Titans - Asylum - Review
OK back on track. The Robins side mission is over and we are once again focusing on Rachel and her daddy issues. At the Batman safe house Dr. Adamson is still secured in the bathroom, handcuffed to a railing. He notices something in the hot tub drain as he sits quietly on the floor. The Titans discuss the Dr. with Rachel wanting to talk to him directly. Starfire's not worried about it and after Rachel asks nicely Dick acquiesces. She goes to see the captive and he freaks her out with his insight. He knows what she's been going through. He tells her she is not death, but life. To prove his point he breaks the glass thermometer he noticed earlier in the hot tub and slits his own throat! Damn! That's some devotion. What an incredibly gory scene too, props to the effects department. Rachel puts her hands on the Dr. and incredibly brings him back to life. Roll opening credits....
Mom and Dad, aka Dick and Kory, interview the Dr. and he tells them Rachel is going to purify the world and that the contrary prophecy is based on fear. Dick doesn't go for it and tries the tough guy act and the Dr. reveals he actually wants to reunite her with her father. OK bring it on, lets get to Big Daddy T. The Dr. lets slip that Rachel's birth mom Angela is still alive and being held captive. I love that her last name is Azeroth. So good. Dick and Kory tell Rachel her birth mother is still alive. They tell her the Dr. is part of the cult that wants to reunite her with her father. She wants to get her immediately but the rest of the group doesn't think it's a good idea rushing in and they shut her down. Gar follows Rachel after she runs off and in a nice little scene they bond further as he tells her he's going to go with her to save her birth mom. Awwww.
Dick and Kory use the Bat-Puter to check out the facility where Rachel's mother is supposedly being held. Dick analyzes it and they set a battle plan to assault the heavily fortified building using the tunnels underneath. Dick goes to find Rachel and doesn't. Because she and Gar are in an Uber driving through the snow. They talk about her mom and Gar reassures her that her mom will still know her.
Later after dark the two sneak around in the woods and check out the facility. While strolling they're zapped by a guard! The Titan-mobile pulls up and Dick and Kory get out. They head to the tunnels to avoid security but instead walk into a trap set by the head doctor. They have Gar unconscious in a wheelchair and demand the two surrender. They do and end up prisoners of The Organization. They strap Dick into a chair and inject him with their serum. Kory is trapped in a fireproof cell of rock and steel. She tries to burn her way out but succeeds in only depleting her flame energy. They gas her and out she goes. They torture Gar with electric prods. They want to see what he can do but he refuses to change for them. The Titans are in trouble.
Rachel awakens and finds Dr. Adamson creepily watching over her. He tells her he has all her friends and that she shouldn't try to escape. He says they're evaluating them as they could be useful. He tells her they are all but servants working to reunite Rachel with her father. She tells him she wants to see her mother but he says no because she tried to keep Rachel from them. Petty but OK.
Kory awakens strapped to a surgery table in the Asylum. She has tubes in her mouth and wires running to machines all over the place. Sick doctors use a laser scalpel and cut right into her! They seem to be performing some kind of tests. Dick awakens in his padded cell wearing his Robin suit. He's a bit out of it from the drugs but is with it enough to tell them that this is not who he really is and the doctors examining him from another room are amazed by his resilience. They wonder if might be from his training and I'm here to tell them yes, Batman would and has drugged the hell out of his partners, and himself, to prep them in case of poisoning. The head Dr. tells them to up the dosage. Dick fakes a seizure and starts kicking some orderly ass Cuckoo style. He gets the door open to his cell but can barely make it down the hallway due to the massive drugs in his system. The female Dr. running the facility taunts him over the P.A. system. Dick sees a figure down the hall and calls out to him. It's his younger self! The kid beats him and he falls over and finds himself back in his room at Wayne Manor. Oooh he's tripping hard. His younger self is there and tells him he hates him as he knocks him backward out the window! This is like watching someone else's crazy fever dream. Robin falls and lands in the Batcave. We get to see some more of the sweet sweet Batmobile as Dick picks himself up off the floor. He calls out for Bruce but younger him keeps beating on him. Beating him badly. He hates Dick for what he did to him. He eventually knocks him out and Dick finally passes out, revealed to still be in his chair, restrained the whole time.
Dr. Adamson tries to get Rachel to get the Titans to join them. He tells her every thing is going to change. She sees them being tortured on the screens in his office. He tells her he could end their pain. She goes all Raven and decides she no longer wants him healed. She takes back her magic and the slit on his throat opens and he dies once again. Rachel looks up her mother and goes off to find her. She sneaks around the Asylum, avoiding capture until she opens cell 732 and finds her mother. Interestingly her mother doesn't believe it's actually her but instead thinks it's trick. Rachel shows her the birthmark on her shoulder and that convinces her. They embrace and plan to escape. Rachel tells her they need her friends.
They find Gar in his cage and even though he's beat up he giggles a bit as he whimpers Awesome in response to learning that Rachel found her mother. Suddenly a doctor walks in and attacks them. Gar attacks him in his tiger form and shows him what he can really do. He viciously assaults his tormentor and bites and claws him until he dies. He transforms back to human and in a truly dark moment we see Gar in naked shock, with blood savagely dripping from his mouth. He's beside himself and can't even wonder what he did. A tremendously powerful acted scene. Rachel gets him moving and they find Dick strapped into his chair, staring off and vacant. She tries to get him moving but he's far off and non responsive. She tells him he promised and he comes back to her. Rachel mini heals him? He gets up and they all get out of the padded cell.
Kory is still strapped to the surgical table and is being tested for her healing ability by having her finger about to be amputated before an audience. The group busts in and saves her butt just in the nick of time. They unplug her and pull a long tube out of her throat. They stumble down a long dark hallway towards the exit but are cut off by a squad of guards. Dick steps forward and pulls a pipe off of the wall. In the tradition of great hallway fights he viciously beats guard after guard, spraying blood and pounding bad guys until they're all broken and bleeding on the floor. Weirdly the group all just stood there and passively watched but I guess they knew Dick needed to work some shit out. Dick decides to burn the place and his past as Robin I guess to the ground and has Kory explode the place. She does and walks out the burning wreckage unharmed and like the total badass she is. The Titans watch as the flames consume the Asylum and Dick Grayson says goodbye to his past. He sees his Robin suit on fire and with it his time as the Boy Wonder and all that with it, come to an end. The evolution of Dick Grayson continues.
Another fantastic episode of Titans by DC Universe. Lots of blood, kicking ass, and character advancement. We got more Batmobile and I want even more. How long until we get Nitewing? In true comic book style story telling the end of one chapter, ie The Asylum, Dr. Adamson, and Robin, comes to an end. And another, figuring out who Dick, Kory, Rachel and her mother really are, begins.
