My New Internet Crush...Anna Diop (Starfire) - 24: Legacy & Titans
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The Live-Action Teen Titans Series Has Found Its New Starfire and She's a Big Deal
Charles Pulliam-Moore
8/23/17 9:40pm
Filed to: TEEN TITANS
127.6K
22815
Image: DC Comics
At some point in 2018, we can expect to see a live-action Teen Titans on Warner Bros’ brand-new digital streaming service. Tonight, we learned who’ll be playing the show’s incarnation of Starfire and the news of her casting has an importance that can’t be understated.
Deadline reports that 24: Legacy’s Anna Diop has been cast as Starfire. She’s listed as a series regular (obviously) and described as a refugee alien princess who first encounters the Titans while seeking asylum from her home planet on Earth. While this origin for Starfire maps pretty well onto her background for the comic books, it’s incredibly important to note that Diop, a black actress, will be playing one of the most iconic members of the Titans whose helped turn them into one of DC’s flagship teams.
Across multiple media including comics, television shows, and video games, Starfire’s been one of the lynchpins of the Titans brand, particularly as characters like Robin and Cyborg have been pulled away to bolster other DC properties. Starfire’s presence in the Teen Titans animated series and the DC Superhero Girls franchise has made her one of DC’s most highly visible and easily recognizable female characters for the company, and the significance of Diop’s casting is multi-tiered.
Image: DC Comics (Left) Fox (Right
Much in the same way that Zazie Beetz’s initial casting and subsequent updated look for Fox’s Deadpool 2 was a major score for the diversification of superhero media, the way that the new Teen Titans series decides to depict Starfire could be a very big deal. The show could decide to have Diop undergo full body paint in order to achieve Starfire’s canonical Tamaranean look. Alternatively, her look could be much more oriented towards Diop’s natural looks, which would be a major shift in the way that Starfire’s represented on screen.
Though Starfire’s a fictional character, that doesn’t mean that the actor who portrays her on screen won’t influence the way that audiences conceptualize her. Gamora may be a green space assassin with pink highlights, but you’re always keenly aware that Zoe Saldana is a woman of color bringing her to life. It’s that kind of representation that makes casting non-white actors to play characters like these such a big deal.
In Starfire’s case, given the budget constraints of most digital-only shows, it could make a lot more sense to forego the orange skin in favor of a more manageable special effect to evoke her Tamaranean powers. We’ll no doubt see which direction the new Teen Titans decides to go in in the months leading up to the show’s premiere next year.
Charles Pulliam-Moore
8/23/17 9:40pm
Filed to: TEEN TITANS
127.6K
22815
Image: DC Comics
At some point in 2018, we can expect to see a live-action Teen Titans on Warner Bros’ brand-new digital streaming service. Tonight, we learned who’ll be playing the show’s incarnation of Starfire and the news of her casting has an importance that can’t be understated.
Deadline reports that 24: Legacy’s Anna Diop has been cast as Starfire. She’s listed as a series regular (obviously) and described as a refugee alien princess who first encounters the Titans while seeking asylum from her home planet on Earth. While this origin for Starfire maps pretty well onto her background for the comic books, it’s incredibly important to note that Diop, a black actress, will be playing one of the most iconic members of the Titans whose helped turn them into one of DC’s flagship teams.
Across multiple media including comics, television shows, and video games, Starfire’s been one of the lynchpins of the Titans brand, particularly as characters like Robin and Cyborg have been pulled away to bolster other DC properties. Starfire’s presence in the Teen Titans animated series and the DC Superhero Girls franchise has made her one of DC’s most highly visible and easily recognizable female characters for the company, and the significance of Diop’s casting is multi-tiered.
Image: DC Comics (Left) Fox (Right
Much in the same way that Zazie Beetz’s initial casting and subsequent updated look for Fox’s Deadpool 2 was a major score for the diversification of superhero media, the way that the new Teen Titans series decides to depict Starfire could be a very big deal. The show could decide to have Diop undergo full body paint in order to achieve Starfire’s canonical Tamaranean look. Alternatively, her look could be much more oriented towards Diop’s natural looks, which would be a major shift in the way that Starfire’s represented on screen.
Though Starfire’s a fictional character, that doesn’t mean that the actor who portrays her on screen won’t influence the way that audiences conceptualize her. Gamora may be a green space assassin with pink highlights, but you’re always keenly aware that Zoe Saldana is a woman of color bringing her to life. It’s that kind of representation that makes casting non-white actors to play characters like these such a big deal.
In Starfire’s case, given the budget constraints of most digital-only shows, it could make a lot more sense to forego the orange skin in favor of a more manageable special effect to evoke her Tamaranean powers. We’ll no doubt see which direction the new Teen Titans decides to go in in the months leading up to the show’s premiere next year.
Titans' Beast Boy Actor Scolds Racist Fans for Harassing Starfire Actress
Titans actor Ryan Potter has criticized fans for their racist remarks about costar Anna Diop. When a set photo showing Diop’s Starfire leaked back April, people were quick to turn to the internet and express their anger about her new look. While some critiques were legitimate concerns about what looked like a the less than faithful adaption to the comic book character, others were insulting jabs at the actress’ appearance. A segment of vocal fans sent Diop a series of derogatory comments telling her that a person of color shouldn’t be eligible to play the character.
