Were it not for Ritchson and Kelly, I feel like that particular sequence would really have fallen flat, but I find both of their performances so thoroughly compelling that I can forgive a lot.įurther reading – Titans: The Secrets of Hawk and Dove Hank and Dawn soon connect at grief counseling, and there’s a “relationship montage” as they get to know each other. The timing of this (which also kills Dawn’s mother, and that’s how Hank and Dawn initially meet) is so abrupt that it’s effect is almost comedic. Instead, it feels like it’s the morning after their first mission when Don is killed in a freak accident (it’s not, but that was my first impression…I was wrong). Their makeshift “early days of social media” superhero routine is a great angle, and I wish we had seen a little bit more of their “career” before Don’s death. He has an easy rapport with Hank, and Knight and Ritchson complement each other well on screen, particularly when things start to go south for Hank’s football career because of post-concussion syndrome. Original Dove, Don Hall (Elliot Knight) seems like a character we could have spent more time with. The problem with “Hank and Dawn” is mostly one of pacing (something this show has struggled with both on a season level and within episodes). I’d like to see more of them, whether on this show’s second season or on a DC Universe series of their own. Their chemistry was immediately apparent from the first moments of the second episode, and while this show has nailed the casting of all of its heroes, Ritchson and Kelly are standouts. In fact, I can’t stress enough how great Alan Ritchson and Minka Kelly are as Hank and Dawn, both individually and together. Of course, since Dick isn’t in this episode, I should get back on target… Dick’s mission should ultimately end up being one to make sure that kids like Gar and Rachel don’t end up like him, Hank, and certainly not Bruce Wayne. “Donna Troy” helped drive that home, and was another piece of Dick Grayson trying to become a more well-adjusted person. To its credit, Titans is really digging deep on the idea that nobody gets out of superheroing with everything intact, and everyone ends up as an unhealthy role model. We also know that Hawk and Dove have been in the superhero game for nine years now, which explains a lot of the physical and mental issues we saw in the earlier episodes. I appreciate that they didn’t linger on the specifics of the abuse that Hank or Dawn had suffered, and instead on the dread and the guilt that surrounds it.įurther reading: How Titans Explores Trauma With “Hank and Dawn” This episode goes a long way towards establishing that Hank Hall isn’t just a bro with anger issues, and both this backstory and Ritchson’s sympathetic, genuinely likeable performance really help flesh the character out. Dawn, meanwhile, comes from a home shattered by domestic abuse, and this inevitably draws the pair together after a shared tragedy. The episode then flashes back to Hank and Don’s childhoods, where we learn that Hank was the victim of sexual abuse, moreso as he tried to prevent the same fate from befalling his younger brother. The opening, which sees Hawk and the original Dove on their first (and apparently only) case as superheroes is fun and clever, as they try entirely too hard to make a name for themselves. But “Hank and Dawn” is here to flesh out two (admittedly great) characters who we haven’t seen or heard from since episode three.īut despite my complaints about how this kind of structure affects Titans as a series, it’s still a fun episode. “Doom Patrol” helped us get to know Gar (who is a lot of fun, but still underdeveloped), and “Jason Todd” was a crucial step towards Dick Grayson putting his trauma as Robin into perspective. While I definitely called out episodes like “Doom Patrol” and “Jason Todd” for taking us off track from the main story of the season, they both at least had a small role to play towards directly advancing the bigger issues.
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