Titans “Purple Rain”

Well, here I am at the end of another season of Titans.  I said the show improved greatly for season three, even if it is more of a Batman-centric show than anything else.  Will this finale do well or crap the bed?

It was fine in the end.  Didn’t do much one way or the other, but it was fine.  Sure, there are a lot of crooked Gotham City cops that know where the Batcave is, and the Titans opt to take Tim with them in their RV home despite the fact he seems to mostly be a fanboy who learned a few martial arts moves watching YouTube–that is more or less exactly what he says–but the Titans saved Gotham City by making it rain the Lazarus Pit onto the section of the city that Crane blew up and gases because apparently he’s the Joker and the Riddler now too.

Points to Dick for saying that he was not going to hunt for bombs like Batman would and instead just go directly to Crane and punch his teeth out or something.  Additional points to Tim and Gar, his back-up, reacting to his instructions for deactivating the Manor’s security codes by cutting the red wire.  You never cut the red wire.

In the end, it’s mostly a team effort.  Conner figures out how to cause the rain, the women make it happen without looking too silly (maybe they look a little silly because this show’s CG budget is…not great), and Dick invades the Manor with help from Jason as a distraction.  Barbara was rescued by A.R.G.U.S., apparently run by one Roy Harper, and the Titans drive back to San Francisco instead of taking a Batplane, possibly because an RV is cheaper than letting a jet do more than sit in a hanger, and Donna may be joining A.R.G.U.S. while Blackfire gets to go home in a rebuilt spaceship because Conner’s memory is that good.

Oh, and Rachel gives Crane permanent nightmares.  Considering what happened to Deathstroke, that goober got off lucky.

In the end, this was the strongest season thus far of Titans.  That may not be saying much.  Considering how silly and goofy it often is, the characters still largely play the material pretty straightforwardly, and sometimes it just looks rather ridiculous in an unintended manner.  Contrast that with Doom Patrol, and there’s a series that is ridiculous in a way that is very much intentional, and I know which one I prefer.  Dick is still a bland hero, but the others are a lot better.  Is Jason returning next season?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Bruce Wayne does come in at the end to offer apologies to Jason and gratitude to Dick, and that’s nice.  The series even acknowledged that Donna is legally dead, so she has her own problems to work out.  And is the set-up done to let Roy Harper join the cast next year?  I can’t say I care much what happens with a lot of these characters still, and much of that could be fixed with a better overall tone.  Is this a very serious superhero show or not?  If they can make up their minds on that one, this series can go a long way.

So, yes, I will come back with more coverage for season four.

But now I need a new show for Mondays. As it is, I have two options from returning Monday shows.  I think I’ll start with The Great.  The other was already renewed by Netflix for a third season, so it won’t hurt not to jump right into that one, but the political comedy about being the outsider Tsarina of Russia has a certain appeal that, given Titans, understands how to do something intentionally ridiculous.

Anyway, back to a vaguely defined Russian time period starting in December.