DC Recap Round-Up 2, Week 12: Thanks For (Erasing) The Memories!

12 Feb

Welcome back! We still got a decent lineup of shows to cover today, like Supergirl, The Flash, and Black Lightning, but we also got a brief chat about the recent season finale of Titans, which…I have issues with. But before we get to throwing that shade, let’s get to the recaps!

“Blood Memory”

Turns out erasing Alex’s memory of Kara being Supergirl has drawbacks, because while the relationship between the Danvers sisters is relatively fine, the relationship between Supergirl and Alex is thorny at best (and not made better by what happens later on this episode). Thanks to a bizarre convulsion by that Kara clone in Russia, it somehow empowers a batch of ecstasy pills to make its user become super roid-raged, because…something something. Anyway, while Alex and the DEO deal with that (and that weird feeling Alex has that something is off with her), Kara tried to get away for a while by joining Nia on a trip back to her alien integrated small town home. We learn there after Nia’s mom dies unexpectedly (it literally comes out of nowhere), that Nia is supposed to take on the mantle of “Dreamer” for her family. Of course, there is the slight technicality of this being a trait passed onto daughters, which Nia wasn’t born as, but becomes a big issue for Nia’s actual born sister, who is flustered she’s not going to take that mantle she’s been preparing for all these years.

While Nia has to deal with the fallout of losing her mom and alienating her sister now, that whole super drug plot takes a convenient turn as the drugs are taken by the Children of Liberty and intend to be used to destroy the festival now going on in Nia’s hometown! The bad guys get stopped, Kara sees how bad the relationship between her alter-ego and her sister is truly going to get, and Nia’s sister says some stuff to her that is clearly not going to be taken back easily. So, Kara tried to help matters by letting Nia in on her super identity, and tries to put on a brave face in handling her sister in two roles now. As for that Kara clone, her handle suggests contacting someone who can deal with this in America. Maybe someone who has had dealings with “Super” people, hint hint…

The Danvers sisters didn’t finish their cheer where they said they would never mindwipe each other, even if asked.

–James is becoming a bit more compromised as he sneakily shuts down an investigation from his own bullpen into Lena’s secret superpower project. The things you do for girlfriends.

–J’Onn has to lie to Alex about her memory loss, and let’s not think anything bad will come of this either.

–At least Nia’s dad is still alive and totally cool with her destiny.

–Seriously though, is there any setup to that fatal spider bite? It really feels like it comes out of nowhere in the clumsiest way.

–Alex is a Terminator 2 fan. Kara’s favorite movie, though? The Wizard of Oz.

–“We last met at your humble abode. BT-dubs.”

–“No, not just human…frat boys.”

–“You learned how to speak…’dude bro’?”

“Memorabilia”

So in an attempt to bring Cicada’s niece, Grace, out of her coma, Sherloque puts together a little dream entering machine to help her back into consciousness. When hearing that the device puts the user into someone’s mind and that Barry and Nora get to use it first, Nora freaks out because she thinks her talks with Thawne will be exposed. During a random test on Grace, Nora uses the device and gets stuck inside the comatose girl’s mind, which is not good since two kinds are required to use the machine, lest it causes brain death for one user! So Barry and Iris hook themselves up to the dream machine, only to find themselves in Nora’s mind instead. Inside Nora’s head, her parents learn about where her views on Iris came from and that Cicada somehow was still committing murders years after he disappeared. That doesn’t make any sense, right?

We get a big clue to why that might be because Grace still has dark matter in her from the accident that caused her coma, and she’s overheard all of what her uncle has told her, and is kinda cool with hurting all these metahumans! Barry and Iris find a way to get out of Nora’s head and into Grace’s head to save Nora, but they are unable to bring Grace out of her coma. Maybe they shouldn’t though, as it looks like she might be the Cicada that appears in the future. Also, Sherloque seems to hint he may know Nora’s secret, but why hasn’t he told anyone else?

A Cicada cult? The return of Grodd? I see what you’re teasing there, show, and…I at least like the latter idea.

–Barry suggests at the end of the episode using that metahuman cure on Cicada, whethe the wants it or not. Oh, we are gonna have some words between Team Flash on this idea.

–Sherloque just has to ask what was did the defense mechanism in Nora’s head looked like, and…it looked like the Reverse-Flash (minus actual Eobard). Barry, Iris, don’t you find that a little weird?