Titans is set to premiere later this year on the new DC Universe streaming service. Based on the Teen Titans comic by George Perez and Marv Wolfman, the live-action show will feature many of the characters audiences came to know on Teen Titans Go!. However, Titans promises a darker take on the beloved heroes, as seen in the SDCC trailer. The series will follow the band of young superheroes as they struggle with coming of age while simultaneously battling world ending catastrophes, including a possible showdown with the demon Trigon.
Related: All the DC Movies And TV Shows Streaming On DC Universe
After initial skepticism, fans have shown increasing interest in the show. But some of the hype has been eclipsed by those complaining about Diop's hiring. During an interview with AP, Ryan Potter, who plays Beast Boy, expressed his frustration at the hate speech Diop received.
“There’s a lot of fan cultures that I’m a part of and fandoms that I’m a part of and . . . ultimately if you’re a fan of a project, yeah, you’re gonna take it apart to its core and you’re gonna criticize it ’cause you, as a fan, love it and want it to be better and it could potentially be better. But at the end of the day, you don’t harass the actors and actresses for being a certain race or for doing a certain character. That doesn’t make any sense to me. These are people doing a job.”
He went on to note that while everyone should be allowed to speak their minds, racist or hateful comments are not right.
“That’s the whole point of America, you know? Freedom of speech. To a certain degree. You know? Targeting, especially people of color, online . . . It’s absolutely mind-boggling to me that this is acceptable.”
Diop responded to the comments, opting to take the high road. She explained that the leaked photo was not an accurate representation of the character. Considering how Starfire aka Princess Koriand’r is an alien from the planet Tamaran where most citizens have orange hair and skin, no actress could be expected to capture her look exactly. Both she and Beast Boy are going to need a lot of help in the special effects department to bring the characters to life. Although Diop has remained strong in the face of her critics, she did have to disable the comments on her Instagram account.
Sadly, this is just a continuation in the long trend of fans pushing against inclusion andattempting to force actors into hiding. While comics have introduced readers to many wonderful characters, they haven’t had the best track record when it comes to diversity. As that begins to change, there are going to be more actors who don’t exactly match the original character design. But most fans want to see more characters who look like and represent themselves. So hiring Diop as one of the Titans is a step in the right direction.
- BY SAMANTHA CALLENDER
- – ON AUG 02, 2018
- IN TV NEWS
Titans actor Ryan Potter has criticized fans for their racist remarks about costar Anna Diop. When a set photo showing Diop’s Starfire leaked back April, people were quick to turn to the internet and express their anger about her new look. While some critiques were legitimate concerns about what looked like a the less than faithful adaption to the comic book character, others were insulting jabs at the actress’ appearance. A segment of vocal fans sent Diop a series of derogatory comments telling her that a person of color shouldn’t be eligible to play the character.
Titans is set to premiere later this year on the new DC Universe streaming service. Based on the Teen Titans comic by George Perez and Marv Wolfman, the live-action show will feature many of the characters audiences came to know on Teen Titans Go!. However, Titans promises a darker take on the beloved heroes, as seen in the SDCC trailer. The series will follow the band of young superheroes as they struggle with coming of age while simultaneously battling world ending catastrophes, including a possible showdown with the demon Trigon.
Related: All the DC Movies And TV Shows Streaming On DC Universe
After initial skepticism, fans have shown increasing interest in the show. But some of the hype has been eclipsed by those complaining about Diop's hiring. During an interview with AP, Ryan Potter, who plays Beast Boy, expressed his frustration at the hate speech Diop received.
“There’s a lot of fan cultures that I’m a part of and fandoms that I’m a part of and . . . ultimately if you’re a fan of a project, yeah, you’re gonna take it apart to its core and you’re gonna criticize it ’cause you, as a fan, love it and want it to be better and it could potentially be better. But at the end of the day, you don’t harass the actors and actresses for being a certain race or for doing a certain character. That doesn’t make any sense to me. These are people doing a job.”
He went on to note that while everyone should be allowed to speak their minds, racist or hateful comments are not right.
“That’s the whole point of America, you know? Freedom of speech. To a certain degree. You know? Targeting, especially people of color, online . . . It’s absolutely mind-boggling to me that this is acceptable.”
Diop responded to the comments, opting to take the high road. She explained that the leaked photo was not an accurate representation of the character. Considering how Starfire aka Princess Koriand’r is an alien from the planet Tamaran where most citizens have orange hair and skin, no actress could be expected to capture her look exactly. Both she and Beast Boy are going to need a lot of help in the special effects department to bring the characters to life. Although Diop has remained strong in the face of her critics, she did have to disable the comments on her Instagram account.
Sadly, this is just a continuation in the long trend of fans pushing against inclusion andattempting to force actors into hiding. While comics have introduced readers to many wonderful characters, they haven’t had the best track record when it comes to diversity. As that begins to change, there are going to be more actors who don’t exactly match the original character design. But most fans want to see more characters who look like and represent themselves. So hiring Diop as one of the Titans is a step in the right direction.
