Titans “Lazarus” review

The first five episodes of Titans season 3 are available on HBO Max.

What I Liked?

1. The episode begins right where the last episode ended, with Red Hood having taken Crane, we then get to see Jason ask Crane about the plan, this is where we get a flashback to Wayne Manor where Jason is absolutely tripping out seeing hints of Red Hood before being “shot”, also this is our first look at Donna Troy in season 3 when she comes to Jason and tells him he still has time, Bruce wakes up Jason and tells him he wants him to see an old friend, Dr. Lesley Tomkins and shuts down Robin until he knows Jason is fine.

2. Even though Jason is struggling with fear from what happened last season, he still wants to help people, his friend Molly is searching for missing kids, although he hasn’t truly told her that he’s Robin, he still wants to help, so he suggests to go find the person who is taken the kids, Jason goes face-to-face with him but freezes and has visions of Deathstroke and falling from the building, this leads to him being beaten down by the person called Hawkins, Jason then lashes out as Molly. In this scene, you can truly see just how physically and mentally Jason has been affected and that it’s truly a problem for him.

3. Next we get some cool teases in the vault in the Batcave where we see Jason searching for something involving Crane, we get to see Jokers playing cards, Catwoman goggles, and Scarecrows mask among other things like two-face’s coin. Bruce then speaks with Jason and ends up calling him “son”, which when that happens, you can see just how much that actually means to Jason, you can see that he liked it and felt like Bruce was his actual father.

4. This next point was unexpected but emotional, it was Bruce taking Jason to the exact spot where Bruce’s parents died, after a long conversation Bruce tells Jason that he has lost too many people to Gotham and that he won’t lose Jason, Jason makes a promise to Bruce that he won’t lose him but Bruce says he can not make that promise but Bruce can keep it and tells Jason he doesn’t want him to be Robin anymore. This affects Jason causing him to get angry and mentioning that Bruce didn’t do this with Dick before walking off.

5. After getting the formula from Crane, we get to see Jason creating different toxins which some have effects and some don’t until he gets it right, he goes back to Crane and tells him his formula was off, this is where we finally get to see Crane put his plan into motion and tells Jason he needs to test toe formula on Batman’s greatest foe, The Joker. This is what we see at the beginning of the season.

6. Next we get to see Red Hoods first “outing” as Red Hood, he goes after Hawkins who was taking the kids and beat Jason up earlier in the episode, we get to see Red Hood mess with him before beating him up and then straight up putting a bullet in his head, killing him. We see Red Hood then take Diego to Molly’s apartment and tells her that Gotham will get worse before it gets better before leaving.

What I disliked?

1. The lack of action was noticeable in this episode, there was hardly any action which obviously took some of the overall rating away from the episode but I completely understand why there was hardly any action in this episode as this was more focused on Jason, his death, his resurrection, and eventually his origin as Red Hood.

2. A similar dislike to the previous dislike, the lack of Titans in this episode was by far even more noticeable than the action, we got to see one quick shot of Nightwing in the forest but that’s about it, there were mentions of Titans like Dick and Hank but that’s about it.

3. My next dislike was Crane himself, I feel like him and the weed and how he needs to have a blunt in each scene basically is not even needed at all, it doesn’t add to the scene that he’s in, and at this point, it’s just straight-up annoying to see, how he won’t do anything unless he has some.

Favorite Moment

My favorite moment was seeing Jason ho after the Joker alone, playing into Crane’s plans because when we find out Jason has been killed, the guards in Arkham tell prisoners that Joker killed Robin and tells the prisoners to get onto the floor this is when Crane pulls of a sinister smile. We then get a gory shot of Jason’s body and the damage the Joker did with the crowbar, his face completely smashed, and then we finally get to see the Lazarus pit where it resurrects Jason and Crane transforms him into Red Hood. It is such a great scene.

Standout Character

I have to give it to Jason this week, a huge episode for Jason as we got to see him deal with highs and lows, which made for one great origin for Red Hood.

The Verdict

A completely heartfelt, emotional, and great episode for Jason, Curran Walters gave an incredible performance. We got to see the back story for Red Hood as well as the highs and lows for Jason, the troubles he went through just to fix his fears and PTSD. We got a mention of Ra’s Al Ghul and Batman having some kind of battle with him. A great episode, however, the action lacked and so did the cast.

Rating: 8/10

Photo: Crane, Titans Season 3 Episode 5 “Lazarus”.