Jason Todd is the Red Hood, the mysterious new criminal that's been tearing the streets apart. Somehow or another, he's still alive. But finding out how he came back is only the beginning of the Titans' problems, as Hank winds up with a bomb in his chest—and they only have a couple of hours to get it out.
Tropes featured in this episode:
- Accidental Murder: Thanks to Dawn falling into Jason's Batman Gambit, she ends up killing Hank by detonating the bomb planted in his chest.
- Ambiguous Situation: Discussed In-Universe, where the Titans speculate whether or not Jason faked his death to fool Bruce, or if someone brought him back on their own.
- As You Know: Gar says they have to get the failure rate down to zero. Conner, who is working at superspeed to do just that, thanks him for pointing that out.
- Batman Gambit: Jason forces the Titans to make a Sadistic Choice by planting a bomb in Hank's chest and refusing to disarm it unless they give him $50 million in gold bars. Dick refuses to play along with it, knowing that's exactly what he wants (he was trained by the Trope Namer after all), but Dawn does by the end of it. He then gives her another sadistic choice by forcing her to kill him to save Hank's life. Dick tries to stop her, but Dawn goes through with it anyway; it then turns out the gun was the detonator, and Jason gets off Scott-free after playing Dawn for chumps.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Hank sarcastically pegs Jason as this and wants to know if he's stroking a Right-Hand Cat.
- Downer Ending: Thanks to Dawn's impulsiveness, Hank dies, the bank of Gotham gets robbed (which Barbara will certainly be hearing about and make her crusade against the Titans that more intense), and poor Conner was too late to save his friend.
- Face Death with Dignity: ZigZagged. Though Hank does make efforts to try and bring closure with his friends as his time goes down, he outright admits he's not ready to go just yet. Needless to say, Dawn winds up accidentally taking his own life.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: While some (but not all) of the Titans do own up to their own actions driving Jason over the edge, they don't excuse what he's doing in the slightest.
- The Ghost: Ra's Al Ghul is mentioned as a possible suspect in Jason's resurrection, but he doesn't appear in the episode.
- Good Is Not Nice: It's not said why Bruce Wayne would have his company design the bomb in the first place, given that he has (or had) a Thou Shalt Not Kill rule.
- Hair-Trigger Explosive: The bomb Jason plants in Hank's chest has special prongs embedded deep in him; any attempt to remove it, and even the slightest jostle can set it off.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Jason effectively forces the Titans into a Sadistic Choice to force them to become criminals and destroy the public's trust in them. Dick doesn't fall for it, but Dawn, desperate to save Hank, does.
- Hidden Depths: If Conner can read something, he can memorize every detail without blinking. It helps that he can use his super speed to gather every bit of information he can, and then actually apply what he learned just as quickly. Then again, half of his DNA did come from Lex Luthor, so it's likely he inherited his brilliant mind (and thankfully not his morals).
- Hope Spot: Conner is finally able to get a device to counter the bomb and turn it off, but the moment he flies out to save Hank is the moment Dawn unknowingly detonates the bomb. He flies right into the room as it goes off.
- Idiot Ball:
- Hank grasps this firmly when he goes off to check in on Jason after he gets a call. Not once does he think to tell the others, nor does he get the least bit suspicious when he's forced to do increasingly crazy things. All this does is get a bomb implanted in his chest, leading Hank to Lampshade this when he's waiting for the inevitable.
- Dawn grabs this hard when, rather than wait for Conner to save Hank's life, she gives Red Hood the gold he wants and tries to kill him—except the "gun" he gave her is really the detonator for said bomb and he blows up anyway, even when Dick outright tells her that Conner can save him in time.
- Dick outright averts this trope by refusing to fall for Jason's tricks, knowing full well it's exactly what he wants.
- Internal Deconstruction: Of Dawn's characterization so far. In the last two seasons, Dawn had a very staunch Holier Than Thou attitude where she would tell either Dick or Hank to act a certain way, then chew them out when they did that and caused more problems, yet she was never called out for her role in it. This time, Dawn tries taking matters into her own hands against Dick's better judgement, and it winds up getting Hank killed in the process.
