Teen Titans's first season had a ton of potential, but the way it executed its story arc left a lot of room for improvement. Will its second season be any better? Oh, hell yeah.
The main story arc of Teen Titans' second season is about a girl named Terra who has the power to move the earth, but she's insecure about her powers. She first appears early on in the season and almost joins the team, but eventually runs away due to her insecurity and paranoia. She reappears soon after and joins the team, but she has been working for Slade who has manipulated her into joining. I actually really love the Terra arc, it's a massive improvement on the Slade arc from Season 1. Terra is a genuinely complex and fascinating character, and it shows in how much debate her role in this season has spawned. But what makes this season so compelling in the end is just how much of a tragedy it is, you can really see Terra become a great member of the Titans, but her actions ended up resulting in her death at the end of the season. I don't think this storyline is perfect, however. It feels a bit compressed in the length of a short thirteen-episode season as Terra jumps between good to bad to better to worse to redeemed. I also feel like some exploration of Terra's backstory could help the audience get a better sense of who she is and why she makes the decisions she makes. Despite my gripes, though, I still generally enjoyed this tragic storyline and found it to be a compelling improvement on Season 1's story arc.
But it's not just the arc itself that was an improvement, the structure of Season 2 is also far stronger this time around. Rather than just two episodes that focused on the story arc like in Season 1 (Masks and Apprentice), Terra's arc took up around half the season, resulting in a stronger balance between arc-driven episodes and standalone episodes. And while the standalone episodes were still a bit hit or miss, there were far more great ones like How Long Is Forever?, Date With Destiny, and Fear Itself. This season also bumped up the references like in the FLCL-inspired Transformation and the Mortal Kombat-inspired Winner Take All. As a whole, Season 2 was far more consistently strong and it balanced out its arc episodes better so that it generally felt like it was going somewhere. As for the non-Terra characters, they were still pretty great. Starfire is as enjoyable as ever, even moreso after How Long Is Forever? which solidified her as the glue that holds the team together. I still think that she's easily the best-written character in the series in terms of her dialogue, as her oh-so-slightly broken English makes even the simplest of exchanges hilarious. But this season also focused a lot more on Beast Boy and showed how inside his goofy exterior, he has some serious heart. I ended up really caring about his (and Raven's to a lesser extent) relationships with Terra, which made the end of the arc far more impactful.
As an improvement on Season 1, this season of Teen Titans had far more high points:
How Long Is Forever?: I wasn't sure about this one at first. AU episodes are always annoying for me since their events never end up with ramifications for the future. However, I ended up really liking this one. Not only does it show how Starfire is the heart of the group and how they'd split up if it weren't for her, but the Bad Future this episode shows is fascinating and heart-breaking. And that's not even bringing up the big reveal of Nightwing, which absolutely caught me off-guard (really goofy hair though).
Terra: Just expect me to put most of the major Terra episodes on here. This is a strong introduction to the character that did a great job of establishing the story arc for the season. Once again, I think more delving into Terra's past could have helped a bit, but I generally ended up loving how dramatic this one was.
Date With Destiny: This might be the funniest episode in the series, at least up to this point. While the concept is funny, Kitten could have been really annoying if it weren't for Tara Strong's hilariously hammy performance. She didn't need to go this hard, yet she did! Even more, Starfire's jealousy is a lot of fun too, and the animation is packed with funny gags (Kitten briefly turning into a cat girl left me in stitches). I also just really like Killer Moth, so it's cool to have an episode with him.
Betrayal: Terra's betrayal was just so painful, especially since it had to happen during a date with Beast Boy! It's a heartbreaking downer going into the finale, made even worse by the fact that Slade left Titans Tower pretty much destroyed (though it ends up suddenly fixed by the next episode). Also, that Hall Of Mirrors scene was so good.
Aftershock: This finale was amazing, maybe even better than the first because it actually had ramifications on the future of the show, with Slade and Terra both presumably dead by the end of it. It's also just a climactic finale that brings together a bunch of old villains, packs in the personal final battle with Terra along with her redemption, and has some really great action scenes like the mud fight.
Overall, Season 2 of Teen Titans was a massive improvement on the first, with a stronger story arc, a complex main character, and a better balance between arc and standalone episodes. It didn't execute Terra's storyline as well as it could've, but as a whole, this was a very tight and enjoyable season.
4/5 Stars
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