TV Review: Titans Season Four - Full Circle

 

"Titans" has always been a hit and miss kind of show. Character depictions, costumes, and story arcs have ranged from well done to questionable since the beginning. Then there's the gritty tone where it either works to the show's advantage or come off as trying too hard. Personally, season two remains the high point of the series where they got it mostly right, especially after a rough first outing. As we reach the fourth and final season of the show, it seems "Titans" has come full circle.

In many ways, season four is a return to form from the first, for better (another Doom Patrol guest appearance now with Joivan Wade's Cyborg) and for worse (an uptake in f-bombs that seem to be there for the sake of edginess). The biggest callback to season one though is that we once again deal with a supernatural threat and a horror tone throughout. Unfortunately, this leads to an overuse of the horror trope of blood coming from places or items it shouldn't, whether the character's hallucinating or it's magically appearing. It was used so much that I was pretty much desensitized to any blood being shown for the rest of the season, even during fights or character deaths. And don't get me started on all the terrible CGI snakes from the first half of the season.
For a final season with supernatural tones, it seemed fitting that the return of Trigon would be the big threat. And he does return in the finale in glorious fashion...only to get killed and have his power stolen by this series' incel version of Brother Blood (played by Joseph Morgan). Brother Blood started out as someone you could sympathize with but he just became insufferable by the finale with his "the world treated me badly so I'm gonna destroy it" mentality. And despite the fact that he was shown genuine kindness in his life, it pretty much boiled down to him brushing that aside so he can keep playing the victim until he had the means to lash out. The moment we lost Trigon for his whiny demon spawn was when I pretty much checked out for the rest of a lackluster finale (much like season one's).

I have to say that the best of episode of the season was "Dude, Where's My Gar?" It's a nice little break from the main action with a focus episode on Ryan Potter's Beast Boy. Tying into the supernatural theme of the season, there is some New 52 influence brought in as we learn of Gar's connection to "The Red" (similar to "The Green" from Swamp Thing but with animals) and his importance to the multiverse. We also get to see his full potential as he finally switches between different animals during a single fight; it only happens the one time so enjoy it while you can.

There were three stand-out performances to me this season:

* Lisa Ambalavanar as Jinx was a fun character. An old frenemy of Dick's, I got the sense of her being the Catwoman to his Batman. She also seemed to be on the same wavelength as Gar, both being able to find some levity in the serious situations and share in a laugh. It was just a shame she wasn't in it as long as she was.
* Joshua Orpin is able to bring a new side to Superboy after the character goes through some traumatic experiences in the beginning of the season and decides to take some drastic measures. To this end, Conner starts to embrace the Lex Luthor side of him, right down to shaving his head. It's about as edge lord as you'd expect and it felt kind of rushed to me, but it was definitely entertaining. His performance reminded me of a mix Jesse Eisenberg's and Michael Rosenbaum's depictions of Lex Luthor; play AFI's "Prelude 12/21" when he walks out fully shaved for the first time and it wouldn't have been out of place.
* A big part of the season is the journey of Jay Lycurgo's Tim Drake in his training to become the new Robin. I think we get a satisfying payoff as the character is able to hold his own in the field by the finale and sporting probably the best live action Robin suit and most comic accurate since Burt Ward's. In addition, I really enjoyed the chemistry between him and Bernard (played by James Scully) and how their relationship develops.

With all the similarities to season one, season four does get bonus points for more comic accurate costumes, which I know was a big problem a lot of people had in the beginning. We certainly came a long way since then. And at the very least, we do close out the series with a happy ending for our characters. My only wish is that we could have seen Dawn and Donna, given they were part of all the previous seasons; the show didn't go into this knowing it would be the last season, but still.
When it comes to "Titans" as a whole, I think there's a lot to enjoy through some of the muck, but I know it's not for everyone. Still, I'll take this over the original animated series' finale and "Go!" as a whole.