"Bruce Wayne" - Titans S02E07 Review

"I shouldn't wish to attract attention."

And Iain Glen as Not Bruce doesn't. (To borrow a credit from this week's Arrow premiere) Only Dick can see him, because "Bruce" is a figment of his imagination who taunts and torments him. it makes you wonder if there's been a phantom Bruce hanging around Dick all of the Titans episodes so far. After all, Dick has been haunted by the death of *spoiler* for five years. Why would the hallucination just start now?

And yes, it's another Brenton Thwaites episode. So Titans' long-running reputation as being subtitled The Dick Grayson Show remains untouched. Everybody else has their moments except Ryan Potter, who does a basic, "I was asleep, what did I miss?" line. As I may have noted before, I find Dick the most boring of the Titans. So I'm not too thrilled "Bruce Wayne" means we get even more of Dick when I'd rather find out about Beast Boy. Or Raven. Or Starfire. Or Hawk. Or Dove. Or Wonder Girl. Or Ravager. Conner, we got plenty of last week. Although this week does continue the show's trend of showing us Joshua Orpin's naked butt. What some people will do for art.

But sometimes an actor has to know his strengths. It's not like we get shots of Ryan Potter's naked butt. Heck, he actually has a reason to be naked since his clothing doesn't alter when he shapechanges.

Why do we get to see Conner's butt cheeks? That's one of several subplots going on in "Bruce Wayne". The main plot is "Bruce" keeps appearing to Dick because Dick keeps hallucinating him. Why is Dick hallucinating Bruce? Because now all of a sudden Dick's murder of Deathstroke's son is haunting him. Like I said earlier, I'm not sure why Dick is suddenly guilt-ridden about it now. Sure, Deathstroke has come looking for revenge. But whatever Dick did, he did five years ago. Five, as Not Bruce keeps irritably noting because half the time nobody can get the time right. A running gag that is a lot funnier than it should be due to Glen's delivery.

Dick tracks down Slade's middleman, Wintergreen (Demore Barnes), by going to a burlesque club and finding the twin sister, Mati (Olunike Adeliyi), of a woman Wintergreen murdered. Why she has to be a twin sister, I don't know. It's not like they're going to show us the sister down the road, so they're not saving money by letting Adeliyi play two roles instead of one.

And why is it at a burlesque club? It provides an opportunity for Not Bruce to do the Batusi up on stage with a couple of dancers. Why Dick hallucinates his mentor doing the Batusi is best left to the imagination. Say what you will about the episode, but Iain Glen is clearly having a grand old time cutting loose. This is a more interesting Bruce Wayne than the one we saw in the first two episodes. I still can't imagine Glen as Batman, but many people say the same thing about Michael Keaton and George Clooney. I can at least imagine Glen as an old crotchety Bruce Wayne. Even if Kevin Conroy (appearing in this year's CW Crisis crossover) as an old crotchety Bruce Wayne will never be beaten.

Mati directs Dick to the hotel where Wintergreen is staying. Dick threatens Wintergreen with a gun he picked up from a snitch. Slade calls Dick and directs him to a church where the altar has recent photos of the Titans on it. Dick (and Not Bruce, who is just Dick's subconscious) work out Slade is in Tower. And what significance does the church have? Slade says that Dick should find it familiar. Dick had to lure Jericho into a church to kill him.

At the tower, Conner lies in the bed and mumbles Kryptonian. Kory recognizes Kryptonian (as a "dead language") and nobody recognizes the Superman bar code on Conner's right arm. In a carryover from last week's episode, Eve frees Krypto and has the dog fly her to the Tower. She tells Kory Conner can be cured with solar radiation, and Kory uses her powers to super-blast Conner while Rachel uses her darkness to contain the energy. Since Conner isn't wearing even a bathrobe, when he's "cured" he is fully naked. Buy the guy some Superman underoos, Titans.

Someone is leaving reminders of the past for Hank, Donna, and Dawn. Sadly, there's no Aqualad action figure.

Jason is busy staring out a window and reliving his fall from two episodes ago. Rose tries to cheer him up by dancing to his music and kissing him, but that goes south when a) Jason pulls back, and b) Rose discovers Dick has a record album with Jericho's name written on it. Rose reveals Jericho was her brother, Deathstroke killed him, and Jericho fell in with a bad crowd. Bad crowd being the Titans.

Rachel has crosses drawn all over her room, and for some reason blames Jason. The other Titans assume Jason is guilty of the pranking as well, and Jason is sick of the whole thing. Dick returns, and Jason goes up to the roof and prepares to jump. With some prodding from Not Bruce, Dick sits down next to Jason and says five years ago he killed Deathstroke's son.

Which... seems kind of odd. I'm sure they'll explain, probably in next week's "Jericho". Dick has had plenty of chances to kill people just since Titans started. It's hard to imagine a scenario where he would want to or have to kill Jericho. But a) it's dramatic, and b) it gives Thwaites more to do. And more. And more. Until Dick becomes an all-consuming force on the show.

Okay, probably not. But it sure feels that way sometimes. If they spent as much time on Beast Boy or Wonder Girl as they spent on Dick, the show would feel much different.

Overall, "Bruce Wayne" is a decent episode. It's episode seven (or six, if you count the leftover season 1) of season 2 and we're finally finding out why Deathstroke has such a hate-on for the Titans. Although it's hard to sympathize with him too much: he killed Aqualad before Dick met Jericho. Deathstroke acts like he's never had vengeful friends and family after him seeking revenge for the people he's killed. Yes, this time it's personal since Jericho was his son, but from what little we saw in "Aqualad", Deathstroke wasn't on good terms with his ex-wife and son anyway. Although that may have been more his wife's fault than Deathstroke's.

Glen as Not Bruce gets to cut loose. And it's not Thwaites' fault the creative team feel the need to focus on Dick: the actor's not at fault in any way shape or form. I like Thwaites as Dick. I just get tired of seeing Dick. Over. And over. And over again. There were other bits I liked, like the Jason/Rose pairing. If they're going to give Rose something to do (and she really hasn't done much since her introduction), pairing her off with Jason is as good a move as any.

None of the actors on the show are bad, I just wish we saw more of everyone who isn't named Thwaites. If they're good, let them be good. Ryan Potter and Conor Leslie are criminally wasted, and the other team members do a little better but not much. When Perez & Wolfman made the Titans popular back in the 80s, it wasn't by just focusing on Dick Grayson. So why does the creative team do it now?

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

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And if you wonder what the Batusi is, check out the 1960s Batman show.