–Iris is starting a newspaper, which has the name of the newspaper where we’ve seen that dreaded headline in the future about the Flash vanishing. And it’s being started two years ahead of schedule. This is rather disturbing, considering what the crossover is next season.

–Cisco gets taken to singles night and at least gets a breakthrough in his metahuman cure research, and maybe a date too. Good idea, Ralph!

–Turns out SICKada is just murdering people’s ears, not metahumans.

–“One drink, but only because you never pay for anything ever and I’m curious to see what Hell looks like frozen over.”

–“If you see a memory of me stealing a blank Scrabble tile, it’s not what it looks like, okay?”

“The Book of Secrets, Chapter One: Prodigal Son”

We get a lot of setup in this episode, including one death that was coming, so let’s get to that first. Khalil is still alive after getting that spinal implant ripped out by Tobias, but that poisoning that was being treated by the implant is now spreading thanks to the implant’s absence. Despite every attempt to save him, all our heroes can do is watch him slowly die. And to make things worse, the pastor he defended from Tobias’ kill order (and what got him to attempt running away with Jennifer in the first place) got killed by Tobias anyway. Rough.

Jefferson at the same time brings his buddy Henderson into his lair and lays out a plan to bring down Tobias, legally, despite getting a lot of his info from Khalil on the condition he’d kill the crime boss. The plan hits a few snags, like the one only Team Lightning can see, which is that mystery briefcase is not in Tobias’ loft. The ones they don’t know about is that Tobias has broken out that mad doctor from earlier this season to help retrieve those frozen metahumans. And oops, by the end of the episode, they found the locked room containing them!

Sniff.

–R.I.P. Khalil. And what a sweet way to send him off, as Jennifer asked her metahuman shrink to put the couple into a high school dance for one last moment together.

–Cutter (our knife wielding henchman) apparently has a history with Tobias beyond just employer and employee. Although that doesn’t stop him from making her carry away the body of someone he drowns in his office.

–By the way, Tobias is still having chats with that portrait of his dead sister, mind you, whole torturing and murdering a guy.

–The other women in the Pierce family are dealing with all this in their own way, like Anissa’s girlfriend dropping by for support and Lynn basically taking charge to treat Khalil, even though the latter is for naught.

–Jennifer somewhat accidentally taking down that racist white woman calling the cops on her was perfect. “Your car got hit by lighting. You wanna call the police on God?”

–Henderson taking the whole Gambi reveal in stride: “What y’all got to eat down here?”

–“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me.” “You were always there. I just couldn’t see you.”

And now…

Sigh. Well, I guess the best way to start this review of the “season finale” of this show is to start positively. Despite all this edginess that seemed stapled on at first, this show has had some legitimate good points, such as the cast, the call outs to DC comics lore, and for awhile, a string of really solid episodes. Whatever voice this series was going for, it seemed to finally have found it, even if it wasn’t quite the Titans you would have wanted from the comics. And that’s why the season finale felt like a massive letdown.

Well, let’s preface this by pointing out there was one more episode slated for this season, but for whatever reason, it was pushed to being the start of season two. Whatever the case may be, that behind the scenes fact lingers over how anti climatic and almost anti-cliffhanger this season ender is. Instead of bringing the whole Trigon thing to some kind of climax, final or not, we get Dick in a dream world having to face a Batman who has gone full chaotic evil, and the murder of his teacher turning Dick into a servant of Trigon. This would be all fine if it was just part of the episode itself, but it’s ALL the episode is.

If I was the Joker, I would have face planted into a car too after seeing Suicide Squad.

It’s not that the idea was a bad one, it was just one that served the show better as the lead-in to a season finale, not the season finale. Instead, the climax of this season is Dick murdering a shadowy Batman (literally), and for a show called Titans, there’s very little of them in this episode. Whether this course correction pans out in a better start for next season when it comes out in late 2019 or not, it still leaves a bad taste in the mouth for a season that started off rocky, went on to be pretty good, and now ends with a thud. I will still be checking out the show when it comes back, but man, my expectations are severely deflated right now. Hopefully the upcoming Doom Patrol will be better handled in that regard, but who knows?

NEXT TIME: While Supergirl is taking a very brief break, we’ll be back with a double shot of not only The Flash, but Black Lightning!