Originally Posted by
Blind Wedjat
I JUST knew they would mess it all up. I knew they would, but I did not expect it to be that bad.
Boy was that absolutely terrible. Deathstroke--the big bad of this entire season--dies with the first 10 minutes of the episode in the most anti-climatic way possible. The fight choreography was good, but am I supposed to believe that Dick can suddenly now take on Slade on his own so easily because he's happy and has a new suit? The moment Slade stopped firing, Donna and Dawn should have got out of that car and helped him. But they just sat in the car and watched. Such heroes. Such a team. And Rose shows up out of nowhere and stabs Slade. A stab wound to the gut? Really? That entire talk of him being nearly unkillable and Rose kills him that easily.
Jericho and Rose have never met or spoken before, and somehow they play it off like they had an agreement to join consciousness. Am I the only one who thinks it makes Jericho look absolutely selfish? They never spoke about this and he just went into her like it isn't a big deal. Nobody even talks about it again. All the drama about Dick feeling guilty for Jericho's death just stopped mattering.
And that carnival fight. God that fight was just terrible all around. Where the hell did Dick and Rose go? Why were only the other girls there at first? Why did Dick to make some stupid dramatic entrance and how did Hank even get there? Speaking of, wasn't Gar specifically programmed to attack Rachel? What the hell happened to that? He just kinda growls at her? And Rachel kinda just do whatever the plot needs her to do. Then you have Dick using some kind of flashbang grenade on Conner, which seems to conveniently make him disappear for several minutes to so Dick can have a quippy conversation with the Titans, so they can all ninja away and get into positions, and come up with a plan with Rachel (who was not near them!) offscreen? Seriously what kind of shit writing is that? And why would the remaining crowd have even applauded after it? From their perspective, a wild alien tiger started murdering people, CADMUS sends a super-soldier in to protect them, only for weird costumed freaks to show up and convert him to the dark side.
You can't convince me that Donna's death wasn't meant to be a joke. You just can't. Just a few minutes before it she fought Superboy and was barely hurt. How is anyone supposed to believe she can be killed by electrocution? Why didn't Superboy--the guy we just saw shoot a gun and move fast enough to catch the bullet--help her out? Was that really the best these writers could come up with? Why didn't die fighting Deathstroke (like in the past) or I don't know, die fighting Superboy? I've complained several times about this show trying to be dark, trying to be bold but never committing to it. Superboy just gets cured with deus ex machina powers. No tension, no real stakes. I'm sick of it.
Dick and Bruce have multiple conversations in this episode, yet they don't even talk about Jason? About his PTSD and attempted suicide? About him leaving the team? Nobody talks about it? It's all just we're a happy family now? Speaking of, that entire theme was just forced. What did the Titans ever do for Rose? Them taking her in was part of Slade's plan. The OG Titans were suspicious of her, and the new ones didn't particularly care for her either. How are they her family? Second, what did the Titans ever do for Conner? Sure they saved his life after he saved Jason, but they abandoned him after that (which led to his capture). Only Gar seemed to give a shit about him. No one else did. Dick saving him from darkness had no real emotional weight behind it. It's just something that happened because the writers want to push Dick into everything. And of course, we get a whole bunch of telling and not showing at the end of how Donna was this great person when they had two whole seasons to show how she was. The had two whole seasons to show these people as a family but they didn't. Everyone talks about how great the Titans are, about what they stand for, and we're never shown any of it.
This show has a decent cast. It really does. I'd say they also got better directors this time around, But if they don't get a new writing staff and new editors it's going to keep getting worse.