Titans showrunner talks White Raven, Brother Blood, and Connor Luthor at season 4 midpoint
WARNING: This article contains spoilers about the first six episodes of Titans season 4.
Several Titans characters are looking a little different than we're used to. As season 4 of the HBO Max superhero series hit its midpoint on Thursday, multiple members of the team have changed up their looks. EW caught up with Titans showrunner Greg Walker to discuss these changes and where things might be going in the back half of the season.
We'll start with Raven (Teagan Croft). Famous for her purple hair and dark clothing, Raven went all white-haired earlier this season after an encounter with Mother Mayhem (Franka Potente). During the battle this week, the change went even further, transforming her outfit to an all-white color scheme as well. Does this mean she's turning into White Raven, the incarnation made iconic by the classic Teen Titans animated series?
"It wasn't intentional. We weren't going, 'we'll do the 'White Raven story' or 'we'll kind of turn her into a different character,'" Walker tells EW. "But post-Themyscira, she both has more confidence in who she is, but less certainty as to what she should be doing. We didn't want to get bogged down with her powers in terms of what exactly they represent for her right now, but what's happening is that she's transforming and changing into somebody who I think is way more connected emotionally to both the Titans and the world around her. I mean, this is a season where we explore magic and the world of the supernatural. This is where she's kind of reawakening in that area too."
Steve Wilkie/HBO Max Raven (Teagan Croft) and Sebastian (Joseph Morgan) on 'Titans.'
Raven also has an opposite number this season: Sebastian Sanger (Joseph Morgan). But while Raven rebelled against her destiny as the heir of the demon Trigon, Sebastian is embracing his role as Brother Blood.
"They're siblings, first and foremost. So it felt natural to develop their affinity for each other, and also put it to the test," Walker says. "Rachel went to a family who would protect her and a colleague in Dick Grayson. In the case of Sebastian, he felt very unseen in the world and feels very unseen in the world. He believes he is destined for greatness, and his mother has told him this the entire time. At some point, when that doesn't happen, you start to feel very small."
Walker continues, "So when you get an opportunity like he has for greatness and you're convinced that it really is going to be something that will let you do what you wanted to do, it's tough to say no to that. We are really, really interested in watching him struggle with that up to the point where he finally decides, 'if I say no, I'm going to go back to what I was before and I don't want to be what I was before.'"
This season started off with the arrival of Lex Luthor (Titus Welliver) into the Titans' lives. But for all his scientific genius, Luthor couldn't understand the magic of Mother Mayhem, and was soon killed by her demonic serpent. But even in his short screen time, Luthor clearly made an impact on Connor (Joshua Orpin), who started sporting a shaved head look this episode and acting like a swaggering supervillain. He even embraced "Luthor" as his last name.
HBO MAX Superboy (Joshua Orpin) meets his "father" Lex Luthor (Titus Welliver) on 'Titans.'
Connor was created from both Superman's DNA and Luthor's, and Walker told EW earlier this year that season 4 would see Connor experiment with his Luthor side. Now we see the results! Even Superman is wary of magic, and now that Connor has seen its horror up close, it makes sense that he'd cope by exploring his other self.
"He's confused by magic. It's a vulnerability that doesn't make sense to him," Walker says. "You see Jinx kind of needling him about that in a scene that I really quite like. He's struggling with that and he starts to get very insecure. So a lot of his reaction is like, oh, I'm freaked out. So I'm going to adopt the persona that is tough and aggressive and maybe filled with some anger and it's going to be scary, so I can scare people back and that will make me less scared.'"
Walker continues, "some of us are blessed to come from parents who are very similar in a lot of ways, so it's not like you have to go off to go climb a mountain or you have to go become the President of the United States to make sense of who you are. He does. He has to go to extremes to figure out whether or not they work for him or not."
Steve Wilkie/HBO Max Jinx (Lisa Ambalavanar) and Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) on 'Titans.'
Speaking of Jinx (Lisa Ambalavanar), viewers bid goodbye to the charming antihero this week when she was killed by Mother Mayhem. But as Walker notes, death has always been a "slippery concept" on Titans.
"We're loose with death," Walker says. "I think that it's transitory. It's a state that you're in for a while and that you come back and we continue on. So I would love to have Jinx and Lisa back on the show. She's such a breath of fresh air. The cast loved her and we loved working with her."
The first six episodes of Titans season 4 are streaming now on HBO Max.
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