Crazy
She's sexy, even in the bad Starfire costume on Titans.
Titans Season 2 Reportedly Begins Filming in February
BY MATT MORRISON – ON DEC 20, 2018 IN TV NEWS
DC Universe Titans Logo
https://screenrant.com/titans-season-2-filming-start-release/
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DC Universe's original series Titans season 2 will begin filming in February, in anticipation of a late 2019 release. Titans was renewed for season 2 before its first season had begun to air, with pre-production and writing of the scripts for the second season reportedly beginning shortly thereafter. The first season finale of Titans debuts tomorrow.
The first original live-action series produced for DC Comics' streaming service, Titans courted controversy from the start, with the release of its first profanity-filled trailer and the first pictures of its cast in costume. Based upon the New Teen Titans comics of George Perez and Marv Wolfman, Titans promised a gritty take on the characters of Robin, Starfire, Raven and Beast Boy. The M-rated series delivered upon those promises, presenting a decidedly dark series full of bloodshed, adult situations and partial nudity. In many ways the new show was the polar opposite of Teen Titans Go! - an animated series aimed at young children utilizing the same characters, which drew criticism from comic book fans for being too silly.
Related: Titans Season 1 Finale Trailer Reveals Batman & Robin Face-Off
SuperBroMovies reported on when the second season of Titans would start production and when it might air. Citing a recent interview with Titans writer Bryan Hill, it was confirmed that writing on the series second season was currently on-going and had started shortly after the series' was renewed in October. It is believed the show will start filming again in February with the season set to air sometime in late 2019. It is also reported that the second season will feature a full 13 episodes rather than the 11 of the first season.
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Curiously, despite these assurances that Titans will air its second season in late 2019, nothing official has been confirmed by DC Universe itself. Indeed, the show is completely absent from the official release schedule for 2019, which DC Universe released around the same time Titans season 2 was confirmed. Titans was also missing from a list of upcoming DC Universe release dates in 2019, though that list was later dismissed as inaccurate by DC Universe.
Nothing has been reported yet on the story of Titans season 2, though rumors persist that the show will take on The Judas Contract. Easily the most famous Teen Titans story of all time, The Judas Contract was previously adapted into an animated feature as part of DC Entertainment's animated cinematic universe in 2017, as well as the overriding plot of the 2003 Teen Titans animated series. However, while it seems likely that Titans will eventually follow suit in adapting the classic story, that will probably come in later seasons when the betrayal of a teammate will have more impact.
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MORE: ALL 40+ DC CHARACTER REFERENCED IN TITANS
Titans season 1 concludes with its finale Friday, December 21 on DC Universe.
BY MATT MORRISON – ON DEC 20, 2018 IN TV NEWS
DC Universe Titans Logo
https://screenrant.com/titans-season-2-filming-start-release/
ADVERTISING
DC Universe's original series Titans season 2 will begin filming in February, in anticipation of a late 2019 release. Titans was renewed for season 2 before its first season had begun to air, with pre-production and writing of the scripts for the second season reportedly beginning shortly thereafter. The first season finale of Titans debuts tomorrow.
The first original live-action series produced for DC Comics' streaming service, Titans courted controversy from the start, with the release of its first profanity-filled trailer and the first pictures of its cast in costume. Based upon the New Teen Titans comics of George Perez and Marv Wolfman, Titans promised a gritty take on the characters of Robin, Starfire, Raven and Beast Boy. The M-rated series delivered upon those promises, presenting a decidedly dark series full of bloodshed, adult situations and partial nudity. In many ways the new show was the polar opposite of Teen Titans Go! - an animated series aimed at young children utilizing the same characters, which drew criticism from comic book fans for being too silly.
Related: Titans Season 1 Finale Trailer Reveals Batman & Robin Face-Off
SuperBroMovies reported on when the second season of Titans would start production and when it might air. Citing a recent interview with Titans writer Bryan Hill, it was confirmed that writing on the series second season was currently on-going and had started shortly after the series' was renewed in October. It is believed the show will start filming again in February with the season set to air sometime in late 2019. It is also reported that the second season will feature a full 13 episodes rather than the 11 of the first season.
ADVERTISING
Curiously, despite these assurances that Titans will air its second season in late 2019, nothing official has been confirmed by DC Universe itself. Indeed, the show is completely absent from the official release schedule for 2019, which DC Universe released around the same time Titans season 2 was confirmed. Titans was also missing from a list of upcoming DC Universe release dates in 2019, though that list was later dismissed as inaccurate by DC Universe.
Nothing has been reported yet on the story of Titans season 2, though rumors persist that the show will take on The Judas Contract. Easily the most famous Teen Titans story of all time, The Judas Contract was previously adapted into an animated feature as part of DC Entertainment's animated cinematic universe in 2017, as well as the overriding plot of the 2003 Teen Titans animated series. However, while it seems likely that Titans will eventually follow suit in adapting the classic story, that will probably come in later seasons when the betrayal of a teammate will have more impact.
ADVERTISING
MORE: ALL 40+ DC CHARACTER REFERENCED IN TITANS
Titans season 1 concludes with its finale Friday, December 21 on DC Universe.
