Titans star Curran Walters on episode 3's tragedy: 'Jason is totally far gone'
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Warning: The following contains spoilers from the first three episodes of Titans season 3, which premiered on HBO Max Thursday morning.
No, those Titans season 3 trailers weren't misleading at all. The moody HBO Max super-team drama did put its own spin on the infamous Batman comic book story A Death in the Family as Jason Todd (Curran Walters) transformed from Robin to the vengeful and murderous Red Hood — and killed one of his former teammates.
In the season 3 premiere, the impulsive boy wonder who returned to Gotham City after parting ways with the titular team at the end of season 2, ignored Bruce Wayne's (Iain Glen) orders and ventured into the field to confront the Joker while high on some mysterious drug. Unfortunately, that clash resulted in the Clown Prince of Crime beating Jason to death with a crowbar, which is what brings Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) and the Titans to Gotham in the first place.
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If this sounds familiar, it's because it's essentially a fast adaptation of 1988's A Death in the Family, a four-issue arc that ended with the Joker murdering Jason because DC readers voted for it to happen. (Fun fact: artists Jim Aparo and Mike DeCarlo drew up an alternate ending in case readers voted for him to survive that was unpublished.) Of course, we're talking about comic books so Jason was eventually resurrected. Nevertheless, this is the Jason Todd comic story, and Walters was very excited to finally go there this season.
"It was so cool," Walters tells EW. "From the minute I first read A Death in the Family, I was like, 'Oh, this would be so fun to play.' Now that it finally became a reality, it was so awesome. Obviously, I felt like I had a lot of pressure on me because people were expecting everything to be comic book accurate and whatnot. I'm very glad we got to do that story arc."
That being said, Titans execution surprised Walters. "When I read the first three episodes, I was very shocked by how quickly I was going to become Red Hood and how quickly I experienced the A Death in the Family scene," he says. "But then after seeing the season, it turned out to be amazing. For the people who love villains, I think they're going to enjoy all of that stuff."
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Yes, Jason immediately returns as the gun-wielding Red Hood in the second episode and proceeds to terrorize Gotham with several explosive schemes and target the Titans. (Nightwing discovers Red Hood's identity at the end of episode 2.) While the how and why of Jason's resurrection aren't revealed, Walters did shed some light on Jason's motivations.
"He's trying to get rid of his trauma [from] what we saw in the first two seasons," says the actor, who approached Jason and the Red Hood persona as two separate characters but tried to instill the latter with some of the former's cockiness and energy. "The main thing was, for me, just finding that balance keeping Red Hood this totally different character, but having some characteristics of Jason still. It was a challenge. It was also almost a thing that I figured out throughout the entire season. I never once felt like, 'Oh, this is it.' It was always like, 'What is this scene going to be?'"
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In episode 3, Jason escalates even more and straps a bomb to Hank's (Alan Ritchson) chest that will detonate after a certain number of heartbeats. As the Titans rush to deactivate the bomb, Dawn (Minka Kelly) strikes out on her own to save Hank, but in the end, Jason tricks her into detonating it and killing Hank. Is there any hope for Jason after this, or is he too far gone?
"I think Jason, at that point, doesn't even know who he is. I think Jason is totally far gone," says Walters. "What he did to Hank is going to be really hard to come back from, and we get to explore Jason's emotions on that and how he feels regretful throughout the season."
Walters is especially excited for viewers to see episode 5. "We get to really explore Jason finally [in that episode]: How he became Red Hood, why, what is he feeling, his relationship with Bruce and Nightwing, and what led him down this path of wanting to get rid of his fear," he says.
But Red Hood isn't the only rogue the Titans are facing this season. Don't forget that Jonathan Crane (Vincent Kartheiser), a.k.a. Scarecrow, is also in the mix and, to quote showrunner Greg Walker, has a "deep, dark vendetta to destroy people."
Says Walter, "I think Crane is the ultimate villain this season."
New Titans episodes launch every Thursday on HBO Max.
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