Technology is super complicated and fiddly–unless you’re on a superhero show. Then you can develop and release a successful game in one day, and a kid who used to help his parents with their restaurant can hack it and destroy it in a few hours. Spoilers follow for Titans Season 4, Episode 10, “Game Over”
“Game Over”
Things are coming to a head as the Titans race to stop Sebastian and his cult from bringing Trigon back into the world. The group splits up to attack the problem from different angles while we learn more about Sebastian’s state of mind.
Conner has been on the sidelines for a bit now, but he takes center stage this week as he approaches Sebastian and offers a proposal: let Lexcorp develop and release his game to the world. Instead of being an instrument for his mother’s plans to bring his father back into the world, Conner suggests that Sebastian walk his own path. Sebastian immolates his mother in a short, abrupt scene and goes to join Conner.
For a moment, it looks like Conner’s plan is working–until Sebastian decides to juice his game with a bit of blood magic.
Meanwhile, the other Titans are trying their own things. Tim and Bernard are investigating the game. Dick and Rachel consult with other magic users to find a vector of attack. Kory walks through a door in STAR Labs and ends up… in Gar’s house?
Gar’s House
When we last saw Gar, he was unconscious in what appeared to be Doom Manor. Once we see more of it, though, it quickly becomes apparent that this is not that place at all. The dynamic in these scenes is a lot of fun. Gar fits in easily with the Doom Patrol guys. They’re trapped, but they’re going to make the best of it. It seems the gang is stuck in the Red, and it’s unclear whether the Doom Patrol members we meet are actually themselves or the Red manifesting something. Cyborg’s metal parts seem to be an indication of the latter, and there’s also the notable absence of Rita Farr and Crazy Jane, the latter of whom Gar has never met (at least as far as the show is concerned).
Back to the real world: Let’s put aside the fact that game development takes months even for simple mobile games, and that the hype cycle to try to get one of those games to hit can take months as well. The game is successfully developed almost instantly and released to the world, and it hits harder than Candy Crush Saga could ever hope to thanks to Brother Blood’s magic. Conner has to quietly, nervously eat humble pie as he begins to realize that Sebastian got addicted to his power quickly and was no longer interested in being just a game developer. It’s here we can see some of the Kent slip back into Conner’s demeanor. The cocky jerk is gone, and he knows he’s in a rough place. He gave a massive platform to someone whose abilities make his Kryptonian powers irrelevant.
Sebastian and Conner were both kind of hovering in a neutral alliance zone for the last couple of episodes, and this episode pushes them both out of it. Conner is going to do the right thing, and Sebastian will ultimately try to fulfill his destiny in pursuit of claiming power.
Dick and Rachel’s storyline is pretty straightforward as far Titans is concerned, and with the help of another sorcerer they summon Sebastian’s power–and his link to Rachel–into a corporeal form. Things get out of hand because Rachel doesn’t have full control of her powers and Dick doesn’t fully trust her. He has to have faith in her and the plan for things to finally work out–he has to learn to trust his younger teammate the way Bruce Wayne struggled to so much.
Through this, Kory has her own little journey with Gar and the Doom Patrol guys, where she realizes that she has to love what she’s protecting instead of hating what she’s fighting. This isn’t very well supported, but Kory has such good chemistry with the boys that it’s still fun to watch. It just kind of happens suddenly that she has this epiphany.
Because Titans kind flew by its pants with each season, this is just the last season, and not “the final season” like we’re seeing on The Flash. It doesn’t need to be this big celebration of the Titans’ history. We’re getting fun time with each character and seeing them develop as we head into the final 3 episodes, and having a good time doing it.
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