Titans season 2 is set to drop a week from today! Here’s everything we know so far to get you hyped for the upcoming season!
But before we talk about the second season, lets spend some time getting us all up to speed on season 1.
The first season of Titans decided to move what would’ve been its season finale episode to the beginning of this season, and therefore ending its first season with an episode I thought was a great standalone episode, but a lackluster finale.
However, divisive season finales aside, the first season was a strong one overall, buoyed by the depth of its characters and the performances of its actors and actresses. Though the first season’s big bad was technically the demon Trigon (a conflict that will still need to be resolved in the second season), the truly interesting conflicts were largely internal and mostly focused on questions of identity — both figurative and literal.
Brenton Thwaites’ Dick Grayson was at a crossroads in his life — no longer Robin but unable to leave behind a life of crime fighting completely. He’s so clearly a leader, but one who is reluctant to truly lead. Anna Diop’s Kory Anders was a woman without a past or a home and her struggle is to define herself despite lacking these things.
Rachel Roth had a similar literal struggle with identity — a young teen trying to understand who she is, what she can do and why she has a real sense of darkness inside of her. Rounding out the team was Ryan Potter’s Gar Logan, a young man looking for a place to call home and a way to truly understand his own powers.
Though Teen Titans fans are familiar with the characters’ superhero aliases — Nightwing, Starfire, Raven and Beast Boy — those names never come up in the show’s first season. In fact, though the show is called Titans and though we can see that they are clearly a team, they’re never really referred as such throughout the course of the show’s first season. That’s because the intent of the first season was largely to introduce the characters, get us to care about them and allow us to see their potential — both as superheroes and as a superhero team.
And in this the show was wildly successful.
Though the overall comic book plot lines varied in quality, Titans‘ first season did a fantastic job crafting the characters into complex, complicated, three-dimensional individuals whom we cared about deeply. It also worked hard to incorporate the wider DC Universe cast of characters and world building without ever making it feel forced or disingenuous.
And it looks like the second season will build on those strengths, while also making the season-long story arc equally as strong and engaging.
In case you missed it, here’s the fantastic season 2 trailer for Titans!
We’ve known for a few months now that Esia Morales’ Deathstroke will be season 2’s big bad, but seeing him all suited up as the assassin — and with an incredible and incredibly comic book accurate costume — made me even more excited for the upcoming season. We also get a glimpse of both brand new characters and our season 1 favorites getting a brand new look.
Let’s break down what we know so far about the upcoming season!
Resolving season 1
Much of the season 2 trailer focuses on the new dynamics of the team, as well as the inclusion of Deathstroke and his two children, Ravager and Jericho.
However, before we can get there, Titans still has to resolve its season 1 story arc having to do with Trigon. The first season ended with what was essentially a character study on Dick Grayson. In an attempt to save Rachel, Dick went head to head with Trigon, only to be trapped in a mindmeld that took us deep into Dick’s psyche and had him wrest with his deepest fears. The episode ends on a cliffhanger — Dick possessed by Trigon as Rachel looks on, completely horrified. The 12th episode, which should’ve been the season finale, was instead moved to season 2 as the season opener.
Here’s the official synopsis for Titans 2×01, appropriately titled “Trigon”:
The season two premiere episode follows directly after the apocalyptic events of last season’s finale. With Rachel’s father, Trigon having successfully turned Dick dark, he sets out to win the others over to his side by embracing their inner darkness. With everyone under Trigon’s control, Rachel and Gar find themselves fighting what seems like a hopeless battle against the powers of Trigon.
From the production photos and the official episode synopsis, it seems like the season premiere of Titans is going to burn through quite a bit of story.
While the official production photos for the episode show Jason Todd, Dawn Granger and Hank Hall, the last two episodes of the previous season didn’t feature them at all. The last we saw of Jason Todd (in real life — not Dick’s nightmare), he was giving Dick real talk about being Robin and paralyzing cops, whereas the last we saw of Hank and Dawn was in a hospital — with Dawn having just woken up and immediately telling Hank that they needed to find Jason Todd.
Which means in the course of a single episode, Jason, Hank and Dawn will all need to arrive at the Roth house and — along with Kory and Donna — be turned by dark!Dick and Trigon. As we can see from the photos, Rachel will also be getting her famous gem, which will likely lead to a better control of her powers.
