At Themyscira, Rachel struggles to integrate to the Amazonian life as she participates in the Amazonians' attempt to resurrect Donna. Meanwhile, in the Next Place, Tim is unable to deal with the fact that he was killed by Scarecrow and attempts to return back to the living world, joined in tow by Donna and Hank.
Tropes featured in this episode:
- Afterlife Express: All dead souls are revealed to wake up in this. They are made to wait until the conductor tells them to get off, presumably to the true afterlife.
- Back from the Dead: Donna and Tim literally fight for their lives and eventually manage to return to the living world.
- Batter Up!: Hank isn't happy about the weapons he keeps imagining up, until he gets to a baseball bat.
- Bittersweet Ending: Tim and Donna return to life but are forced to leave Hank behind due to the fact that he has no body to return to.
- Bungled Suicide: Bruce burns a Wayne mansion with him still inside, but Donna is able to rescue him before he is engulfed in flames.
- The Bus Came Back: Rachel, Hank and Donna return in this episode, with the former in Themiscyra, and the latter two trying to help Tim return to life. In the final moments, Don Hall, Hank's long dead brother, appears as well.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Donna says she wants to give up and move onto to whatever comes next, but Hank isn't buying it, noting how she acted to protect Tim whom she's never even met before.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Souls in the Next Place can materialize anything as long as they have enough will and focus. Hank materializes a pair of guns in a moment of distress, but has mixed results during the battle on the bridge. Likewise Donna until she wills her lasso to appear.
- Dragged Off to Hell: Souls caught by the Ghouls are sent to Hades, possibly the Titans equivalent of Hell. Malcolm, the barman of the Next Place, experiences this fate.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The Next Place is depicted this way.
- Driven to Suicide: Bruce attempts to kill himself by setting the mansion he is in on fire. He is saved by Donna after she returns from the dead.
- Dying Dream: After crossing the bridge, Tim wakes up on the operating table in Gotham 93 seconds after the doctors have commenced resuscitation.
- I Choose to Stay: Hank chooses to stay behind to Hold the Line against the Ghouls. He then meets his long dead brother, the original Dove, and they team up to help other souls from being taken by the Ghouls.
- It's All About Me: Donna says that Dawn must be devastated about Hank's death. Hank responds indignantly, "I should hope so!"
- Locked Out of the Loop: Donna is naturally jarred to hear what's happened with Jason.
- Lower-Deck Episode: The episode deviates from the Scrarecrow/Red Hood arc. None of the active Titans appear, and it instead focuses on Rachel (who makes her first appearance this season, having been on Themyscira for months) and Tim, Hank, and Donna (who are dead).
- Ma'am Shock: Donna is startled when Tim calls her "ma'am" and doesn't like it as well when he switches to "Miss Troy". In fairness she's not Wonder Girl anymore.
- Mistaken for Afterlife: Upon seeing Donna after she saves him from his suicide attempt, Bruce understandably thinks that he has entered afterlife, since she was dead when he last saw her.
- Necromancer: The Amazonians have a ritual supposedly capable of bringing people back from the dead, but none of their attempts have been successful, and it's implied to be more of a symbolic procession than truly meaningful. Rachel tries to figure out a way to resurrect Donna with her demonic powers, but it too is futile.
- Offscreen Afterlife: The true afterlife, called "the Destination", is unseen. Even the conductor does not seem to know it, either.
- Only Mostly Dead: As long as dead souls have not arrived at their destination, they can remain at the Next Place and maybe even claw their way back to life. Tim, Donna, and Hank all try to return, but Hank ultimately chooses to stay back.
- Our Ghouls Are Different: The Ghouls are agents of Hades, and souls caught by them will be sent to Hades.
- Psychopomp: The train transporting dead souls in the Next Place is guarded by the conductor, who tells them when to board off the train, and catches unruly souls unwilling to move on.
- Purgatory and Limbo: Everyone who die will be sent to the Next Place, a kind of purgatory depicted as a dreary taiga. They are supposed to board a train until the conductor calls them to leave for "the Destination", but people can and do jump off the train before they reach their destination. This means, however, that they will spend the rest of their (after)life surviving against the Ghouls, unless they decide to return back to the train or they find a way back to life.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Donna can't help sniggering when Hank says he's getting in touch with his spiritual side.
- Rule of Symbolism: Lampshaded when Donna and Hank gripe about the lack of subtlety of the Afterlife Express.
- Secret Test of Character: Rachel's punishment is this. Lydia doesn't expect her to reassemble the stones back, because it's impossible; what she wants is for her to stop believing that she can bring back Donna.
- Self-Deprecation: Donna telling Hank how she hates dying in a carnival, being electrocuted by a falling tower, seems to echo a lot of fans' opinion regarding how her death was handled in the season 2 finale.
- Take It to the Bridge: Hank discovered a bridge that connects the Next Place with the living world. However, it is very fragile, as the Ghouls are easily able to destroy it.
- Undignified Death: Donna considers her death this way. While she recognizes that she died saving a lot of people, she always dreamed of dying in a much more heroic manner, like protecting Earth from asteroids or something, not in a carnival.
- Warrior Heaven: In a way. Hank reunites with Don, and the two decide to team up and save other lost souls from being caught by the Ghouls.
