Before he can reunite with the Titans, Dick reluctantly teams with Jason Todd, the new Robin, to catch a serial killer targeting people from Dick’s past.
Tropes
- Abnormal Ammo: The Maroni crime family use acid-coated bullets.
- Actor Allusion: Gar says that he'd like to be Robin, presumably referencing Ryan Potter's campaign to play Tim Drake.
- Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: Bruce Wayne has an entire Frank Lloyd-designed skyscraper put aside as a safehouse.
- Artistic License – Medicine: Dick just cuts open his own arm to extract Bruce's tracking device. Using tools he found in a bathroom. He doesn't sterilize said tools beforehand. He doesn't even use a tourniquet. He even takes a phone call while his arm is bleeding out. He doesn't even stitch the incision shut afterward. He just tapes a bandage over it and he's fine.
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Invoked; when Maroni hitmen turn up to kill the man who killed his father, Dick has no problem letting him die by refusing to help him.
- Bear Hug: Clay gives one to Dick upon recognizing him.
- The Bait: Jason thinks this is why Robin wears bright colors, to draw attention to him so Batman can sneak up and take the criminals down.
- Bar Brawl: Uncle Ray used to be the fun drunk until he'd get kicked out for becoming violent. And Jason seems to take after him, as he starts one just because.
- Brick Joke: Kory's quip about how Dick was going to think she killed the Nuclear Family gets followed through in this episode, where we see her tell him what happened.
- Call-Forward: Jason calls Tony Zucco's death a win, because it means there's one less scumbag in the world, foreshadowing his future attitude as Red Hood.
- Cycle of Revenge: Dick leaving Tony Zucco to be murdered by Maroni caused his whole family to be targeted, with only his son barely surviving an acid attack. The son in turn visits the same punishment on Dick’s remaining family from the circus.
- Dramatic Irony: The episode is rife with this, especially notable when Dick, trying to dissuade Jason from continuing as Robin, tells him that he's going to wake up one day not knowing who he is. The audience knows that this will happen not figuratively, but completely literally.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Clay questions if Bruce knows that Dick worked with Batman, not thinking that Bruce could be Batman. This makes sense given Bruce's good public image and his taking Dick in, which would prevent anyone from thinking that he would act as the Batman much less take on his adopted child as a sidekick for vigilantism.
- Facial Horror: Tony Zucco's son had half of his face melted after his father turned the Maronis in to the police. He is even called the Melted Man.
- Failed a Spot Check: Dick tries to stop the others from finding out that Jason is the new Robin, stopping Rachel before she shakes hands with him and discouraging everyone from introducing themselves, when Gar points out the two identical suitcases on the table, used to hold their superhero costumes.
- Family of Choice: Young Dick believes the circus to be his family. They very gently make it clear that they're not and he should go with the rich billionaire who wants to adopt him. This doesn't stop Nick Zucco's son from killing them fifteen years later in revenge for his own family.
- It's Personal: Dick literally tells Kory the reason she cannot accompany him is because his conflict with the new villain is personal.
- Jumped at the Call: Jason loves being the new Robin, and refuses to listen to Dick's warnings.
- Little "No": Dick in response to his parents' killer begging for help.
- Malevolent Masked Men: He's a villain, and wears a facial disfigurement mask.
- Make an Example of Them: Even though Tony Zucco was already dead, the mob went after his family and burned them with acid to deter others from becoming The Stool Pigeon. As Tony was no longer alive to give testimony, the feds never bothered to put them in protective custody.
- Mythology Gag:
- Jason reveals that he met Batman when trying to boost the Batmobile's hubcaps, which is how they met in the comics.
- Jason mentions that the Maroni family are fond of using hydrofluoric acid, noting it was used in an attack on Harvey Dent and to burn the trapeze ropes that got Dick's parents killed. Both of these are in line with the comics.
- When Dick speaks of Machiavelli, Jason laughs and calls him 'a real savage'. In various DC sources, the immortal Vandal Savage has laid claim to having been Machiavelli.
- Not So Above It All: Dick can't help feeling miffed about how quickly Bruce replaced him with a new sidekick.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Everyone treats Kory's violent tendencies as this.
- Parental Abandonment: All that Jason says about his parents is that his mom was upstate while his father was downstate. Then he is raised by his uncle Ray, to the age of 13, when his uncle dies.
- Revenge by Proxy: Tonny Zucco killed Dick's parents when he was young, then an adult Dick lets Zucco be murdered by the Maronis, then they also kill his wife, sister, soon-to-be daughter-in-law; in return Zucco's own son, Nick, after his face is melted in the same act of revenge, starts murdering people from the circus Dick was close to.
- Self-Surgery: Dick surgically extracts a tracking device from his own arm.
- Shout-Out:
- Jason's false name is Robert Plissken, a shout-out to Snake Plissken, the badass protagonist of Escape from New York.
- After seeing the painting of Niccolò Machiavelli, Dick quotes from The Prince.
- Sketchy Successor: Dick realises that Bruce might have made a wrong choice with Jason, who has his own issues that don't fit with how Batman does things.
- Shut Up, Kirk!: Dick tells off Jason for brutally beating on policemen. Jason shoots back that he doesn't care—he's getting revenge for being beaten up by Gotham police as a street kid, and now he's wearing Robin's mask he can do whatever he wants as long as Batman isn't standing over him. He then points out Dick's hypocrisy in refusing to be Robin, yet still carrying around the Robin suitcase.
- Team Mom: Kory officially enters her role as "mommy" in this episode when she orders Rachel and Gar to be quiet and sit like a stern mom.
- This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Dick tries to fob off Jason twice to no avail.
- Tracking Chip: Dick finds out that Bruce put one in his arm.
- You Killed My Father: Why Dick goes after Tony Zucco. Also why Nick Zucco kills Dick's circus friends.
