The Return of Slade (Teen Titans Go!)
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| "The Return of Slade (Teen Titans Go!)" | ||||||||||||||
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 This is a middle finger not only to Teen Titans Go! haters, but cartoon fans alike.
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The Return of Slade is the 50th episode of the 2nd season of Teen Titans Go!.
Synopsis
For defeating Slade/Deathstroke, Beast Boy and Cyborg insist on hiring a clown for a Titans party, even though Raven tells them that clowns are for little kids. When the clown fails to live up to their memories, Cyborg and Beast Boy decide to give the clown some cool updates.
Why Slade Didn't Return
- Hater Episode: This episode loudly and openly insults the haters and tells them they should shut up and stop complaining because Teen Titans Go! is "for kids". That is a petty excuse because there are many good cartoons that are marketed for kids but adults enjoy them too, examples of this are Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Loud House, The Amazing World of Gumball, Thomas and Friends, Gravity Falls and Bluey, as well as many of the 90s-2000s cartoons, Golden Age-era theatrical cartoons such as Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, Tex Avery MGM cartoons, amongst others. There are also cartoons aimed at adults such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, Rick and Morty, BoJack Horseman, Final Space, The fifth season of Samurai Jack and Bob’s Burgers, amongst others, nor preschool shows that teaches audiences in the unique way for educational.
- Misleading Title: Like many Teen Titans Go! episodes, this episode is inappropriately titled because Slade was only mentioned in the episode and never made an appearance, aside from his mask, and the rest is about a clown. The episode's plot would be fitting enough if the title was "Bad News Clowns".
- While this episode tries to be about growing up, it feels more like you can't enjoy stuff as an adult that you enjoyed as a kid. Hell the moral itself is basically pulling another middle finger at the original fans of the shows.
- According to the Teen Titans Go! Wiki, there were some TTG fans who wanted to see the Titans fight Slade. To say that they were unhappy would be an understatement. Even multiple toxic anonymous users were pestering about this on the comments section of the first old wiki on FANDOM (which is now the Emer Prevost Wiki) that they all hated this episode and how they all wanted to start riots at the crew of TTG for this episode.
- The episode is just the writers giving us a big middle finger. The beginning of the episode shows Robin calling the Titans to fight Slade but guess what? We don’t see the fight. Instead, the writers rub the unseen fight directly on-screen. And trust us, we didn't even get to see the moment where Robin and Starfire kissed.
- Beast Boy and Cyborg hire a clown for their party and the clown is meant for a metaphor children’s entertainment.
- Raven is a massive hypocrite in this episode, as she kept yelling out that clowns are for kids even though she watches Pretty Pretty Pegasus (a parody of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) which is a kids' show.
- Even Cyborg brings this up.
- Cyborg and Beast Boy’s mutated clown proves that the writers think adult animation is edgy, which is not always true.
- Much like the episode "Let's Get Serious," this was intentionally made to lash back at the negative reviews the show had, proving that the writers don't take kindly to even the slightest form of criticism.
- Nonsensical Ending: Somehow, Starfire gets over her coulrophobia by defeating the mutated clown unconscious and saying "I will never trust the clowns."
- However, several episodes after this episode reveal Starfire still has her coulrophobia meaning the ending is useless anyways.
- Plot hole: How did the evil clown get a gun that “taints” children’s media?
- Bad moral: Cartoons are for kids and we should leave it alone!
- Overall, this episode is basically a horrid combination of the misleading title/false advertising tactics used in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Shuffleboarding" and all the hater episodes of Teen Titans Go! (all which none of them are even good to begin with), but only with all their worst qualities exaggerated to extremes.
Redeeming Qualities
- It was thankfully made up for when we finally got to see Slade in the Teen Titans Go! feature film Teen Titans Go! To the Movies.
- There are a couple of funny moments here and there.
- Robin and Starfire are the only tolerable characters in this episode.
- The mutated clown somehow makes a good antagonist, his ability to turn kiddie stuff evil is also cool.
- Starfire’s coulrophobia (fear of clowns) is relatable as it’s the most common fear in the world.
- If the hater mocking was removed and the episode was titled to more accurately portray the plot, the idea of Beast Boy and Cyborg turning a kiddie clown into a more edgy evil clown is interesting, though terribly executed.
Reception
The Return of Slade was universally panned by critics, fans of the 2003 series, and even fans of Teen Titans Go! alike and is considered to be the absolute worst episode in the show's history. Many people believe that the writers used false advertising to bring back fans of the original series, in this case, Slade's appearance. Nevertheless, this episode caused the series to lose a surprisingly huge amount of fans in older age groups, Some fans decided to stop watching the series after this one episode and many had switched to the haters’ side as they deemed the message it conveyed as offensive and disrespectful.
It has a 2.5 out of 10 rating on IMDb and a 1.7 out of 10 rating on TV.com, making it the lowest-rated TTG episode on both sites.
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