Previously on titans...
- Hello? - I got him, Bruce!
I got the joker dead to rights, man.
Stand down, Jason.
I'm not afraid of him. I'm not afraid of anything anymore.
- Hello? - You're a titan.
And this is?
Justin Cole. Las Vegas?
Disco lights and champagne?
I'm a therapist?
Oh, Justin. Hi.
- I'll go anywhere you want. - Maybe we should be apart.
You think Hank and dawn are over?
Barbara?
Why would Jason have gone out on his own?
Do you know what this is?
It's a drug Jason was manufacturing.
So I'm guessing this is what pushed him over the edge,
what sent him out there to get his fucking skull bashed in.
I ended it.
Do what I couldn't. Be a better Batman.
Bruce!
I thought you called it.
I thought Perez called it.
Why the fuck would I want to see any of you?
Especially tonight.
You hear anything, valeska?
I've heard plenty.
My guy says he cracked the joker's head in two.
One swing and the man's brains spilled out like wedding soup.
It wasn't him.
We all know the bat doesn't do murder.
He does now.
Well, let's do this again,
when one of you dies.
What the fuck?
Open it.
Jimmy.
Like I said, until the next time.
Open the bag.
{gunshofl -
Shit. Who the fuck is this guy?
{gunshofl -
The bag.
Oh, shit.
Fuck me.
That's Danny. That's my sister's kid.
All your number twos are in there.
Who the fuck are you?
I'm the guy you want on your side. I can protect you.
From the bat?
Batman's gone. I retired him.
Check the sky every night.
No more bat-signals. The nightmare is over.
Any problems with cops or other masks, I take care of it from now on.
It'll cost you 40% of what you make.
And trust me, you're about to make a lot more.
Fuck this.
Any more questions?
They said you were undercover before this.
Yeah.
Vice?
Gangs?
Narcotics?
A little bit of everything.
Wow. How long you been on the force?
You ask a lot of questions, tod with one d.
No, I... it's just funny, you know.
You show up a few months ago, nobody knows from where.
People are whispering ia.
I'm not ia.
I was with a special branch of law enforcement before this.
Like secret service?
I was a bird, tod.
A big, red bird with latex talons and a composite beak-like helmet.
- Okay, Mr. Mystery. - Have it your way.
Twentieth and grand. Shots fired.
- I'll take the tunnel. - I'll take twentieth.
Stop running!
- That was fast. - Yeah.
He practically delivered himself to me.
You wanna grab a coffee?
I... I have a lunch.
Oh, yeah.
Boat salesman.
The broker.
- Um, I'll be around if you need me. - Yeah.
We still got it.
Always will.
Late breaking news confirmed by several sources.
The man who terrorized Gotham for a generation,
known only as the joker, is dead.
Brutally murdered last night in arkham asylum.
Prison staffers have speculated the assailant was the Batman.
Police have yet to confirm this. Calls to health...
Of course, Mr. Mayor. Yeah. Night and day.
No special dispensation.
Can I help you?
- I'm dick Grayson. - Yeah, I know.
- You picked a nice time for a reunion. - And you are?
Thanks, vee.
11:20 last night, Bruce's jet took off. Changed ifr in mid-air.
Nobody knows where he touched down. Except maybe you?
I wish I did.
What happened?
I was asleep.
Bruce came into my room and dropped a bloody crowbar.
Said it was over with the joker, that he ended it.
Then he said he was done with Gotham, the bat, all of it.
That's it? No note? Marching orders?
He said, "be a better Batman."
That's some fucked up parentjujitsu.
Trying to reel you back with...
Trying to reel you back home with "be a better me, son."
You're not serious.
I can't leave now, can I?
You know how crazy that is? Trying to step into your father's shoes?
I do, commissioner Gordon.
Right. Be a better Batman, huh?
Bruce wasn't perfect, okay?
He got sloppy, let it get personal with the joker.
And when Gotham takes one of yours?
I won't go around Gotham swinging a fucking crowbar.
