REVIEWED: SEASON 2 (ALL EPISODES) | WHERE TO WATCH: NETFLIX (FROM JANUARY 10TH)

For a couple of reasons, Season 2 of Titans was under pressure to deliver. Firstly, Season 1 had been such a success, both critically and narratively, that it would be a difficult act to follow, and that was doubled down by the incredible first season of Doom Patrol which followed it. Conversely, the lacklustre end to Swamp Thing, DC Universe’s big summer show, meant that Titans was tasked with getting the nascent streaming service’s fortunes back on track. And did it? Yes. And no.

Season 1 of Titans was a tight introduction to the characters for a world largely unfamiliar with any of them past Dick Grayson’s Robin. The show threw in Starfire, Changeling, Raven, Wonder Girl, Hawk, Dove, and another Robin (Jason Todd), and brought them together to face a single nemesis – Raven’s demonic father, Trigon. And it would have been a one-and-done for that storyline, but for a strange jiggling of the series length, which shunted the Season 1 finale to the first episode of Season 2.

All of that made for an anti-climactic open to the sophomore season, with the build from Season 1 abruptly ending in the first episode of Season 2, which then kicked off the second outing’s main storyline: Deathstroke.

Slade Wilson’s assassin-for-hire is one of the Titans’ signature villains and, despite appearing in both the Arrow TV show and Suicide Squad film, remains an underexposed treat for action fans. This time out, Esai Morales played the Terminator, with quiet fury, as the show loosely adapted The Judas Contract and Titans Hunt storylines from the comic book. This meant an appearance for Deathstroke’s son, Jericho, and brought in his daughter, Rose, to act as a cypher for other characters involved in those stories.

While all this was going on, the tease from the end of Season 1 – Connor Kent’s Superboy – was paid off, and a whole separate storyline involving shady Lex Luthor-adjacent science outfit Cadmus involved both he and Changeling. The two storylines only converged towards the end of the season, and when you throw in another plotline – the setting-up-for-Season-3 Blackfire shenanigans – the show felt a little too frantic at times.

This was all delivered in the same stylish manner as the first season, with some accomplished performances by the ensemble cast, particularly from Brenton Thwaites as a pained Dick Grayson, Minka Kelly as Dove, and Mayko Nguyen as Jericho’s mother (and Slade’s ex-wife), Adeline.

Despite leaning a little too hard on ‘gritty’ at times, Titans remains a solid show with much to recommend it. It is solidly-acted, beautifully-shot, and even the bits that miss – Iain Glen’s Bruce Wayne – are not far off the mark. The show has already been renewed for a third season, to be aired in late 2020, and with forty years of (Teen) Titans history to plunder, the appetite is whet for next year’s offering.