In season 2's 11th episode, it's finally confirmed that before he died, Jericho psychically jumped
into Deathstroke's body and has been waiting for the chance to escape.
As he's reviewing his memories of his last face-to-face with Slade, Dick notices something
that escaped him earlier while Slade himself offered no forgiveness, his hands made the
ASL sign for "I forgive you."
But Dick can't save Jericho on his own.
For Jericho to escape his father's body, he needs another one to inhabit.
That's where his sister Rose, a.k.a. Ravager, comes in.
At the end of Titans season 2's 11th episode, we learn that Rose originally agreed to stay
with the Titans on Slade's orders as his mole, but in large part because of her love for
Jason Todd, Rose tells Slade to go to hell.
Since Jason has left her by "Nightwing," her loyalties seem iffy at first, but thankfully
Rose turns on her father and encourages Jericho to jump into her body to save himself moments
before Rose kills Slade.
"Jericho, if you're in there, you know what to do."
It remains to be seen exactly how Jericho and Rose are going to handle being two minds
in the same body, but considering Rose lets her brother out to talk to Nightwing right
after Slade's death, we already know Rose will be better about sharing than her father
was.
On the face of it, Mercy Graves' goals don't seem very complex she's got dollar signs on
her mind.
"Nightwing" opens with Mercy remotely introducing Conner to a group of world leaders willing
to pay top dollar for their own super soldier.
After showing the bidders Conner's super-speed and immunity to bullets, Mercy tells the group
to tune in later that night.
The show Mercy has planned includes triggering the brainwashed Gar into going on a rampage
in a crowded carnival, and then sending Conner in to stop Gar.
"Help has arrived."
Once the Titans show up, Mercy keeps the camera rolling in hopes that seeing Conner beat up
on bonafide superheroes will drive the bidding up even further.
Eventually things don't go as Mercy hoped, and we learn her unforgiving employer Lex
Luthor is calling to find out what the problem is.
While Mercy wants top dollar for Conner's super-powered services, it's likely money
is not Lex Luthor's ultimate goal here.
In "Conner," the episode that shows us Conner and Krypto's escape from Cadmus, we learn
Lex and his people went to great lengths to successfully create Superboy.
To do all that just for money isn't Lex's style, at least not as he appears in most
media.
In most likelihood the money is just a fringe benefit to the main goal getting Lex's own
super soldiers in place in an influential government.
Nightwing brings Superboy back to the light
Psychic visions and illusions are definitely a recurring thing on Titans.
They can be used against the heroes, but they clearly can also serve as a benefit, sometimes
even proving to be the thing that saves a hero's life.
It's Trigon's psychic infiltrations that bring most of the Titans under his sway in the season
1 finale and season 2 premiere, while the visions Rachel gives Dick are exactly what
frees him from her father's control.
The same proves true for Conner in "Nightwing," and this time it's both Dick and Rachel who
enter Superboy's thoughts and free him from Cadmus' conditioning.
"Okay, it's all you now."
"It's us now."
Why is it Dick, instead of Rachel, who appears to Conner?
A couple of reasons seem likely.
First, Rachel is able to free Dick by entering his thoughts in part because she and Dick
have grown close, but no one in the Titans really knows Conner very well at this point.
Gar probably knows him best, and by the time Rachel hits Conner with her powers Gar's still
down for the count.
Second, Dick's recent experiences in prison and his evolution to Nightwing help him relate
to a teenage boy who's barely had the chance to figure out who or what he is.
"Tell me how I can help you."
Third and finally, it's just cool.
As the thematic sons of Superman and Batman, Superboy and Nightwing needed to share some
screen time in the season finale.
Initially, once Dick and Rachel's efforts free Conner from his conditioning, everything
seems cool.
Dove hears a young girl complaining that her doll was left on a ride, so she grabs the
doll and brings it to the girl.
As she does, a metal tower damaged during the melee with Superboy falls toward Dove
and a group of civilians.
Donna Troy charges forward and holds the tower aloft, but the energy from the tower electrocutes
her.
She's able to keep the tower up long enough for Dove and the innocents to escape, and
finally she drops the tower and collapses, dead, on top of it.
It seems strange that something like this could kill Donna Troy.
Even accepting that power levels of the characters in the show can differ quite a bit from their
counterparts in the comics, moments before, Donna proves herself to be the only Titan
capable of holding her own in a fistfight with Superboy.
Anyone who can survive a few punches from a brainwashed Conner should be able to survive
an electric shock fairly easily.
But maybe her fight with Superboy is the answer to how the shock kills her.
She does prove herself able to withstand hits from Conner, but not for long.
It could be that her confrontation with Superboy weakened her to the point that something that
would normally only stun her could prove fatal.
