In the last episode of this video series, I spent the vast majority of my time praising
season 2, and, fortunately, my praise of it continues with episode 8, "Titan Rising."
However, I still think that there are certain ways that this episode could have improved,
although the main source of those improvements would come from slight alterations to previous
episodes.
Basically, episode 8 focuses on Terra's and Raven's relationship, and on how Raven goes
from not trusting Terra upon her return to trusting her.
While it is reasonable for Raven to distrust Terra, I think that her position could have
been strengthened if, at some point in one of the previous episodes, there had been an
indication that she was frustrated with Terra or worried about what they would do if she
returned.
Having little moments like that would have helped the individual, episodic plots of the
story tie in with the season's over-arcing plot, and would create a more natural sense
of pacing.
This isn't to say that any of the previous episodes needed to spend any large amount
of time focusing on this - in fact, that would likely be a bad idea, since that could take
away from the focus of those episodes.
I just feel that these side stories could be integrated into the plot in subtle ways
that would lead to a greater sense of narrative cohesion.
The reason that the writers didn't do this, however, is likely because of how the show
was presented to its audience: If a child was watching individual episodes here and
there when they could catch them on TV, having references to a larger plot could be off-putting
or confusing.
But, if that was the reason why the side stories and main plot are so thoroughly separated
and I'm really assuming here, I don't think it quite makes sense: After all, viewers would
be likely to catch separate episodes of the main plot anyway, which would be just as potentially
confusing, if not more-so.
Still, it is possible that my theory for why the episodes are structured this way is completely
incorrect and that there is some other reason for this--but, regardless of the reasons,
I would have preferred if some reference was made to Terra in those episodes or even just
in one of those episodes.
The reasons aren't really what matter to me here.
The end product is.
But, beyond that, this is a strong episode.
It was a good choice to have someone in the Titans distrust Terra, since that makes her
betrayal even more upsetting later on, and it also forces Terra into a pretty interesting
situation.
See, she only left because she mistakenly thought Beast Boy had betrayed her trust and
because of her unruly powers.
And yet now, when her powers are under her control and when the Titans trust her, when
her main problem has seemingly been fixed, she uses her control to manipulate the Titans.
But this has gone beyond being an issue that pertains to her powers and spreads outward
from there: This is a personality issue.
Even now--even when she has gained the ability to carve her own path and consciously do the
right thing, even when the thing that has caused her self-loathing is no longer there,
she continues to act in a way that is in line with her previous self.
Because the only reason she would have to do something like this would be that she believes
that the Titans truly betrayed her when, really, the fact that they accept her now makes it
abundantly clear that they never did.
In fact, it seems as though she only went through with this plan because she believed
that it would never work--because she believed that the Teen Titans would never trust her.
As such, at the end of the episode, when she says, "I don't believe it.
They actually trust me," these are simultaneously the words that confirm that she has gone even
further down her path of self destruction and the words that confirm that she can in
fact escape from this cycle.
That option has been provided to her.
This is what makes Terra compelling to me.
When she has finally received what she's always wanted, it doesn't matter anymore because,
in the end, she needs to trust herself; nobody else can do the right thing for her; they
can only put her in situations that facilitates her doing the right thing.
No matter how her outer world may look, her self-loathing will lead to her hurting others
and destroying her relationships.
She can lift her new home out of the rubble, but if she lifts it out for the wrong reasons
she will never be able to rest easy there.
Unfortunately, that lack of narrative cohesion I mentioned that is caused by the episodic
episodes having so little to do with the over-arcing plot before becomes more problematic the following
episode and episode eleven, both of which take place after Terra-centric episodes but
ignore her existence almost entirely.
This is especially strange in episode nine, where there's no real reason to ignore her.
Sure, she shows up very briefly, but beyond that she's just . . . gone.
And why wouldn't she be playing cards with the other Titans?
Having her there would be a solid way to build up their relationship more before bringing
it crashing down.
Sure, we've seen her fight to become a Titan, but we also need to see her being a Titan,
and the more settings we see that in the better.
So, sure, we need to see her fighting bad guys with them--but we should also see her
just relaxing with them, having fun.
I really can't think of any negatives to not including her here, or at least mentioning
why she isn't involved.
I'm not sure why this decision was made.
Other than that, however, this is one of those episodes I think I would have enjoyed a lot
when I was younger but that I just don't find that interesting now.
The main theme, as explored in this tournament, is that winning isn't everything--which, to
be fair, is a good lesson for children to learn--but at this point that feels like a
very simple lesson that I've already learned.
I do like how the tournament itself is constructed though, with some familiar faces returning
and the natural introduction of some new people.
This is a really good way to introduce them and having previously established boys appear
helps bring the story together and makes this episode feel a little bit less separate from
the rest of the series in a way that actually adds to the episode itself.
I do like how the tournament itself is constructed though, with some familiar faces returning
and the natural introduction of some new people.
This is a really good way to introduce them and having previously established boys appear
helps bring the story together and makes this episode feel a little bit less separate from
the rest of the series in a way that actually adds to the episode itself.
