[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Director: Glen Winter
Writers: Richard Hatem
Starring: Brenton Thwaites, Minka Kelly, Teagon Croft, Anna Diop, Alan Ritchson, and Ryan Potter
Summary
Dick Grayson is living the family life in Los Angeles. His wife is Dawn and together they have a son and expecting another. A wheelchair-bound Jason Todd arrives and tells Grayson Gotham is worse than ever and Batman has snapped and plans to kill the Joker.
Grayson heads to Gotham to try to save Batman before it’s too late. When he gets there, he can tell instantly that the city is much worse.
Before he finds Batman, Grayson heads to a Gotham crime scene and sees that Batman has already attempted to kill Joker. Fortunately, the Joker survives so Batman isn’t a murderer yet. Grayson tries his best to tell Batman he still has a chance since Joker survived. But Batman goes to the hospital and kills the Joker. Then he goes on a killing spree in Arkham Asylum.
This motivates Grayson to tell the Gotham PD that Bruce Wayne is Batman. Together, they invade Wayne Manor to take Batman into custody. But Batman kills all the police which forces Grayson to take action.
Positives
Having Batman snap made for an interesting concept for an episode. We got to see how dark Batman could go and see how Grayson would rise to the occasion.
The best part was the after-credit scene. I knew at some point Cyborg would leave Doom Patrol and join the Titans series, but I had not read anything about Superboy appearing on the show. It was a great surprise and to make it even better, Krypto appeared. The show is becoming more and more like the Geoff Johns run of the Teen Titans comic or even a live action Young Justice series.
Negative
I have explained in two other recent reviews that I am not a fan of the dream-state episodes where nothing is real, and it is designed only to have the protagonist confront their inner fears to be reborn and this is exactly that kind of episode. I will admit, this one was quite entertaining and a great way to fit Batman in. But considering they just did an episode like this in Episode 7,” Asylum”, it is entirely too soon to have another one.
Worst of all, it seemed more like a penultimate episode rather than the finale. Because of that, there are too many loose ends. We didn’t get closure on the main arc, we didn’t get to see demon form Trigon, we didn’t find out why Rachel told Dawn to find Jason Todd and we never had Grayson find his new identity which seemed like a major arc in the season. This felt much more like a mid-season cliffhanger than a season finale.
I felt entirely let down.
Verdict
I love this series, but this disappointed me. A season finale is supposed to close loose ends of the season arc and this did nothing of the sort. As I’ve stated already, it feels more like a mid-season cliffhanger, which would be alright if it was advertised as such. But it is advertised as a season finale and there was no closure on anything. Once season 2 begins it will be fine, but what a horribly disappointing way to conclude the season.
I will stick with the show because I love it and I can’t wait for Season 2 to begin, but they need to figure out how they want this show to be. A season has an arc that ends. There, of course, are new developments that lead to the cliffhanger to entice people to return, but that opens a new arc. The after-credit scene promises a new arc on some level, but the Trigon/Rachel thing should have ended in this season.
As a Series
As a single episode
As a Season Finale