I'm sorry.
We'll see.
Any other headlines?
I'm bringing in the titans.
Are you sure about that?
Arriving from San Francisco, the titans were spotted in Gotham city
just one day after the joker was murdered in arkham asylum.
They didn't answer questions,
but sources say the timing of their appearance is not coincidental.
First Robin's murder, then joker...
Thanks for coming on such short notice.
I wish it was under better circumstances.
Nobody calls us under better circumstances.
I appreciate you for coming.
But I should warn you, you're not in San Francisco.
This city breeds a special class of criminal.
People die here.
Not just regular people. People like us.
I don't wanna lose anybody else.
We know what we're up against.
You're family. We'd never let you do this alone.
Can we see the batsuit?
Uh, the Batmobile?
- Guys. - What?
- He made me ask. - I did not.
Dick.
There'll be time for all that. We need to focus on the task at hand.
Word's out in Gotham that Batman's gone.
News like that travels fast. We'll have our hands full.
Get some food and get some rest. It could be along night.
Incoming call from Barbara Gordon.
Looks like it already started.
This is hoskins.
Yeah, go ahead.
Her name is Ann Williams, a 34-year-old marketing consultant.
No record, no religious groups, no terrorist affiliations.
- Married? - She's a widow.
Has a seven-year-old daughter.
- Where is she? - We're looking.
She ask for a lawyer?
She hasn't said a word since we brought her in.
She just brought this note, asking to talk to nightwing.
Looks like it was written on the back of a textbook page.
Play it.
She's terrified.
Red hood.
Joker started out his career wearing one.
You think it might be related?
I hope not.
"The lord is my Shepherd."
"I shall not want."
"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures."
You asked to speak to me?
Can you speak?
Mmm-mmm.
The red hood you were wearing,
is that something to do with the joker?
Why do you wanna talk to me?
Who did that to you?
Am I supposed to call that?
"Seven, three, five, seven, two, zero, two, six, six, zero."
You okay? Hey.
Make it stop.
Hang up the call! Hang up the call.
Make it stop!
We found Ann's daughter wandering around the bus station an hour ago.
Also wearing a red hood.
She says some strange man in a mask snatched her out of bed.
So Ann wasn't working alone.
Or he used the kid to coerce her.
No money, no political manifestos.
Doesn't sound like a joker copycat to me.
So what does he want?
What's any terrorist want?
Create chaos, paranoia, fear, the noisy kind.
Toxicology came back.
She had a subdermal drug delivery system in her arm.
Our guy said it was some sort of flakka derivation,
like nuclear bath salts.
Theyjuiced her with some serious chemical strength.
A bomb and pharmacology.
Points to a science background, maybe military.
That narrows it down a few hundred thousand.
Probably with a mental health issue too. Might help narrow the profile.
I wasn't gonna mention this,
but for cases like these, we've been using a consultant, like a profiler.
We've gotten good results, but you're not gonna like it.
Okay.
You're really not gonna like it.
- Scarecrow. - What?
Told you you wouldn't like it.
You know, Batman put him in arkham years ago for a reason.
Oh, he's still there. He's just helping us out on the side.
He's nuts. You're taking advice from a fucking crazy person?
It was Bruce's idea.
He thought that crane had value. And so far, he's been right.
When it comes to profiling the criminally insane,
I hate to admit it,
but he's the best that we've got.
And after what happened today, I think that we need the best.
I'll call ahead, make an introduction.
"I, Richard d. Grayson, under no circumstances,
not death, nor love, nor loneliness, will ever give comfort to fear."
Welcome to camp cruel and unusual.
This is insane.
Batman's actual books.
"The red book" by Carl jung.
"Original 1959 estate manuscript."
"Meditations of the emperor Marcus aurelius antoninus."
- What are you doing? - What?
Don't put food on his books, man. Were you raised in a barn?
Test tube, actually.
Hey, does Superman have a library?
Mmm. I don't know.
