TV Review: Titans Season 2 Episode 4

Titans Season 2 Episode 4 “Aqualad”

Director: Glen Winter

Starring: Brenton Thwaites, Teagan Croft, Anna Diop, Ryan Potter, Curran Walters, Conor Leslie, Minka Kelly, Alan Ritchson, Chelsea Zhang, Esai Morales, Drew Van Acker, Chella Man

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 43 minutes

What a good episode of Titans. I think this might be one of the best episodes of the show we’ve seen so far. As the title of the episode would indicate, “Aqualad” sheds some light on the history of the Titans team. Spoiler Warning: There will be some slight spoilers in this review. I’ll try and keep it vague, but it’s kind of hard to talk about this episode without them. 

The episode starts us off five years in the past, in San Francisco with Robin, Wonder Girl, Hawk & Dove and Aqualad operating as the Titans. The bigger focus of the story being the relationship between Aqualad and Wonder Girl. Aqualad loves Donna Troy, and while she has feelings for him, she doesn’t want to act on them. While this is happening the team encounters Doctor Light for the first time, and we learn more about him. Something tragic happens, and the episode ends with the team vowing to hunt down their new foe, Deathstroke.

Drew Van Acker gives a fantastic performance as Aqualad. For a character we’ve not seen before, he fits right in with the rest of the cast naturally. The episode puts a lot of focus on him and Conor Leslie (Wonder Girl/Donna Troy) and they’re both fantastic. On top of that we are introduced to Jericho Wilson played by Chella Man, but we don’t see too much of him. But knowing his character from the comics will be playing a bigger role. This episode does some name dropping that’s pretty cool. Aqualad is Atlantean, and they mention atlantis by name. Plus, there’s mention of Themyscira and Wonder Woman.

Another thing this show does really well is the costumes. Aqualad wears a red and blue suit, reminiscent of his classic costume, but without the hotpants. We also see the shot from the trailer, of the Titans walking down the hall in full costume, and I have to admit it made me fanboy out a little bit. As is almost always the case with this show, the effects leave a bit to be desired. I don’t think it’s the worst it’s ever been, but they’re still not the best. Doctor Light is one I’m getting a bit used to, but Aqualad manipulating water doesn’t look good. They only use it twice, I believe, but it’s noticeable. 

The few hand-to-hand fight scenes are decent though, this show has a good batting average in that regard. And something new we get to see is Deathstroke “working”. It’s not as action-y as I want to see, but there’s a montage of him killing people towards the start of the show. With the next episode having the title “Deathstroke” I imagine we’ll be seeing more. The more I think about this episode, the more it stands out as one of my favorites. It’s got some of the same problems I have with pretty much every episode of Titans. But it’s also got a lot of the things that makes Titans my favorite TV show. 

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