Post by Silas on Jun 18, 2021 21:52:06 GMT -5
Titans season 3 trailer teases Jason Todd's tragic comic book fate
Is Titans putting its spin on the infamous DC Comics storyline Batman: A Death in the Family? The HBO Max drama's new season 3 teaser trailer is at least heavily hinting toward that.
The 55-second-long trailer begins with Jason Todd (Curran Walters), the wayward Robin who abandoned the titular superteam in season 2, breaking into an abandoned amusement park. There, he finds a corpse smiling from ear to ear, which is the Joker's trademark, and then we hear the clown prince of crime's notorious cackle. After a flurry of different shots, the teaser returns to the amusement park scene and we see a shadowed figure violently beating someone - is it Todd? - with a crowbar, as Brenton Thwaites' Dick Grayson ominously narrates.
"This is Gotham. The city breeds a special class of criminal. People die here - people like us," says the Titans' leader, clearly welcoming his teammates to his bedeviled home city.
With the foreboding narration, the Joker's laugh, and crowbar imagery, it seems as though the HBO Max series is referencing A Death in the Family, which was an important Jason Todd comic book story. Released in 1988, the four-issue arc is mainly remembered because DC allowed readers to vote on whether or not the Joker would kill Jason after kidnapping and torturing him. In the end, the Joker beat Jason to death with a crowbar. Will Titans actually follow through on adapting this storyline or are they just trying to rile fans up? That remains to be seen.
It's worth noting that Jason didn't stay dead for too long in the comics. He was eventually resurrected and became the ruthless vigilante Red Hood. It's already been confirmed that Walters' Jason picks up the Red Hood mantle and seeks vengeance against his former teammates in the season 3.
"In terms of Jason Todd relationship's the Titans, his heart was broken by the Titans in season 2," showrunner Greg Walker told EW when we asked him what made Jason a formidable threat to the Titans.
"There is a real clear departure when they see him last," he continued. "He's not part of the Titans. He's been cast away. And this notion of, 'Be careful who you cast away because they will come back to haunt you,' comes true on our show. And I think if he had to talk to the Titans as if they were real people, I don't think they handled themselves well in terms of Jason's breakdown and Jason's torturing at the hands of Deathstroke and betrayal by Rose, the woman he loved. If you've been trained to be a warrior by Batman, you're necessarily over-trained in violence and under-trained in emotional connection. And so when this emotional tsunami hit him, the Titans didn't step up in a way to help him out of it and that plays out this season, the consequences of that."
In season 3, Titans relocates from San Francisco to Gotham City, which leads to the introductions of familiar faces from Batman's hometown like Dr. Jonathan Crane, a.k.a. Scarecrow (Vincent Kartheiser); Barbara Gordon (Savannah Welch), former Batgirl-turned-GCPD Commissioner; and Tim Drake (Jay Lycurgo). See EW's exclusive first look at Crane and Barbara.
The first three episodes of Titans season 3 premiere Thursday, Aug. 12 on HBO Max, with subsequent episodes arriving weekly through Oct. 21.
The 55-second-long trailer begins with Jason Todd (Curran Walters), the wayward Robin who abandoned the titular superteam in season 2, breaking into an abandoned amusement park. There, he finds a corpse smiling from ear to ear, which is the Joker's trademark, and then we hear the clown prince of crime's notorious cackle. After a flurry of different shots, the teaser returns to the amusement park scene and we see a shadowed figure violently beating someone - is it Todd? - with a crowbar, as Brenton Thwaites' Dick Grayson ominously narrates.
"This is Gotham. The city breeds a special class of criminal. People die here - people like us," says the Titans' leader, clearly welcoming his teammates to his bedeviled home city.
With the foreboding narration, the Joker's laugh, and crowbar imagery, it seems as though the HBO Max series is referencing A Death in the Family, which was an important Jason Todd comic book story. Released in 1988, the four-issue arc is mainly remembered because DC allowed readers to vote on whether or not the Joker would kill Jason after kidnapping and torturing him. In the end, the Joker beat Jason to death with a crowbar. Will Titans actually follow through on adapting this storyline or are they just trying to rile fans up? That remains to be seen.
It's worth noting that Jason didn't stay dead for too long in the comics. He was eventually resurrected and became the ruthless vigilante Red Hood. It's already been confirmed that Walters' Jason picks up the Red Hood mantle and seeks vengeance against his former teammates in the season 3.
"In terms of Jason Todd relationship's the Titans, his heart was broken by the Titans in season 2," showrunner Greg Walker told EW when we asked him what made Jason a formidable threat to the Titans.
"There is a real clear departure when they see him last," he continued. "He's not part of the Titans. He's been cast away. And this notion of, 'Be careful who you cast away because they will come back to haunt you,' comes true on our show. And I think if he had to talk to the Titans as if they were real people, I don't think they handled themselves well in terms of Jason's breakdown and Jason's torturing at the hands of Deathstroke and betrayal by Rose, the woman he loved. If you've been trained to be a warrior by Batman, you're necessarily over-trained in violence and under-trained in emotional connection. And so when this emotional tsunami hit him, the Titans didn't step up in a way to help him out of it and that plays out this season, the consequences of that."
