#Titans Season 3 Episode 13 Review: Purple Rain

Did anyone else find the takedown of Scarecrow rather anticlimactic?

Titans Season 3 Episode 13 was a decent season-ender, but there seemed to be untapped potential with the central villain.

There was a lot of simmering tension as we headed into the episode because of Scarecrow’s actions, but the team defeated him much quicker than I thought they would.

Maybe we’re supposed to believe they work better together, but still, there should have been more desperation in the Titans throughout this final battle for Gotham.

Dick remains one of the worst leaders in the history of TV. Seriously. Gar would have understood if Dick told him Jason was helping in the mission to take down Crane.

Could you imagine Gar tried to attack Jason, and one of them died in the mansion? That would have been yet another problem caused by Dick.

Moving forward, Dick needs to be more of a collaborative member of the Titans. He has this superhero complex that drives him to make decisions he thinks to be right.

In order for the Titans to function, they all need to be mutually involved in who is coming and who is going, as well as the game plan for future missions.

The only positive is that Dick is embracing his status as Nightwing and has confronted his demons.

His goodbye to Barbara was a sad note because Gotham has served as a solid backdrop for all the drama throughout Titans Season 3.

I did expect Vee to offer Barbara a job at A.R.G.U.S. That would have at least allowed her to follow Dick to San Francisco, but saving Gotham is ingrained in Barbara’s DNA, so it’s easy to understand why she chose to stay behind.

Bruce’s return was too little, too late in my book. This show has too many flawed characters for my liking, and while Iain Glen is an excellent actor, the series never utilizes him to his full potential.

The conversation about Jason’s future in Gotham could have been carried out by Dick, who has looked after Jason more than Bruce has. It would have landed with a bigger emotional thud.

Bruce has been too absent to return to dole out advice to these boys, and the show needs to move on from him.

Jason leaving town makes sense. He knows people will never look at him the same again, and he needs to forge his own path away from heroes and villains.

I don’t know where that will take him, but it would be nice to check back in with him down the line. Maybe the show will use him as this antihero that pops up when everyone struggles to beat a villain.

Rachel is finally in control of her powers, and sending the darkness to Crane was the best measure of that to date. Now that their fears have been planted inside Crane, he’ll be too mad even to consider revenge.

The purple rain could have been handled much better, and the way everyone learned the Lazarus Pit could be used to revive the people who died in the first blast was too cheesy.

I’ve appreciated the darker tone employed by Titans in comparison to some of the other superhero shows, but damn, this could have been handled so much better.

At least we got to see everyone back together, but even the scene of Raven, Blackfire, and Starfire making it all come together fell flat. There was a lack of stakes because no one we knew had died.

Everyone in Gotham turned on the Titans a few episodes ago, so as a viewer, it was brutal to give a damn about them. There was no personal connection to the audience, and that’s a problem.

Had Tim’s family, or even him, been affected by the first blast, it would have made the scenes of the Titans uniting to restore order feel more compelling.

That being said, Tim has the traits of a good superhero, but Dick was right for the first time in his life when he said there would be a lot of training if he wanted to join the team.

From a storytelling standpoint, the writers have helped bring Tim to life in a way that works. However, there should have been a more prominent hero moment to make it more believable that his parents would allow him to stay behind.

Blackfire and Starfire finally working through their issues was some decent character development, and I’m happy the former is finally headed to Tamaran to take back what was rightfully hers.

Hopefully, this means we will get to see her in power on the planet because, quite frankly, the show needs to master the art of showing and not telling.

A trip to Tamaran should be high up on the list for Titans Season 4. It would be cruel to take Damaris Lewis away from the audience because she’s killed it every single episode.

I also have a lot of questions about Starfire’s true powers. In the scene with the purple rain, she looked more powerful than Raven and Blackfire, leading to some confused reactions.

Conner apologizing for destroying Blackfire’s ship was needed, but the act highlighted that he is still immature. If he can work through this, then maybe they’ll have a future.

As a whole, “Purple Rain” was a mixed bag of an episode. It had a lot going on, but for the most part, it felt too anticlimactic.

What are your thoughts on the trajectory of the finale?

Were you glad everyone came together?

Do you think the show could do better to show a better representation of the Titans?

Hit the comments.

Titans returns in 2022 on HBO Max.

Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.