Titans recap: Apocalypse now
After our one-week interlude into the extremely traumatic backstories of Hawk and Dove, we return to our main heroes as they stand on the precipice of imminent apocalypse. Luckily, Dick and Donna arrive back at Angela’s house just as Kory’s in the middle of strangling Rachel. When Gar tries to intervene, Kory hurls him into Dick, but she’s done for once Donna pulls out the golden lasso. I like that so far we mostly see Donna acting like a normal person, and then every once in a while she’ll pull out just enough Wonder Girl magic to delight our nerdy brains.
After coming to her senses, Kory speeds out of there in order to figure out what’s happening to her. Dick and Donna follow close behind, and it takes Donna mere minutes to realize that Dick and Kory are sleeping together. Sisters always know! Donna says that it makes sense because Dick apparently has a thing for “dangerous women” — except, Donna notes, for Dawn. “You f—ed that up.” Dick would rather just drive, thank you very much.
They catch up with Kory when she halts at a big warehouse. Although the place looks empty, the three of them are soon bathed in purple light scanners, after which Kory’s spaceship reveals itself from stealth mode. Once they’re on board, the ship has plenty to teach them about Rachel. Kory remembers that she’s originally from a planet called Tamaran, and a holographic display shows a horrible potential fate of the planet getting engulfed by dark infernal energy. This is not Rachel’s fault directly, but rather indirectly. Her father hails from another dimension, and previously wrought havoc across the universe before getting sealed away. But Rachel is his daughter and thus his gateway into the mortal world. If he gets free again, with her as an anchor, there’s no telling what he might do. We also learn his name! If you’re familiar with Teen Titans comics or cartoons then you already know this, but if you don’t, here it is: His name is Trigon.
The worst news, though, comes when Donna takes a second look at the prophetic drawing of Trigon’s return. The drawing depicts not just the demon, but his daughter…and his daughter’s mother, who seems particularly enthused. Dick has a perfect one-word reaction to that: “F—k.”
NEXT: Here’s daddy
We all assumed Angela had been wrongfully imprisoned in the asylum, and maybe she was being hurt by those psychos, but also she’s not entirely sane! While Dick, Donna, and Kory are gone, she starts manipulating Rachel into bringing her father back.
Gar’s not much help, since his mind is still reeling from the events of the asylum. Every time he looks in the mirror, he sees a dribble of blood on his chin, if not the literal visage of the evil doctor he mauled to death in tiger form. Shifting back and forth between normal human and bloodthirsty animal can’t be an easy transition, and it’s starting to take its toll on poor Gar. Things really take a turn for the worse, though, when he’s poisoned by Angela. An old friend of Angela’s named Tommy Carson shows up to help, but his phone stops working once he’s in the house. When he leaves to go get help, Angela just kills him. Tommy had wanted to grab a drink with her, but Angela tells him in his dying seconds that she’s already in a relationship. Uh oh!
When Rachel fails to heal Gar with her own powers, Angela suggests that she summon her father to help, since he’s more powerful. Rachel obviously knows that she has some darkness within her, but since she hasn’t been privy to all of Dick and Kory’s conversations about prophecies and Trigon, I have to think she doesn’t quite know what she’s about to do. But she does it anyway, and brings Trigon through a mirror portal into our world. He…does not look like a giant red demon, much to my surprise. Instead, he’s in regular human form. He is powerful though. When Rachel asks him to help Gar, Trigon senses the boy’s unique nature (“are you a boy or a beast?”) but then heals him from whatever’s hurting him (“well, you have a lifetime to figure it out”).
Dick, Donna, and Kory are on their way back, but not fast enough. Their car’s electricity keeps flickering, and as if that weren’t enough, the air is shimmering and the house is now hidden from them. But that doesn’t stop Dick from charging through the invisible force field.