Titans season 2, episode 4 finally reveals just what happened to Aqualad - but still leaves a lot of unanswered questions. The present-day Titans are dealing with the ghosts of the past, but the DC Universe TV series wisely decides to "show not tell." Rather than have the current team discover the shocking truth of what happened to the original Titans, episode 4 is a dedicated flashback.
"Aqualad" jumps back five years, with the Generation 1 Titans successfully taking down Dr. Light before winding up in the cross-hairs of Deathstroke, the Terminator. The assassin has been sent to San Francisco on a contract, and Deathstroke guns down Aqualad, a member of the Titans. That looks to be the beginning of a game of cat-and-mouse between the Titans and the Terminator, as Dick Grayson leads a manhunt.
Titans season 2 has been a marked improvement from the first, even if it is packed with retcons. This time round, Titans season 2, episode 4 at last gives viewers what they've wanted all along - an honest-to-goodness superhero team in a full-on fight against a supervillain. Let's explore everything this episode sets up for the future.
8. Was Deathstroke Hired To Kill ALL The Titans?
Titans season 2, episode 4 opens with Deathstroke conducting a high-profile mission, before then being hired to head to San Francisco. By the end of "Aqualad", it's clear that he's been hired to kill at least one of the Titans. Deathstroke opens fire on Wonder Girl and Aqualad, killing the latter; but it's difficult to say whether he's supposed to wipe the kids out, or whether he was instead just attempting to assassinate Donna. The latter is entirely possible, given Aqualad appears to have blocks a bullet that was aimed at Donna, and Deathstroke continues to fire at Wonder Girl after Aqualad's death.
7. Who Is Jericho?
Titans season 2, episode 4 ends with Dick Grayson tracking down a mysterious mute teenager called Jericho. No doubt this will seem fairly random for general viewers, but Jericho is actually Deathstroke's son, rendered mute because he got dragged into his father's affairs and had his throat slit. In the comics, he became a member of the Titans and was killed by his father, but it's clear the DC Universe version is going to be very different. Titans season 2, episode 3 - set in the present day - has already mentioned Jericho, with his sister Rose blaming Deathstroke for his death. It's possible that Titans is inverting the plot from the comics, where the death of one of Deathstroke's children was the cause of his vendetta against the Titans; perhaps in the TV series, Jericho's death will cause him to give up on it for a while.
6. Why Was Wonder Girl On Loan From Themyscira?
Meanwhile, Wonder Girl's backstory is getting pretty confusing. The Titans season 2 premiere featured a nightmare vision for Donna in which she had been orphaned; in the comics, the orphan girl was rescued by Wonder Woman and taken to Themyscira, where she became one of the Amazons. Weirdly, dialogue in Titans season 2, episode 4 treated Donna almost like a clone of Wonder Woman instead, as though she had some sort of gods-given destiny - and was perhaps even fated to be the next Queen of Themyscira. Apparently Donna persuaded the Amazons to loan her out to the Titans for a year so she could get a break from her responsibilities on Paradise Island, which sounds to have been a bargain the Amazons were reluctant to agree to. It's worth noting that the nightmare vision was originally shot as part of Titans season 1, and pretty much every other character's season 1 backstory has been retconned, so this might just be another inconsistency.
5. Why Is Wonder Girl So Afraid Of A Relationship With Aqualad?
The emotional heart of Titans season 2, episode 4 is the ill-fated will-they-or-won't-they relationship between Wonder Girl and Aqualad. It seems Aqualad has been infatuated with Donna since he was a 12-year-old, and attended an Atlantean delegation to a meeting with the Amazons. Wonder Girl fears that a relationship would somehow mean sacrificing her destiny, although how is unclear given that destiny remains something of a mystery. In the end, Donna chooses Aqualad - but a little too late, as Aqualad falls prey to Deathstroke's bullet.
4. Why Wasn't The Bat Computer Affected By Dr. Light's Power Outage?
Titans season 2, episode 4 reveals that Dr. Light was the last supervillain the Titans took down before they wound up in Deathstroke's cross-hairs. That particular adventure started with a power outage in San Francisco, which frankly seems to be becoming Dr. Light's signature move. Amusingly, Titans Tower clearly has a backup generator, because the Bat Computer in the basement is still working. Nothing else is, though, meaning that Batman presumably installed this separate generator just for the computer.
3. What Is The History Between Dick Grayson And Dove?
The first season of Titans implied that Dick Grayson and Dove had an affair while in Gotham, one that Hawk resented and that led to lasting bitterness between the two. Titans season 2, episode 4 retcons that whole idea as well. It turns out that Hawk and Dove broke up for a while, and Dove hooked up with Dick Grayson in the meantime. Hawk seems to take their relationship surprisingly well, not seeming to care that the two are pretty much all over one another. That seems rather odd, given the animosity Hawk felt towards Dick in Titans season 1.
2. Did Dick Grayson Research Dr. Light On... Wikipedia?
Dick Grayson was trained by Batman, the Great Detective of DC Comics, and he has access to the Bat Computer. For all that's the case, when Dick decides to research Dr. Light, he appears to choose to head to Wikipedia - hardly the most reputable source. The Wiki's editors appear to be keeping Dr. Light's page completely up to date, even recounting the fact he's just killed an old colleague of his in order to acquire an "activator." All this seems like an entertaining mirror-image of the real world, where there are dedicated comic book wikis that are updated within moments of an issue's release. Or maybe Dr. Light is just egotistical enough to edit his own page, and Robin figured that out.
1. Do Batman And Robin Even Try To Keep Their Secret Identities?
It's official: In the DCEU, Batman's secret identity might as well be public knowledge. Titans Tower is heavily branded with Wayne logos, meaning anyone who tracks the team down can figure it out. Even Dick Grayson doesn't seem too bothered about keeping his identity a secret; when he meets Deathstroke's son, Jericho, he introduces himself with his real name. That's hardly a wise decision, given he's clearly using Jericho in an attempt to Deathstroke. And as soon as Deathstroke figures out who Robin is, he surely won't have any difficulty deducing Batman's true identity.