Titans: Scarecrow Didn't Create Red Hood | CBR

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Titans Season 3, Episode 5, "Lazarus," available now on HBO Max.

In Season 3 of Titans, it's been confirmed Scarecrow is Jason Todd's mentor. Hints were dropped early on with the chemistry research found at Wayne Manor and the toxin Jason was using en route to becoming Red Hood. However, as much as Dr. Jonathan Crane is culpable for the transformation down the line, it's actually Gotham's most incompetent villain who instigated this journey as Red Hood days before.

This flashback episode confirms the true catalyst for Jason's tragic journey is Pete Hawkins, a criminal Jason and his friend, Molly, tracked while working a missing kids case. They suspect he's nabbing teens for Joker, but the shocking thing is Pete's out in the open, working the slums as carefree as can be.

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When they find him in an alley, he's brazen with his creepiness too, brown-bagging it and drinking with a young girl in a scene. It's shocking he's not more discrete working for the Clown Prince of Crime. When Jason confronts him, they have a stare down, but it all changes when he pulls a gun on Jason.

Usually, Jason would deploy his Robin skills, but he's immediately paralyzed with fear thanks to the traumatic Deathstroke ordeal and his fall from a building in Season 2. With this sudden rush of panic inflicted, Pete pummels Jason, leaving Molly begging for Pete to stop the onslaught. The goon then leaves, making it clear if it weren't for Molly, he'd have killed Jason.

This dents Jason's ego big time, as he knows he's usually equipped to take someone so low-level and weak, but his trauma has left him frozen. To make it worse, he doesn't like being emasculated in front Molly, someone he respects and cares for. At this point, he explodes and sends her away since he can't believe he lost to such scum.

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This inciting incident eventually gets him obsessed with the notion that Bruce thinks he's weak, admitting as much in therapy to Dr. Leslie Thompkins. With his pride damaged, Jason then heads to Arkham Asylum to meet Crane, which leads to him making the anti-fear toxin and dying at Joker's hands. Crane, glad he got an apprentice, would later resurrect Jason via a Lazarus Pit, finally giving rise to Red Hood so they could reshape Gotham.

Jason doesn't forget the sinister Pete, and as the episode ends, he easily tracks down and brutalizes the goon in a warehouse. In his first kill as Red Hood, he blows his brains out. It's payback for kicking him down this rabbit hole and making him think he was a coward who was no longer good enough to be Batman's ward and Gotham's protector.

The first five episodes of Titans Season 3 are available now on HBO Max. Episode 6 releases Sept. 2.

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