Another good aspect of this episode is that the directions in the fight scenes is, overall,
very well done and some of the fights are really well done.
Honestly though, it's hard to dive too deep into this episode since it's just a simple
but fast tournament that manages to effectively convey its simple message.
It does end in a way I'm not fond of though, and episode eleven ends similarly.
They both leave us with an open end, where the plot isn't resolved and we just have to
assume that it gets resolved before the main plot of the season picks up in the next episode.
Part of what frustrates me about this is that, oftentimes, I'm actually more interested in
seeing how they characters will get themselves out of the situation they find themselves
in in the final moments of the episode.
This is particularly pertinant at the end of this episode because, well, it actually
may have been a better idea to have this tournament be the tournament of heroines.
That way, we could have seen more of Terra and, if she were to be the last one standing
in the tournament, we would also get even more of a sense of how strong she is.
Regardless of the specifics though, seeing more of her at this point would have been
a good thing, and I don't think seeing this tournament with the female characters instead
of the male characters would be any less entertaining.
Fortunately, I consider episode ten a large improvement over episode nine, and it adds
quite a lot to Terra's character and fleshes out her struggle.
In particular, I enjoy these moments where the show slows down and we see Terra struggling
with her decision to betray the Titans, where the show lingers just a bit too long on Terra
and, without anything explicitly being said, communicates to the viewer that she isn't
entirely sure if she wants to do what she's doing now.
And it makes sense that she questions herself here, as this episode puts a lot of emphasis
on Beast Boy's trust in her and on her trust in Beast Boy.
All of their scenes have a fantastic tension to them, with the show periodically cutting
back to Titans tower being attacked.
This reminds us that, although this is the closest we've ever seen Terra and Beast Boy,
every moment it's getting harder for her to turn back.
No matter what happens on this night, she can't take back what she's already done, what's
happening right at that moment, despite the fact that it's natural for the audience to
hope that she'll change her mind here and choose to be good.
And she's also reminded that she already had what she wanted most of all--a home full of
people who accept her.
But even as the strongest reminders of that are slapping her right in the face, the reminder
that it may be too late is slapping the audience right in the face.
Part of what's great about this is how much it adds to Beast Boy's character, too.
His fight with Slade on the Ferris wheel--in fact, the whole fight between Slade, Terra,
and him in the amusement part--is easily the most emotional one in this whole series.
The fact that Beast Boy fights so hard for her is just crushing and it adds so much to
his character.
Sure, he may be an overall happy-go-lucky guy, but here we see his care for others can
turn to intense rage and sadness.
This episode also has some neat imagery, mainly in the house of mirrors, where Beast Boy is
surrounded by Slade, just as the truth becomes inescapable and there's no way to ignore Terra's
strange actions and potential betrayal.
Similarly, Terra is forced to confront her fractured self, to look in the mirror and
see what she's become, how all of her fractured identities have come together to allow this
moment to be possible, where she loses everything she ever wanted.
I could go on but I think if you're at all invested in Terra's struggle this episode
is a great one and very well executed.
Unfortunately, I really don't like season 2's eleventh episode.
In it, Robin makes a mistake and breaks his arm and is forced to let his friends take
care of things while he heals; however, things get stranger in a different version of himself
from a different dimension appears and starts accidentally causing trouble.
While my usual problem with these sorts of episodes breaking up the flow of the story
still stands, my main problem with it is how it handles Robin's character and his progression.
Up until now, Robin's major flaw has been his constant reliance on himself and his inability
to just let his friends get the job done.
Yet here, when Robin finally lets his friends get things done for him, he's told that he
needs to keep trying no matter what, and how it's a good thing for him to keep trying.
Now, I think the idea here is that he's gone too far in the other direction, that he's
gone from being unable to trust his friends to giving up on himself.
So in some ways this is making sense so far.
Meanwhile, this other version of Robin also gets involved, causing trouble because now
he won't stop and let other people get the job done.
So he's a very extreme version of the problem Robin had before, but with a little bit of
a difference in that he's just trying to help and he's not shutting anyone else out.
The strange part of this is, now that Robin's finally chosen to trust his friends, they
. . . can't do this without him?
In fact, it's so bad that they completely fail and he has to essentially fix it all
on his own.
This seems to strengthen his original position and uncertainty with trusting his friends.
This episode makes it seem like the most important thing is that Robin always tries, no matter
how broken or unprepared for battle he is, because he's the only one who can save the
day in the end.
I think it's pretty clear how this goes against the previously established themes and lessons
that surround Robin.
But the show seems to also agree with this, considering how Robin gets transported to
this empty white space and now needs to escape at the end of the episode, and the reason
for this is because he just told this doppelganger of his to give it a shot when the doppelganger
was trying to fix his arm.
So the lesson then is that people shouldn't always just try no matter how prepared they
are.
I know I'm digging into this comedic episode pretty deep and that, overall, it's just meant
to be a funny and fun episode to break up the more serious parts of a story--but I think
that fun episodes like this can still remain thematically consistent with the rest of the
series and build on those established ideas.
