In Review: Titans (S3 – EP4) Blackfire

Synopsis: Devastated by loss, the Titans find themselves in disarray. While Dick throws himself into drawing out Red Hood with Jonathan Crane, Kory and Gar work to understand Starfire’s escalating visions.

The Story

Picking up shortly after the events seen in last week’s show. The Titans are in a bit of a funk after the death of Hank Hall aka Hawk. While Dawn and Connor process their grief. Dick throws himself into the task of drawing Red Hood out. In order to do this. He breaks Jonathan Crane aka Scarecrow out of Prison and drives him to the location where Bruce Wayne trained Robin.

Elsewhere, Kory, who is still struggling with strange visions. Enlists the help of Gar to help her get to the bottom of things. Their investigation leads them to a secret government site, which is holding Kory’s sister Blackfire prisoner.

The Acting

Vincent Kartheiser and Brenton Thwaites share some pretty fun scenes together where Jonathan Crane attempts to get into Dick Grayson’s head. The story that Grayson tells Crane about being alone in the woods was pretty messed up. Especially the part in which the younger Dick Grayson presents Bruce Wayne with a decapitated wolf head. It has you wondering if Dick Grayson has made the story up to mess with Cranes head.

The story involving Kory and Gar sees Starfire reunited with her sister Blackfire, who is apparently responsible for Kory’s visions. This story element felt a bit rushed to me, but I guess the writers kind of wanted to explain the visions so they could focus more on the Red Hood story in the weeks to come.

Overall

After what was a strong start for Titans in last week’s batch of episodes. This week felt a bit anti-climatic. We had a pretty good scene right at the start of the episode where Connor aka Superboy was blaming himself for not having been able to save Hank. I’d have liked a little more time spent exploring Connor’s point of view.

Overall though. This episode was pretty effective and allowed for some rather fun scenes involving Dick Grayson and Jonathan Crane.