In season 3, Titans relocates from San Francisco to Gotham City, which leads to the introductions of familiar faces from Batman's hometown like Dr. Jonathan Crane, a.k.a. Scarecrow (Vincent Kartheiser); Barbara Gordon (Savannah Welch), former Batgirl-turned-GCPD Commissioner; and Tim Drake (Jay Lycurgo). See EW's exclusive first look at Crane and Barbara.
The first three episodes of Titans season 3 premiere Thursday, Aug. 12 on HBO Max, with subsequent episodes arriving weekly through Oct. 21.
Titans reveals Scarecrow and Barbara Gordon in season 3 first look
"Think Hannibal Lecter," says showrunner Greg Walker. "He's been given the opportunity to opine on ways to stop villains, and a villain breaks out in Gotham and it draws [Dick Grayson] to work with him."
Given Crane's particular obsessions, he challenges the Titans in a very different way than season 2 big bad Deathstroke. "So much of our show is about becoming a family and the fears that people have as they grow older and get older. Crane seems to be, in many ways, a perfect villain in that he exploits fear. The human mind and heart becomes the battlefield. This is someone who's working off your feelings, and your emotions, and that's where we want to live."
Walker believes the audience will be very impressed with Kartheiser's turn as Crane. "This is a learned psychologist who understands the human mind but also has a deep, dark vendetta to destroy people in a way that you need to be able to manifest as an actor - to find the broken and the mania. And [Kartheiser] handles both very well," he says.
Crane's introduction into the world of Titans arrives as the titular squad of young capes, led by Dick, a.k.a. Nightwing (Brenton Thwaites), relocates from San Francisco to Gotham City. When Dick returns to his bedeviled hometown, he rekindles his romance - and strikes up a new partnership - with Barbara Gordon (Savannah Welch), Batgirl-turned-GCPD Commissioner. Teaming up forces the couple to reckon with Batman and Jim Gordon's messy crime-fighting legacy and hopefully find a better way of protecting the city. Check out a first look at Barbara below.
Brenton Thwaites as Dick Grayson and Savannah Welch as Barbara Gordon in Titans season 3. | CREDIT: HBO MAX
"In our story with Dick returning to Gotham - and Gotham is a huge character this season - it's about sons and daughters, [and] stepping into the shadow of your parents," says Walker. "Barbara is going to be conflicted by Dick's arrival. Barbara's feeling is that the legacy of Bruce and Jim has been this idea that she thinks is antiquated and inefficient: the God syndrome, meaning that superheroes create the situation where they're the heroes. They drop in on a situation, solve it, and then they leave. And she feels that basically disempowers people from solving their own problems and that the people of Gotham need to figure out how to solve their own problems and not be passive victims waiting for a superhero to save the day."
Reckoning with Batman's legacy also forces Dick to examine how he leads the Titans. "Gotham brings out leadership qualities that [Dick] has to assess to see whether they're his own - true Nightwing - or are they patterns [inherited from] a father who he needs to differentiate himself from?"
In the end, discovering a better way to save the day will be a team effort. Says Walker: "The diversity of our cast and the diversity of our characters really comes into play in the end, about how we're able to conquer what seems to be the unconquerable."
Given Crane's particular obsessions, he challenges the Titans in a very different way than season 2 big bad Deathstroke. "So much of our show is about becoming a family and the fears that people have as they grow older and get older. Crane seems to be, in many ways, a perfect villain in that he exploits fear. The human mind and heart becomes the battlefield. This is someone who's working off your feelings, and your emotions, and that's where we want to live."
Walker believes the audience will be very impressed with Kartheiser's turn as Crane. "This is a learned psychologist who understands the human mind but also has a deep, dark vendetta to destroy people in a way that you need to be able to manifest as an actor - to find the broken and the mania. And [Kartheiser] handles both very well," he says.
Crane's introduction into the world of Titans arrives as the titular squad of young capes, led by Dick, a.k.a. Nightwing (Brenton Thwaites), relocates from San Francisco to Gotham City. When Dick returns to his bedeviled hometown, he rekindles his romance - and strikes up a new partnership - with Barbara Gordon (Savannah Welch), Batgirl-turned-GCPD Commissioner. Teaming up forces the couple to reckon with Batman and Jim Gordon's messy crime-fighting legacy and hopefully find a better way of protecting the city. Check out a first look at Barbara below.
Brenton Thwaites as Dick Grayson and Savannah Welch as Barbara Gordon in Titans season 3. | CREDIT: HBO MAX
"In our story with Dick returning to Gotham - and Gotham is a huge character this season - it's about sons and daughters, [and] stepping into the shadow of your parents," says Walker. "Barbara is going to be conflicted by Dick's arrival. Barbara's feeling is that the legacy of Bruce and Jim has been this idea that she thinks is antiquated and inefficient: the God syndrome, meaning that superheroes create the situation where they're the heroes. They drop in on a situation, solve it, and then they leave. And she feels that basically disempowers people from solving their own problems and that the people of Gotham need to figure out how to solve their own problems and not be passive victims waiting for a superhero to save the day."
Reckoning with Batman's legacy also forces Dick to examine how he leads the Titans. "Gotham brings out leadership qualities that [Dick] has to assess to see whether they're his own - true Nightwing - or are they patterns [inherited from] a father who he needs to differentiate himself from?"
In the end, discovering a better way to save the day will be a team effort. Says Walker: "The diversity of our cast and the diversity of our characters really comes into play in the end, about how we're able to conquer what seems to be the unconquerable."
