Before moving on to season 2 of Teen Titans, I want to take a step back and
look at episode five of season 1 again, the episode where cyborg gets taken by Fixit.
I want to talk about this because many people have left comments that are
pretty critical of my interpretation of that episode and those criticisms
connected with me. Basically, I think I misunderstood what the episode was
trying to show us. While the episodes previous episode 5 were attempting to
display some sort of change in character that results in a different dynamic
between the Titans, episode 5 itself isn't as much concerned with that.
Instead, it's focused on a change within Cyborg that, though it does have some
sort of impact on his relationships, has a much larger impact on himself and thus
happens to have an impact on some people around him. This episode is meant to get
one major point across: sometimes Cyborg wishes that he didn't
have his robotic body or, at the least, he is heavily inconvenienced by his robotic
body. So when Fixit traps him and is going to make him completely robotic, it's what
Cyborg would fear the most: to lose his human side. While I do think that the
Mumbo sections of this episode are unfortunately quite disconnected from
the central conflict, the show does a pretty good job of exploring this
conflict in and of itself. In the beginning, Cyborg's reception to this kid
with the prosthetic arm is lukewarm at best, but by the end Cyborg is
encouraging and embracing this connection between them. All this is to
say that I didn't give the episode nearly enough credit because I
misunderstood it on a fundamental level, when in reality it really does show us
quite a bit about Cyborg's character, about his deepest fears and about how
he's going to work through those fears. I want to thank all the people who took
the time to give me their interpretation of the episode. Part of the fun with
these long series I do is that we can discuss our differences in opinion or
understanding and hopefully come to an overall greater appreciation of the show
being discussed. Now, with this in mind, one way that I think episode 5 could
have improved is by showing us at least a bit about how Cyborg received his
robotic half. This isn't because I think we necessarily need to see that for this
episode to make sense or anything like that,
but because it could have led to this episode's overarching narrative having a
greater impact. Just imagine if instead of some of these scenes being with Mumbo,
we saw a bit of Cyborg when he was younger, getting used to his robotic half,
trying to understand it and sometimes hating it. Then this moment when he talks
to a younger person would also be him talking to his past self, telling himself
that his robotic body is fine, even if it's sometimes obnoxious
or an inconvenience. So with that out of the way, let's move on to
season 2. And season 2 starts off great because how long is forever delivers on
an interesting premise in an emotionally impactful and exciting manner. The first
great thing about this episode is how its structured thematically. Everything
comes back to time: Robin believes that they will be friends forever; Starfire is
concerned about the way they treat one another and how that could affect their
relationships in the future; and Warp has come from the future to steal this clock.
While the way these themes tie together is by no means subtle, it creates a
density of meaning that is established early on in the episode and then
capitalized on as the episode continues. By seeing the Titans' future selves, we
are able to see how their greatest weaknesses would affect them in the long
term if their friendships fell apart. The robotic part of Cyborg's body stops
him from doing anything at all beyond roaming around the tower; his battery has
effectively always run out. Beast Boy was unable to do the whole solo hero thing,
despite the pride he has exhibited in previous episodes, and he's now let
himself become a circus attraction; just as he so often wanted to be the center
of attention in previous episodes, he's the center of attention now - but in a way
that is entirely negative and extremely damaging to himself.
Raven, meanwhile, is completely isolated from everything even from the outside
world; she's entirely alone. Robin, on the other hand, has become more like Slade, or
at least that seems to be what the episode is hinting at with how these
clock parts come in and just the overall layout of Robin's new lair. Both of these
things establish connections with Slade's own living space in season 1, so
actually the show is basically doing what I had hoped it would do in season 1.
An extension of this is that Robin works on his own now; he doesn't have teammates.
However, even after all this, the friends clearly want to be together as they've
never gotten rid of these devices before that let them know when they need to
help each other out, when they need to stop crime or some bad person who's
gonna hurt people. So when Robin calls them to action, they
come, even after it seems that they've so completely drifted apart. What a powerful
way to sell their friendship, to show how much they care about one another. They
didn't need to keep these devices. They didn't need to come. And this is an
amazing way of also showing how Starfire is at the center of this group, that
she's integral to them getting along with one another in the long term.
After all, without her there, this happens - but when she appears they come back
together. It's the best episode so far and I've heard many say in the comments
that this is their favorite episode or one of their favorite episodes in the
whole series, and I can definitely see why. And the next episode is also really
good and does a similarly fantastic job of tying together its themes with pretty
much all elements of its plot, which results in what is easily the best Beast
Boy centric episode yet. In this episode, Beast Boy's friends are all busy or just
doing their own things, so they don't have time or simply don't want to do
something with him at that particular moment.
