That noise you are hearing is the sound of the narrative breaks being applied abruptly causing Season Three to come to a screeching halt. The aptly titled "Crash" does just that.

Is it fun? Sure, in a been there done that sort of way.

Before we delve too deeply into this, "Crash" is in no way as terrible as Larry the Titan in "Fractured" or last season’s "Car Trouble". Those two episodes gave a new meaning to the word “abysmal.”

The problem with an episode such as this isn’t so much the content, but the manner in which the scheduling of episodes has unfurled.

First out the gate was "Deception," a yummy set-up episode introducing Brother Blood, a deeper more intricate H.I.V.E. and the promise of yet another season long build to a climactic payoff. We followed that with "X," an episode that failed to payoff completely, but was still rather enjoyable in the long run.

Last week we were treated to "Betrothed," which not only entertained, but really did wonders for continuity and the development of Starfire, and in reflection the rest of the team in regards to the risk of losing their alien friend.

Here we have a tale of Beast Boy’s incompetence run amok. We’ve never seen that before.

In an amusing twist of fate, Beast Boy downloads the latest version of Monkey Madness, a computer game intended to riff on Super Monkey Ball and possibly even Ape Escape, who knows? His pirated copy of the game illustrates just how “teen” the Titans actually are. Unfortunately, Beast Boy’s computer doesn’t meet the system requirements needed to run Monkey Madness, and he ends up sneaking into Cyborg’s room to borrow his setup.

The problem is he mistakenly puts his disk into Cyborg's recharge system, only to find out that his copy of Monkey Madness is virus riddled, infecting the system. Of course, Cyborg comes in to recharge, and as Cy himself would put it, “boo-yah!”

Chaos ensues.

The virus corrupts Cyborg’s CPU causing him to mistake everything from lamppost to Robin as being various dishes of food.

Beast Boy regrets his mistake and wishes only to correct the error of his ways, but the rest of the team is quick to cast judgment. To add insult to injury, the team turns to Gizmo for help.

Gizmo’s plan involves shrinking down to a microscopic size and taking on the virus one-on-one, which was essentially the plan that Beast Boy proposed to the chagrin of the rest of the Titans. Feeling rejected, Beastie decides to turn himself into an amoeba and accompany Gizmo while the rest of the Titans try to detain the escaped Cyborg as he rampages through town, eating object after object.

Although this premise had its moments, it just felt like such a letdown in the grand scheme of things. A vacancy has opened up in the show after the season finale, and we have a villain to replace.

Brother Blood is the obvious candidate, but we haven’t seen evidence of him or his newly usurped H.I.V.E. crew since the season opener. Well, admittedly Gizmo did show up here, so maybe something will come of that.

One can only hope.

After watching the episode, I wound up sifting through some old issues of Doom Patrol (circa 1967), and the one that seemed to resonate was issue 109.

The issue focuses on the aftermath of a fatal encounter the Patrol had with the Brotherhood of Evil, leaving all of the team apparently dead with the exception of Gar Logan. Gar managed to bring the team’s bodies back to D.P. headquarters where it was learned that the team was not actually dead, and they were successfully revived. At this timeframe in the Doom Patrol arc, the orphaned Gar was under the guardianship of Nicholas Galtry, the Logan family lawyer whose plan was to kill Gar and keep his inheritance for himself.

This issue pretty much accomplishes the same dynamic that "Crash" attempts to present. Gar is still seemingly feeble, and manages to rise against the odds to not only rescue the team but he also manages to defeat “Mandrid the Executioner” in the process.

My point is, the issue of Doom Patrol not only manages to establish the same essence as this episode, but it also accomplishes this while keeping the overall conflicts in the book in context.

"Crash," however, puts all of the season long conflict on hold to establish Gar as a misunderstood underdog, a message we’ve visited countless times in the course of the three seasons thus far.

Next Week: Unfortunately we are left to stew in Crash’s juices until October 2nd, when Haunted brings Slade back into the picture. Or so Robin thinks. See ya in two!

Mario Anima