With the release of the sixth episode of season four, “Brother Blood,” HBO Max’s “Titans” reaches its midseason finale. For its fourth season, the series is supposed to be released as a two-parter, with its second half scheduled to release somewhere around the first half of 2023. So far, the central conflict of “Titans” Season 4 has been focused on the infamous Titans villain duo of Brother Blood and Mother Mayhem. In the last episode, we saw that even after gaining the upper hand in their fight against time to keep Sebastian Sanger out of May, aka Mother Mayhem’s reach, Kory and Rachel ultimately failed to protect him. Mother Mayhem takes Sebastian to the temple of Azarath, where the cult of blood greets him as their Messiah. The midseason finale sheds light on the aftermath as the Titans gear up to retrieve Sebastian and gives us a number of teasers for the next part of the series.
Spoilers Ahead
‘Titans’ Season 4, Episode 6: Recap And Ending
“Titans” Season 4, Episode 6 begins with a visibly remorseful Conner Kent, aka Superboy, using his heat vision to shave off his hair, apparently as a form of penance. We see Kory and Rachel returning to STAR Labs as they regret being forced to hand Sebastian over to Mayhem. Rachel informs her that she also saw Kory’s vision of a brighter future with a family with Dick Grayson. She also adds that Dick had the same vision in Lazarus’s pit during the events in Gotham (the previous season), and Kory realizes Dick didn’t share that information with her. They arrive at STAR and inform the rest of the team members that Sebastian sacrificed his life to Mayhem to save theirs. As they discuss the most probable course of action to locate Mayhem’s hideout, Conner, with his radically different appearance, makes a shocking entry. It turns out that not only has his outlook gone through a revamp, but he is also flaunting a newfound cynical, brassy attitude. He challenges Dick’s approach as the leader of a more conventional, heroic way to deal with the crisis with his “end justifies the means” policy. Garfield Logan, aka Beast Boy, leaves the meeting momentarily and has a vision from “the Red.” Later, he hears echoes from the future as he answers Conner’s yet-unasked question.
Elsewhere, Sebastian experiences physical pain as the end of the blood moon draws closer. Mayhem tries to persuade him to drink blood from a chalice and submerge himself in the pool of blood in order to complete his transformation into Brother Blood. Sebastian is unwilling to do so, as he says the only reason he even agreed to come with her was to save his friends, the Titans. The cult acolytes ask Mayhem to force Sebastian into the transformation, but she refuses. She, instead, tries to break Sebastian’s resistance by attacking his mind and his conscience. She shows Sebastian a memory of his childhood, back when he was an orphan kid and had to give up his comfort for another even more hapless soul. Mayhem ridicules his humanity as a weakness, which has only ever managed to deprive him of his rightful dues. She goes on to show Sebastian another memory from his teenage years, where he was unjustly punished for having a better intellect than his teacher. Mayhem mocks his reluctance to assert himself.
In STAR labs, teams diverge in their approach to tackle the crisis of Mayhem. By diverge, we mean Conner goes solo without considering Dick’s plans. With the assistance of STAR Labs scientists, he assumes control of Lexcorp’s satellite and plans to reflect sunlight onto the moon to prevent the Blood Moon from happening at all. Dick senses the Lex side of Conner’s parentage taking over him and asks him to settle down, which Conner scoffs at. To the team’s surprise, Conner actually succeeds at halting the effects and course of the blood moon. The rest of the team hatch another plan to teleport to Mayhem’s hideout to retrieve Sebastian to safety, using Jinx, Kory, and Rachel as conduits. Once again, Gar experiences painful bouts and visions of the future and gets unsettled. Kory comforts him, and Gar moves outside to get some air. He is greeted by a mysterious person who shares his premonitions of Red and Gar’s connection with the metaphysical realm of Red. Cryptically, he asks Gar to visit the Red when the tower splits in half and disappears in a strange manner (shifting from the host body).
