"Ghosts" – Titans S02E03 Review

"Ghosts" is both good and... indifferent. It's good because we finally see some superhero action. Superheroes spar. Superheroes fight a supervillain.

With this week's Titans we also get some hints of the past Titans, which were Dick, Donna, Hawk, and Dove. And Aqualad (Drew Van Acker), who has a blink-and-you-'ll-miss-it appearance during a flashback. Next week's episode is titled "Aqualad", so presumably we'll get more information on him, like what he's up to these days. And maybe if he's connected to the Jason Momoa version of Aquaman on the DC big screen.

It's indifferent because the rest of the episode is people talking. The two main offenders are Kory (Anna Diop) and the guy who tased her last episode, Faddei (Robbie Jones). Despite Faddei tasing Kory and putting power-dampening manacles on her, they get along like a house on fire. They have dinner, go out walking, talking about royalty back on their home planet of Tamaran, and Faddei steals a valuable necklace for Kory. Usual first-date stuff. We also find out they had a forbidden romance between royalty and a commoner (Faddei), and we get a little bit of insight into Kory about how she views Earth: as a place where she doesn't have to live up to the expectations for her as a queen.

Near the end of the episode, Kory locks Faddei in her spaceship and leaves him there to check on Rachel, after a heart-to-heart over the phone with the girl. Which brings us to the main storyline.

Donna, Hank, and Dawn go to Titans Tower after Light's assault on H&D last week. I'm still not clear if someone blew up in the back of Dick's SUV, or if it was Light supercharging a random piece of backseat garbage, or what. The original Titans plan to go after Light since he's coming after them, and don't want the "new" Titans--Rachel, Jason, and Gar--tagging along.

Rachel and Gar seem okay with this, but Jason isn't. I like Curran Walters as Jason, he manages to be snotty, hyperviolent, and occasionally sympathetic. He gets in Dick's face about being excluded from the mission, but his pleas to Gar about how he "needs a win" are touching.

Rose hangs around the Tower and makes snotty remarks. The old Titans aren't happy to see her, so there's backstory ahoy between them and Deathstroke. And everyone finds out Rose is his daughter. They drop the objections pretty quickly, so either they're okay with Rose or they have bigger fish to fry.

The bigger fish is Light, who is portrayed as a beer-guzzling bro-dude. Which beats his portrayal in the comics as a standard 60s villain, turned child-fearing doofus bad guy, turned sadistic rapist. It turns out Deathstroke is the one who freed Light last week, and has been hanging around San Francisco keeping tabs on Rose.

It's all part of a plan by Slade to observe the Titans "in crisis" (look up "Crisis of Conscience" sometime) and learn their weaknesses and strengths. And then capture their weakest member and lure the others in. The scene between Slade and Light where Light guzzles beer and makes one-eye jokes, and Slade just glares at him and coldly outlines his plan, is good. Kudos to Esai Morales as Slade, although Michael Mosley as Light isn't too bad, either. It's not much of a part, but he hams it up and makes it his own.

The Titans eventually track Light to a stadium where he's draining power from San Fran's power grid. The four old Titans fight him, and Dick and Hank do non-powered stuff which primarily involved dodging and weaving. Dawn does nothing, and Donna has a brief burst of superspeed and uses her lasso to toss a motorcycle at Light. Light, who is wearing a rather clunky costume which looks a little like his comic book outfit, threatens to attack an approaching bus and escapes during the distraction.

Jason is looking for his win and convinces Gar to go with him when they get a lead on Light's location at a subway tunnel. They split up and Jason beats up Light. But as previously noted, Light is the lure and Deathstroke steps out to presumably capture Jason and use him as the aforementioned bait to get the other Titans. Although since Gar does nothing this episode except monitor the computers, and Jason gets a cool fight sequence with Light, Why anyone thinks Jason is weaker than Gar when Gar does nothing, I have no idea. Emotional issues, I guess.

Along the way we get two sparring sequences: Rachel and Gar fighting Jason, all three of them blindfolded. And Dick fighting Rose, to prove... something. That fighting isn't everything, I guess. Donna isn't happy Dick is trying to put together some new Titans since there was some big breakup among them in the past. Hank isn't happy with coming back to superheroics, but kinda sticks around because Dawn is thrilled. Dick and Hank argue about Dick creating a new Titans, but then decide to go for old time reminiscing and have some beers.

During her fight with Jason, Rachel reveals her Trigon dark side when she almost telekinetically skewers him with some swords. Later she calls Kory and talks about how the darkness is threatening to overwhelm her, which persuades Kory to come to San Fran and join the Titans.

I like the "new" Dr. Light, who gives the Titans someone to do superhero-y stuff against. Gar and Rachel don't go up against him, and Kory is still off on her own. So the battle comes down to acrobatic types fighting an energy blaster. It's a decent sequence, although it ends on an odd note since it isn't clear Light plans to threaten the approaching bus he uses as a distraction to escape. A bus pulls up, Donna yells a warning to Dick, and Light uses a light burst to escape. No indication he planned to threaten the bus.

Teagan Croft as Rachel has a decent presence, and Ms. Diop gets a bit more to do by being the potential-queen-on-the-run. The whole "people want me to serve when I don't so I'm going to run away" thing is a trope, but it's not overused these days to be grating. I'm not sure it gibes with Kory's reason for coming to Earth last year--to fight Trigon--but I suppose she could do both. Or use the battle against Trigon as an excuse to leave her planet. Not that she did anything against Trigon at the end of the day. Neither did anyone else except Rachel, so let's not hold that against Kory. Hopefully they'll address all of it later.

Dick still gets a lot of screen time, with his angst about forming the new Titans, and his conflict with Donna, and his conflict with Hank, and his issues with Jason, and his sparring session with Rose. So Titans' track record of being The Dick Grayson Show continues. Ryan Potter still remains criminally underused. Last episode and this one, Gar displays his... martial arts skills?

"Ghosts" was basically set things up. It brought Donna, Hank, and Dawn back into the team. It set up Kory returning to the team. It set up Deathstroke as the season Big Bad while recruiting lesser villains to sound out the Titans, although it's still not clear why he has such a hate-on against the Titans. There are a few mentions of his son Jericho, who died and who apparently he killed four years ago. Which sounds like about the time the Titans broke up. Rose says her brother fell in with a bad crowd and Slade subsequently killed. I suppose he could consider the Titans a "bad crowd", and killed Jericho when his son joined them. That would partially line the series up with the Titans' comic book history.

Some of this comes from Rose, who isn't an impartial narrator. So some or all of it could be false. We'll see. "Ghosts" is an entertaining episode, with some much-needed action and a bit of character development and world-building.

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