Titans - "Nightwing" - Episode 24 Review
Holy season finales Batman....Nightwing is here! While for me this season has been a little up and down, I still appreciate all DC Universe is doing for the fans and am superglad this show has been given another season to play around with.
Mercy Graves is delivering a Cadmus sales pitch in a dark testing facility. She reveals Superboy there as well, completely under her control. She conducts a proof of viability test by having Conner shoot her with a handgun and having him superspeed over to catch the bullet mid-air, before it hits her. Her audience on multiple viewing screens applaud. She sets up how they can get their bids in to utilize this amazing new technology and hangs up the call. Mercy uses Conner to flick the bullet he caught at Walter, the Cadmus employee who last episode let Donna and Dawn walk all over him before being tied up. He dies and we find ourselves at an outdoor carnival. Gar walks among the people, eating a snow cone. His trigger music starts to play and his eyes turn green, signifying his beginning to transform.
At Titans Tower the ladies put their heads together and try to decide what to do. Rachel and Kory tell Dawn and Donna that Dick scrawled on his cell wall that Jericho was still alive. They dismiss him as crazy and talk about how they're going to try and rescue Conner and Gar from Cadmus. Kory clues them in on her power loss but Rachel tells them she's fully loaded. Just then a police report comes in about a wild animal on the loose and people hurt. Time to get to work. The girl squad drives to the scene, discussing how to possibly battle their friends. Rachel is adamant that she won't hurt Gar, no matter what. Just then an explosion rocks the car! By the way where are the costumes? They're going to fight in their street clothes. Anyway, it's Deathstroke attacking and he's bring the firepower! Kory volunteers to draw his fire and gets out of the car but is instantly shot and hurt! Ahhh. Her powers have really really left her. Just when it seems like its going to get ugly, a Thud lands on the vehicle. It's Nightwing and he's here to save the day. Dick leaps into battle and takes Deathstroke head on. He flips and rolls and leaps out of the way, all the while calling out to Jericho inside of Slade. Rachel uses her black magic voodoo and heals Kory old school style. Dick and Slade battle it out on the street with Dick holding his own nicely. He continues to call out to Jericho inside of Slade. Nightwing uses his new electro batons to great effect but Deathstroke is just too strong and too fast. He overpowers Dick and his life is only spared by the arrival of Rose in her Ravager outfit. She tells dear old Daddy that she chooses the Titans and she and Dick continue to battle her father. Together they take it to him in a nicely choreographed battle until Slade focuses too much on Dick and Rose sticks a sword through her father's back. Jericho jumps into his sister and their father dies. Eh I don't know about that though. Slade is a healer, and one sword stick shouldn't kill him really so either he's fooling or they just got rid of Deathstoke way too easy. Donna shows up and, um, where was Donna in the fight with Deathstroke? Did she really just sit there and watch? OK, sure...
Beast Boy in tiger form is terrorizing the carnival and attacking police officers. No one has a gun? Cadmus pulls up and Mercy Graves tells everyone over loudspeakers that help is now here and not to worry. Her online bidders watch as Conner gets out of the truck and goes to deal with Gar. Conner uppercuts him and what should have broken his head off or launched him into space instead cause the green kitty to flip over and land on his feet. Gar leaps at Conner and bites his arm, but doing no damage. Conner throws the cat and knocks him out. Kory, Donna, and Dove, in their costumes yaaay, wander into the carnival. Mercy sees more opportunity and order Conner to eliminate the Titans. He punches Donna and she takes it! She gets super pissed and it is on! They fight in the middle of the carnival while Dawn and Kory just watch. Conner even does a little Superman punch thing and knocks Donna backwards. Kory approaches and speaks in Kryptonian, reminding him that she saved him and to not make her regret it. He grabs her and she regrets it. Ha! Suddenly Hank is there and taking shots at Conner! He gets grabbed too. Dove saves him by reflecting Conner's heat vision back at himself, knocking him down. Hanks apologizes to Dawn for taking off on her. Mercy's bidders are racing up the price, just as Bruce Wayne hacks his way in to her feed and shuts her down. Uh oh, Mr. Luthor wants a word with her. Conner catches a light bomb tossed by Nightwing and is distracted. Dick joins his old teammates and forms a plan using Rachel. Donna lassos Conner (which is the first thing she should have done), then Rachel unleashes her Darkness on the cloned Superboy and Dick. Dick suddenly finds himself joined with Conner's mind. They are surrounded by solid black with Conner down on the ground and looking sad and beaten down from Mercy's brainwashing. He's lost and can't find the light so Dick helps him by punching a hole in the metaphorical wall. Bright sunlight streams in and Conner stands to soak it all in. Poof, he and Dick are suddenly transported to a Kansas field. Dick tells him they are family and that they'll always find him to help him. Conner breaks free from Mercy's control and takes off flying high into the sky!
