"Atonement" -Titans S02E09 Review

So the moral of "Atonement" on this week's Titans is the Titans are a big ole bag of dicks. Except for Gar, who is cute as a button.

And you wonder why they've been underplaying Ryan Potter. We're almost at the end of season 2, and this is the first time Ryan gets much attention. Even in season 1 when he was introduced, there wasn't much dedicated to him. And the episode most about him, "Doom Patrol", was mostly about the Doom Patrol and setting up that team for their own series.

The episode starts with Dick telling the Titans what he told Jason two weeks ago. And wow, Jason is an ungrateful twerp. Dick poured his heart out to his successor to keep him from jumping off a rooftop, and Jason's response is to... walk out on Dick. Smooth move, Junior Boy Wonder.

The rest of the Titans aren't thrilled with Dick, either. And my reaction to their reactions is varied. I can kinda buy Rose isn't happy with Dick indirectly killing her brother. But we haven't seen anything showing the two of them ever met. Shouldn't Rose have been introduced last week in the 2015 flashback? How does she fit into the whole Wilson family picture?

Equally, as we saw in last week's flashbacks, Donna was bigger one using Jericho as a pawn to find Slade, who had killed her wannabe boyfriend. Rachel does call her on it. Sort of. But it's still an odd character choice.

It also doesn't help we don't see why the old Titans are pissed at Dick. He does say this week he lied about Jericho being dead in the church when he arrived. But so what? Deathstroke still killed Jericho, Dick didn't want Jericho dead. Yeah, it was a crap decision, and Dick set into motion the series of events that led Jericho there. But Jericho was the one who decided to reach out to Slade, or meet with his father when Slade reached out to him.

Later, Dick goes to see Adeline, Jericho's mother. She's not happy with Dick since he got her son killed. Even though she set things into motion as much as Dick did, by telling Slade to fix things. And she's got Slade staying with her. There's no acknowledgement of the fact she got Jericho killed almost as much as Dick did. And she's hanging out with the guy who actually put a sword in Jericho's chest.

And of course, the creative team sets out to make Dick's decision okay, by framing it in terms of how if the Titans get back together, Slade will kill them. That makes Dick out to be noble. If the Titans hadn't left, Slade would have killed them.

(So what was the point of Slade pranking them a couple of episodes ago?)

Rachel goes with Donna, and again Conor Leslie doesn't have much to do. As they drive away, Rachel tells Donna that Donna was there with Dick in 2015 and went along with most of his scheme. Then she does a soul-self pin on Donna, gets out, and walks away. To where, I don't know?

Rose leaves and Jason goes with her. That's the last we see of them.

Hank and Dawn go back to Wyoming. The sister of the dead teen Hank was counseling accuses them of getting her brother killed. Hank isn't too thrilled with that, and tells Dawn they should break up because most of what they do when they're together is beat up on people and continue the cycle of violence. Dawn lets him go his own way.

Kory is pretty much okay with Dick. However, she soon hangs with Faddei (Robbie Jones), who escaped from her spaceship and blew it up in the process. He soon gets a bug in his ear, which lets Kory's sister, Blackfire (Damaris Lewis), do some kind of long-distance hologram possession of him. When "Faddei" starts talking about Blackfire in glowing terms, Kory realizes Blackfire is controlling him. He breaks free of the possession long enough to beg Kory to kill him. She does, and Blackfire's hologram appears from Faddei's ashes to taunt Kory. And set herself up as the Big Bad for season 3.

The most entertaining and extended part is Dick leaves Gar in charge of Titans Tower while he's gone. We get three days of Gar going from being enthused about being in charge, to getting bored with the slow passage of days. He drinks coffee, makes green smoothies, and reads to an unconscious Conner. And kudos to Potter, who does well both with Gar's initial enthusiasm and quick boredom.

Conner finally wakes up, and Joshua Oprin awards us with yet another butt-cheek shot. Talk about being typecast. Conner still has the mentality of a two-year-old, and he and Gar quickly bond. Gar finally takes Conner out on the street, and he ends up assaulting policemen and becoming a wanted menace. Since he's in over his head, Gar calls Dick and gets his voice mail.

Dick is preparing to leave the country for Greenland, but he decides to stay, beats up a couple of airport cops, and let himself get arrested. And that's it for this week. The season has two more episodes to bring it all together. Conner is on the loose. Dick is under arrest. Gar is holding down the empty fort. Hank and Dawn have gone their separate ways. Rachel, Donna, Jason, and Rose have gone their separate ways. Slade is out there waiting for the Titans to get back together so he can kill them. Because we know the Titans will be get back together. That's why the show is called Titans and not Ten Angsty Teens On Their Own.

The overall "Dick lies to the Titans" thing doesn't work for me. As we saw in last week's flashback, Donna was bigger on using Jericho than Dick was. Slade--pushed on by Adeline--is the one who killed Jericho, not Dick. We never see Dick tell the other Titans the "big lie". I like the Conner character, but it feels like the screen time dedicated to him could have been better spent showing us Dick lying to his teammates. Or someone confronting Slade and/or Adeline about their parts in Jericho's death.

So I like "Atonement", and it finally gives Gar and Potter some screen time. It shows us more of Hank and Dawn (including a cute karaoke scene), but we've already had plenty of them. We don't get much of Donna -- again -- and it feels like the creative team is trying to bring in too many more characters like Rose and Conner, while not focusing on the characters we already have like Donna, Gar, and Rachel.

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