DC Universe’s Titans – Ranking the season 1 episodes

Monita Roy Mohan

The premiere season of DC Universe’s Titans is over, but we’re not ready to forget it yet. Take a look at our rankings of the episodes – from the shockingly bad to the refreshingly good!

DC Universe’s first original series, Titans, debuted with plenty of controversy on its tail. Some comic readers (read: bigots) were up in arms about casting Anna Diop in the role of Starfire, while others were appalled by the SDCC trailer, where Brenton Thwaites’ Robin bald-facedly declared, ‘F*** Batman’. By the time the pilot episode finally premiered in October, fans were unsure how to feel about the show.

Titans is far removed from its comic book origins – it’s violent, with pervasive language and an over-zealous need to bask in the darker side of humanity. As someone who pretty much breathed and dreamed of this series ever since it was announced, my hopes of enjoying Titans came crashing down after the first two episodes. This was not what I had expected.

The #DCUTITANS come to life, only on #DCUNIVERSE. (US Only) pic.twitter.com/iFGqu8lmTt
— DC Titans (@DCTitans) November 13, 2018

But fans’ continued trepidation was soon put at rest once the actual team was brought together. Dick Grayson, Kory Anders, Rachel Roth (Teagan Croft) and Garfield Logan (Ryan Potter) made for a good team with easy chemistry – it’s a shame it took four long episodes for them to work alongside each other.

Despite its ups, and many downs, the first season of Titans turned out to be a refreshing look at the superhero genre. It still needs improvement, which we expect from the second season that has already been announced, but after the first two episodes, honestly, the only way was up.

To gauge just how well all the episodes fared, we at Show Snob have ranked them accordingly to the quality of writing, directing and fresh takes. Everyone has their favorites, so, let us know what you think of our ranking.

Episode 2: Hawk And Dove

This episode had so much potential but ended up being formulaic and stilted. As an introduction to new characters Hank Hall, aka Hawk (Alan Ritchson), and Dawn Granger, aka Dove (Minka Kelly), the episode fails to garner any sympathy for the characters, nor does it give us their origin stories. Hank and Dawn are given little development and the episode falls into several sexist tropes that the show could have done without.

Instead, in this second outing for Titans, the show pretty much cemented Dick Grayson’s penchant for being an unreliable father figure and a terrible friend. Viewers also questioned the need for introducing characters who weren’t integral to the main plot of the show, while actual Titans members Starfire and Gar were nowhere to be seen.

Episode 1: Titans

The moment we had all been waiting for – the start of the show featuring some of DC’s fan-favorite characters. There are some genuinely creepy moments in the premiere with Rachel’s soul-self emerging, but for the most part, this episode was about a young girl being hunted, and almost trafficked several times.

And while viewers got to see Robin’s extremely cool entrance following by an energetic fight scene, what was with the violence? So unnecessary. And Dick is a terrible detective – Rachel was left in his care and she literally gets kidnapped right from under his nose. Also, that infamous ‘F*** Batman’, had absolutely no gravity in the final version of the scene.

To top it all, Starfire was given two and a half scenes and Gar only cameoed at the end of the episode.

Episode 3: Origins

Starfire being a badass is the only thing that saved this episode from being lower on our list. This episode is all about Robin’s origins with viewers getting a series of flashbacks to Dick’s early recruitment into the Bat-family. But young Dick’s rebellious nature and his need for finding the truth about his parents’ murder is executed in such a slap-dash manner that it is practically a joke.

More from Editorial

Tomaso Sanelli’s portrayal of young Dick is sadly monotone and has none of the charisma that is called for in Robin. The episode is massively hampered by the fact that Bruce Wayne/ Batman can’t appear on Titans. The scenes young Dick should have shared with Bruce end up with being shared with a counselor who adds little to the story.

Episode 4: Doom Patrol

It’s never easy setting up another show when you only have 11 episodes to play within a season but ‘Doom Patrol’ was surprisingly well done. Unlike “Hawk and Dove”, which failed to give the new characters much personality, in this episode we get a distinct sense of the Doom Patrol team – Robotman (Brendan Fraser), Negative Man (Matt Bomer), Elasti-Girl (April Bowlby) – and finally learn more about Gar Logan, who had been given short shrift till episode four. The fact that the DC Universe was able to pay homage to Gar’s comic book origins as a Doom Patrol member shows excellent forethought by the showrunners.

There are still some tropes that could have been avoided in this episode, some of which are glaringly obvious, this episode got us surprisingly excited for the Doom Patrol spin-off.

Episode 7: Asylum

This was an exciting, and disturbing, episode but it has definitely made its mark on the series. “Asylum” gives viewers some much-needed answers about the direction of the show, and manages to pack in more characterization in one hour than it did in most previous episodes.

Not only does Rachel get to save the day on her own and find her long-lost mom, but we dive into Dick Grayson’s psyche and see his deepest, darkest fear. Poor Gar and Kory have a terrible time but this is the kind of darkness we expected from Titans – heroes being put through the wringer to come out on the other end stronger and wiser. What sells this episode is watching the team come together to help each other.

Episode 6: Jason Todd

We had to wait six long episodes for Jason Todd to appear but it was worth the wait. Curran Walters’ Robin 2.0 is a wiseass with amazing fighting skills. He idolizes Dick and loves his ‘dope gig’ as Robin more than Dick ever did. The banter between the two Robins is hilarious and fun, making this one of the rare times in this season where viewers had reason to smile.