In the real world Conner snaps out of it and politely asks to be let go by Rachel and Donna so he can finish this. They ladies chill and release him. He gets his game face back on and goes after Cadmus. Mercy sees this and has the appropriate response of "shit!" She knows they're in trouble and orders all her soldiers to fire on Conner. Ha! Doesn't she remember he's bullet proof? And where are her Kryptonite bullets? Anyways... Conner causes the soldiers to run away and he catches Mercy trying to sneak off as well. Kory shows up and gives her a punch for Lex Luthor. OK how does she know about Lex? Civilians come out of hiding and start clapping for the Titans that saved them. Including the two people who were destroying the carnival in the first place. Dove gives a little girl her dolly back and an electrical light tower that was hit earlier in the fight starts to fall. Instead of the more logical Conner doing it, Donna super speeds herself over to the tower and catches it as it is about to crush Dawn and some civilians. It gives her a high voltage shock and kills her?! Huh?
Hank carries Donna back into Titans tower and the squad is all super sad. Rachel gives Gar a hug as I can imagine he's taking it the hardest since he's the one that got turned bad and brought them all there. Later the Titans meet a group of Amazons on a airfield tarmac and deliver Donna's coffin and her magic lasso to them. Rachel and Dick talk a bit about trying to bring Donna back to life with Rachel telling him that she wants to go to the invisible island to give it a try. Dick tells her to go and that her room will be waiting for her when she gets back. Dick watches the jet take off and sees Jason Todd watching from afar. Jason takes off on his motorcycle.
At Titans Tower Bruce Wayne approaches a forlorn Dick Grayson. Dick blames himself for bringing Donna back into the Titans and Bruce reminds him that Donna wouldn't do anything she didn't want to do. Dick and Bruce have a nice scene together with Dick telling his mentor he no longer wants to fight the past. Dick tells Bruce he knows why he took him in...to give them both something neither of them had, family. Which I find a little odd, as we know Bruce had his Mom and Dad for a while and Dick was raised in the circus with his family The Flying Graysons, which we saw a lot of in season 1. Maybe he meant growing up they didn't but still a little weird. Bruce tells Dick that he thinks the Titans are worth keeping together. Dick agrees and thanks him for his new Nightwing suit.
Dick visits Gar in his room and has a brief heart to heart. He tells Beast Boy that none of what happened was his fault, it was all Dick's. True. He tells Gar he never should have left him alone, true too. He promises that he will never do that again and invites him to help him make dinner. Hank visits Dawn and basically admits that he was a jerk and asks her if they can give it another shot? She's very upset about Donna dying saving her life and says no to him about Hank and Dawn getting back together. He asks her, what about Hawk and Dove?
At dinner they all sit down together to chow, including Rose and Jericho. Kory thanks Bruce for bringing them all back together at the Elko Diner but he claims it wasn't him. Huh? Rachel evidently got in their heads and sent them a Bruce Wayne to put them back on the path. Best line of the episode?..."You wanna take it up with Batman?" Dick gives a nice speech about he and Donna being strays and forming a surrogate family when yours is messed up. They cutely and appropriately toast to Donna with her favorite orange soda pop. Gar gets up and notices that there are police and the bomb squad at a disturbance in the mission district. After a brief moment of thought, Dawn gets up to respond and the rest of the team follows. Bruce and Dick know that the Titans will continue. The fully costumed team walks down a street, heading to save the day. Gar in tiger form comes running by with Krypto following! (Did Conner go back and get him from Cadmus? Guess so)
A mom leaves a store with her two kids and puts them in their seats in their minivan. Suddenly a purple glob like the one we saw take over royal guardsman Faddei invades the mothers ear. She transforms into Kory's sister Blackfire and royally walks away from the parking lot! Uh oh!
So I enjoyed this season finale 10 times more than last seasons and I think the team is in a much better place, even though founding member Donna Troy was killed unnecessarily and, in my opinion, in a very weak story manner. Same with Deathstroke, one sword thrust should not have taken down the worlds greatest assassin super soldier. He better not really be dead, Esai Morales was crushing that role and we need to see more of him later on. Nice set up bringing Blackfire to Earth, just as Starfire has been depowered and the squad is kinda on the ropes. With hopefully a little more solid storylines and unification of style and themes, this show will continue to get better and we will have a fully functioning Titans squad that kicks butt and has fun doing it. Bring on Season 3!!
