'Titans' Season 2 Episode 7 takes a deep-dive into Dick Grayson's shattered psyche and exposes the darkness within
Since the very beginning of 'Titans' Season 2, we've seen hints that Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) has a secret that is slowly eating him up. Now, in the season's seventh episode, we finally get an intimate look at Dick's troubled mind and, well, it's not pretty.
We had speculated that Dick's mentor Bruce Wayne (Iain Glen) might play a major role in the episode (it's titled 'Bruce Wayne', for crying out loud) and he does... in a manner of speaking. Throughout the episode, Dick grapples with the guilt of his secret, which almost cost Jason Todd/Robin (Curran Walters) his life, and that guilt manifests as a hallucination of Bruce.
Iain Glen gives a very fun performance as the broken part of Dick's mind, joking and dancing in a very non-Batman fashion. As ridiculous and funny as Glen's performance is, the Bruce hallucination does drop some serious wisdom in the episode, pushing Dick to confront the darkness within.
"Bruce" has some very sassy lines that both cracked us up and gave us insight into the emotional turmoil within Dick's mind. There are some especially fun moments like when he starts grooving with a pair of dancers and the scene where he declares to Dick's teammates, who obviously can't see or hear him, that Dick's strange behavior is "nothing to worry about, kids. Just a mild psychic split. Anybody need anything? Milk? Eggs? Body bags?"
Dick tries to go off on his own (again) and manages to track down Wintergreen (Demore Barnes), the handler of Deathstroke/Slade Wilson (Esai Morales), hoping to use Wintergreen to get to Deathstroke and kill him as revenge for Deathstroke almost killing Jason. Along the way, the Bruce hallucination keeps telling Dick that the only way he can truly be free is to come out to his friends with the truth of what he did to Deathstroke five years ago.
He finally wears Dick down and the young hero admits that admitting the truth to his friends is just too hard for him. Dick breaks down, eyes filling with tears with no one but the hallucination of his father to comfort him, finally dropping his bitter facade and revealing the scared little boy inside.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team is plagued by a series of pranks that they blame on Jason, who is already struggling with the trauma of his near-death experience and really has no idea what's going on. The only person who even remotely manages to help Jason is Rose Wilson (Chelsea Zhang) who briefly shares a kiss with the young hero before finding a record that used to belong to her brother Jericho (Chella Man) in Jason's room and storming off.
Koriand'r/Starfire (Anna Diop), who is probably the only one in the Tower who's level-headed enough to actually fix things, is unfortunately busy trying to figure out how to help Conner Kent (Joshua Orpin) who is slowly dying of Kryptonite poisoning. Though Eve Watson (Genevieve Angelson) and Krypto the Superdog manage to make it to the Tower and help Kory heal Conner, it's too late to be of any comfort to Jason, who blames himself for both his own close encounter with death and Conner's illness.
Jason tries to jump off the Tower and end his life but Dick manages to get to him before he can take the fatal step. He tells Jason that he's not to blame for everything that happened, Dick is. Because as Dick reveals, Deathstroke didn't kill his son Jericho, Dick did.
'Titans' Season 2 Episode 8 'Jericho' will air on DC Universe on October 25.
