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The first two seasons of Titans didn’t shy away from exploring the Batman mythos through Brenton Thwaites’ Dick Grayson, and we’ll be getting even more of that in Season 3. The eponymous superhero group will be spending a lot of time in Gotham City, and Dick will cross paths with Barbara Gordon, played by Savannah Welch. Just like their comic book counterparts, these two have history together as Robin and Batgirl in the Titansverse, but things are different now, which means their dynamic will be different too.
During my interview with Savannah Welch about her experience working on Titans Season 3, I inquired about what Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon’s relationship is like at this point in their lives. After all, Dick is now fighting crime as Nightwing, and after being paralyzed by The Joker and being put in a wheelchair, Barbara has retired from the vigilnate life and is now the new commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department. Starting off, Welch delved into what Dick and Barbara meant to each other in their younger years, saying:
These two, it’s kind of the classic story of the unrequited love, and that they have shared so much history and life experience together. That time being Batgirl and Robin together and having some romance, and when they were younger, they were sort of partners and good friends. The two of them could really relate to each other as two kids who unique upbringings in Gotham, their father figures working together. So I think that they really gravitated towards each other and there’s a lot of love there, and there’s this sort of romance that never could really come to fruition. The timing was always sort of off, and Dick had left Gotham. And Barbara was shot by The Joker and was paralyzed from the waist down and was chair-bound, and in those conversations, we decided that when we first see Barbara in this season, it’s not the very first time Dick has seen her in a wheelchair. There was conversation that maybe he had seen her one time previously when he came back to Gotham for Alfred’s funeral. So he has seen her since then, which is obviously a pretty significant shift in her life, a change and something that he also had to process. But this was the first time that he’s seen her in the role as commissioner.
So although Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon shared romantic feelings for one another while they suited up alongside Batman as youths, they never went the distance with one another. This was only complicated in adulthood by Dick leaving Gotham City to forge his own path and Barbara being crippled by The Joker, just like what happened in the classic graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke. However, Titans fans won’t witness Dick seeing Barbara in a wheelchair for the first time, though whether or not the funeral of Bruce Wayne’s butler/surrogate father Alfred Pennyworth is actually brought up in the show remains to be seen.
Which brings us to Titans Season 3, where Dick Grayson is still leading the eponymous superhero team and Barbara Gordon has established a platform as GCPD commissioner that superheroes disempower people from “solving their own problems,” as showrunner Greg Walker put it. Nevertheless, these two will work together to improve their home city, while also working through their personal problems. In Savannah Welch’s words:
So they’re kind of coming back together a bit more grown-up. There is a strain to their relationship. There’s obviously been some conflict and some hurt that was not repaired. They have some of that to kind of work through, and I think both of them are hesitant to connect again and to work together again, but they realize it’s just unquestionable how well they work together. And they really need each other to work towards this shared goal.
Along with Barbara Gordon, Titans Season 3 will also introduce Vincent Kartheiser’s Dr. Jonathan Crane, a.k.a. Scarecrow, who serves as a police consultant and profiler from behind bars at Arkham Asylum, as well as Tim Drake, the third Robin from the comics who will be played in the series by Jay Lycurgo. Furthermore, big things are in store for Curran Walters’ Jason Todd, who will be seemingly killed by The Joker, only to reemerge as the gun-toting Red Hood. But Titans Season 3 won’t be entirely Gotham City/Bat-Family-centric, as we’ll also see Starfire’s sister, Damaris Lewis’ Blackfire, becoming one of the main antagonists.
The first three episodes of Titans Season 3 premiere on HBO Max (which you can subscribe to with this link) tomorrow, August 12, followed by a new episode every following Thursday. Look through our 2021 fall TV premiere schedule to learn what shows will debut new episodes later this year.
