What An Idiot / Teen Titans (2003)

Teenagers make stupid decisions all the time, even superhero teenagers.

Season One

• "Sisters": The Centauri police are chasing down Blackfire, who has committed numerous crimes on their moons including petty theft. They don't know who she is, per se, since she never announced herself. Blackfire flees to Earth, hoping to pin the crimes on her little sister, and sealing the deal with gifting her a Centauri Moon Diamond that she stole. The Centauri send tentacled robots, before coming in-person after none of the bots bring back a "Tamaranean girl".
  You'd Expect: When the Centauri police officers confront Robin and Starfire, that they would announce Starfire is under arrest as they do later. Then Robin can explain the situation.
  Alternatively: Given their megaphone power, they would send out an announcement to Earth that they are looking for a Tamaranean fugitive. The Titans wouldn't take long to put two-and-two together.
  Instead: Going Inspector Javert, they wrap Starfire and gag her with a green tentacle that nullifies her powers when Robin is convincing Starfire not to leave the team. (It's a Long Story.) It means she can't ask what the heck is going on or why they're telling her she's going to pay for what she did. To Robin and definitely to Starfire, it looks like a kidnapping, which probably brought up her trauma about the Gordanians imprisoning her in "Go". Robin hitches a ride, trashes their ship in his dramatic rescue of Starfire, and gets a few good punches in; only then do the Centauri police reveal who they are as all the Titans prepare to fight.
  The Result: Due to the ensuing fight, the police nearly die in the crash. They emerge slightly scathed. After confronting the Titans, the Centauri Police realize too late that they committed Jurisdiction Friction and a near Miscarriage of Justice; Beast Boy points out that they went up against the Titans, the "good guys" of Earth, which means they went after the wrong girl and didn't even read her any rights. Then Starfire explains she's never even been to the Centauri system — we find out in the comics that it's because Blackfire sold her out to the Gordanians before she could ever travel from their home planet— and Robin realizes Blackfire is the real thief, taking the Moon Diamond from Starfire's neck and returning it. It's only that Starfire confronts Blackfire as she flies from the scene that the Centauri police finally get their criminal, after being so inept.
• "Forces of Nature": Beast Boy accidentally nails Starfire with a prank that was meant for Cyborg. Starfire is upset.
  You'd Expect: Beast Boy would apologize to her.
  Instead: He tries to brush off her anger with jokes and trying to make her fall for his kitten form.
  The Result: Starfire calls him a clorbag varblernelk and refuses to speak to him. This means that when it seems she was buried alive in rubble due to a fight with Thunder and Lightning, Beast Boy is in full My God, What Have I Done? mode.
• "The Apprentice, Part 2":
  • Slade has successfully blackmailed Robin into becoming his apprentice by threatening the Titans' lives with nanite bombs, tiny probes in their bloodstream. He wants to eventually break Robin's spirit into serving him willingly, by getting him addicted to the thrill of stealing.
    You'd Expect: He wouldn't engineer confrontations between Robin and his friends, because the Titans when provoked will fight without restraint, provided they don't hurt anyone human or animal. And they know Robin.
    Instead: He makes Robin steal from high-profile places like Wayne Enterprises, that trigger the Titans' alarms, and orders Robin to face his friends head-on and shoot at them with a laser.
    The Result: Eventually Robin hesitates when Starfire refuses to fire on him and he refuses to fire in turn. Slade loses his temper, sets off the probes, and forces Robin to shoot Starfire nonlethally, which Robin does as an Apologetic Attacker. Starfire catches on that Robin isn't serving Slade of his volition, the Titans investigate the "glowy-hurty trick," they all realize that Slade has infected them, and they go to rescue their leader.
  • Not wanting to choose between apprenticeship or the safety of his friends, Robin chose to infect himself with the nanomachines, giving Slade the choice of either killing Robin or saving the other Titans.
    You'd Expect: Realizing that he has absolutely no chance of having Robin as his apprentice, Slade simply let the nanomachines kill the Teen Titans and try to look for another potential apprentice for him. Or if he really wanted Robin to remain his apprentice, he would restrain Robin and the other Titans before releasing the nanomachines, threatening their lives by torture if Robin fails to comply with his demands.
    Instead: Per the Bond Villain Stupidity rules, Slade frees Robin and the others somehow thinking that he can still take Robin as one.
    As A Result: The Titans get over their issues with Robin and wipe the floor with Slade. He's forced to pull a Villain: Exit, Stage Left.