I feel like he's got a whole bunch of space rocks and shit.
Oh, hey, kory, you gotta check this out, it's...
Uh, kory?
Kory, talk to me.
Please tell me that was a grease fire.
The famous starfire finally returns a call.
Sorry, Justin. I've been a rat.
No, that's okay.
Been busy saving San Francisco, now Gotham.
What's going on?
Um, we had a death in the family.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Jesus.
Is there anything I can do?
Actually, there is.
I had a couple of strange episodes. I didn't know who else to call.
I really don't know what to make of them.
Grief can do that.
Yeah?
Crying and laughing and drinking, sleeping with strangers.
I wish it was that kind. It's not.
This is more of, um...
Blacking-out-in-the-middle-of-the-day- and-torching-the-walls kind of episode.
That kind.
You've heard of that?
What you described sounds like a violent parasomnia episode.
That's usually when our subconscious is saying, "yo,
something's not right down here."
So I'm nuts.
Yep. Like the rest of us.
If it happens again, call me. Maybe I can prescribe something.
Thanks.
And if it doesn't happen again, you can call me anyway.
Which cell?
He's on the end. Only one down here.
Doctor crane?
Weed.
Look, if you want my help, and you do, I'm gonna need some high-quality flower.
I'm talking 70-30 sativa.
Lemon lyric is my favorite, but I'm not a name-brand whore.
Just get me in the ballpark. Anything above 25% thc.
We can have our little téte-a-téte.
You're doing the stoner act, huh?
It's not an act. It helps my brain slow down.
Arkham isn't really a venue for depressants.
Gotham pd actually has you on the payroll?
No. But when I'm a good little doggie, they give me my treats.
A woman killed herself today, doctor. Very strange case.
I heard.
She asked for a new guy, nightwing.
Poor Batman. I mean, the dude has one little murdering spree
and all of a sudden, he's yesterday's news, right?
You got rolling papers?
I love you, brother. Love ya.
Somebody installed a subdermal drug pump in her arm.
Yeah. Barb sent over a cheat sheet. It's a vicious little fucker.
Although, ifwe're being honest, a subcutaneous drug pump,
that's too clever by half, but a-plus for originality.
The victim was a mother afraid of losing her child.
So afraid she murdered four strangers.
Wait, wait, wait. When Barb said your name, it...
It rung a little bell in my head.
The, uh, carney kid that Bruce Wayne took in for PR?
You're that dick Grayson?
You know who I am?
They're just stories, biblical brother.
I mean, really, you ditched the family safety net,
you flee swinging Wayne manor,
and then years later, like the motherfucking prodigal son,
home again, home again, jiggetyjig.
I didn't come here to talk about myself.
If you've read the file, maybe you have ideas?
Well, do you have alight?
No. Sorry.
That's okay. I got connections.
Yes. The file.
Now...
Um...
My best guess, and it's just a guess,
is that, uh, he somehow knows who this nightwing character really is,
and he has some sort ofjealousy complex.
- That's it? - That's it.
Maybe he has a background in explosives,
so, military, construction, maybe just an Internet moog.
Okay. It's nice to see that higher learning wasn't wasted on you.
Thanks for your help.
It's the bird's opening.
What?
It's the bird's opening.
It's one of the oldest known openings in chess.
It was made famous in 1855 by Henry Edward bird.
It's a classic king-pawn opening.
The two are connected, relying on each other.
The king moves stealthily in the shadows, while the...
The pawns are sent into the teeth of destruction so that he may advance.
- You got all that from the cheat sheet? - Yeah.
The note, it's written on the back of a page torn from a chess manual.
It's just his opening move.
"F4, d5, knight f3, g6,
e3, bishop g7, bishop e2, knight f6, castles, castles."
- Is it some kind of code? - It's the bird's opening, chess moves.
I'm running the piece and board numbers, looking at all the combinations.
For what?
Telephone number, bank accounts...
Needle in a haystack.
Robin.
The bird's opening, Robin.
That can't be random.
