The Titans Season 2 Scene That Went Too Far
In the second season of HBO Max's "Titans," the series takes a stab at adapting one of the most beloved "Teen Titans" comic storylines — "The Judas Contract." It's the story of how Dick Grayson becomes Nightwing when the Titans go against the assassin Deathstroke and find a traitor in their midst. In the live-action series, however, the events play out a little differently ... with mixed results.
The Titans are now in their home turf of San Francisco, but the city is full of wounds that haven't healed. The Old Titans' past with Deathstroke (Esai Morales) comes back to haunt them, slowly tearing the team apart as they deal with their guilt over the deaths of their past teammates. Unfortunately, the Season 2 finale repeatedly misses the mark as it attempts to wrap up two storylines: Deathstroke, the season's main villain, is killed in the first 15 minutes because the Titans have to deal with the mind-controlled Conner (Joshua Orpin) and Gar (Ryan Potter). Much of the episode consists of several Titans standing back and not engaging in fights, for no particular reason.
Still, it's after these two threats are dealt with that the season truly goes too far. The award for Season 2's most indefensible scene goes to the death of Donna Troy (Conor Leslie) — not because it's graphic, or morally questionable like Season 1, but for how little sense it makes.
Donna's death is poorly executed
Once the Titans free Conner and Gar from CADMUS, the day is saved! But wait, what's that? An electrical tower randomly starts falling toward Dawn and a bunch of civilians. Donna runs over to stop it, but all the other Titans simply ... stand back?
Hit by a massive charge of electricity, Donna saves everyone but herself and dies very suddenly. Conner could have done something to stop this, right? The scene comes off as strange, random, and, quite frankly, lame. After Season 3 aired, it became obvious that Donna's death happened to set up her resurrection arc, but surely there was a better way to kill her. In fact, they set themselves up with two great options: Deathstroke and Conner.
Fans of the show are pained by this scene. Reddit user u/Dependent_Ad_7056 scathingly wrote, "Donna's death was stupid and an insult to Amazons." Shocked and appalled, user u/StockDoc123 asked other fans for an answer, writing, "Why the hell did they end season 2 like that???" User u/DkS_FIJI agreed that Conner could have easily stopped the tower, but added that the difference in power level between the Titans creates story problems: "Raven, Starfire, and Superboy are all way stronger than the others and if they just used their powers to efficiently solve problems this whole show would be condensed to like a couple of hours. Donna's death is a perfect example."
Even Donna herself thinks her death is ridiculous, as we learn in Season 3's "Souls." She perfectly echoes the fans' sentiment when she says, "I spent a lot of time struggling with it, agonizing over it, trying to make some sense of it. You know what I realized? It doesn't make sense." It doesn't, but at least Season 3 acknowledges that.