Warning: Contains spoilers for Titans season 3 episode 13.
Donna Troy is struck by lightning in the Titans season 3 finale but doesn't die, showing that the series has learned its lesson from one of the more controversial storylines in its earlier seasons. Titans has received a lot of criticisms for its character development and inconsistencies in its storytelling. Season 3, however, has fixed a lot of the shows biggest problems, and the series’ self-awareness of this issue is particularly evident in one scene from the finale's final battle.
During the final Titans season 3 episode entitled “Purple Rain”, Scarecrow (Vincent Kartheiser) enacts a plan to begin blowing up parts of Gotham and kills an estimated 500-2,000 civilians in the process. The Titans hatch a plan to suck up a Lazarus Pit and turn it into a storm to rain down on Gotham and revive those who have already perished. They do not account for the possibility of lightning, and Donna (Conor Leslie) has to use her lasso to connect to the storm, grounding the lightning out of it by allowing it to course through her part-Amazonian body.
The fact that she is able to survive this is a call back to the moment in the Titans season 2 finale where Donna Troy dies—a moment that many viewers felt was a mistake. After the final confrontation, an electrical tower falls towards Dove (Minka Kelly) and Donna rushes to push her out of the way, dying from electrocution in Dawn’s place. The death, while clearly a setup for her future resurrection—as Raven (Teagan Croft) quickly suggested the possibility and went to Themyscira to help with the process—made little sense as she could easily have saved Dove without being hit, and should have been able to survive the electrical shock given her pre-established powers. The Titans season 3 scene shows Wonder Girl’s true power, and having it demonstrated through earthing lightning feels like a direct response to season 2.
The fact that this moment is a cheeky response to Donna’s arguably terrible season 2 death is emphasized by the on-the-nose conversation that happens between Starfire (Anna Diop) and Donna around it. When Donna steps forward to ground the storm, Starfire tries to stop her, suggesting that she might be killed again in the process. Donna responds with a sly comment, saying “you know what they say about lightning”, an allusion to the idea that it doesn’t strike in the same place twice. All of this makes sure that the audience sees this as a direct response to critics of the earlier storyline.
This dramatic scene in the Titans season 3 finale also builds on a brief exchange between future Robin-in-training, Tim Drake (Jay Lycurgo) and Donna in the season 3 episode “The Call Is Coming From Inside The House,” and sets up a possible dimension for Titans season 4 storylines. In the earlier scene, Tim and Donna acknowledge that they feel somehow different after having been dead for a time. This suggests that Donna’s ability to withstand the lightning strike is in some part because she is now more powerful for having journeyed through the afterlife and avoids an obvious plot hole that would result if her ability to survive this time around came entirely out of the blue, helping to build stronger consistency for the narrative in Titans season 4 and beyond.