The episode gives us a good look at the darkness driving both Dick and Jason and has an important message about actions having consequences. While the writers do heighten Dick and Jason’s comic book origins and personalities for the show’s darker tone, the episode still provides a valid character study of the two Robins. Plus, those fight scenes are to die for!

Episode 10: Koriand’r

An unexpectedly spooky episode with some good jump scares, but “Koriand’r” sadly has little of Kory in it. Her story is subsumed by the Rachel-Angela dynamic, though we do finally learn about Kory’s origins as an alien who was sent to Earth to stop Trigon from returning. And we see Donna Troy (Conor Leslie) wield her Lasso of Persuasion! Wonder Girl for-the-win.

More from Show Snob

The episode feels a bit rushed at times like it can’t wait to get to the denouement, but that’s easy to overlook when the final scene brings Trigon to our realm. Seamus Deaver is not the person we were expecting as the red, horned villain but this is going to be fun nonetheless. Despite its flaws, for keeping viewers off-kilter for the majority of its runtime, we love this episode.

Episode 8: Donna Troy

Finally, a light-hearted episode! “Donna Troy” shows us a funnier side of Dick Grayson and introduces another fan-favorite character who immediately steals our hearts. Donna is brave, intelligent and a hero even without her super-suit. She has some of the most inspiring dialogue of the season in this episode, making it the most quotable.

What’s especially memorable about this episode is how much fun Dick Grayson is as a character when he lets his hair down and acts like an actual human being. It only took eight episodes, but with the introduction of a fellow ‘sidekick’, it finally feels like Dick is somewhat representative of his on-page character.

The episode also expands the universe of Titans with some massive name-drops like Wonder Woman, Joker, Penguin, and the Justice League. We won’t get to see these characters but its great to know they exist here.

Episode 11: Dick Grayson

The season one finale was a doozy. It starts off all bright and sunny (literally) and proceeds to descend into horrifying darkness that will change the fate of the Titans forever. If you love alternate reality stories, this one is for you, and even if you don’t, there’s no denying that this episode quite brilliantly encapsulates the mammoth task Dick was set all those years ago when he was first brought into Wayne Mansion.

The finale is surprisingly light on action but expands the universe of Titans even more than previous episodes – we actually get to see the Joker, and Batman, not to mention one other character who is revealed in the post-credits scene. Does the episode does Dick Grayson from the comics justice? Not quite, but it brings the Dick of Titans to his final conclusion. We cannot wait for the next season!

Episode 5: Together

We finally get to see the Titans together in this episode and it is amazing! The Titans practicing their abilities in an abandoned barn is a fun scene, particularly everyone’s reaction to Gar having to get naked to demonstrate his powers. We were already in love with Kory, but this episode makes us love her so much more.

We also get to see how the Nuclear Family are made and what it is that drives them to keep fighting. The fight scenes in this episode are the best of the whole season – raw, energetic, impactful, without being brutal. This is the superhero team, and the Robin, we had been promised. Oh, and that final scene with Robin 2.0 rescuing Dick – now, that’s what we call an introduction.

Episode 9: Hank and Dawn

After the fiasco that was “Hawk and Dove”, we groaned at having to spend another episode dedicated to these two; but holy characterization, Batman! Were we ever wrong?

The frenetic action and plot-development of the previous episodes give way to a completely different mood giving viewers the origin stories for Hawk and Dove that episode two should have. This is a beautiful, heart-breaking, deeply realistic episode that sets up the two characters’ lives as superheroes. It is a painful study of love, loss and the impact of abuse on people’s lives.

The writers also subvert expectations by giving us two women who rally together despite their opposing reactions to domestic violence, while it is a male character who copes with childhood sexual abuse. All the horror is implied, making this an intelligent and sensitive entry in the show. This is what Titans was supposed to be about.

Conclusion

Over the last decade, our television screens have become havens for fandoms. Where once cinematic comic book adaptations were a rarity, we currently see a proliferation of superhero fare on the big and small screens. Dedicated streaming platforms like Netflix, and now DC Universe, have helped reach viewers and paved the way for fan-favorite heroes to lead their own franchises, leaving the big screen to their more well-known counterparts. For comics readers who have waited decades to see characters such as Starfire, Raven and Wonder Girl in live-action, Titans is the kind of show that they have been waiting for.

Despite a patchy start, Titans gained momentum four episodes in, delivering stories that were action-packed and powerful. We cannot wait to see what is in store for this universe when the second season comes around.

International audiences will be able to catch Titans on Netflix from January 11, 2019.

Monita Roy Mohan

Monita has been championing diversity, inclusivity, and representation in entertainment media through her work for over a decade. She is a Tomatometer-Approved Critic. She writes for Bam Smack Pow and Geek Girl Authority. Her bylines have appeared on 3-time Eisner Award-winning publication Women Write About Comics, HuffPost, Reactormag.com (formerly tor.com), Soundsphere/Screensphere, FanSided's Show Snob, and Vocal. She was also a TV/Movies features writer at Collider.com. Alongside her twin, Monita co-hosts the pop culture podcast Stereo Geeks.