We see the assembled Titans hand Donna's casket and her golden lasso over to what appears
to be an honor guard of women on an airstrip.
These are Themyscirans, the tribe of woman warriors who hail from the same mysterious
island as Donna Troy and Wonder Woman.
It's no surprise the Themyscirans would ask to bring Donna's body back to their island,
though it is interesting how their leader whose name we don't learnlooks at Dick, seeming
to regard him with a great deal of respect.
It's likely Donna told her fellow Themyscirans about the Dark Knight's protege, and it's
only natural they would respect someone they saw as an accomplished warrior as well as
a loyal ally of one of their own.
In "Nightwing," we see Rachel's powers evolve in ways we haven't seen before.
After Kori is shot by Deathstroke, Rachel's able to heal the wound.
Later when Gar is still in tiger form and recovering from the beating he took from Conner,
her powers again are able to heal rather than hurt letting her snap Gar out of his brainwashing
and without the kind of psychic infiltration she uses on Conner.
And even though these are the first times we've seen Rachel's powers manifest as healing
rather than hurting, it shouldn't be that much of a surprise that she can do it.
This is why Rachel leaves for Themyscira with Donna's corpse she hopes she might be able
to develop her powers enough to bring Donna back to life.
"I should go with Donna.
If anybody can help her, it's me."
The island may be the perfect place for Rachel.
The Themyscirans are more used to the existence of the kind of magic that courses through
Rachel, and are probably better-equipped to survive when her powers go a little nuts as
they so often tend to do.
The decision Hank and Dawn appear to make at the end of "Nightwing" to stay broken up,
but to still work together in the Titans may seem strange in light of everything.
It's sure to bring plenty of tension and conflict in season 3, particularly if Dawn and Dick
Grayson's old romance reignites in wake of the breakup.
But beyond planting seeds for future drama, there are some good reasons why the pair would
make that choice.
First of all, they've done it before.
In both of this season's flashback episodes, "Aqualad" and "Jericho," Dawn and Dick are
a couple, though Hank still remains on the team with them both.
By the end of the second season, the Titans have become a family once more, and it's a
family that both Hawk and Dove helped create.
Whether they're going to continue their romance or not, they both have good reasons to stay
together on the team, regardless of the potential for jealousy or conflict.
It may not be the healthiest choice in the world, but considering the kinds of decisions
both have made in the past, it certainly won't be their worst.
Bruce Wayne shows up throughout Titans season 2, but mostly as a phantom.
He appears regularly to Dick as a part of his psyche, both to pay tribute to Bruce Waynes
of old and to harshly force some much-needed revelations upon Grayson.
Toward the end of "Nightwing," we're surprised to learn we got even more of Phantom Bruce
than we knew.
In season 2's 11th episode, Rachel, Kori, Donna, and Dawn all receive different messages
summoning them to a diner in Nevada where Bruce Wayne appears and encourages them to
do what they can to keep the Titans together.
When Kori mentions this meeting to Wayne in "Nightwing," he politely tells her she must
be mistaken because he doesn't remember the meeting she's talking about.
Kori offers a possible explanation to Dawn as to how this could be that the Bruce Wayne
they met was an illusion unconsciously created by Rachel, along with all the messages that
summoned the Titans to the diner.
There's some proof to support this.
We've certainly seen Rachel lose control of her powers before, at one point even bringing
a killer stone gargoyle to life without her knowledge.
So could Kori be right?
Absolutely.
But until Titans season 3 at the earliest, there's no way to know for sure.
Titans' first season ended with a post-credits scene introducing Conner and Krypto.
This time around, instead of a post-credits scene, we get one right before the credits,
and rather than introducing us to a new Titans ally, we see the return of a villain we see
only briefly earlier in the season Blackfire.
The alien queen is Kori's sister who led a violent coup on their homeworld of Tamaran,
and sees Kori as an unacceptable loose end.
We see a woman in a grocery store parking lot buckling her daughters into her car.
She's about to unload her groceries when some kind of purplish substance strikes her.
The woman walks away from the car, transforming into the much younger-looking Blackfire.
"What the f---?"
We first see Blackfire as only a hologram in "Atonement," but now it looks like she's
found a way to physically manifest on Earth.
How?
Well, the substance that hits the unsuspecting woman in the ear is the same substance that
strikes Kori's friend and former lover Faddei in "Atonement."
Somehow the substance has the ability to allow Blackfire to possess the victim's body.
It could suggest there are already Blackfire-loyal Tamarans on Earth otherwise, where did the
substance come from?
Did it just fly out of space on its own?
It could be that Blackfire will be the big bad of season 3, and that rather than demons
or mercenaries, next year the Titans will be facing an invasion of body snatchers.
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