This makes Beast Boy a bit upset, so he decides to go out and, when he's out,
he sees these ladies and tries to hit on them. After hitting on them is
unsuccessful to say the least, he tries to turn into a dog because, you know,
ladies like dogs - but they reject him and, instead of attracting the attention he
wanted, he attracts the attention of this big ol baby manchild guy named Soto,
who mistakes Beast Boy for his dog. This episode works really well as a
cautionary tale. Despite how innocent it may seem, Beast Boy was attempting to
manipulate these girls into giving him attention and, by doing so, he only ended
up getting attention from someone abusive and psychotic and he enters into
a relationship that is hard to escape from. The lesson seems to be that one
shouldn't try to use tricks to manipulate people into spending time
with them, that they shouldn't be disingenuous in order to be able to
engage with someone else because that will likely only get you attention from
someone who you really don't want to spend time with in the long term. In
addition to this the fact that this episode follows "How Long is Forever" is
great. After all, we've just seen a version of Beast Boy who wants this
attention and gets it, but it hurts him a lot and this shows how this is a
fundamental character flaw that he needs to work through. On top of all this is
the fact that it's a fun, well-directed episode. I particularly like how the
scenes where the Titans are trying to trap Soto's dog are handled. They're
dynamic, entertaining, funny, and just a great time overall. In fact, this whole
episode is a great time. Fortunately, this show keeps up with the solid episodes
and delivers another one with episode 3, "Terra." As one might expect, this
episode focuses on Terra and it manages to establish the foundational elements
of her character in a short period of time.
First off, Terra is incredibly insecure but also very quick to grow close to
people and expect lots from them. She immediately makes herself at home in the
Titans' Tower and then very quickly expects Beast Boy to keep the secret
that her powers aren't completely under her control. Yet this makes sense, as her
powers have resulted in terrible things happening wherever she goes and she
hasn't had a home for a long time. So when that's provided to her, when she
sees that she might be able to have this and have friends, why wouldn't she
aggressively jump at the opportunity? Why wouldn't she quickly accept this
kindness and also take it as seriously as possible ? Secondly, the episode's
imagery is on point. Terra and Beast Boy throws stones across this pond together
and gain an important bond while doing so, then at the end of the episode Beast
Boy throws a stone and the water ripples through the reflection of Titans' Tower, a
powerful way of showing that Terra and her abilities are going to have an
incredible impact on the Titans later in the season. Thirdly, Terra is put in the
worst possible situation in this episode, with Slade purposefully choosing to
attack a mine and then provoking her. We're never told that this is why Slade
chose this place, but it's pretty clear and allowing the audience to piece this
together themselves is gratifying to say the least.
Furthermore, it allows us to see just how important Beast Boy's relationship with
her has become, despite how little time they've known each other, because he's
able to help calm her down. He believes in her. All she needs is that. Someone to
trust her and help her control her powers and who won't in any way betray
her trust. Unfortunately, she's as quick to distrust people as she is to trust
them and, when Robin mentions that she has trouble controlling her powers, she
assumes Beast Boy's betrayed her trust. Of course, from an outside perspective,
it's clear that this would be obvious. How wouldn't anyone have noticed what
was going on? But Terra doesn't see it that way and that's just how insecure
she is. All this is to say that, although I'm sure her actions in this episode and
in later episodes are frustrating to some viewers, the writers did a really
good job of getting her actions to make sense and to be consistent. The writers
establish that she's insecure then show how damaging that insecurity can be.
Really that's what her character is about throughout the show: a battle with
herself, a battle between the side that loathes herself so much that she can't
believe anyone else would ever care for her or trust her and the side that
believes in herself and those around her. Of course, after she leaves, there are a
number of episodes that don't involve her. In this case, I think it makes sense
to take a break from the overarching plot of this season because having a gap
between when she leaves and when she returns is necessary, considering that
she's meant to have been trained within that time and to have undergone a major
change in character. The next episode, while in my opinion not quite as strong
as the previous three, is really sweet. In it, Cyborg starts off believing
that his robotic parts determine how strong he can be - but in the
end he realizes that he can push past those supposed limits because he's still
human. While this is an internal struggle within Cyborg the show uses an external
conflict to amplify his emotions and to give more weight to his change. Atlas, the
main villain of this episode, is here to reflect Cyborg's robotic half while
Atlas's mechanic reflects Cyborg's human half. Atlas shows us what Cyborg could be
like if he rejected or mistreated his human half, if he decided that it wasn't
all that important and what happens is that, well, Atlas loses. He needs to
accept and respect the human in order to win, but he doesn't while Cyborg does. In
addition to this, Cyborg's allies trust him deeply and are willing to put their
freedom on the line for him. So he doesn't just have his human parts; he has
his friends too, those humans who are there for him, rooting for him, and
believe in him. Episode 5 continues the string of
back-to-back good episodes with the introduction of Control Freak. Now, I
don't recall ever seeing this guy as a kid, but I'm disappointed that I missed him
because he's awesome. Even just from his introduction, I can tell that much. I love
how he's clearly motivated by petty things and how he wants to be the Titans'
nemesis, too - both things that make it quite clear how bloated his ego and sense of
self-importance are. In line with this is how he prances around when he makes
things come to life with his remote. Everything about him oozes personality.
