Titans Season 3 Embraces The Growing Darkness Of The Red Hood Rising

Titans Season 3 is easily the best of the series with tight storytelling, incredible performances, and some of the most shocking moments you won’t see coming.

Titans first premiered as part of the DC Universe. After that, it was folded into HBO Max and marketed as part of their comic book offerings. The duo of Doom Patrol and Titans has proven to be a very successful pairing. Critics and audiences love Doom Patrol, while this will be everyone’s first glimpse of what HBO would do with Titans. Season 1 and 2 were met with mixed results. While Titans couldn’t always land the plane, there was enough promise to the teen drama we kept coming back for more. Titans Season 3 finally hits all the right dark notes of need, trauma, and determination.

The gritty Teen Titans adaptation is a weird one. It has tried to be so many things, and some of them are more successful than others. That has always been the complaint of diehard fans. There are glimpses of genius scattered throughout that don’t always result in what they could be. It’s frustrating to have something just on the cusp of brilliance. The original Teen Titans show for those not of a certain age was a light, fluffy cartoon series. It certainly wasn’t the dark and brooding iteration that DC Universe presented us two seasons ago.

These characters aren’t just struggling; they are damaged by violence, pain, neglect, betrayal, and responsibility. What has always made the Titans so compelling is the juxtaposition of children and intense trauma. Despite the few semi-adults in the way of Dick, Dawn, and Hank, most of our heroes are babies who have seen way too much and been altered permanently as a result. The humanity of it all is where Titans shines. The genuinely tender moments between Conner and Gar, or really anyone and Gar, are magical.

Dick and Bruce, with the addition of newcomer Barbara Gordon, share a dynamic that feels organically lived in. This is a trio that has history and love for each other even if they have lost their way a bit. The two men are on the right side of the law(sort of) but on the wrong side of each other. Bruce has become so jilted by what he has gone through he sees kids as weapons. Dick isn’t always better, but he wants to be. The price of justice is so high.

Savannah Welch’s Barbara Gordon is a fantastic addition to the group. There is a venom that matches her vulnerability that makes for a more realistic superhero story. She is complex and robust without being just an angry female or a navel-gazing penitent. Angel and Mad Man’s Vincent Kartheiser chills as Scarecrow without copying from the obvious Hanibal Lector reference. He skirts the line between condescending and quirky, landing effortlessly in a winning box of dastardly. We don’t know how his arc plays out over the rest of the season, but I’m excited to see it.

Brenton Thwaites continues to be the heart and soul of Titans Season 3 as Dick Grayson. His ongoing battle with his own demons are some of the best plot beats, and there is plenty more in store for the beleaguered altruist. He is a deeply flawed leader who frequently makes the wrong decisions for all the wrong reasons. It’s not that he doesn’t want to do the right thing; he is just incapable of seeing how many of his choices are influences by darker impulses and insecurities. Nightwing/ Dick Grayson has always had a love-hate relationship with himself. It is one of the most compelling parts of the first two seasons. That mess gets injected with a jolt of angst in Season 3.

Starfire finally gets a chance to shine(no pun intended). For me, the alien has always felt a little like the muscle that our group trots out when the going gets rough, but no one really asks what she is going through. Her changes in Season 3 are exciting, and her ongoing maturation is meaningful. Kory/Starfire is a mess. Something has messed with her head in a big way, and she has to reach out for help before she becomes a danger to herself and others.

The loving couple of Hank and Dawn find themselves in an interesting place where they are on opposite sides of the hero debate. When is it okay to hang up your cape? Is it ever okay? What does it take from a person and a couple in the process? All of these questions get asked and, to some extent, answered in one of the most shocking events of the first half of the season. The couple will forever be changed as a result.

Curran Walters is painfully effective as cocky, troubled Jason Todd. Walters injects a fair amount of pain behind his lethal bravado. Purists will undoubtedly be shocked by his arc but hopefully will be lured in by his raw performance. You wouldn’t be invested in his story or that of any of the Titans, for that matter, if the moments outside of their capes, away from the fight, weren’t so good.

There were complaints that several of the characters lost a tremendous amount of screen time to newcomers. It was clear there was an A team and a B team, whether anyone said it or not. The new additions, namely Barbara Gordon and Scarecrow, who bring a jolt of excitement once they show up, manage to avoid that pitfall. Although the series still plays favorites, the narrative arcs now have a purpose. Season 2 left most cold with its too little flesh on the narrative bones of the characters. In Titans Season 3, that has changed some without feeling like one origin story after another encapsulated in a single episode. That would have been disastrous.

There is zero room to breathe in Titans Seasons 3 for good or bad. The five episodes made available for review are so quickly paced they fly by without a second to reflect. There is no downtime, and you are never bored. However, you are left emotionally beat, breathless, and more than a little heartbroken. The move to Gotham brings an even darker tone to the often tumultuous superhero show.

In many ways, this is the Gotham that so many have tried to portray, but most have missed. That intangible corruption, the taint of perversion, and the literal stain of blood on the streets and the hands of the leaders are what makes the city so fascinating. If that is how you like to envision Gotham, you will be thrilled by Titans Season 3. The city becomes as much a character as the people. The Titans are drawn to Gotham, and they quickly realize that as bad as things were outside, Gotham is even worse. Things work very differently in Gotham, and it is a steep learning curve.

Everything has been leading to the rise of the Red Hood. Easily one of the most appreciated of all storylines, this tragedy in the making was a car crash of self-discovery and parallels. Take a bunch of broken kids with shifty moral compasses and put them in dangerous situations daily. It shouldn’t come as a surprise; some of them would break bad. That is precisely what happens when early in Titans Season 3, the hood rises. The result is someone who believed his own hype and had way too much anger and too little therapy. Red Hood is a horrifying villain. He is cold, calculating, and very dangerous. His impact on the Titans and Bruce will have lasting effects.

Tonally, Titans Season 3 is very different. Game-changing twists are present in every episode, and the stakes feel very high from the beginning. Unfortunately for those weary of dark fare, Titans runs the risk of fatiguing its viewers. There is pain and reflection and impossible choices packed into every episode, and that can be daunting. Titans Season 3 finally distills down all the best arts into a potent mix of action and gritty emotion to show the toll loss, violence, and abuse can take on a person. The first three episodes are available on HBO Max August 12th, with a new episode once a week thereafter.