I love this show
Titans season finale recap: Shadow of the Bat
Well…this is a weird one. For the second time in four episodes, Titans hit us with a crazy cliffhanger and then went off on a dark dream tangent rather than follow through on said cliffhanger. Just as Kory trying to kill Rachel was followed by a disturbing journey through the tortured pasts of Hawk and Dove, so was the arrival of Trigon followed by an in-depth look at the dark psyche of Dick Grayson.
I actually like how Titans spent its first season slowly introducing new elements of the DC Universe episode by episode, though I think they should also be comfortable letting their plot play out a bit. Then again, it’s easy to understand the show’s obsession with Dick and Batman. The DC Universe is big and strange, full of all kinds of weird characters and inexplicable elements, but Batman is without a doubt the star of the show. As soon as he’s in play, it’s hard to focus on anything else. So after weeks of teasing, we finally got a look at what Batman is like in the world of Titans. Guess what? It’s not pretty!
This is an alternate-reality episode. It actually felt like FX’s Legion, which is not really a vibe Titans has gone for so far. The opening shot of Dick relaxing by a California pool strongly resembles shots of Jemaine Clement and Aubrey Plaza stuck in the Shadow King’s mind prison from the most recent season of Legion(and these situations aren’t actually that different, as we’ll learn by the end). In this fantasy world, Dick is happily married to Dawn; they have one kid, and another’s on the way.
Dick and Dawn’s idyll is interrupted by the arrival of Jason Todd, now in a wheelchair after a nasty run-in with the Riddler. As he explains to Dick, Jason actually got off lucky with that (doubly so if you’re aware of the character’s fate in the comics). While he was paralyzed, Commissioner Gordon was brutally tortured to death by the Joker, and Alfred, too, is no more. Jason tells Dick that Batman is now all on his own in his war on crime — and is not taking it well. Dick is adamant about leaving that life behind, but after some nudging from Dawn, he agrees to return to Gotham.
Gotham City is, indeed, a nightmare. Dick’s cab drives through riotous streets in order to get to a hotel where he has to pay extra for clean sheets and ends up with a front-row ticket to domestic violence in the room next door. After calling the police on his neighbors, Dick overhears the cop’s radio talking about a “mask” incident. When he follows the directions, he finds the Joker lying beaten and bloody on top of a cop car, with the obvious implication that Batman threw him down from above. Dick thinks his old mentor has finally broken his number one rule, but the Joker’s still alive! He always did have a talent for cheating death.
Incidentally, I like how Titans was able to invoke the Joker and what he means to Batman and Robin without having to pressure some poor actor into portraying him. Anyway, Joker doesn’t stay alive for long. After Dick ventures to Wayne Manor to tell Bruce (via security camera, since he’s not allowed in the Batcave) that there’s still a chance to save himself, Bruce responds by showing up at the Joker’s hospital room the next night to finish the job. Dick takes this as a personal rebuke, but it’s nothing compared to what comes next.
Kory, who in this world is a police detective like Dick, calls to tell him that Batman has committed a massacre at Arkham Asylum. When he arrives, he finds Two-Face’s bloody hand holding a coin, the Ventriloquist laid out next to his destroyed puppet Scarface, and the Riddler’s question mark-tattooed arms sticking out from a body bag. Beyond that, Batman also killed every guard, nurse, and warden in the place. This is too much for Dick; he reveals Batman’s secret identity to the Gotham police and helps them construct a battle plan for storming Wayne Manor.
That plan goes about as well as you’d think. As soon as the cops swarm through the manor and down into the Batcave, Batman drops down on top of them and proceeds to murder them all in quite brutal fashion. Kory attempts to use her powers on him as a trump card, but he blasts her to death with a cold gun (presumably stolen from Mr. Freeze’s corpse). This inspires Dick to pull out the real trump card, activating explosives that the cops laid throughout the manor, and bringing it down on top of Batman’s head. Dick goes down into the Batcave and finds Kory’s frozen body. When Batman reaches out for a hand, Dick instead crushes him underneath the rubble, finally embracing his inner darkness.
We cut back to the real world, where Dick’s eyes have now gone black and vein-y the way Rachel’s do when she’s possessed by her demon self. Trigon explains to his daughter that he tried to give Dick a chance to escape his misery (after he ran into the demon’s force field at the end of last week) but instead Dick chose to embrace the darkness.
In other words, the journey to Nightwing is gonna take a lot longer than I thought. But I was really impressed by this season overall, and I’m excited for season 2! Especially given that post-credits scene, which gives us our first glimpse at Metropolis and hints that a particular Superboy and his super dog might soon be on their way to the Titans…
Well…this is a weird one. For the second time in four episodes, Titans hit us with a crazy cliffhanger and then went off on a dark dream tangent rather than follow through on said cliffhanger. Just as Kory trying to kill Rachel was followed by a disturbing journey through the tortured pasts of Hawk and Dove, so was the arrival of Trigon followed by an in-depth look at the dark psyche of Dick Grayson.
