Titans third episode of the season sees the title characters finally come together for the first time. Titled ‘Origins’ the show focuses on showing how the team eventually seems to band together and also reveals some origins of the characters. Forever missing, we finally get some additional footage of Beast boy in this episode even though it was sparse.
Titans picks off its third outing right after the cliffhanger of the last episode. Starfire is seen watching as the family kidnaps Rachel in the wake of defeating Dick Grayson and his friends to a pulp. Titans played the last episode well by making it seem like Dawn died, but as we learn she is in the hospital in critical condition. The show abruptly moves away from the recently introduced characters, which was disappointing after the strong last episode.
Starfire is the one to save Rachel burning the evil family’s father to a crisp. Starfires relationship with Rachel is a plus point for the episode as Rachel is able to relate more to her. She feels safe with her, while betrayed by Robin, who is hot on the trail to find Rachel in the wake of the kidnapping. The relationship with these two also feels much more organic and provides more depth to Rachels character overall.
The most exciting part of the episode came when flashbacks of Dicks origin as Robin were shown. Titans again seems to beautifully bring the DC comics lore into fruition. We see glimpses of Bruce as he ushers Dick into becoming the future boy wonder. Bruce sees himself in Dick and despite his trouble, Bruce wants to show Dick a better way to channel his rage.
Eventually, we see all the heroes come together, however how brief it is. Rachel is seen sparking a friendship with Gar Logan (Beast Boy), yet we again barely see him for more than a few minutes. Perhaps why they are not purposely showing Beast boy is because he will require lots of CGI, which they might still be polishing. Who knows, but hopefully we get some more of him soon enough.
The show’s pacing has been relatively slow and with this third episode again we see a slow unraveling. This is one point the show can definitely improve on, as with weekly episodes the pacing begs to question why they did not just release the season all at once for us to binge. Here’s hoping to the next episode going faster and showing us more of the Titans as a team now.
