TV Review: Titans Season 2 Episode 2

Titans Season 2 Episode 2 “Rose”

Director: Nathan Hope

Starring: Brenton Thwaites, Teagan Croft, Anna Diop, Ryan Potter, Curran Walters, Conor Leslie, Minka Kelly, Alan Ritchson, Chelsea Zhang, Iain Glen

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 40 minutes

This episode of Titans is where season two officially starts. Season one ending prematurely is the most prominent complaint about season one. Carrying that over to season two, it’s my biggest problem with the first episode. But we’re now officially in season two, and I promise this will be the last time I’m mentioning it. The point is, it’s season two episode two, and things are kicking off.

“Rose” starts with a time-jump. We’re three months past the terror of Trigon, and our primary characters are all in a different place. Dick Grayson is teaching Rachel, Gar, and Jason Todd in San Francisco. He’s training them to be better heroes. Hawk and Dove are running a ranch to help rehabilitate drug and narcotics users. Donna Troy and Kori are in Chicago tracking down a meta-human. Elsewhere, Doctor Light, an old enemy of the Titans escapes prison, while at the same time Dick is trying to recruit Rose, a girl on the run from the police.

Right off the bat, I like that there are some smaller character traits returning from season one. We were shown that Hank (Hawk) has a drug problem from superheroing, and that Hawk and Dove’s plan was to quit the life. Kori (Starfire) is shown in a few scenes listening to disco music, and it gets brought up when she’s with Donna Troy. They’re small things, but I like that they’re carrying over to this season.

I like the story well enough, we’re just getting the ball rolling so it’s a good setup for things to come. We don’t learn too much about Rose, except for who her father is at the end of the episode. We know Deathstroke is the main villain for the season, but I like that Doctor Light is what’s going to bring the team together initially. He’s a Titans villain from the comics, and Shimmer, another one, also pops up. 

What carries this show a lot for me is the characters and their chemistry with each other. The actors and actresses just have something together. My favorites being Alan Ritchson and Minka Kelly as Hawk and Dove. They’re very believable as a couple who cares for each other. That being said, their parts of this episode are a little slower than the rest. What they go through is important for the story. Doctor Light blows up their farmhouse and the kid we see that they’re helping. But it’s just kind of slow.

It’s been the case since the first episode, but some of the effects are bad and very noticeable. In particular, towards the end of the episode, a car blows up and the explosion is bad. The Doctor Light… light powers… are on par with what we can see on The Flash or Arrow. Not exactly good, but definitely not the worst. On top of that, we see Rose fight some cops and the choreography isn’t the best. I know this show can be fantastic with the hand to hand fighting, and I hope her scenes improve later on.

Besides that, this episode is just a lot of the show getting the ball rolling. There’s no Deathstroke, except a still photo at the end. We see a bit more Bruce Wayne, and I’d still not 100% on Iain Glen as Bruce Wayne, but I can see myself getting there. I think most notably Roy Harper gets mentioned TWICE, and I hope we get to see him one day. At the end of the day, I do like this episode. It’s a bit slow, but I think it does some good work developing the characters and the world they live in. 

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