"Origins" Titans S01E03 Review

Hey, they lied. Well, sort of. With "Origins" We find out bits and pieces of the backstories of Rachel, Kory, and Dick. But as far as Rachel, it's all the sort of "Well, I'll talk like we all know what we're talking about except we won't say anything specific because the audience is watching" that you get in most building-a-mystery shows. There are only hints that Kory is an alien, but there's no explanation for where specifically she's from or why she has amnesia. And we don't really find out anything about Dick that we didn't already know, other than he really likes that Porsche.

And Gar (Ryan Potter) shows up a couple of minutes, and he and Rachel compliment each other on their hair.

Let's recap. Kory has somehow travelled from Vienna to DC, and sees the Nuclear Family take away Rachel. In flashback, we see that she broke into the Roth house, beat up three cops, and found a photo of Melissa and Rachel at St. Paul's Convent. Back in the present, Kory follows the Family and when they stop for gas, kills Father with her flame powers, and takes Rachel with her.

The remaining Family goes to Chicago and meets with the messenger from last week, who is named Adamson. He threatens to destroy them, but then reconsiders, says that "they" will build another Father, and invites Mother, Sister and Brother Biff to have omelets.

After a brief hospital scene that establishes Dawn is alive but comatose, and that writes her and Hank out with barely a fare-thee-well, Dick gets word that Amy is dead. He goes after Rachel, finds the gas station and the police taking away Father's corpse, and steals the security footage to discover Kory took Rachel to St. Paul's.

At St. Paul's, a helpful Sister Catherine (Meagen Fey) says Rachel and Melissa stayed there when Rachel was a young girl, that they were on the run from Rachel's father, and Melissa had strangulation marks on her neck. She also identifies the key Kory found as belonging to a nearby roller palace (kids, ask your grandparents!).

Kory and Rachel go the roller palace, and Kory discovers the key opens a locker containing a key to a storage unit. Rachel meets up with Gar, who I guess is just hanging around the place. They bond over a Twilight Zone pinball machine, but Dick shows up and takes Kory and Rachel out. When Rachel flares her demon self again, they go back to the convent. Kory steals Dick's Porsche and goes to the storage unit. Dick goes after her. Catherine drugs Rachel unconscious and locks her in a cell, saying it's for Rachel's own good and they all have to make sacrifices.

Kory finds the storage unit and discovers it has pictures of Rachel, and ravens, and maps of the world There's also some papers with (presumably) alien writing on it, and a tape player that has a tape log of Kory saying she's going to Vienna to track down the criminals who sold Rachel and Melissa new identities.

Rachel's demon self appears in the cell mirror and asks Rachel to let her in. Rachel presumably does so. The convent bursts into flames and lots of ravens fly out, and Dick and Kory see it. Rachel runs off into the forest. The end.

Nothing really happens this episode, other than the four Titans finally get together. Sort of, in Gar's case. But given how awkwardly he shapeshifted a couple of episodes ago, that might be for the best. Not exactly the smooth moment-to-moment battle shapeshifting of the comics, was it? About the time something interesting happens, they cut away to a Dick flashback. Where he see he tried to run away from Bruce at first after he was adopted, so he could hunt down his parents' killers once he learns their deaths weren't an accident.

Or we get a scene intended to show us that Kory is a bad-ass, when we already know it. Like when she beats up three guys harassing a waitress at a diner.

All of the main characters are still engaging. I like the Kory-Rachel scenes where the two bond despite themselves, since Kory gives Rachel a sister figure (?) that Rachel didn't know she needed. The Rachel-Gar scene is cute, even if I find their similar in age a bit disconcerting. Brenton Thwaites as Dick is still good, although he doesn't really get much to do this week other than play detective. Tomaso Sanelli as his younger (and rawer) Dick does more.

Even the Nuclear Family get a bit more to do, as they face "death" at the hands of Adamson until he decides not to trigger their self-destructs. Which suggests they're androids like their comic book counterparts. Although they were shooting up drugs last week. I suppose they could be clones and still have a self-destruct. Or androids that use drugs to power themselves up. We'll hopefully see.

There are at least three factions at play here, and it's not quite clear who is on what team. Adamson and his people seem to want to bring Rachel's true father (Trigon, if you read the comics) to Earth, and have access to android/clone-building tech. The guy who was trying to kill Rachel a couple of episodes go is apparently on Team Anti-Trigon. The nuns this week seem to be on their own team, wanting to stop Trigon from getting to Earth but not killing Rachel like the second faction. Or maybe there's a big Team Anti-Trigon and one side or the other are a rogue faction. It's hard to tell at this point, and I wish they were a bit clearer given that so far, it's all boiled down to the various factions as the collective bad guys.

Next week is titled "Doom Patrol", and looks to feature Robotman, Rebus (the third-generation Negative Man), and someone who appears to be Elasti-Girl. And I've always been a fan of the DP, particularly Grant Morrison's Rebus. Although we'll probably have to wait until the animated series to get the Brotherhood of Dada: who doesn't like The Quiz, who has every superpower you've never thought of. Presumably they're tied to Gar, since Beast Boy was an early member of the DP. Although why Gar is a sometimes member of the DP, and sometimes running around Ohio stealing video games, who knows?

So overall, "Origins" was a decent move-the-story-along episode, with some nice character bits. Nothing spectacularly great, nothing spectacularly bad.

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