From there, we can assume that all the heroes band together in an effort to vanquish Trigon from this dimension — an effort which ends up being successful and leads Dick to create a new version of the Titans and opening up Titans Tower once more.
Titans 2.0
With season 1’s threat contained thanks to the teamwork of Dick, Kory, Rachel and Gar — plus Jason, Hank and Dawn — the core team is now free to become the heroes we’ve always known they were meant to be. Here’s the official season 2 synopsis:
In season two, following the aftermath of their encounter with Trigon, Dick reforms the Titans. Under his supervision in their new home at Titans Tower, Rachel, Gar and Jason Todd train together to hone their hero abilities and work together as a team. They are joined by Hank Hall and Dawn Granger aka Hawk and Dove and Donna Troy aka Wonder Girl.
Although these original Titans attempt to transition into a regular life, when old enemies resurface everyone must come together to take care of unfinished business. And as this family of old and new Titans — including Conner Kent and Rose Wilson — learn to co-exist, the arrival of Deathstroke brings to light the sins of the old Titans which threaten to tear this new Titans family apart once more.
Curran Walters’ Jason Todd (Robin #2), Minka Kelly’s Dawn Granger (Dove), Alan Ritchson’s Hank Hall (Hawk) and Conor Leslie’s Donna Troy (Wonder Girl) have all been upgraded to series regulars, which means we’ll be seeing much more of them this season. That’s fantastic news, as all four characters really shined last season and brought interesting dynamics to the team.
It’s possible — perhaps even likely — that there will be a short time jump following the defeat of Trigon, and that when we catch back up to the Titans, they’ve been functioning as a team for quite some time. I’m looking forward to seeing the new and old Titans learning to work together, being a team as well as friends and kicking a lot of ass.
Of course, as the synopsis tells us, it won’t last forever, as both the internal struggles which ripped apart the Titans the first time and the external threat of Deathstroke will rear its head to challenge the team dynamics. Still, if season 1 was all about understanding who everyone was as an individual, I’m looking forward to season 2 being more about who these individuals are as a team.
New heroes
Joining the newly upgraded series regulars are a handful of characters brand new to the show. New to this season as heroes are Aqualad, played by Drew Van Acker, and Conner Kent/Superboy, played by Joshua Orpin.
We saw a glimpse of Conner Kent last year in the season’s post-credits scene, which featured Conner breaking out of the lab which grew him. The glimpse we see of him in the trailer shows him with his trusty doggo sidekick, Krypto, and donning his iconic black Superman t-shirt. Rumors are that the sixth episode of the season will be titled “Conner,” which means we’re likely to delve into both his past, his present state and where he’ll be headed in the future.
Another new hero that we’ll see this season is Garth, aka Aqualad. We see him suited up with Dick Grayson’s Robin, Donna Troy’s Wonder Girl, Dawn Granger’s Dove and Hank Hall’s Hawk, and likewise see him having an emotional discussion with Donna. Given that the third episode, “Ghosts,” is followed by an episode titled “Aqualad,” and that all the scenes involving Aqualad seem to be set in the past (given that Dick is still wearing the Robin uniform whenever Aqualad is featured), it seems likely that Aqualad will only be featured in flashbacks.
My theory (and the theory of many in fandom): Aqualad is already dead in the present timeline, and is in fact the reason the first version of the Titans disbanded in the first place.
The synopsis for the season references “the sins of the old Titans” and the trailer features both Dawn and Donna referencing a tragedy in the Titans’ past. Given the fact that we never heard of or met Garth in season 1, it seems highly likely that Aqualad is already dead.
While the presence of Batman/Bruce Wayne hung heavy on Dick Grayson’s storylines throughout the first season, Titans made sure never to bring him to the forefront. Given that Dick Grayson’s entire storyline is about moving past and beyond the shadow of Batman, it makes sense to literally keep the character Batman in the background and in the shadows.
However, while Dick isn’t completely sure where he stands as a superhero, he spent season 1 better understanding who he is as an individual. The cape and cowl no longer weighs so heavily on him, which means that having Bruce Wayne step out from the shadows and into the light makes sense for season 2.