Season Two

• "Terra"
  • Terra is a meta-human who can move the Earth, but she has little to no control over her powers. This is quite dangerous, actually, and Beast Boy is the first to realize while they're skipping rocks. He tells her that it's okay. Terra begs to differ because she's had to move constantly due to causing landslides, and earthquakes.
    You'd Expect: Terra would explain this. Beast Boy in turn could point out that Starfire and Raven have to control their powers well to fight, so it's not out of the ordinary. Terra would just need more training.
    Instead: She begs Beast Boy not to tell.
    The Result: Terra accidentally knocks out Beast Boy during a fight with Slade and his bots. Robin figures it out when Terra causes a cave-in as Slade corners her and offers to help her learn control.
  • The Teen Titans offer Terra to join their team, on the provision that she gets more training so that she could control her power. Robin makes it clear that Terra was having a hard time hiding it, and it's okay.
    You'd Expect: With her new friends fully knowing her issue and having no problem with it whatsoever, Terra would stay with a group of people who know and want to help her, and learn self-restraint in a positive way.
    Or: For Terra to allow Beast Boy to explain his side of the story.
    Instead: Terra mistakenly blames Beast Boy for telling, despite him protesting that he really didn't tell anyone. She runs away immediately only to get corrupted by Slade.
    You'd Then Expect: Since Cyborg has tech that can monitor people's heartbeats, and Beast Boy can track by scent, that they'd follow her. She is a danger as long as she is out there without any control. Robin at the very least could seek her out and explain the miscommunication, as he was the one who figured out Terra's Power Incontinence and told the others, not Beast Boy.
    Instead: The team lets her go. Beast Boy sadly grabs her dropped communicator and doesn't think to track her down.
    The Result: They are quite blindsided when Terra reappears in control of her powers and joins their team, only for her to betray them to Slade.
• "Fear Itself" has it Played for Laughs during two instances.
  • Control Freak, a new villain, has stormed a video rental store. He brings the displays and equipment to life to do his bidding. Beast Boy is doing fairly well against the displays, but pauses to squee on learning Wicked Scary is out on video. Control Freak then pauses as well to talk about the special features. After a Delayed Reaction, they remember they're fighting each other.
    You'd Expect: Beast Boy would change shape and grab the remote.
    Instead: He goes Deer in the Headlights as Control Freak brings the Wicked Scary display to life. Robin has to short out everything by turning on the store's sprinklers.
  • Cyborg in the meantime is fighting sentient candy that is biting him all over. He gets fed up and announces that "Cyborg is biting back!"
    You'd Expect: He would remove the wrappers before doing so.
    Instead: Cyborg swallows the evil candy without removing any of the plastic or papers.
    Predictably: While the evil candy runs for it on realizing they're going to be eaten, Cyborg has to run outside and throw up.
• "Titan Rising": Terra has returned and said that she wants to join the team. She demonstrates that now she can control her powers. Raven is naturally suspicious because she remembers how Terra left in a rush, but they have no time to prod Terra because Slade reveals he's setting giant worms on Titans Tower. She also gets a weird vision of a Nightmare Face from Terra's mind and becomes frightened. The Titans and Terra work together to stop the worms, and the former surprise her with her own bedroom and new communicator. They say they want her to stay, and please don't run away this time.
  You'd Expect: When the metaphorical dust has settled, Robin to kindly ask Terra where she learned to control her powers. Pragmatically speaking, it could mean new heroes to join the team if they're the ones who trained her. It also seems Too Good to Be True that she just happened to show up at the minute they needed backup support. Robin is normally the Properly Paranoid one so this is on him.
