REVIEW: Titans, S2E7 – Bruce Wayne

After last week’s well-crafted but flabbergasting detour to the recent past, Titans returns to the present with “Bruce Wayne.” But there’s a twist, because while Kory (Anna Diop) and Dawn (Minka Kelly) are helping Conner (Joshua Orpin) regain his strength, Jason (Curran Walters) is busy reliving his brush with death. Dick (Brenton Thwaites), of course, sets off on his own to track down Deathstroke… Or at alone as one can be with a Bruce inside his head.

You make a better Alfred than you do a door.

That’s right, the eponymous Bruce Wayne is not his actual adoptive father, but a hallucination of him who sounds more Scottish than ever. It almost unclear if Dick is only specifically imagining Bruce because he almost lost Jason, or if Bruce is the default voice inside his head. Either way, he’s a mixed bag of biting wit and unfunny dad jokes – not to mention a pole dance or two. Iain Glen definitely gives his character the feeling of a Batman Beyond style Bruce Wayne, but it’s simply hard to believe he raised two boys as ruthless as Dick and Jason.

Dick’s search for Deathstroke is the most frustrating part of this Titans episode, if only because the villain was hiding out in the Tower all along. While Dick visits a strip club to find the assassin’s handler, and then later on fires warning shots at the man’s bathtub, Slade himself is busy placing momentos for all the Titans to freak out over. How he knows that Garth used to give Donna (Conor Leslie) orange soda or what the boy Dawn and Hank (Alan Ritchson) took care of looked like is beyond me, but he succeeds in throwing the OG team into chaos.

The bigger problem is that they immediately blame Jason, thanks to Rachel (Teagan Croft) finding crosses drawn all over her room in her “Bruce Wayne” cameo. But at least she did more than stand in the background for two scenes, like Gar (Ryan Potter) did! Regardless, it at least makes sense for Jason to have pulled an elaborate practical prank on Rachel. But to believe that he investigated the other members’ pasts to find obscure objects that would haunt them a day after falling off a 50 story building just proves they’re in no position to face off against Deathstroke right now.

Leave my problematic son alone!

Especially not after what Jason is suffering, in what is arguably the most compelling Titans plot this season. Not only is he underdoing the aftereffects of his trauma, but the slings and arrows of his teammates’ accusations cut deep enough to make him feel like a curse. This is only compounded when an incredibly short-lived. yet incredibly cute for the seconds it lasted, romantic encounter with Rose (Chelsea Zhang) ends with her discovering her brother’s record in his room and suspecting the Titans of foul play. So by the time Dick comes home from his imaginary Bruce Wayne playdate, Jason is on the roof contemplating falling again and Walters is giving one hell of a heartfelt performance.

Thankfully, Dick manages to talk Jason down, but only by revealing his own dark secret. In fact, “Bruce Wayne” was really another look into Dick’s internal struggle with himself, and all the dad in his head really wanted was for him to come clean about the blood on his hands. Because right now, Titans wants us to believe Dick killed Jericho in an act of vengeance against Deathstroke. Somehow, I can’t imagine that being the whole story – but neither Dick nor the team can move forward until they set the story straight. It’d be nice if they found Rose too, seeing as she disappeared after accusing Jason of being party to her brother’s death (which would have happened when he was like 11, but okay).

The rest of “Bruce Wayne” was also a winner, and made last week’s episode more worth it as well. Kory’s Tamaran background comes into play once more, allowing her to recognize Conner’s origin as being Kryptonian. She and Dawn can’t do much for him alone, though, until Eve takes Krypto from Mercury Labs and finds her son. And now he is acknowledged as her son, as he calls her “Mom” in a touching reunion scene. With her scientific advice, bordering on despair, Kory realizes she needs to envelop Conner in her powers which burn like the sun. With him safe, the Titans now have an undeniably powerful ally against Deathstroke – if they’re still feeling up to it after Dick’s secret comes to light.

Titans drops new episodes every Friday on the DC Universe streaming platform.