Conner’s behavior starts growing increasingly spiteful and irritating as he belittles each of the Titans members for their current predicament. Dick shares his concerns due to the fact that the dark side taking over a friend is something he is too familiar with, which is greeted with even more disdain from Conner’s side. However, Dick’s logical deduction that Earth naturally rotating according to its axis will undo the satellite method worries Conner, and he tracks down Mayhem’s secret location by tracing Lexcorp’s satellite hack attempts.
Mayhem shows the final significant memory to Sebastian to break his moral hold. In the memory, Sebastian is seen to distance himself deliberately from the person he loves only out of fear of losing that said person, as all his life experiences have led to his lack of confidence, creating an emotional barrier. Then Mayhem reveals that all three figures who were instrumental in Sebastian’s life are now members of the cult of blood. By tapping into his insecurities, Mayhem is finally able to break Sebastian, and he fully gives in to the dark side. In the meantime, Conner attacks Mayhem and kills her in a fit of rage, only to see that it is a decoy as the real one taunts him in a battle and quickly knocks him out. Jinx uses Rachel to create a connection with the Temple of Azarath, and Rachel sees Conner trapped there. The Titans gear up in haste as their work piles up in the form of rescuing not one but two of their members, and they have lost the element of surprise too.
With the Blood Moon returning for merely minutes, Sebastian prepares to drink from the chalice, and the Titans spring into action. Gar transforms into a gorilla and disperses the crowd while Jinx confronts Mayhem. In her magical garb adorned with ornaments and jewelry, Jinx’s costume respects the character’s Indian roots. However, even in her full form, she is no match for Mayhem, as even after Jinx stupefies her, Mayhem is able to deliver a fatal blow. Rachel gets her powers back and transforms into her white raven form. Both Kory and Rachel attack Mayhem and almost pin her down when a broken Sebastian rejects Rachel’s pleas and decides to go through the ritual and drinks from the chalice. After transformation, he emits a sonic wave so strong that the temple cave comes crashing down, and Gar, seeing the premonitions come to fruition, answers his call to Red. Gar disappears to Red, and all of the Titans disappear as well. The final sequence shows Sebastian submerging himself in the well of blood as he descends.
Thoughts
The midseason finale of “Titans” ended with a bang, leaving the fate of the team in question. Conner’s sudden transformation at first might seem out of place and abrupt, but the season hinted at this by giving him a hard time dealing with public perception, Superman’s absence, the urge to prove himself, and Luthor’s sudden death. Although his questioning the group’s past edgy actions is something the audience too will agree on being a necessary self-evaluation. Hopefully, the remaining part of the season will show Superman helping Conner through this self-destructive phase and influencing him in a positive manner. Three new additions to the season, Mayhem, Sebastian, and Jinx, continue to impress us, especially with Joseph Morgan’s Sebastian Blood being the highlight of the season so far. In “Titans” Season 4, Episode 6, the way he channels the character’s inner conflict about keeping humanity, morality, and a lifetime of trauma intact evokes a tragic note, which helps the audience relate to the character. Kory and Dick continue to play the role of model leaders. Jinx surely will come back to life, as her last dialogue hinted that this is not the first time, she has cheated death. However, Garfield will receive the biggest glow-up in the rest of the season as he has finally connected to the Red, as the mysterious stranger name-dropped DC characters like Buddy Baker (Animal Man), Mari McCabe (Vixen), who are champions of the animalistic elemental. From the unnamed stranger’s African accent and his being a black person, we speculate he might be Dominic Mndawe, aka Freedom Beast, another herald of Red. Among Titans, only Krypto is shown as left in RV; the next episodes will focus on establishing his connection with Gar to bring the team back to normalcy and tackle the dual threat of Mayhem and Blood. The later part of the season will also include a “Stargirl” cameo, which will be important in the sense that the series sits in stark contrast with “Titans” both tonally and qualitatively. To put it in short, the sixth episode of “Titans” has managed to keep viewers craving for more after the credits rolled, a feat the series hadn’t been able to pull for a long, long time.
See more: ‘Titans’ Season 4, Episode 5: Recap And Ending, Explained