I actually like how Titans spent its first season slowly introducing new elements of the DC Universe episode by episode, though I think they should also be comfortable letting their plot play out a bit. Then again, it’s easy to understand the show’s obsession with Dick and Batman. The DC Universe is big and strange, full of all kinds of weird characters and inexplicable elements, but Batman is without a doubt the star of the show. As soon as he’s in play, it’s hard to focus on anything else. So after weeks of teasing, we finally got a look at what Batman is like in the world of Titans. Guess what? It’s not pretty!
This is an alternate-reality episode. It actually felt like FX’s Legion, which is not really a vibe Titans has gone for so far. The opening shot of Dick relaxing by a California pool strongly resembles shots of Jemaine Clement and Aubrey Plaza stuck in the Shadow King’s mind prison from the most recent season of Legion(and these situations aren’t actually that different, as we’ll learn by the end). In this fantasy world, Dick is happily married to Dawn; they have one kid, and another’s on the way.
Dick and Dawn’s idyll is interrupted by the arrival of Jason Todd, now in a wheelchair after a nasty run-in with the Riddler. As he explains to Dick, Jason actually got off lucky with that (doubly so if you’re aware of the character’s fate in the comics). While he was paralyzed, Commissioner Gordon was brutally tortured to death by the Joker, and Alfred, too, is no more. Jason tells Dick that Batman is now all on his own in his war on crime — and is not taking it well. Dick is adamant about leaving that life behind, but after some nudging from Dawn, he agrees to return to Gotham.
Gotham City is, indeed, a nightmare. Dick’s cab drives through riotous streets in order to get to a hotel where he has to pay extra for clean sheets and ends up with a front-row ticket to domestic violence in the room next door. After calling the police on his neighbors, Dick overhears the cop’s radio talking about a “mask” incident. When he follows the directions, he finds the Joker lying beaten and bloody on top of a cop car, with the obvious implication that Batman threw him down from above. Dick thinks his old mentor has finally broken his number one rule, but the Joker’s still alive! He always did have a talent for cheating death.
Incidentally, I like how Titans was able to invoke the Joker and what he means to Batman and Robin without having to pressure some poor actor into portraying him. Anyway, Joker doesn’t stay alive for long. After Dick ventures to Wayne Manor to tell Bruce (via security camera, since he’s not allowed in the Batcave) that there’s still a chance to save himself, Bruce responds by showing up at the Joker’s hospital room the next night to finish the job. Dick takes this as a personal rebuke, but it’s nothing compared to what comes next.
Kory, who in this world is a police detective like Dick, calls to tell him that Batman has committed a massacre at Arkham Asylum. When he arrives, he finds Two-Face’s bloody hand holding a coin, the Ventriloquist laid out next to his destroyed puppet Scarface, and the Riddler’s question mark-tattooed arms sticking out from a body bag. Beyond that, Batman also killed every guard, nurse, and warden in the place. This is too much for Dick; he reveals Batman’s secret identity to the Gotham police and helps them construct a battle plan for storming Wayne Manor.
That plan goes about as well as you’d think. As soon as the cops swarm through the manor and down into the Batcave, Batman drops down on top of them and proceeds to murder them all in quite brutal fashion. Kory attempts to use her powers on him as a trump card, but he blasts her to death with a cold gun (presumably stolen from Mr. Freeze’s corpse). This inspires Dick to pull out the real trump card, activating explosives that the cops laid throughout the manor, and bringing it down on top of Batman’s head. Dick goes down into the Batcave and finds Kory’s frozen body. When Batman reaches out for a hand, Dick instead crushes him underneath the rubble, finally embracing his inner darkness.
We cut back to the real world, where Dick’s eyes have now gone black and vein-y the way Rachel’s do when she’s possessed by her demon self. Trigon explains to his daughter that he tried to give Dick a chance to escape his misery (after he ran into the demon’s force field at the end of last week) but instead Dick chose to embrace the darkness.
In other words, the journey to Nightwing is gonna take a lot longer than I thought. But I was really impressed by this season overall, and I’m excited for season 2! Especially given that post-credits scene, which gives us our first glimpse at Metropolis and hints that a particular Superboy and his super dog might soon be on their way to the Titans…
Titans boss on the season finale's exciting end-credit scene
Warning: This post contains spoilers from the season 1 finale of Titans, which went live on DC Universe today. Read at your own risk!
The season 1 finale of Titans defied expectations.
Given how the grim-dark DC Universe drama’s inaugural season has progressed, many people likely assumed that Titans year one would end with former Robin Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites), who spent the season struggling with his darkness, taking Donna Troy’s (Conor Leslie) advice and becoming something else — specifically Nightwing, the superhero alter-ego he creates after he leaving Batman’s side in the comics. If not that, there was definitely an expectation that we’d at least finally see Dick, Rachel (Teagan Croft), Gar/Beast Boy (Ryan Potter), and Kory/Starfire (Anna Diop) live up to the show’s name and become, well, the Titans. But, that wasn’t the case.