Ann lived at 2289 blue bird way.
Get a list of all the Gotham streets with bird names.
There's five in Gotham.
"Blue bird, condor court, Finch street, falcon way, and eagle crest."
I'll see if the numbers correlate to actual addresses
and the addresses of the next victims.
- I pedaled as fast as I could. - Hank!
- How you doing, kory? Good to see you. - Hi.
About time.
Hey, buddy.
So we suitin' up?
What the fuck? You just show up? No phone call?
Phone call?
You left me a message saying you were going out of town.
Then I see the news.
You weren't gonna tell me you were here?
- I don't have to tell you my every move. - Oh! Guess I'm fuzzy on the rules.
The rules are you do your thing, I do mine.
Okay. Well, this is kinda my thing too.
Look, when Donna died, I let you follow me to DC
because we both had roots there, it made sense.
It still does.
Except I still wanna suit up, answer the call. You don't.
It's not that simple.
Putting on the hawk suit and not being together kinda sucked.
Are you planning on going back to DC?
I don't know.
That doesn't look like an overnight bag.
Well, this is Gotham.
If you're gonna dove, I'm gonna hawk.
Let's go. We have work to do.
Next time, send a text.
Nobody in the back.
Hey, we cleared Finch street.
Any luck on eagle crest?
Nothing. Conner called, he and gar came up empty.
We're too late.
Hold on.
Talk to me.
Dick. It's Barb. We've got a problem.
Bank robbery in progress. Four armed men and hostages.
We don't know how many.
I wasn't gonna call you, but they're all wearing red hoods.
Let's go.
Hey.
They have hostages but they won't talk to us. They've issued no demands.
It's not a bank robbery. Pull back your men.
- Pull back? - It's a setup, like with Ann Williams.
They're being forced into this. I think it's the same person behind it.
So we just pull back, wait for the mayhem to start?
No, I can go in and talk to them. They're not criminals, they're parents.
They think their children are in danger.
Gar and Conner are searching for the kids now.
That's the leverage. We find them, this goes away.
Call your men off and let us handle it.
If you're wrong, this is gonna be a bloodbath.
We got this.
Stand down!
All right. Each of us has a gunman to contain.
Remember, they're not professionals.
They're scared and may be on drugs.
Don't be surprised if they're irrational.
No sudden moves, no loud voices. The calmer, the better.
Please.
Come on, come on, in the bag.
Please don't.
It's time.
Do it.
He has my son.
He has our kids.
Wait.
Stay back!
Easy, everyone just relax.
You don't have to do this.
We know somebody took your children and forced you into this.
We'll find them and bring them back to you safe and sound.
Nobody needs to get hurt.
We found the kids.
They're safe and sound.
The kids are safe, we found them.
Now put your guns down.
Nobody needs to get hurt.
This is over.
No, it's not over.
Not yet.
Conner?
The people in the bank,
they aren't the parents.
Now it's over.
They walked out with $25 million
and drove off with my men two blocks away.
You practically gave them a police escort.
We got played. I'm sorry, but it happens.
Didn't happen with Batman.
"Be a better Batman," I believe were the instructions, dick.
Whoever this is, this is exactly what they want.
- Which is? - Mistrust between us.
They should've called first. That box was already checked.
Those guys at the bank looked like Perez's people.
I find them, I find out who's running this show.
The people who have sworn to defend Gotham will handle it.
The ones in this building.
I can help.
I stood down for you tonight.
Nobody else could've convinced me to do that.
- It wasn't professional. - Right.
Keep it professional.
I'm sorry we failed you tonight.
The city is on edge and it's my job to protect them.
Not yours.
This is a police matter.
Hey, man.
What you eating?
I don't know.
Uh, gar made it, I think. Some kind of meat thing.
That's krypto's.
How'd it go with Barbara?
She said she wants to keep it professional.
Oh, the breakup and work-together thing is not for amateurs.
- There's nothing between us anymore. - Course.
- Serious. - Oh, yeah, sure.
You want me to go out and grab a shovel, help you dig a little deeper?
I disappointed her. Fucked it up again.
Bruce wouldn't have fallen for that bank shit.
Yeah, nobody's perfect.
Not even Bruce.
He sure wasn't the other night.
Yeah, that must have been tough to see.
Before he took off, he asked me to stay.
Said the city's mine.
That's kinda like, uh, asking your adult son to move back home,
sleep in your bed, wear your old slippers.
- It's a little weird. - Yeah.
It was good to see the hawk today.
Yeah, it felt good.
- I got some repairs done. - Stu?
He wanted 40k for re-conditioning.
Found a lady at a dry cleaner, did it for 100 bucks.
It looked good. Though dawn tells me you rocked bike shorts back in DC.
Hey, those are pursuit and attack shorts, motherfucker.
Let me go check on kory, see how she's doing.
Hey.
Whoever this is fucking with us, he's going down.
And we're gonna be the ones to do it.
So chin fucking up, amigo.
Chin up.
Whenever you're ready.
I know what you're doing.
Psyops. Mastered by the Russians.
You do know I'm from another planet, right?
Allegedly.
Do you always get this way when you get competitive?
By this way, I mean insane.
I'm problem solving.
Bird's opening, the answer's right in front of us, hidden in plain sight.
Speaking of Russians,
this guy, uh, Bobby fischer had his fillings removed.
He thought the Russians were using it as a radio transmitter.
Stop. Hsamd.
Uh, hold on. Fischer took out his own fillings?
Uh, not sure if I should talk or not.
He did it because he thought the Russians were trying to beat him.
It was a defensive move.
We're looking at this the wrong way.
The answer isn't figuring out more of bird's opening moves.
It's how we beat it.
Conner, top five defensive moves against bird's opening.
I wouldn't. He's on a roll.
"From's gambit, uh, the modern defense, fianchetto..."
Fianchetto.
- "Hobbs gambit." - Hobbs?
"Unsound but nonetheless interesting and uncommon."
No, not that. Hobbs powder group. They used to make explosives.
Batman and I shut them down for street dealing.
There's a 911 call, two minutes ago, coming from the hobbs building.
911 operator. What's your emergency?
A man. Lsaw him take this woman into a building.
She was screaming, he had a gun.
- Where are you? - Outside the hobbs building.
He took her inside, he had a red hood over his head.
Bogus call. He's leading them into a trap.
Call Barbara.
I don't think she's taking my calls.
We have to stop those cops.
Let's get the spike strips.
Cops should've been here by now.
What the...
Hey, there.
What the fuck?
All clear here.
Maybe you can help me.
I've always puzzled over something.
A chicken or egg kinda question.
Nature or nurture?
Are you born an asshole?
Or you just wake up one day and you're...
The world's biggest douche bird.
I guess we'll never know.
All clear.
What took you so long?
I got here as soon as I could.
Thought I'd have to hire a skywriter.
Nice work on the chess clue though.
It wasn't me. I had my team working on it.
Looks like you had a team too.
They were expendable, just like the titans.
Who are you?
The one they'll run to when you let them down.
Gotham,
it's mine now.
We'll see about that.
Oh, come on, man.
You know the tune.
Outgunned, outmanned.
Just throw in the towel and I promise I'll be gentle.
Bruce always told me you were better than me with the toys.
Jason?
In living color.
I got a new name now though.
You'll be hearing it a lot around here.
Red hood.
Whoo! Whoo!
Oh, all right
Celebrate
I've got a back pocket full of riffs
if you stick around I'll let you see 'em all
'cause some fires can't be unlit
celebrate
love is a fickle beast
with fiscal immunities
should I get out before I drown?
Do you kiss your mother with that ugly mouth?
Ah, celebrate
we are one and the same
I think we sing the very same song
we are one and the same
I think we sing the very same song
we're just bones and teeth
Whoo!
Oh, honey you just love me for my riffs
come on!
Yeah