Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Titans season 4 episode 1!
HBO Max’s Titans kicked off its fourth season with a shocking development. Anticipation for the new episodes grew after Titus Welliver joined the cast as Lex Luthor. But in yesterday’s premiere, Luthor revealed that he was dying and only had a few months to live, which explains why he wanted to see his half-son, Conner/Superboy (Joshua Orpin). However, his Titans tenure was short-lived, as the villainous Mother Mayhem (Franka Potente) violently killed Lex at the end of the episode. Showrunner Greg Walker recently spoke with CinemaBlend about this surprising turn of events and also discussed whether Luthor’s death is actually permanent.
“Yeah, good question,” said Walker. “I mean, you know the show, and we’re pretty cavalier with death. It’s kind of been one of our trademarks, or certainly we stumbled into it. So nobody’s ever really dead in our show. Though there are some tougher ones to come back from; I don’t know how we’re gonna put Hank back together if we ever were to, piece by piece. DNA on the wall to scrape off. [Laughs.] But no, seriously, I would love to have him back. He’s just a formidable actor.”
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For now, it remains unclear why Lex’s role was cut short after just one episode. Some are speculating that there may have been rights issues involving DC that restricted the producers’ access to the character. Regardless, Walker and the writers saw this limited opportunity as a chance to show a different side of Superman’s greatest enemy.
“The complexity of someone who has all the power in the world, who has been evil and is kind of comfortable with that,” continued Walker. “You know, it doesn’t keep him up at night, his transgressions. He wouldn’t even see them as transgressions. They’re just expressions of a destiny that he seems hellbent on fulfilling. But now faced with mortality, he’s thinking less about accumulation and more about legacy, and that’s a different phase of someone’s life. And his legacy, of course, is Conner Kent.”
The next episode of Titans will hit HBO Max on November 10.
What was your reaction to the episode’s shocking death? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
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