Things You Forgot Happened In The Pilot Episode Of Titans
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Sometimes it's tough to remember where a series started, especially in the case of more serialized shows, where the status quo is more likely to get shaken up every now and then. Titans is a perfect example.
Premiering in 2018 on the now rebranded DC Universe as the first of its original series, Titans is based on the DC Comics of the same name. While the team has seen different lineups, Titans traditionally features younger heroes and/or sidekicks like Robin, Superboy, Donna Troy, and Beast Boy. With DC Universe no longer in the business of streaming, the series has moved to HBO Max.
Since the beginning of Titans' first season, the series has moved settings drastically, heroes have left, new ones have signed on, and romantic couples have been torn apart. If you're a fan with the most recent Titans stories still fresh in your memory, it may be tough to remember exactly where things began for DC's young outcast heroes. So, here's a refresher on the very first time Titans streamed with its premiere episode.
Rachel Roth has something dark inside her
One of the more surprising things you discover in watching the pilot is that — regardless of the presence of a Batman sidekick, a glowing alien, and a green tiger — the first season of Titans often feels more like supernatural horror than a superhero show. This is chiefly because of the story revolving around Rachel Roth (Teagan Croft), a teenage girl with a demonic presence living inside her. The black-eyed, pale skinned demon both taunts Rachel and warns her of danger from any reflection Rachel passes.
Rachel's caretaker Melissa (Sherilyn Fenn) — who Rachel believes is her mother — keeps the girl's bedroom door locked at night with what appear to be dozens of crucifixes nailed to the outside of it. From the claw marks on Melissa's back, it's clear she's gotten on the wrong side of the presence within Rachel, and the neighbor complains to Rachel about the screaming "at all hours of the night."
Early in the pilot, Rachel comes home to find a man holding Melissa at gunpoint. Before he murders Melissa, he forces her to admit she isn't Rachel's mother. After he kills Melissa, Rachel lashes out with her powers, stunning the killer long enough to make a break for it.
In Detroit, Robin gets bloody
Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) is no longer hanging his hat in Gotham. The Boy Wonder is working as a cop in Detroit, and he doesn't seem very happy. From the conversation of his co-workers, we learn he moved to Detroit a month before, and he likes to treat his partners as if they don't exist.
Later that night, Grayson doles out justice in a much less official capacity. He stalks a child-beating drug dealer and, dressed as Robin, handles the dealer and the rest of the gathered crooks in a brutal fashion that most wouldn't expect from Robin. For example, he stomps on his target repeatedly after already rendering him helpless. During the melee, he uses projectiles that cut deep into his opponents' skin, drags one crook's face across the side of a building as if he were trying to scrape it off, and even turns the crooks' guns back on them. Covered in blood and sweat, Robin ends the scene with the now infamous line, "F— Batman."
Later, we learn some more specifics about his reasons for leaving Gotham. His new partner Amy Rohrbach (Lindsey Gort) gets him talking about his old partner — who she assumes is another cop but is clearly Batman. Dick calls Batman a "stop-at-nothing guy who solves everything with his fists" and says he left Gotham because he was becoming too much like his mentor.
Rachel finds a protector in Robin
The pilot opens with the dream that — after Melissa's murder — helps lead Rachel to Robin. In the dream, Rachel enters a circus tent announcing "The Flying Graysons" — the circus acrobats who were Dick's family before their deaths. Rachel watches them die and sees Dick's anguish at their fall.
After Melissa's murder, Rachel takes a bus to Detroit. She goes to a soup kitchen where a woman claiming to be a social worker says she's going to help her and leads her into an alley where a car waits. Sensing something fishy, Rachel runs from her. Hoping to save herself, Rachel throws a brick at a passing patrol car. The police arrest Rachel, and in the precinct's interrogation room, she meets Dick and recognizes him from her dream. She begs him for help, telling him about her dream and what happened to Melissa. Clearly shaken by Rachel's words, Dick has her story about Melissa confirmed, but before he learns she's telling the truth another officer drugs and kidnaps her.
Rachel is brought to a dark house where the man who killed Melissa — known only as the Acolyte — holds a knife to her, saying he's going to kill her in order to save the world. Dick finds the house and shortly after, the demon inside Rachel awakens. The door slams shut on Dick, and the presence enters the Acolyte's body, killing him.
Afterward Rachel doesn't remember what happened and Dick, finally accepting that next-level stuff is going on, takes Rachel away. He tells Rachel the expensive sports car he ushers her into is a "family heirloom" and their part of the pilot ends with them heading down the highway to what Dick calls "somewhere safe."
Kory wakes up to a world she doesn't know
It isn't clear at first how the story of the amnesiac Kory (Anna Diop) connects with that of Rachel and Dick's. Kory wakes in a crashed car riddled with bullet holes outside Austria, and the only other passenger is a dead man. Shortly after she leaves the car, another one approaches whose passengers fire at her. She escapes to the nearby woods and from there to a gas station, but still has no idea who she is or what she was doing before she woke up. She follows the only clear clue she has — a key card to a nearby hotel, where she learns she has an entire floor all to herself, along with a beaten and bloody man bound and waiting in a closet. Kory is able to get the name Konstantin Kovar out of the man and the name of Kovar's club before she breaks his neck and kills him.
No more memories have emerged by the time Kory arrives at the club, but Konstantin (Mark Antony Krupa) — who appears to be some kind of mobster — sure remembers her. Kovar rants about how he loved her, and how she betrayed him all for a "girl" whose photo he has. Kory's questions about the girl are met with a shot from Kovar's gun, and instinctively Kory's powers emerge. Her eyes glow green, the rest of her body glows bright orange, and she burns Kovar and his men into statues of ash.
Once they're dead, Kory's powers diminish, and she finds the photo that reveals the face of Rachel Roth. Before leaving, she lets out a disturbing chuckle at the sight of the dead Kovar, who crumbles to dust moments later.
Meanwhile... Gar steals video games
The last Titan to be revealed is in decidedly less dire straits than the rest of the series' heroes in the pilot's final scene. At a Visions Electronics in Covington, Ohio, a security guard freaks out when he hears sounds somewhere else in the store. He freaks out even more when he discovers the sounds are coming from a bright green tiger who's sorting through a pile of video games.
Roaring at the guard as he fires his gun at him, the tiger retreats from the store, carrying one of the games with him in his mouth. In the nearby woods, the beast transforms into Gar Logan (Ryan Potter). Gar is clearly happy to have just risked his life for whatever game he wound up with, because he says "Rad!" as he examines the packaging. We're not sure what game was worth a hail of gunfire from a panicky security guard, but if it's a shooter, that would be fitting.