There's no reason that development and fun need to be separated here.
But this episode isn't all bad--the chase scenes are interesting enough and I like this
colouring book aesthetic for example, but, ultimately, I don't think these are the most
important parts of the episode, so overall my feelings about this one are still pretty
negative about this one and I think the show would be better without this episode.
This is even more-so the case because the next episode isn't going to show more of the
aftermath of Terra leaving the group.
What I mean is that we never see the Titans thinking about Terra when she's not there
and this could be a good chance to spend more time doing that.
Instead, we got this.
With how this episode plays out, it seems like the Titans only really think of Terra
when she's there.
Even though I'm sure that isn't meant to be the case.
I'm sure that they're supposed to be upset that she's left them and that they think about
that.
I'd be shocked if they didn't.
Next up is the first part of Aftershock which, while it is by no means a bad episode, is
pretty messy and the weakest part of Terra's journey so far.
What I mean is that this episode just doesn't make that much sense.
After all, how do the Titans survive each of their encounters with Terra?
While some of their fights ended in ways that could have resulted in the Titans living,
other fights with her ended pretty conclusively with their deaths.
And yet they just somehow got out of it.
It's a real shame that this is never explained in any way because , when they return at the
end of the episode, it's very perplexing how they even got there.
However, that isn't to say that there's nothing good about the episode--seeing the Titans
struggle to fight Terra brings home just how close they were, having these previous bad
guys return to fight them connects this season with the first season and is a way better
decision than bringing in new baddies, Terra's negative rhetoric continues to expose her
fundamental flaws and shows how her negative self-image has caused her to view everyone
around her in an unfair and harmful light.
Still, the logical problems stuck out to me in a way that was impossible to ignore and
that made this episode far more rocky than any of the other Terra-centric episode.
It's here that there's a very real sense that the writers had to rush through this section
of her story, for some reason or another.
Fortunately, the second part of Aftershock is much stronger.
The way its structured is extremely good.
I especially like this beginning section where, as Terra goes through this decimated city,
she thinks about her time with the Titans, about the good times she's had and that she
can never go back to.
She's surrounded by a shell of the life she could have had, and now the colours have been
drained from the world and even her friends are mere shadows of what they could have been
and what they were.
The music in this episode is also particularly great.
Every piece flows into the next naturally and it makes the pacing of this episode feel
near perfect.
The increased connectivity between scenes it brings makes the whole episode feel like
one extended scene even though it's obviously not that.
There's nothing fractured here.
It's very smooth storytelling.
Then there's one of my favourite parts of Terra's struggle, where escaping Slade becomes
nearly impossible, where she's taken things so far that there's no way that she can just
turn back based on her own power.
Slade has literally taken over her body; as he says, he's "become a part of her" and she
"no longer has control in the matter."
While this works on a literal level very well, it also work on a metaphorical level: the
longer someone stays with an abuser, the harder it is to escape from them; the more they allow
that horrible person's idelogy to affect them, the more likely that they will take in that
idelogy in a way that is part of their self, in a way that canot be simply escaped from
through sheer willpower or thinking it through.
She gave up her free will to control her powers and now she's even lost control of that.
And as Beast Boy is sure to remind her, she chose all of this; she can try to blame someone
else, try to say that they're making her do this, but she ultimately let it happen.
The show does a really good job of placing some blame on Terra here, while still managing
to paint her decidedly as Slade's victim.
It's a pretty nuanced take on how someone who is abused can become an abuser, on how
self-hatred can become a hatred of others, and not once did I feel that Terra as a character
was being vilified or blamed in a way that was unfair to her.
There's also this moment where Terra manages to gain some form of redemption, when she
sacrifice herself in order to fix the mess she helped create and stops everything from
getting destroyed.
This redemption is by no means a perfect one and it's not meant to be: what she does her
doesn't stop what she did before from being wrong, but it does show a complexity of character
and a change that I appreciate.
Ultimately, we're each going to make our own judgement call on how much we think Terra
redeemed herself or on how good of a person she was--but I think that's part of what makes
this arc great.
Terra wasn't just a black-and-white character and, even if she does the right thing at the
end, she's ultimately just fixing her own mistakes.
She's complex and hard to pin down.
As I said last time, I know that some people find Terra annoying, that they find her inability
to make a choice and stick with it obnoxious and perplexing, but I really enjoyed her arc.
I feel that the complexity of her character and the weight of her journey brought far
more positives than negatives to the series, and I hope that the show will continue on
this path of becoming more complex in its themes and characterization in its upcoming
seasons.
As always, thank you for watching this series and engaging with it.
It's amazing to me how well it's doing and how well my channel is doing now because of
this and because of your support.
I also want to specifically thank all my patrons over on patreon.com.
The fact that I see that somebody sees so much value in this, uh, helps me to keep going
with it, and helps me to keep making these.
So, thank you so much to all those people for what they do.
Thank you to all of you for watching, and I hope that you have a fantastic day.
Bye bye.
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