In the Dick-focused season finale, Rachel’s father Trigon (Castle‘s Seamus Dever) traps Dick in a dreamscape where’s living a happy life with a pregnant Dawn (Minka Kelly) and their son. Unfortunately, Dick’s domestic bliss is interrupted when a wheelchair-bound Jason Todd (Curran Walters) asks him to come back to Gotham and stop Batman, who is going on killing spree after the death of Commissioner Gordon. After watching his mentor slaughter police officers trying to catch him, Dick finally crosses the line and kills Batman, which has dire real world consequences. By murdering the Dark Knight, Dick, whose face is now black and veiny in the real world, has finally embraced his darkness and succumbed to Trigon’s will, much to Rachel’s horror. (Read EW’s full recap here)
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Dick’s dark turn wasn’t the only surprise, though. There was also an end-credit scene that showed a super-powerful young man breaking free of a Cadmus Laboratory in Metropolis, but not before saving a dog with glowing red-eyes. Comic book fans will obviously quickly pick up that this scene is setting up the introduction of Conner Kent, a.k.a. Superboy, a Superman clone that eventually joins the Titans, and his equally-gifted dog, Krypto. Thank god, DC’s streaming-content platform has already renewed the show for a second season and we’ll get to see this tease paid off.
Below, EW chats with showrunner/executive producer Greg Walker about this unexpected season-ender, what we can expect from Titans‘ take on Superboy, and more.
Christos Kalohordis/DC Universe
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This was an interesting and unusual way to end the season. How did you decide to end with this Dick Grayson-focused episode set primarily in this dreamscape?
GREG WALKER: Look, I think one of the things that most intrigued me and brought me to Titans was this idea of depicting Dick Grayson and his journey as Robin in a very emotional and psychologically grounded way. I felt like returning to that [in this] episode, especially going off on what appears to be him finally succumbing to the darkness — which he attributes to nurture not nature, but struggles with both — felt right on theme, and it felt like cliffhanging going, “Well, are we going to be able to pull him out of this? When he’s had a choice to turn to darkness and he chooses, is there a path back?” I liked it both thematically and I liked it from a cliffhanger point of view, and I liked that it focused, in many ways, back to where we started with the Dick-Rachel story. It felt very focused and sharp and made you want to know how you’re going to pull him back from the brink of disaster, as it were.
We’ve started in on another episode that will finalize the Trigon story, and it felt like it needed to do two things: end one season and launch another. We got really excited about the way to launch a new season with that episode and pitched it to our partners at DC and Warner Brothers, and they signed on. We shot a piece that we’re going to use, and then we’re going to incorporate it into where we want to launch the new season.
Was it always the plan to end the season with that end-credit scene introducing Conner Kent, a.k.a. Superboy, and Krypto?
It wasn’t totally planned from day one — or maybe it was in [Geoff Johns and Akiva Goldsman’s] heads, but they didn’t tell me. It definitely wasn’t something that we thought of until the very end. I think we knew that would be a direction that would be exciting for the fans and a tease that would be interesting for us as well, and that was the best spot to put it in.
Titans has given us slightly altered takes on all of these characters so far. What can we expect from the show’s interpretation of Conner Kent in season 2?
It’s still brewing. What I can say is that we still want to take the same dimensionalized and psychologically grounded approach that we do with the other characters and apply that same pressure to Conner Kent and see what shakes out when you put a character like that through that test. You know, questions of identity, questions of powers, questions of your place in the universe. These are all questions that are interesting for any kind of Superman character, and are really interesting for Conner.
I feel like many people were probably expecting the season finale to feature a big group superhero moment where the Titans finally became the Titans, but that doesn’t happen here at all. Did you consciously make a decision to not do that in order to defy expectations?
Obviously. Look, you know they’re going to be a team and you know they’re going to fight together, that’s an expected part of the journey. To me, we just stumbled on this feeling very early on that got us excited, which was it was more interesting watching them trying to form a team and being pulled apart than watching them actually be a team and fight together. It’s like the metaphor of family: It’s the tests you face as a family that are more interesting than your Thanksgiving dinner where you’re all assembled. I think that we keep on looking at Titans as a model of family, of what you expect them to be together, they face crises that pull them apart, and I want to continue to play with that.
I think family, next to friendship and romantic relationships, are some of the hardest things to sustain in the world. When done right, they can be enduring and meaningful, but there’s always a test of who you are and who the family is.
You guys introduced a very human-looking version of Trigon in these final two episodes. Why present him that way, and will get we get to see his more demonic form in season 2?
As to the first part, I like the rendition of Trigon in the books, but I always thought it was more interesting to kind of play the human seductive side of evil that preys on your weaknesses rather than just preying on your fear. We thought of casting Seamus and also giving him a character who was seductive would be more effective in understanding the nature of evil. That was the first choice. Whether or not we’ll see him take on that form when tested remains to seen, but I know as a fan that I would like to see it.
Ben Mark Holzberg/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
There are a couple more dangling threads from the season, like Hawk (Alan Ritchson) and Dove deciding they need to find Jason Todd in episode 9. Can you preview what we can expect from that loose end?
We’re going to answer the question, why Jason Todd? That’s all I’ll say.
Does that have anything to do with Dick’s dark turn?
I think Rachel’s gone to them because she senses where she’s going. Rachel is an empath and has a feeling where things are going, and so has reached out in order to stop what she fears is happening and what she’s right about happening. It’s all linked to a larger sense of trying to stop this demonic force from overtaking, essentially, the universe — as we know is the reason Kory was sent to stop Rachel, that this threat goes beyond Earth.