  Instead: They don't. Raven and Terra have a laugh about their "rocky start" with Raven saying they're somewhat close to friends. Robin welcomes her to the team. Even Terra lampshades it, saying, "I don't believe it. They actually trust me."
  The Result: It turns out that Slade was the one who helped Terra control her powers, and in exchange she became an apprentice and The Mole for him. Under his orders, she shuts down the security systems for Titans Tower so that Slade can send hundreds of his robots to murder everyone still inside. Raven bitterly regrets trusting Terra after this.
• "Betrayal": Terra has been feeling Conflicting Loyalty about her apprenticeship with Slade as she serves as his mole. The Titans have been very nice to her, giving her the last slice of pizza after a huge fight, and saying they are happy she's part of the team. Slade has ordered Terra to shut down the security systems so that his bots can wipe them out in one night. She's having second thoughts about this while feeling like she owes Slade for giving her control over her powers, and is crushing on Beast Boy.
  You'd Expect: That Terra would pull Robin aside and confess everything, that Slade persuaded her to become his apprentice, and take responsibility for her actions. Robin would be furious, but he would also understand that Slade is a Manipulative Bastard considering he also betrayed his friends last season. Then the Titans could use this knowledge to take down Slade using a form of Feed the Mole.
  Instead: Terra quietly shuts down the systems, but has a change of heart when Beast Boy gives her a handmade compact and asks her out on a date for the next night. She goes to his window and makes him come with her on a date then and there, asking if he trusts her. The bots then arrive on schedule and invade the tower. When Slade busts Terra and reveals that she is The Mole and his apprentice, Terra thinks that merely apologizing to Beast Boy and saying she owed Slade is enough to make up for being an accomplice to murder. She tries to hold Beast Boy to his promise that he would always be friends with her no matter what, seeing him asking Was It All a Lie?
  The Result: Slade takes it personally that Terra was this stupid. He stalks them at the pie diner and the local fair where they go on the ride and play games. When he reveals himself, Slade asks her What Were You Thinking? because of course she wasn't going to be able to keep Beast Boy as her new "pet". Beast Boy has the natural reaction to finding out the girl he loved left their friends to die: anger and rage, fighting Slade head-on, and actually making the Big Bad go Oh, Crap!. Then he calls out Terra, asking why she made this choice. Beast Boy regrets saying they're not friends, but he's completely correct to call her out. 
• "Aftershock, Part Two": Terra thinks she has defeated the Titans and taken down the city for Slade. Instead, she goes Oh, Crap! when they appear. The Titans all attack her at once, not giving her any breathing room to retaliate. She sensibly runs away on hearing they won't talk to her because "there's nothing to talk about". Slade tells her to stand her ground. Terra points out that they're "thrashing" her because she can't take them all in a fight where they aren't holding back. Soon enough, the Titans track her down and resume their No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  You'd Expect: Slade would take control of the neurosuit to keep Terra from leaving, and to assist her in the fight since he can use her powers now.
  Instead: When she begs for help, he sends Cinderblock, Plasmus, and Overload to fuse into a One-Winged Angel.
  Predictably: Terra runs back to his lair, saying she can't believe they beat her. Though Slade beats her to a pulp and uses the suit to keep her from leaving, Beast Boy and the Titans track both Terra and Slade down. Terra finds the willpower to resist the neurosuit and toss Slade into a molten lava pit.

