"Hawk and Dove" – Titans S01E02 Review

Now for something completely different.

If you thought the tonal change last week from Detroit to Vienna was too abrupt, then no worries about "Hawk and Dove". The story sticks with Dick and Rachel. Granted, we get Hawk and Dove (Alan Ritchson from Blood Drive among others, and Minka Kelly). But they fit in more with the dark non-super-powered milieu of Robin than the fire and shapeshifting we got last week with Kory and (briefly) Gar.

And yes, I know Hawk and Dove have superpowers in the comics. But there's no evidence of it that I could see in "Hawk and Dove". Hawk takes painkillers after-the-fact, and both he and Dawn are good fighter. But there's no indication of super-strength and super-speed that I could tell. No more than Robin, at any rate.

We also get a new group of bad guys, the Nuclear Family. Which are presumably based on a bunch of robots from the old Outsiders comic book. But more on them in a bit.

"Hawk and Dove" starts with Hawk being chained up and tortured by some garden-variety thugs. Dove shows up, takes out the lights, slashes up the thugs with the razor-sharp wings on her costume, and the torturer runs off. It becomes clear Hawk and Dove (Hank and Dawn in their secret identities) are lovers. Back at their apartment, Hank takes painkillers, he and Dawn make romantic small talk, and try to have sex. Hank has (implied) ED which he blows off as stress, but then we see Dawn taking some pills as well.

Then we get a bit of Dick and Rachel driving from Detroit to DC where H&D live so Dick can drop Rachel off. They talk about being orphans, and Rachel finds out Dick was raised by Bruce. Dick calls Alfred Pennyworth to get some money. Rachel has another "demonic self" attack and hides in the motel bathtub with crosses drawn on paper surrounding her, and Dick promises he'll never leave her.

There's also a reference or two to Game of Thrones, presumably because of Dawn's blonde-white hair. Or maybe Warner owns GoT and Titans and they're doing some cross-marketing. I'm surprised MacGyver didn't show up, given how that CBS show pushed Titans a few episodes ago. Also, Rachel watches season 4 before season 2.

Once Dick and Rachel get to DC, they move in with Hank and Dawn. We find out Dick and Dawn had a thing back in the day, and Hank is jealous. Dick gets the money from Alfred and hides it in Dawn's couch along with a note. H&D are planning to move to Wisconsin (??) after completing one last job taking down some arms dealers. Dawn wants Dick to help, but he warns her that he's changed.

Hawk and Dove go out, attack the arms dealers, and get surrounded. Robin arrives and takes out the dealers in his new super-violent blood-flying mode. Including driving the torturer's garden shears into the guy's crotch. Nummy.

Rachel wanders around the apartment and finds the envelope. Whether she uses her powers to find it, or Dick is just that bad at hiding things, we don't know. When the others get back, they find Rachel on the roof. She accuses Dick of lying to her about never leaving her. Hank is none too thrilled Dick tried to buy them off, and that Dawn suspected it.

Earlier we saw a mysterious Messenger visit a suburban "nuclear family" and say they were activated. The family--mother, father, sister, brother--shot themselves up with drugs, questioned Amy about Dick's location, presumably killed her, and then come to DC and attack our four heroes. The Family makes short work of Dick, Hank, and Dawn, and then snatch Rachel. When Dick recovers, he discovers the Family has thrown Dawn off the apartment roof and struggles to revive her as she lies dying. And… that's it.

"Hawk and Dove" delivered more of the violence that we saw last week, mostly filmed in grey overtones. So if that's your thing, more of the same.

We get a little more of Dick's back story, but not much. We don't get much on Rachel. And as I noted, Kory and Gar (Starfire and Beast Boy) aren't there at all. Much of the focus is on Hawk and Dove, a superhero team I've never found that interesting in any incarnation. They're okay here, but judging from their guest star status they're not going to be part of the Titans team. And Dawn may or may not be dead after this episode. So why all the focus on them, who knows? I guess someone on the creative team is a fan.

All the attention doesn't seem particularly warranted, either. Hawk is violent and Dove is okay with actively slashing bad guys. They're romantically involved, which might have been a thing in the comics at one point. I've lost track. Dawn used to have a thing with Dick, and Hank is jealous. We don't find out anything new about Dick from what is mentioned about his relationship with Dawn, other than the relationship itself. The Bat-mentions are probably the most interesting part of it: Batman forbid Robin from seeing H&D (why?), Alfred has a line or two of over-the-phone dialogue and it's established he's still in contact with Dick. And we hear more about how Batman helped turn Robin into the blood-splattered violence-monger he is today.

We also see Dick take on the adoptive parent/father-figure role Bruce had with him, and ended up turning Dick into a blood-soaked uber-vigilante. Brenton Thwaites and Teagan Croft do have chemistry with each other, and are decent performers on their own as well. Ritchson and Kelly are... okay. They're mildly two-dimensional characters, something the comics have gaslit from time to time.

The other interesting part of the episode is the Nuclear Family. We don't find out much about them, other than they're stuck in the 50s attitude-wise (although not as blatantly as in the comics), they're tied in with the doomsday cult that is trying to kill Rachel to prevent (presumably) Trigon from coming to Earth, and they're real people who use drugs rather than androids. But they provide some interesting bad guys rather than the euro-trash, street thugs, and overweight security guard that we saw last week.

As mentioned earlier, it looks like the end for Amy (Lindsey Gort), Dick's partner in Detroit. I suppose she could have told the Nuclear Family where Dick is, but it's a little vague on how she'd know. Less certain is Dawn's death, because it's a comic book properties and death is more of an inconvenience than a permanent fixture. If she is dead, it could lead to Hank joining up with Dick to take on the people that killed her. And thus leading to him joining the Titans. Or he could go off on his own to mourn. Which seems to be a waste of a potentially interesting character, but who knows? Like I said, I'm still trying to work out why we had at least a third of an episode focus on them if they're not part of the main team.

It's also not clear if Titans is part of the main DC movie universe. We get Bruce and Alfred, and Dove is wearing a Superman t-shirt. So whether Titans is tied into the movie universe, or (probably not) the TV/Arrowverse universe, or off in its own corner, who knows? And maybe who cares.

Overall, "Hawk and Dove" was a decent episode and an improvement on the pilot. Primarily because it wasn't the pilot. "Hawk and Dove" focused primarily on Dick and Rachel. If this is all we get of H&D, then it seems like a waste to have spent time on them. Starfire from last week wasn't much, but the amnesia hook is always interesting. I'd rather have seen her (or Beast Boy) than H&D, but I'll wait until we see were the show goes with our two vigilantes heroes before rendering final judgment.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?