Titans Review: Lazarus (Season 3 Episode 5)
This show’s strongest episodes are usually the ones that take deep dives into the past of a character and catch the audience up to bigger twists.
Titans Season 3 Episode 5, “Lazarus,” keeps this tradition going strong with an episode that takes a deep look at Jason Todd and the tragic events that led to the birth of the Red Hood.
This episode comes at the perfect place in the season. Five episodes gives the series enough time to shock the audience with Jason’s actions; the ones that led up to Hank’s death. Actions that don’t stretch out the mystery too long, instead of introducing other conflicts to strengthen the intrigue.
Titans doesn’t always land every hit but when it does, episodes like “Lazarus” are the result.
The biggest stumble of this particular episode is the timeline of this Red Hood birth. Most of the Red Hood iterations this season is inspired by have had a longer period of time pass between Jason’s death and his reemergence.
Titans certainly should make their own iteration of this classic DC story, but at the same time, maybe this wasn’t the detail to adjust for this story.
The show has taken its time building to Jason’s death when it should have devoted some of that time to the aftermath of his murder. The sped-up timeline doesn’t give the characters or the audience enough time to reconcile with his death.
This could have a huge impact on Jason and his trajectory, so hopefully, the series is holding these ramifications for a later episode.
It’s hard to imagine a Titans where the connection between found family won’t make a difference in the climax of the season.
“Lazarus” has plenty of things to offer fans with this episode.
Titans takes Scarecrow down an interesting path as he reverse-engineers his fear serum. While right now this is only utilized by Jason, it opens up a plethora of opportunities to involve Lex Luthor and help integrate Superboy into the story more (he’s still a little bit on the outskirts).
But perhaps even more exciting than the anti-fear serum and the role of Scarecrow in this season is the introduction of a Lazarus pit.
The long cast list for this season has raised eyebrows and now that Hank has also bitten the dust, the Lazarus pit for which the episode is named, could serve as a reset. It could also bring back Donna Troy.
Maybe Hank too, but that’s a lot more difficult considering the state of his corpse.
What makes this episode great, however, isn’t the Lazarus Pits or other comic aspects, but the emotional journey and tragic events that push Jason to a place where he is manipulated by Jonathan Crane.
It’s hard to see Jason grasping for the people around him, but their own issues inflicted by Gotham making it impossible for him to be on the same page with anyone else in his life.
He was in the perfect place and asked the questions that let Crane know that Jason was alone and desperate.
Curran Walters does a fantastic job of showing Jason’s desperation for connection and belonging, and it hurts even more seeing his joy at the prospect of finally finding a father, knowing what’s to follow from the father and son.
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Titans airs Thursdays on HBO Max.
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Amanda Reimer
In addition to working as a freelance writer, Amanda also works with animals and stage manages various live performances. She has an invested interest in the perspective and experience of fandoms as well as anything in the science-fiction genre. She also loves spoiling her cats, Drummer and Kiki.