Season Three

• "Haunted:" Robin starts hallucinating that Slade is everywhere; the Titans point out that Slade couldn't be using a cloaking device because Robin can see him, and they saw Robin beating up himself. Starfire has to knock out Robin when he threatens the team, and they strap him to a patient table to check his vitals and figure out what's wrong.
  You'd Expect: One of the Titans would stay with Robin. He's already proven to be a danger to himself and the team, and he's good at escaping from restraints.
  Instead: They all convene in the adjoining room and leave Robin alone in the dark.
  The Result: A Slade hallucination appears and tortures a bound Robin, forcing him to flee.
• "Bunny Raven, or How To Make a Titananimal Disappear": Mumbo Jumbo has trapped all the Titans in his hat, and turned them into various animals that can't use their powers. Beast Boy is the last one; he finds out that he can change back into a human, due to being a shapeshifter.
  You'd Expect: Beast Boy would play along, turn into the animal that Mumbo changed him into, and then change back and help the other Titans once Mumbo has turned away for a few minutes. As we find out in Season Five, Beast Boy is quite effective at strategy.
  Instead: He confidently tells Mumbo that the magician's powers don't work on him and proves it multiple times.
  The Result: Mumbo turns him into an inanimate object, and Beast Boy can now only shape shift into inanimate objects. Understandably, Beast Boy is not happy with this.

Season Four

• "The Prophecy": After the events of "Birthmark," Raven is utterly terrified and disturbed that Slade attacked her to deliver a message from her father, reminding her that she's an Apocalypse Maiden who will allow Trigon to destroy the Earth. Her friends in the meantime are doing research on how Slade could have survived lava and come back with fire powers.
  You'd Expect: Raven to just tell her friends what Slade's symbol means. Forewarned is forearmed, and later they manage to keep her protected from Trigon's forces by building a saferoom for her while they Hold the Line against Slade.
  Instead: Raven refuses because she still thinks she can prevent her destiny by refusing to even consider it.
  The Result: Slade lures the team into a trap during their research, which causes Raven to run to her homeworld Azarath. He would have killed them if not for Raven's Heroic Second Wind.
• "Overdrive": The Titans are up against Billy Numerous, a metahuman who has the ability to clone himself through unexplained, unknown methods. They get exhausted trying to stop him and Robin calls it a night. Cyborg however volunteers to keep going at it against Robin's advice.
  You'd Expect: For Cyborg to realize that he can't be everywhere at once, that he doesn't have the resources or means to handle an entire army of hundreds of Billys and come up with a different strategy rather than trying to be a One-Man Army.
  Instead: Cyborg keeps pushing himself into doing what should be obviously impossible, and ends up nearly erasing his human personality and emotions just to pursue a stupidly unrealistic goal of tackling hundreds of Billy Numerous clones at once.
  The Result: He soon runs out of battery, and the Titans are forced to talk some sense into him about how idiotic his plan was so they devise creating clones of their own using the same cloning technology that can rival Billy's powers. Later episodes show the Titans calling on other superheroes who are better suited to take down Billy Numerous.
• "The End Part 1": The Titans have built an impenetrable safety room just for Raven in order to keep her safe from both Slade and Trigon’s forces, and ultimately prevent the destruction of the world. As predicted Slade and his army arrive at Titans Tower to take Raven and use her as the portal to summon Trigon. The Titans know that there's a narrow window for Raven to become her father's Gem and they just need to Hold the Line.
  You’d Expect: For the Titans to simply stay put with Raven in the safety room, since there’s no real reason for them to go out to confront Slade, and they can instead stall him out as while him and his army try in vain to get at Raven, thus (hopefully) preventing the prophecy from coming true. In addition they know full well that Trigon will try to contact Raven telepathically in order to break her spirit and coerce her into summoning him, and if he’s successful there’s not much they can do to prevent her from leaving since she can phase through walls. Thus it would be extremely important that they keep an eye on her and give her emotional support so as to keep her spirits up through the ordeal.
  Instead: They go out and fight Slade and are predictably overwhelmed by his massive army of demons. Meanwhile, Trigon engages in a Mind Rape and tortures Raven psychologically, saying her friends will die because of her. Despite some impressive feats, they are almost killed were it not for Raven surrendering herself to Slade to spare her friends.
  The Result: Raven, having completely given into her destiny, summons Trigon and allows him to destroy the world, with there being nothing the other Titans can do to prevent it. She uses the last of her strength to give her powers to the Titans, so they won't be turned to stone, giving them a chance to undo the apocalypse.