We also left things dangling with Kory and Gar. What can we expect from them in season 2?
They’re going to be involved in the matter at hand. I mean, the universe is at stake here, and turning that around is forcing them to deal with their own darkness, as well. In order to get family, you have to fight hard.
Titans was the first original show on DC Universe. What was the biggest challenge of being responsible for essentially launching the service?
Well, there were a number, but I think the chief one was tone — trying to figure out a show that would differentiate itself from our CW brethren that people would pay for, so that it had the look of and feel of “it’s not TV, it’s not a movie, but somewhere in between.” And trying to be ambitious, both in storytelling and characters in look and feel while at the same time being energized and remembering why people love these characters in the first place. There’s no total reboot on these characters. We tried to stick with what we thought were the essential qualities of the characters and then put them on a canvas that, for these characters, hadn’t been done before. So, it was a lot of trial and error to get the tone right, because there are moments in Titans where it’s light and breezy, and there are moments in Titans where it’s dark as anything on TV. Trying to find a way to create a universe where both of those are possible takes some trial and error.
Is there an episode or moment that you’re most proud of?
Wow, there are so many. I love the Hawk and Dove standalone episode. I love the Robin dream episode. I like the “Asylum” episode. I like episodes where you drill down into the characters and find out who their identity is. The more we do that, the more I want to know more about them, and that’s the itch I always want to scratch on our show. The rule we have is that we have to find something new about the characters every season that you didn’t know before, or kind drill down deeper. I don’t know if the fans will think we’re successful at that, but I think we definitely tried to do that with these characters in a way to make Hawk and Dove feel alive in a way they maybe haven’t been before, and same with Dick, and kind of give Rachel a family story. Plus, the powers are b—-in and awesome. Those are fun, too. The fights were cool and made me cringe. And I love, “F— Batman.” I love that moment, too. I re-fell in love with the show in post while watching the excitement we were able to generate from these characters.
The entire first season of Titans is available to stream on DC Universe.
The season 1 finale of Titans defied expectations.
Given how the grim-dark DC Universe drama’s inaugural season has progressed, many people likely assumed that Titans year one would end with former Robin Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites), who spent the season struggling with his darkness, taking Donna Troy’s (Conor Leslie) advice and becoming something else — specifically Nightwing, the superhero alter-ego he creates after he leaving Batman’s side in the comics. If not that, there was definitely an expectation that we’d at least finally see Dick, Rachel (Teagan Croft), Gar/Beast Boy (Ryan Potter), and Kory/Starfire (Anna Diop) live up to the show’s name and become, well, the Titans. But, that wasn’t the case.
In the Dick-focused season finale, Rachel’s father Trigon (Castle‘s Seamus Dever) traps Dick in a dreamscape where’s living a happy life with a pregnant Dawn (Minka Kelly) and their son. Unfortunately, Dick’s domestic bliss is interrupted when a wheelchair-bound Jason Todd (Curran Walters) asks him to come back to Gotham and stop Batman, who is going on killing spree after the death of Commissioner Gordon. After watching his mentor slaughter police officers trying to catch him, Dick finally crosses the line and kills Batman, which has dire real world consequences. By murdering the Dark Knight, Dick, whose face is now black and veiny in the real world, has finally embraced his darkness and succumbed to Trigon’s will, much to Rachel’s horror. (Read EW’s full recap here)
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Dick’s dark turn wasn’t the only surprise, though. There was also an end-credit scene that showed a super-powerful young man breaking free of a Cadmus Laboratory in Metropolis, but not before saving a dog with glowing red-eyes. Comic book fans will obviously quickly pick up that this scene is setting up the introduction of Conner Kent, a.k.a. Superboy, a Superman clone that eventually joins the Titans, and his equally-gifted dog, Krypto. Thank god, DC’s streaming-content platform has already renewed the show for a second season and we’ll get to see this tease paid off.
Below, EW chats with showrunner/executive producer Greg Walker about this unexpected season-ender, what we can expect from Titans‘ take on Superboy, and more.
Christos Kalohordis/DC Universe
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This was an interesting and unusual way to end the season. How did you decide to end with this Dick Grayson-focused episode set primarily in this dreamscape?
GREG WALKER: Look, I think one of the things that most intrigued me and brought me to Titans was this idea of depicting Dick Grayson and his journey as Robin in a very emotional and psychologically grounded way. I felt like returning to that [in this] episode, especially going off on what appears to be him finally succumbing to the darkness — which he attributes to nurture not nature, but struggles with both — felt right on theme, and it felt like cliffhanging going, “Well, are we going to be able to pull him out of this? When he’s had a choice to turn to darkness and he chooses, is there a path back?” I liked it both thematically and I liked it from a cliffhanger point of view, and I liked that it focused, in many ways, back to where we started with the Dick-Rachel story. It felt very focused and sharp and made you want to know how you’re going to pull him back from the brink of disaster, as it were.
