"Hank and Dawn" – Titans S01E09 Review

And now for something completely different.

I noted in my last review that although "Donna Troy" still dwelt a lot on Robin and his backstory, we got a decent amount of Kory and even some bits with Rachel and Gar. So this week... the creative team decided to drop 99% of that and focus on the backstories of Hawk and Dove from the aptly-named "Hawk and Dove" episode.

So how much you liked this episode will depend on that episode. And how much you like Alan Ritchson and Minka Kelly. Fortunately, while I wasn't too impressed with the former, the backstory and the performances made "Hank and Dawn" a watchable episode.

To recap: Hank was sexually molested as a child by a Coach Vincent. And arguably, Hank "let" the coach do it to protect his younger half-brother Don. Hank carries that rage into adulthood, where he plays football for his college and takes a number of hits to the head. Don (Elliot Knight) refers Hank to the athletic director after he realizes the extent of Hank's problems. The two brothers get into a fight in the college library, and band together when a student tells Hank to shut up and a fight breaks out.

The brothers get expelled, and Don suggests they become vigilantes to take out child pedophiles and give Hank an outlet for his rage. At the same time, Dawn and her mother (Marina Sirtis) are in the U.S. for Dawn's ballet performance. They talk at a teahouse and we find out Dawn's father beat his wife and two daughters, but his wife won't leave him.

Mother and daughter leave, and bump into the brothers in the street. In an awkwardly staged and CGI'd sequence, a truck goes out of control and kills Don and Mrs. Grainger. Hank and Dawn meet up in grief group, and soon bond. Dawn finds out Hank was briefly Hawk and he tells her about how he was molested. Dawn goes to confront the coach (Trevor Hayes), but he beats her. Hank tracks Dawn down, saves her, and beats Vincent. When she realizes Hank plans to (presumably) beat Vincent to death, she closes the front door and looks on.

Afterward, they go back to Hank's place and make love. They wake up the next morning and Dawn tells Hank they can't be together. At that point, Dawn sees Rachel's reflection in Hank's Hawk helmet and hears Rachel (Teagan Croft) calling for help. Rachel's image has been appearing throughout the episode, calling to Hank and Dawn. Dawn comes out of her coma and tells Hank Rachel needs their help and they have to find Jason Todd. So presumably he'll be showing up as well.

"Hank and Dawn" takes a very Watchmen-like approach to vigilantism and comic book superheroism. There's no mysterious Voice granting Hank and Dawn powers like in the comics. Hank turns to vigilantism because he was molested, and Dawn joins him out of a combination of her own father's violence and a seeming sexual thrill from exercising her demons. They have no superpowers: they just beat people up.

By now, you're probably used to the darker side of Titans. So if watching Dick torture, beat, and stab people, and Kory turning people into columns of ash, bothers you then you shouldn't be watching. If you are, then a bit of nudity and Hank viciously beating a guy to death will make you unhappy. But that's comparatively mildly compared to what has come before. So if you were okay with the earlier stuff, nothing here should be that disturbing unless you consider sorta-nudity more distressing than violence.

Ritchson and Kelly are both up to the task, and it helps they have chemistry with each other. Granted, the episode gives them some time to bond. But you get to see a warmer side of Hank then we did in "Hawk and Dove", and you can now see why Dawn sticks with him.

Why we should care is another story. Presumably they'll be linking up with the Titans. Given that 2/9ths of the episodes so have far have focused on them, they'd better. If not, the focus on H&D is a narrative bust. It's also arguable why the team needs two more non-powered heroes. We've got five heroes in the base team, and presumably Jason Todd/Robin is on his way. Counting Donna, and assuming they all end up on the team, that makes nine and four of them are non-superpowered vigilantes. That seems a little... top-heavy on the non-superpowered front. I suppose it satisfies the relatively low budget Titans is produced on, but it's not very satisfying to the audience.

So the only "regular" member is Rachel, and she only appears second-hand. We ended dramatically with Kory choking Rachel, and Dick and Donna desperately driving to them. This week... nothing of that. Presumably this is taking place at the same time that Kory is choking Rachel. So you'd think Rachel would have a little more on her mind then sending telepathic distress calls out to two people she knew for... 24 hours?

We'll see how this comes together in the last three episodes of the season, which look to focus on Kory, Dick (again), and Rachel, respectively. No love for Gar, whose spotlight episode was a backdoor pilot for the Doom Patrol. Better luck next year, Ryan Potter.

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