Summary
Black magic and devilish game development send Titans down a weird path in “Game Over”.
This article contains major spoilers for Titans Season 4 Episode 10, “Game Over”.
In last week’s Gar-centric Episode 9, the big cliffhanger was that a temporally displaced Beast Boy was spat out of The Red into an overgrown manor, to be greeted by Cyborg, of the Doom Patrol.
As of “Game Over”, he’s still there, as are Negative Man and Robotman, though nobody has any idea why or how to get out. It’s an interesting cold open given that in our Episode 10 predictions, we assumed that we wouldn’t check in with Gar immediately, and then this week’s episode immediately pivots away and carries back on from the end of Episode 8.
Titans Season 4 Episode 10 Recap
Does Sebastian kill Mother Mayhem?
At the end of that episode, you’ll recall, heel-turn Conner had just bought Sebastian a drink. Here he pitches him the idea of coming to work at LexCorp, which he is now CEO of, so that he can make Sebastian’s dreams of designing video games a reality. He reminds Sebastian that Mother Mayhem is just using him to facilitate the return of Trigon and has no real interest in what he wants.
On the one hand, this is surely good for the Titans. On the other, bald business suit Conner running LexCorp doesn’t exactly scream altruism.
Nevertheless, Sebastian takes it all on board, argues with Mother Mayhem about her plan, and then gets so angry that he screams loud enough to set her on fire. She burns presumably to death on the ground. But it can’t be that easy, can it?
The next we see of Sebastian, he’s on TV, present at a press conference Conner is holding to announce the new LexCorp, where “capitalism and conscience don’t have to be enemies in a zero-sum game”. Straight from the villain handbook.
The Titans see this on TV and decide to confront him, but they want to leave Rachel out since her genetic connection to Sebastian puts her at risk of suffering whatever fate he might. Rachel’s adamant about helping, since her lineage is at the very core of everything that’s happening, but Dick won’t hear of it.
When Kory walks out of the room to prep the excursion, she walks right into… the house where Gar and the Doom Patrol are.
From here the episode splinters off into three distinct subplots.
Why does Conner want Sebastian to create his game?
First, we have Conner and Sebastian. The former is swanning around LexCorp whispering things, but his primary focus is getting Sebastian to plug the code for his game, Abraxus, into a bank of computers and monitors that will spread it around the globe.
Abraxus is an instant mega-hit, beloved of everyone from influencers to people in coffee shops to Bernard. Sebastian is thrilled. But Conner, meanwhile, is texting back and forth with Mercy Graves deliberating a way to destroy Sebastian and the horn.
But while the assumption throughout “Game Over” is that Conner is manipulating Sebastian, it’s really the other way around. Sebastian snuck something into the game’s code that drains the life force – or potentially soul, it’s a little unclear – from the players directly into him. He becomes connected to everything, and even more powerful, and you can see on Conner’s face when Sebastian explains this that he realizes he has made a terrible mistake.
How does Rachel try to sever her connection to Sebastian?
Elsewhere, Dick, who seems to have a plot-convenient connection for every occasion, hooks Rachel up with some kind of mystic lady in order to conduct a black magic ritual that will give physical form to the darkness inside her, allowing that darkness to be vanquished and thus her connection to Sebastian extinguished.
Dick, as her protector, is tasked with stabbing the apparition to death with a knife made of love – seriously, it’s just a hilt at first – before the ghoul sucks Rachel’s life force from her completely, resulting in her death.
No pressure, then!
As the ritual gets underway, Rachel vomits up some black goop that looks like the Venom symbiote, which promptly forms a pasty-looking humanoid who whoops Dick and his knife hilt all over the place before making himself scarce.
Rachel explains that the figure is connected to her, feeding on her, and that Dick should pursue him post-haste since she doesn’t have much time.
Naturally, Dick must wait until the final possible moment, when the apparition has almost killed Rachel, to finally manifest the knife blade and kill it.
How do Gar and Kory escape the Doom Patrol house?
While playing tennis with Negative Man and Cyborg, Kory has a sudden realization. She has been obsessing over not killing Sebastian when she had the chance, trying to channel her hate for him into something productive, but she really should have been focusing on what she loves instead. Killing him isn’t the point – the point is preventing him from destroying everything she holds dear.
This leads everyone into a room with very high ceilings and rapidly closing walls, which some teamwork manages to get them out of right before they’re sandwiched. Gar and Kory are transported back to S.T.A.R. Labs, only to be told by Tim what Sebastian and Conner – though really just Sebastian – are up to.
Tim clarifies that the game is carrying out a ritual, forming the symbol from the Temple of Azarath and exposing everyone who plays to it.
Titans Season 4 Episode 10 Ending Explained
How is the Abraxus game destroyed?
Tim hits on the idea of brute-forcing his way into the LexCorp servers and destroying the game from inside, but Sebastian uses his influence to beef up the security and deny him access.
Conner, however, uses his super speed to give Tim a back door without Sebastian realizing. The hack is successful. Sebastian’s game is destroyed and, thanks to Dick, his connection to Rachel is severed.
But Conner still looks shifty. Dick knows someone allowed the hack and presumes the new CEO of LexCorp is on their side, but he shouldn’t be so sure. Mercy sends Conner a message reading, “I’ve found a way to destroy them, ‘Mr. Luthor’”.
Oh, and in the final scene, we see a very charred Mother Mayhem break free of a body bag in the morgue, whispering to Sebastian, who hears her all the way in LexCorp, where he’s sitting with Trigon’s horn and, suddenly, even more of a point to prove.
You can stream Titans Season 4 Episode 10, “Game Over” exclusively on HBO Max.