Which is why it seems that we’ll be seeing quite a lot of him in the upcoming season. Both the teaser trailer and the full trailer for season 2 features Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne talking to one another, with Bruce commenting on Dick’s current team and giving him advice. However, though we saw a few glimpses of Batman in the previous season, we see none of him in the previews so far — it’s been all Bruce Wayne.
Which is intentional, according to showrunner Greg Walker. The inclusion of Bruce Wayne in the series’ second season is a way to explore Dick as a character and Dick’s relationship with Bruce even further. According to Walker, the writers felt as though they “really needed to dive into Dick’s relationship with Bruce to really understand Dick better” and “wanted to work on Bruce Wayne trying to restore that relationship with Dick in a way to get back to an updated version of father and son.”
While I’m not wholly convinced in the Iain Glen casting, there’s no doubt that he’s a fantastic actor able to give this emotional storyline the weight and gravitas it deserves. Plus, my trepidation in his casting mostly stems with him being Batman, not Bruce Wayne. Given what he’ll need to do this season, I’m excited to see what Iain Glen brings to the show and the relationship between Dick and Bruce.
Rounding out the new heroes (or, in Rose Wilson’s case, anti-heroes) are Rose Wilson and Joseph Wilson, the children of Slade Wilson, aka Deathstroke.
In comics canon, Rose Wilson has been both a part of the Teen Titans and an enemy to them — which means she’s also been both ally and antagonist to her father. According to the official character description from Deadline, Rose (played by Chelsea Zhang) was forced to undergo the same procedure that gave her father superhuman abilities. However, this leads her to be resentful toward her father, so she goes to the Titans both for protection and to get back at her father. They let her in to the group, but they don’t trust her.
Like with Garth, it’s unclear whether Rose is part of Titans version 1 or 2.0. If she’s part of the original Titans line-up, it’s possible that her betrayal led to the death of Garth and the disbanding of the team.
The other Wilson offspring is Joseph Wilson, here played by Chella Man. According to the official character description, “Joseph Wilson is the Titan known as Jericho. Mute after his father failed to rescue him from having his vocal cords severed by assassins, Jericho has the unique ability to possess anyone just by making eye contact. This gentle-natured yet proud hero has proven himself a formidable Titan.”
New threats
We’ve long known that Esai Morales’ Slade Wilson/Deathstroke would be the big bad of the season, but the trailer also offered us glimpses at a few more villains we might get to meet.
Doctor Light shows up briefly, and as a character who can bend light to his will — such as Superboy’s laser vision and Wonder Girl’s lasso — that makes him a good and formidable villain to put up against the newly reinstated Titans.
We also get to see Kory and Donna team-up to take down the villain Shimmer, a metahuman with the ability to transmute any element or compound into any other. Although it seems that Kory and Donna beat her pretty handily, the interesting thing about her inclusion is that both she and Doctor Light are two out of the five characters that make up the supervillain team The Fearsome Five — a well-known enemy of the Teen Titans. Perhaps we have a supervillain team-up heading our way in the new future?
But not too near, as I assume the biggest threat of the season will remain Slade Wilson. Deathstroke is one of DC’s most famous (infamous?) villains, a long-time arch-rival to the Teen Titans and just an all around badass. Arrow fans will be familiar with the character from the early seasons of the show, in which he was played to near perfection by Manu Bennett.
From everything that we’ve seen in the trailer, it looks like Deathstroke is a villain the Titans have come up against before. It doesn’t seem too far-fetched to think that Deathstroke is the reason for the Titans disbanding the first time — perhaps the one responsible for Aqualad’s death, if that is in fact what happened.
We don’t have any details as to what storyline this season will follow, nor what Deathstroke’s role will be in the story, but given the inclusion of Slade Wilson, Joseph Wilson and Rose Wilson and the fact that Geoff Johns said at NYCC that Marv Wolfman would be very happy with the upcoming season, it seems highly possible that the season will be a loose adaptation of the famous Marv Wolfman Teen Titans story “The Judas Contract.” There has been absolutely nothing confirmed about this — this is all just conjecture on my part — but it also doesn’t seem that far-fetched!
Looks like we’ll just have to wait and see! However, given all that we do know about the upcoming season, the one thing I’m certain of is that I’m absolutely hyped to see it all play out!