Who is Slade?
—Robin
The one where the Titans Tower gets hijacked.note
Big Bad Slade sets his new henchmen, a trio of HIVE graduates, on the Titans as their final exam. They defeat the team with a well-thought out strategy and kick them out of their own house (and cause Robin to fall into a massive hole), but the Titans manage to defeat them in a rematch.
This episode provides examples of:
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The HIVE graduates take over Titans Tower. Funnily enough they actually clean and organize the place, much to the Titan's dismay.
- Anachronic Order: Aired as the series premiere in North America, likely because Cartoon Network deemed it a stronger episode to open the series with than the somewhat bland "Divide and Conquer". It doesn't cause too many problems other than Slade not being named in the aforementioned episode.
- Anger Born of Worry: When Starfire returns to the Tower and hears from Raven and Beast Boy that they didn't find Robin she gets upset and demands they go back and find him.
- Arc Words: Robin's question at the end of the episode becomes sort of a Character Catchphrase for him.
- Attack Pattern Alpha: The HIVE gradutes actually use an "Attack Pattern Alpha" against the Titans.
- Berserk Button: Raven's is pressed when Jinx had gone into her room and took out one of her robes to wear with Robin's belt.
- Big, Thin, Short Trio: The HIVE graduates, with Mammoth being the largest, Jinx being painfully skinny, and Gizmo being the shortest character in the series.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Happens both ways with the Titans getting stomped first and later the HIVE.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: During the fight in the tower, Cyborg managed to strip Gizmo of his spider legs when the latter attempted to strike him head-on, forcing him to take a more stealthy approach.
- Fake Arm Disarm: In the first fight for Titans Tower, Gizmo removes Cyborg's right arm. Cyborg would later gain radio control over the arm to help the Titans get back in, but in the moment it's a setback.Cyborg: In case you haven't noticed, I just became left handed!
- Heroic Rematch: HIVE defeat the Titans in their first two encounters, but when the Titans strike back in the third act the tables have completely turned.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: When Jinx is blinded by Beast Boy she begins shooting randomly around her, which causes the entire area around her to collapse right on top of her.Beast Boy: Your luck just ran out!
- It Came from the Fridge: Starfire finds some odd blue fungus in the fridge. Later played with when Mammoth just eats it.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Mammoth acts as the brute force for HIVE and is presented as The Juggernaut for most of the episode. But in the final battle of the episode he runs for his life screaming when confronted by Beast Boy in his T-Rex form. He might be tough, but he knows he isn't tough enough to face that.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Each of the HIVE suffer a degree of karma during the final fight after what they previously put the Titans though.
- Gizmo literally disarmed Cyborg and messed around with his system. Cyborg manages to take control of the arm remotely to activate the Tower's security on HIVE and drag Gizmo away. Later, when Gizmo tries to hack Cyborg again, Robin electrocutes Gizmo with an EMP that ruins his tech.
- Jinx caused all sorts of trouble with her hexes, and specifically targeted Beast Boy during the second fight. She ends up getting a taste of her own medicine in the final fight when Raven drags her away with her soul-self, with her dropping to her knees unnerved by the experience, and Beast Boy ends up outsmarting her during the final fight by jumping on her face and blinding her, causing her to blast the area around her until it collapses on herself.
- Mammoth manages to overpower the Titans in the first two fights, like a typical bully. During the final fight though, he runs scared when it becomes clear he is no longer the strongest and is ganged up on by all the Titans after the rest of his team is dealt with, until Robin sends him flying and he pins down Jinx and Gizmo under his own weight.
- Lost the TV Remote: Cyborg and Beast Boy come onto the scene scouring the living room for it. Later, Robin finds it on the floor.
- The Unreveal: We never find out Starfire's secret to travelling at the speed of light. It was also never revealed how Robin escaped from the hole he fell into.
- You Have Failed Me: The HIVE Headmistress apologizes to Slade for her three graduates failing to defeat the Titans, and assures him such failures are not tolerated and once the three of them are retrieved from the authorizes they will be "strictly disciplined". However, the three are spared from whatever fate was in store for them when Slade revealed he never intended for them to actually defeat the Titans. He just wanted them to deliver a message to the Titans, mentioning his name to Robin, and since they had accomplished that he considers their mission a success.