- Kick the Dog:
- When Dick goes to investigate the man who stole Jason's body from the morgue, only for him to be tossed Bound and Gagged from the rooftop onto his car.
- Jason tricks Dawn into pressing the trigger that causes the bomb in Hanks chest to explode, thus making her kill the man she loves.
- Killed Off for Real: Hank Hall winds up being blown up with a bomb planted in his chest, forced to sit back and wait for the heartbeat counter to go down to zero.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Hank thinks this is happening to him when he's waiting for the bomb to go off, convinced his mistakes in life have landed him here.
- Mr. Fanservice: Played for Laughs, but Jason forces Hank to strip to "prove" he's not wired, then makes him swim naked across a filthy pool in an abandoned gym. Hank is not happy about it one bit.
- Mythology Gag: Dawn suggests that Ra's Al Ghul is the one who brought Jason back, but Dick rules him out as being in another country. Ra's was the one who brought Jason back in Batman: Under the Red Hood, out of guilt for having played a role in his death. His daughter Talia was the one who brought him back in the comics.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The normally smack-talking, Sir Swears-a-Lot Hank Hall is actually terrified that he's likely going to die, to the point he's much more subdued and philosophical as the heartbeats tick down.
- Pre-Climax Climax: Subverted. With Hank about to blow up, he and Dawn almost have sex before she backs off when he tries to say goodbye.
- Rage Against the Mentor: Scarecrow suggests that Jason's actions are a way of rebelling against his father, which leads Dick to realize that the bomb in question was manufactured by WayneTech.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Barbara, in spite of being pissed at Dick and the Titans, is willing to pull up the security footage of the morgue the day Jason was interred there to see if anyone took his body, if only to get the Titans out of Gotham more quickly. Well, that and Starfire not so subtly threatening her.
- Sadistic Choice:
- Jason forces on on the Titans—either rob the Gotham Bank of $50 million in gold bars and save Hank's life, or ignore his request and the bomb in Hank's chest goes off. Dick refuses to play Jason's game and decides to Take a Third Option. Dawn gets impatient and goes along with it by robbing the bank.
- Dawn ends up on this again when Jason appears and forces her to save Hank's life by shooting him. Subverted when it turns out that he wanted her to pull the trigger, as it's the detonator to the bomb. Hank bites it almost immediately after it's pulled.
- Scenery Censor: Subverted for Hank's butt cheeks (which get a good shot or two in), but Played Straight for his privates, which are hidden behind rotting diving boards.
- Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: Jason forces Dawn to either kill him with a gun he provided, or Hank blows up. Subverted when it's revealed the gun he gave her was the detonator for the bomb planted in his chest, and was really tricking her into killing her lover.
- Super-Speed Reading: Conner flies through multiple books and data files and has them memorized in less than ten seconds.
- Time Bomb: The bomb Jason plants in Hank's chest is one. Unusually for this trope, it doesn't go down by the minute, but rather by the amount of heartbeats he gives off. The Titans attempt to slow it down to buy themselves more time.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Downplayed, as the Titans remark that Jason has always been a jerkass since they've known him, but his death and (apparent) resurrection have caused him to start behaving like a criminal.
- A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Rather than wait for Conner to finish saving Hank's life, Dawn not only robs the bank so she can give Jason the gold bars he requested, but she pulls the trigger on the gun to kill him even after Dick tells her that Conner finally finished making the necessary deactivator for the bomb. All this does is get Hank blown to bits.
- Undying Loyalty: Krypto refuses to leave Hank's side, even when the bomb goes off and finally kills him. Granted, Krypto is Nigh-Invulnerable, so he only gets his fur charred, but he lets off a sad whine as he walks away from the explosion site.
- Wretched Hive: Hanks tries listening to the news, but turns it off in disgust when all the channels mention one crisis after another in Gotham, including an evacuation order for part of the city.
