Netflix’s DC ‘Titans’ is not your average superhero TV show. Unlike others before it, it is not all sunshine, rainbows and conflict neatly wrapped up at the end of each episode. Instead, it is a gritty constant buildup of tension, coupled with gruesome, unending violence, drama, sex and drugs.
Season two picks up where the first one left off. After their successful showdown with Rachel’s father Trigon, the older Titans are back to their regular lives, while Dick Grayson, the former Robin, takes the new Robin Jason Todd, Raven, and Beast Boy under his wing to form a new group of Titans. All is seemingly well, until the ghosts of the past start seeping in through the cracks of their almost idyllic setup.
This show is quite different from other incarnations of the franchise. There is always a sense of impending doom and it’s thrilling to try and guess what will happen next – and be proven completely wrong.
The show is very good at displaying each character’s flaws outside of their superhero costumes, and contrasting that with their idolised caped personas. When an old problem threatens to break up the group, as it did in the past, the Titans scramble to stop one of their biggest threats, while also trying to keep their family together.
Through the lies and half-truths, the group struggles to come to terms with their own past actions and the consequences of keeping secrets from each other.
It is emotional and heartbreaking at times, with some threats seeming insurmountable, but just like last season, every looming threat from episode one comes to its peak in the finale, and the problems seem to be fixed. Or are they?
What one takes away from this season is that you cannot run away from your past. We see this with Dick, as not only do his secrets come to haunt him, but so does his troubled relationship with Bruce Wayne/Batman. We also gain insight into Koriand’r/Starfire after the people from her home planet track her down to demand she return home.
For Dove and Hawk, trying to escape the violence of their costumed life proves harder than they thought, and Wonder Girl can’t help but wish for a lost love to return.
The team as a whole are still feeling guilty about getting a friend killed years before, and they are now seeing that you can only get away with something for so long. There’s just no escaping your decisions it seems.
And with that foreshadowed for next season, one can already tell that the past will always find you somehow.
The new additions to the show, SuperBoy/Conner and The Ravager/Rose Wilson, bring a different dynamic to the story, but they cannot soothe the pain of loss the team feels.
This season was gripping and definitely a binge-worthy 10 episodes, courtesy of creators Akiva Goldsman, Geoff Johns, and Greg Berlanti. It answered the necessary questions from the first season, but left us on the edge of our seats as characters, powers and relationships begin to unravel.
