Titans has been really strong running to the finish line this season and Nightwing‘s development has been a huge reason why. Greg Walker recently came forward to talk about the young hero’s journey and how it’s changed over time. The showrunner spoke with Entertainment Weekly to parse the finale of Season 2. DC Universe has spent a ton of time re-establishing the series as a cornerstone of the streaming service. Harley Quinn is now aboard with Doom Patrol and a host of other content, but Titans is clearly a priority there. Now, with Dick Grayson and his new domino mask, the show has really gotten its legs under it heading into Season 3. There were some bumps in the road to be sure, and the show still has a bit of tonal variance from episode to episode. However, the idea of what Titans is versus what it could be is much more defined than when the series began. That all starts with Brenton Thwaites and what he’s done on the road to becoming Nightwing so far.
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“Where we meet him in episode 1 of the show is, he’s in exile from his dysfunctional relationship with Bruce Wayne [Iain Glen],” Walker began. “He’s really ambivalent about being Robin at all. At one point he burns the suit. So he has a real complicated relationship with the suit… We always felt that he needed to go on season 2 as this kind of journey of recognizing what mistakes he made in the past, assessing himself, trying to figure out his relationship with Bruce, and then evolving past Robin. Because if he’s not Robin anymore, then who he is?”
“The goal was always “to navigate a path towards Nightwing,” Walker continued. “It’s a personal journey that he needs to go on. So he goes on this atonement journey in the last third of the season, trying to figure out who he is and what his relationship to heroism is and what his relationship is to the other Titans. That’s what we were going for the whole time. We felt like we needed to think about it on a character level rather than having him show up and be like, ‘Awesome suit, right?’”
That approach has paid dividends for the show because of the vocal fan reactions to the reveal. This is something that people wanted from the jump and now they’re getting that emotional payoff from two seasons of growth. Vulnerability has been a huge part of the character’s journey. Thwaites talked about that with Comicbook.com.
“I find the Nightwing costume is easier to get into character, for sure. The Robin one, maybe because there was so many pieces, so many elements of it, you kind of get covered up too much emotionally. I don’t know if that’s … Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe we should try and analyze this, but the Nightwing costume, although it does cover me up, it feels quite revealing, and I think that’s a good thing for Dick Grayson in that point of the story is that he’s found who he is and he’s revealing himself to people.”
Titans is currently streaming on DC Universe.
