This episode is interesting to me, in that when I decided to seek out the show on the internet, this was the first episode I looked for. Although I was opposed to horror back in the day, I actually remember really liking this episode, as if it predicted my growing development of like for the horror genre. Is there anything actually wrong with this episode? Well, let's go over it piece by piece.
Episode Transition
The episode starts with Toon4Thought terrorizing a video store, this was before Twitter became as much as a twinkle in Jack Dorsey's eye. Okay, poor joke, but I really don't like the guy, anyone in the cartoon community frankly, and Control Freak is the perfect caricature of how overly passionate fanboys can be.
The titans go to stop him, obviously do, the Cyborg eating enemy gag was a highlight for me because he's the most entertaining character in the show IMO and for their efforts they are given a free copy of a horror movie, and it's the ever typical so scary we don't even see what's happening on screen, but take our word for it. Not that it has any consequence to episodes that have these, I mean The Bernie Mac Show did something like this, and it was one of my favorite episodes of the show.
Anyway, the stoic Raven is pushed into a corner when she is accused of being afraid of the movie, and the crux behind what happens next is a spoiler so I'm not saying anything on it yet. I will say however that shit begins to turn weird, gradually, for instance, how does a cymbal crashing monkey activate, by itself? And keep in mind I'm questioning something that is actually realistic. I mean to be fair this monkey looks far less freaky than what they would normally look like, nice subversion I guess.
So anyway, we get our plot, the titans begin disappearing one by one, and one thing I kinda like is that if you pay close enough attention when seeing it a second time, you can get a better understanding of the twist, and I guess I'll say it now. Raven is the source of all of this, she has her anxiety pent up and it is coming all out, and the order in white the titans get taken away actually makes sense when you think about it.
Beast Boy is taken away first because he is otherwise the most annoying and Raven was annoyed he would accuse her of being scared. Robin was taken next only because he came close to cracking the code, and I guess Starfire's annoying enough that Raven would take any opportunity. It's actually kinda clever when you think about it, and at least compared to the initial part of the Trigon saga, the visuals in this episode are genuinely creepy, although the resolution, while making sense, seems a little predictable, like no shit she should confront her fear and admit to being afraid to take down the menace.
And though the show falls into a common web of things being resolved almost completely, the fact Raven was behind this actually makes it feel more logical, if she were behind all of this, of course the Titans wouldn't be taken far.
Final Thoughts
This is honestly one of my more tolerable episodes, it had an interesting idea or at least executed itself as good as it should've, along with some genuinely creepy moments. I want to favor episodes otherwise in a vacuum, because the show doesn't force any weight onto you and thus you would question things the more you think about more serious episodes.
For a little bonus, the episode got me thinking about Beast Boy being taken first. One time, I saw a tweet claiming Beast Boy was African American, basing it solely off of the Teen Titans cartoon, and there was Titans that made Starfire African American. It's ironic how Starfire was used in an episode allegorizing racism, while Beast Boy being taken out first reminds me of the "black guy always dies first" trope in horror. Maybe that's why, or maybe I'm hung up on Troq, who knows?
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