Dick meets his replacement, Jason Todd who has a problem. One involving Dick’s past…

This is more like it. This episode neatly strikes the balance between the serialized story the show is telling and a one-off which gives us a look inside the world’s most violent former sidekick. And boy is there a lot of darkness in there. Brenton Thwaites does excellent work here as we see the person Dick is when he isn’t trying to do and/or punch everything at once. It also shows us some growth in him and cleverly bakes his impulsiveness into the plot as a feature not a bug. Dick functionally led the murderer of his parents to his death and, being an irresponsible Dick, was just fine with that. Until all his parents’ old colleagues started turning up dead.

Curran Ward’s Jason is also a welcome addition to the show. Spunky, more than a little anti-establishment and cheerfully street level where Dick remains a stuffed shirt, he’s a breath of fresh air. He too also serves to highlight the differences in the older Robin. He’s horrified to see Jason beat up cops but doesn’t bat an eyelid about beating criminals half to death. Robin contains multitudes and for the first time, this episode shows us that.

Verdict: This is an actual honest to God, genuinely very good hour of TV. It’s a welcome spotlight, solves a bunch of problems, sets up more and moves the season along. More like this please 8/10

Alasdair Stuart