My Review of Titans 1x03: "Origins"

Written by Richard Hatem & Geoff Johns & Marisha Mukerjee & Greg Walker
Directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan

Koriand'r (to Dick, re Rachel): "She's the destroyer of worlds."

After the first two episodes going overkill on the violence, swearing and bad attempts of grittiness, this episode surprisingly toned some of that down as Rachel found herself quickly rescued from the Nuclear Family by Kory, who happened to be in the neighbourhood at the time.

For one moment in this episode, we get a scene where all four of our main characters shared a moment together. For the majority of the episode, it's largely a splintered group with Kory and Rachel getting to know one another before Dick re-enters the fray with them all in Ohio as Rachel meets up with some nuns from her past.

I'm not surprised that the nuns turned out to be a slightly sinister but misguided bunch with their attempts of locking Rachel in the basement to protect her from herself and the world. It also seemed appropriate enough for Rachel to finally get a hold of her powers and use them to escape from St Paul's as well by the end of this episode.

This episode to its credit does deserve points for moving things along a little further. Kory might not have her memories back but she does know that there's a doom laden prophecy surrounding Rachel and now, so does Dick for that matter. I quite liked Dick and Kory's dynamic in this episode along with Rachel and Kory's and even the brief moment that Rachel also got to share with Gar, even though he's still divorced from the main plot as of now.

As for the Nuclear Family - the father got taken out by Kory and for a moment, I thought the remaining lot were about to be killed by their boss until the daughter managed to get them a brief reprieve. They're somewhat amusing enough as temporary baddies but I won't be too sad to eventually lose them as characters.

Between all the Rachel stuff, there was a fair amount of time dedicated to flashbacks for Dick as well. Mainly involving his adoption and going to live at Wayne Manor, coupled with his murderous desire for revenge. They were decently shot but somewhat frustrating when you know that this show is unlikely to show us either Bruce Wayne or Alfred Pennyworth any time soon.

- Amy is dead but Dawn fortunately is not. Even Hank was thankfully more toned down compared to his previous episode.
- The episode heavily implied that Rachel's father (also known as Trigon) is the main antagonist for the season.
- Locations this week included Illinois, Ohio, Washington and Gotham to name a few.
- Chronology: Late 2018. Kory at least began looking into Rachel around November 2017.

Origins still wasn't perfect as an episode but definitely felt like a marked improvement on the first two. The various back and forth scenes between location and main characters worked more or less in it's favour and it's nice to have the main plot move a little forward as well.

Rating: 7 out of 10