He's just a fabulous boy. I'm definitely excited to see more of him in the
upcoming seasons and I hope that he takes on a role of greater importance.
Beyond this, this episode focuses on how Raven represses her emotions and on the
way that this repression can cause bad things to happen. On a more symbolic
level, this episode is about the fact that denying our emotions generally
isn't the best option and can lead to people around us - the people we care
about - being hurt in the long run. The show has a fun way of going about this,
as Raven accidentally whips up a whole bunch of these evil creatures from a
monster movie using her abilities and the show takes on a huge tonal shift and
really commits to the scary movie vibe. When a show is sometimes episodic like
this one, I tend to enjoy when it commits to different styles of narrative or to
different genres across episodes. It helps make each episode unique so that
plots don't blend together or become too same-y, which in turn helps justify a
narrative structure that often focuses on short stories that are loosely
connected rather than a consistent, overarching narrative.
Unfortunately, episode 6 is the first episode I'm not particularly fond of. In
it, this girl Kitten really wants to go out on a date with Robin
and, unless he does, her dad is going to try and destroy the entire city. My main
problem with this episode is that, although the premise is so ridiculous
that it starts off quite funny, we are essentially seeing the same joke over and
over again. Basically, Kitten will say something to Robin, Starfire will get
enraged, and Robin will get uncomfortable. About halfway through the episode this got
really stale to me. Now this wasn't as big a problem as it could have been
because there are sections with Beast Boy, Raven, and Cyborg that barely focus
on these jokes but this episode still hits that same joke too many times. This
one also has moments where it commits to a particular genre, kind of like the last
one. In this case that's a romance flick, though, and that commitment does add some
humor to the whole situation. The next episode similarly commits to a
particular narrative format, that being a fairy tale. In this, Starfire starts
mutating into an ugly creature, getting growths on her head that look like
something out of FLCL and becoming almost Sasquatch-like in
appearance. It's a very clear-cut metaphor for puberty. After her
transformation has begun she runs away from her friends and encounters this
evil individual who at first looks very pretty, but then later reveals the uglier
side of herself when she goes to eat Starfire. Now I'm not sure if the writers
first decided on the narrative framework of this episode and then wrote out the
plot from there, or if they came up with the plot first and then decided on the
narrative framework - but either way it makes a lot of sense to format this as a
fairy tale. After all, it's a pretty typical plot that's found in those sorts
of stories, particularly those that were made as moral tales for young girls, so
it makes quite a bit of sense to open up with this story book getting cracked
open and with a narrator talking to us. Again, I appreciate how thoroughly the
team is committing to a different style of storytelling here. It really gives off
the sense that they're having a lot of fun experimenting and, even if I had some
gripes with the previous episode, it certainly keeps the viewer on their toes.
One unfortunate side effect of this narrative structure, however, at least for
an older viewer, is that every beat of the story is very predictable. Honestly
though, if you're all right with a 20 minute long episode of television being
a bit predictable, there isn't that much to complain about here. We're offered
some solid development for Starfire, we get to see Titans fighting a villain
from a previous episode, and we get to see how far the Titans are willing to go
to help their friend. It's an entertaining episode of
television overall and another good episode in season 2, even if it's not my
favorite of the bunch. And next up is another Terra episode, but I think I'll
be saving that for next time. Once again, I want to thank everyone for watching
and for keeping up with this series. It's greatly appreciated and my channel has
seen an insane amount of growth from this series and, you know, that's all
because you have been watching and you're commenting and engaging with it
so much and I appreciate that a lot. I also specifically want to thank my
patrons over on patreon dot com. From the bottom of my heart, I'm just so thankful
for them and what they give me. I hope you have an awesome day Bye bye.
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