Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for the Titans series finale, “Titans Forever,” are ahead!
Joseph Morgan’s Sebastian Sanger didn’t start off in Titans Season 4 as a villain, and even after he’d allied himself with Frank Potente’s May Banner, a.k.a. Mother Mayhem, and started going by Brother Blood, there was numerous attempts to bring him back to the light. But as HBO Max subscribers have now seen in the Titans series finale, called “Titans Forever,” it was all for naught, with Anna Diop’s Starfire ultimate fulfilling the prophecy concerning her and killing Blood. Titan showrunner Greg Walker went over with CinemaBlend why the antagonist’s fate was always set in stone, as well as discussed the last scenes in the series finale.
“Titans Forever” saw Brother Blood using S.T.A.R. Labs’ wormhole gateway to destroy both Earth and Tamaran, and while Starfire initially confronted him alone, Nightwing, Beast Boy, Raven, Superboy and Tim Drake as the new Robin arrived to help her foil his plan and subdue him. Afraid of what might happen if Blood were to return to wreak havoc again, Starfire flew the sorcerous baddie into the sky and incinerated him with a huge energy blast, and while it initially looked like she sacrificed her life to do so, that wasn’t the case at all, leaving our heroic intact by the time the show wrapped. During my chat with Greg Walker on May 1, I was curious if there was ever a scenario where Blood might have been redeemed, or if it was always the plan for Stafire to kill him, and he said:
You know, you’re not the first person to ask that question, and it’s an interesting question because we didn’t really consider it. We just felt that he Jason such an arc, not just in terms of Starfire having to take care of him, but because his choices up to that point were so clearly about amassing power and becoming more self-obsessed… I think he had eliminated any paths back to redemption by his own choices.
So there was never any chance Brother Blood would make it out of Titans alive, but with him out of the picture and having permanently killed Mother Mayhem in “Project Starfire,” the title superhero team was able to celebrate their latest victory together… and also quite possibly the last But before we get into that, in the brief period where Nightwing, Beast Boy, Raven, Superboy and Robin thought Starfire might be dead, we got a scene showing all but Robin celebrating Christmas together, plus Krypto the Superdog. While talking about this moment with Walker, I mentioned I suspected it took place between Seasons 2 and 3 given Tim Drake’s absence, but he then provided an alternative from the series finale’s writer, Richard Hatem:
I think Rich thinks it’s a flash forward.
That’s an interesting scenario to consider, though that then begs two questions. First, if this takes place post-Season 4, then why isn’t Tim part of the get-together? Second, given that when we last see Raven, a.k.a. Rachel, in the Titans series finale, she’s still rocking her white hair, what leads to it reverting to black? These are things for fans to consider when they go back to rewatch “Titans Forever.”
By the end of Titans’ final episode, the characters go their separate ways, with Dick and Kory finally pursing a romantic relationship together, Gar returning to The Red, Rachel going to college, Superboy finally meeting Superman and learning how to fly, and Tim balancing his time as Robin in Gotham City with continuing his relationship with Bernard in Metropolis. The final minutes of Titans ended the show in a way that felt conclusive, yet still left the door for future adventures, so I asked Greg Walker how difficult it was hitting this balance, and he answered:
Well we didn’t know the series was going to end with that episode. We wanted to protect against that fate. In the event that it happened, we wanted to make sure we landed a finale feel to it. So it really required seeing that team together again and settling them in a place where they’re at peace, and there’s a great sense of hope for the future. We know that life will present problems for them moving forward, that it won’t be easy, they’ll be conflicts and loss, but just for this moment alone, especially in the world we live in today, to end on a feeling of hope and of promise felt like the right choice.
As “Titans Forever” wound down, it seemed as though Dick Grayson and Kory Anders would be the last two characters we’d see on Titans, as they were shown walking across a bridge amongst civilians after the family dinner, enjoying each other’s company as the sun rose. Not so, as instead the final footage before the credits rolled showed Conner Kent joyously flying for the first time. On the subject of deciding that this would be Titans’ last shot rather than leaving things off with Dick and Kory, Walker had this to say:
That shot was there, we’d had it, and it was originally part of that other sequence. There’s a long tradition of going for those kind of fun moments at the very end. While the Dick/Kory moment was joyous and romantic and beautifully played by the actors and was shot by Nick and the team, I really felt like that we needed more of a permission to have fun at the very end.
So the Titans story is now over, although given that The Flash movie is bringing back Michael Keaton’s Batman, perhaps there may come a day when these characters could reappear within the framework of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Universe through multiversal shenanigans (hey, Beast Boy already has some experiences with other realities). Should that happen, we’ll let you know, but until then, keep track of the upcoming DC TV shows that have been lined up, and check out Greg Walker sharing the DC hero and villains would have liked to used had Titans continued, as well as discuss why certain established characters didn’t return in Season 4.