Season Five

• "Trust" : The plot revolves around Robin trying to find Hot Spot, who is engaged in a fight with Madame Rouge (who can shapeshift). Now, the episode ends with Hot Spot ending up victorious against Rouge and Robin gives him a communicator so that they can keep in touch.
  You'd Expect: Robin, being the former sidekick of the goddamn Batman, to at least make sure that Hot Spot is the real deal, having seen firsthand Rouge's shape changing abilities.
  Instead: Robin doesn't think to check if Hot Spot is actually who he says he is. Turns out "Hot Spot" is Rogue.
  As A Result: Robin ends up giving the Brotherhood of Evil the little trinket the Brain wanted so he could spy on the Titans. Robin nearly causes all of the Titans to go down because of his stupid mistake.
• In "Calling All Titans," Robin has himself and his teammates split up in order to deliver communicators to other honorary Titans. Beast Boy is assigned Jericho, who resides on top of a very high mountain.
  You'd Expect: Beast Boy would transform into a flying creature, such as a bird, in order to reach Jericho more quickly and efficiently.
  Alternatively: He could use the ship he had piloted to take him most, if not all, of the way up to the top, reducing time immensely and possibly negating the need to transform.
  Instead: He transforms into a mountain goat and tries to climb the mountain.
  The Result: Beast Boy is incredibly exhausted when he reaches the top of the mountain and locates Jericho, leaving him with barely enough energy to give a half-assed speech and collapse in front of Jericho with the communicator in hand.
• "Titans Together": The Brain is in command of a very powerful Quirky Miniboss Squad, a large team of lesser supervillains, and a small army of Mooks and Mecha-Mooks led in the field by an immortal tactical genius. His headquarters is attacked in the middle of a victory celebration by Beast Boy and a small team of reserve Titans, who are soon joined by reinforcements.
  You'd Expect: After the initial chaos, the Brain would use said Quirky Miniboss Squad to crack a few heads to restore order, then take command of his forces and coordinate them in a truly epic showdown (remember, most of these guys have lost to the Titans previously because they're stupid/insane, not weak - and suddenly here's Brain to provide the smarts for them).
  Instead: Brain is so confident of victory that he just sits there, making the occasional snarky comment, but doing nothing else.
  As A Result: By the time he realizes he's actually in danger, the situation has progressed to the point where retreat is the only option. And this from a guy who's normally at least on par with Slade for being the show's smartest Chessmaster.
• "Things Change": Beast Boy during a fight sees a schoolgirl who bears an uncanny resemblance to Terra but doesn't have any of her memories and enjoys being normal. She also has a curfew, and unseen parental guardians. When he goes to check Terra's statue, all that remained of her after she performed a Heroic Sacrifice, the statue is gone. Beast Boy returns to Titans Tower and informs the Titans, who are astounded. Raven says she tried everything to heal Terra, and can't explain any revival.
  You'd Expect: The team would investigate, just to be sure. Terra was their friend, was last seen fighting off Slade's control of her, and they have no idea who her new guardians are, especially since Slade sends a robot after Beast Boy for daring to investigate, which has unsettling implications.
  Instead: The Titans tell Beast Boy to let it go and focus on their current Monster of the Week. Eventually he does when he fails to prove that "Schoolgirl" is Terra and she pretty much tells him that he can't reclaim the past.
  The Result: In the Teen Titans Go comics, Terra's brother comes along, confirming that Schoolgirl was his sister the whole time, and he's furious because he had been searching for her for years and at the very least the Titans could have notified him. He eventually respects Terra's wishes to be normal after making sure she's safe, but still.