We’ve started in on another episode that will finalize the Trigon story, and it felt like it needed to do two things: end one season and launch another. We got really excited about the way to launch a new season with that episode and pitched it to our partners at DC and Warner Brothers, and they signed on. We shot a piece that we’re going to use, and then we’re going to incorporate it into where we want to launch the new season.
Was it always the plan to end the season with that end-credit scene introducing Conner Kent, a.k.a. Superboy, and Krypto?
It wasn’t totally planned from day one — or maybe it was in [Geoff Johns and Akiva Goldsman’s] heads, but they didn’t tell me. It definitely wasn’t something that we thought of until the very end. I think we knew that would be a direction that would be exciting for the fans and a tease that would be interesting for us as well, and that was the best spot to put it in.
Titans has given us slightly altered takes on all of these characters so far. What can we expect from the show’s interpretation of Conner Kent in season 2?
It’s still brewing. What I can say is that we still want to take the same dimensionalized and psychologically grounded approach that we do with the other characters and apply that same pressure to Conner Kent and see what shakes out when you put a character like that through that test. You know, questions of identity, questions of powers, questions of your place in the universe. These are all questions that are interesting for any kind of Superman character, and are really interesting for Conner.
I feel like many people were probably expecting the season finale to feature a big group superhero moment where the Titans finally became the Titans, but that doesn’t happen here at all. Did you consciously make a decision to not do that in order to defy expectations?
Obviously. Look, you know they’re going to be a team and you know they’re going to fight together, that’s an expected part of the journey. To me, we just stumbled on this feeling very early on that got us excited, which was it was more interesting watching them trying to form a team and being pulled apart than watching them actually be a team and fight together. It’s like the metaphor of family: It’s the tests you face as a family that are more interesting than your Thanksgiving dinner where you’re all assembled. I think that we keep on looking at Titans as a model of family, of what you expect them to be together, they face crises that pull them apart, and I want to continue to play with that.
I think family, next to friendship and romantic relationships, are some of the hardest things to sustain in the world. When done right, they can be enduring and meaningful, but there’s always a test of who you are and who the family is.
You guys introduced a very human-looking version of Trigon in these final two episodes. Why present him that way, and will get we get to see his more demonic form in season 2?
As to the first part, I like the rendition of Trigon in the books, but I always thought it was more interesting to kind of play the human seductive side of evil that preys on your weaknesses rather than just preying on your fear. We thought of casting Seamus and also giving him a character who was seductive would be more effective in understanding the nature of evil. That was the first choice. Whether or not we’ll see him take on that form when tested remains to seen, but I know as a fan that I would like to see it.
Ben Mark Holzberg/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
There are a couple more dangling threads from the season, like Hawk (Alan Ritchson) and Dove deciding they need to find Jason Todd in episode 9. Can you preview what we can expect from that loose end?
We’re going to answer the question, why Jason Todd? That’s all I’ll say.
Does that have anything to do with Dick’s dark turn?
I think Rachel’s gone to them because she senses where she’s going. Rachel is an empath and has a feeling where things are going, and so has reached out in order to stop what she fears is happening and what she’s right about happening. It’s all linked to a larger sense of trying to stop this demonic force from overtaking, essentially, the universe — as we know is the reason Kory was sent to stop Rachel, that this threat goes beyond Earth.
We also left things dangling with Kory and Gar. What can we expect from them in season 2?
They’re going to be involved in the matter at hand. I mean, the universe is at stake here, and turning that around is forcing them to deal with their own darkness, as well. In order to get family, you have to fight hard.
Titans was the first original show on DC Universe. What was the biggest challenge of being responsible for essentially launching the service?
Well, there were a number, but I think the chief one was tone — trying to figure out a show that would differentiate itself from our CW brethren that people would pay for, so that it had the look of and feel of “it’s not TV, it’s not a movie, but somewhere in between.” And trying to be ambitious, both in storytelling and characters in look and feel while at the same time being energized and remembering why people love these characters in the first place. There’s no total reboot on these characters. We tried to stick with what we thought were the essential qualities of the characters and then put them on a canvas that, for these characters, hadn’t been done before. So, it was a lot of trial and error to get the tone right, because there are moments in Titans where it’s light and breezy, and there are moments in Titans where it’s dark as anything on TV. Trying to find a way to create a universe where both of those are possible takes some trial and error.
Is there an episode or moment that you’re most proud of?
Wow, there are so many. I love the Hawk and Dove standalone episode. I love the Robin dream episode. I like the “Asylum” episode. I like episodes where you drill down into the characters and find out who their identity is. The more we do that, the more I want to know more about them, and that’s the itch I always want to scratch on our show. The rule we have is that we have to find something new about the characters every season that you didn’t know before, or kind drill down deeper. I don’t know if the fans will think we’re successful at that, but I think we definitely tried to do that with these characters in a way to make Hawk and Dove feel alive in a way they maybe haven’t been before, and same with Dick, and kind of give Rachel a family story. Plus, the powers are b—-in and awesome. Those are fun, too. The fights were cool and made me cringe. And I love, “F— Batman.” I love that moment, too. I re-fell in love with the show in post while watching the excitement we were able to generate from these characters.
The entire first season of Titans is available to stream on DC Universe.
Is there a stream for these episodes? I haven't been able to watch on my box recently ...
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