Donna saves Rachel from Kori, Kori begins discovering the truth about herself and Rachel, far too late, discovers the truth about her parents.

This episode is designed to do three things and does all of them well, which is still a pleasant surprise given how choppy the season has been. The biggest is locking in Kori’s back story and it does a really good job with that. She doesn’t feel like an escapee from Supergirl’s Earth and there’s a refreshing sense of the truly alien to her past. Plus the episode answers some questions and opens up some more. Is Rachel the child of a demon or a transdimensional being? Does it matter when the threat is this clear? This plot also stands as a massive TO BE CONTINUED sign and I’d anticipate more of Kori’s past coming to light in season 2.

The Rachel plot is the meat of the episode and it shows, once and for all, that Titans is at its most comfortable as a horror show. The slow degradation of Clark, the slow burn on Rachel’s mom and the arrival of Trigon (Castle’s Seamus Dever everyone!) all feels queasy and strange. Like the Doom Patrol episode this lacks the performative brutality of the other episodes and also the comforting Silver Age sheen of the other CW shows. No one is coming to save the Titans but the Titans and this is the week they finally start realising that.

That’s the episode’s third element and one that’s structural rather than narrative. Everyone’s in play now, even Trigon. There’s no need for more back story, no more place setting to be done. The world is ending, soon and the only people who can save it are a PTSD-riddled homicide cop, an alien weapon of mass destruction, a shapechanger, a possible demon and their two just-healed-from-near-critical-injuries violence addict friends.

Verdict: I wouldn’t bet against this ragtag fugitive fleet. But I probably wouldn’t stand in front of them, just to be safe. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart