Titans Showrunner Says Final Season Announcement 'Didn't Disrupt Anything,' Shares Hope For Seeing These Characters In The New DC Universe
When the first half of Titans Season 4 finished airing last December, there was still the possibility that the show could score a fifth season. Then a month later, it was announced that both it and Doom Patrol were ending, so now there are just six episodes left in Titans to look forward to. However, showrunner Greg Walker with CinemaBlend shared that this final season announcement “didn’t disrupt anything” when it came to plotting Season 4, and he also shared his hope for seeing these iterations of the characters in the new DC Universe.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Walker ahead of Season 4’s midseason premiere, which will consist of "Caul's Folly" and "Dick & Carol & Ted & Kory.” Before we started talking about these episodes that HBO Max subscribers will be able to stream starting tomorrow, I asked the showrunner when he learned that this would be the show’s final season, and if that resulted in needing to make any major changes to how Season 4 condoled. He answered:
From the very beginning, we were thinking we wanted to write it as if it was [the last season], so the news and how it came and when it came wasn’t as important as what our plan was. So it didn’t disrupt anything. I mean, it disrupted the Season 5 [laughs], that’s for sure, but we really knew we had a chance here to do something special with the whole team and have these transformative arcs that were lying in waiting for some people, especially for Gar, for sure, and for going to a new place with Superboy. And then, of course, going with Dick and Kory in a place that the fans were clamoring for and that we had always had a plan for. We figured, ‘We should do it now.’ We’d set it up in Season 3 with a lot of omens and prophecies and visual Easter eggs to play where we were going, but we were able to pay it off this season.
So even if Titans Season 5 has been in the cards, Greg Walker and his team were nonetheless approaching Season 4 as if this were the final hurrah. No doubt they would have been able to amen necessary alterations had the show been allowed to go on, but with the way things turned out, at least fans can count on the various plot threads currently in play being effectively wrapped up, as opposed to Season 4 ending on a cliffhanger or with a tease for a story we’ll never get.
The announcement of Titans and Doom Patrol being cancelled came a few days before DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran unveiled the slate for the DC Universe’s “Chapter One,” which so far consists of five movies and five TV shows all taking place within the same continuity. However, there are also a handful of out-of-continuity DC projects either still going or coming up that fall under the “Elseworlds” banner, so between that and The Flash movie delving into the multiverse later this year, there’s always the chance we could Titans’ leading characters again down the line. So when I inquired with Greg Walker about if he’d be up for seeing this happen, he enthusiastically said:
Heck yeah! I love these characters! I love the actors, I love the characters, I’m really attached to them. We were certainly armed for a Season 5 if that ever had to happen. If it’s not me, if it’s someone else, go with God. I’d love to see them live again. They’re super fun, and what brilliant actors, [we were] blessed with what Marv [Wolfman] and George [Pérez] gave us, and were able to run with it. I’m just in a position of gratitude. If they want to do it, great, thumbs up!
There was a lot to absorb in the first half of Titans Season 4, from Titus Welliver’s short-lived outing as Lex Luthor to meeting Lisa Ambalavanar’s version of Jinx. When we left off with our protagonists in “Brother Blood,” Joseph Morgan’s Sebastian Sanger had completed the ritual to become the episode’s namesake, and Jinx was sadly killed by Mother Mayhem. However, all the main heroes mysteriously disappeared during the battle, though in Beast Boy’s case, he asked to be taken to The Red. Among the things to look forward to in this second half are Jay Lycurgo’s Time Drake becoming the third Robin and the show somehow crossing over with Stargirl, which ended last December.
The final Titans episodes will drop Thursdays on HBO Max, but once it’s over, there are still plenty of upcoming DC TV shows coming up that will keep superhero media lovers entertained. Our 2023 TV schedule is also available to peruse if you’re curious about what other programming is currently airing.