I must admit, I wasn't expecting much from this episode based on what was shown in last week's commercial for "next week's episode." Content with what I assumed would turn out to be a fairly standard "coming-of-age" tale, I was surprised to find that this was one of the stronger episodes of the new season, thus far.

Taking the fairy tale approach, the episode begins with a narrator opening what I like to call "The Book Of 'T'" and re-caps the Starfire story arc to date. She's brave, beautiful, and has a group of close friends, what more could she ask for? Her life is perfect until one day a huge knobby horn grows out of her forehead and everything changes.

There is an inspired sequence in which Starfire occupies the unisex bathroom to examine her new growth. Of course, Beast Boy is stuck outside with a strong urge to pee. To his dismay, his teammates all happen to be engaging in activities involving mass amounts of running water.

Covering her horn in a stylish green hat, Starfire turns to Raven who gives her some brief relief when she dismisses the growth as simply a zit. This news only reassures her that she is normal, yet she still cowers behind her hat when Robin enters the room.

The next day, while watching Cyborg and Robin duel at what appears to be F-Zero, Starfire suddenly grows tusks on her neck. Luckily the boys are too involved in their game to notice.

Hiding her tusks behind a scarf, Starfire attempts to enjoy a sundae with Beast Boy only to discover that her nails have grown long and ugly, resembling a zebra-like nail polish pattern.

Clad in her hat, scarf, and gloves, Starfire begins experiencing strange cravings. In the first film reference for the episode, Star ensnares a fly that pleads, "Help meeee, help meeeee" in true The Fly (1958) fashion before she devours it.

After her feet grow in size and become affixed with claws, Starfire decides that she must do all that she can to prevent her friends from seeing her in this state. Just then a warning sounds and the Titans must spring into action.

Plasmus is up to his old tricks again. It seems that he has disrupted the Moons vs. Stars football game in order to suck down some good ole' sewage.

The thing that is cool about Plasmus as a villain is that he is fairly menacing on screen. You know going into the show that there cannot be any excessive use of violence due to the rating, but Plasmus can be shot into pieces in very cool manners without having to face up to any "blood and guts" restrictions.

He also does a decent job dishing it out, and each Titan gets their share in this battle. After finally being decimated by Starfire's attack, Plasmus regroups to form a fairly nasty looking monster with multiple eyes and fangs growing all over him.

Robin exclaims that Plasmus is an ugly monster, and like all monsters he has "got to go." This hits Star where it hurts, and her disguise is destroyed after getting dunked in Plasmus' juices, leaving her exposed to her friends for the first time in her new form.

Her humiliation is brilliantly displayed in a sequence in which everyone from her teammates and the rescued football players to Plasmus himself jeers her. She attempts to fly away, only to find herself trapped in a television. Peering outside of the boob tube, she finds that her audience is laughing at her as well.

Starfire flees Earth in search of acceptance in deep space. Wandering from planet to planet, Starfire is repeatedly rejected. She either scares of the natives of the planets she explores, or she finds herself chased off by torchlight. As she passes through an asteroid field, we learn that Starfire is actually being followed on her quest.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team has been hard at work devising a plan to pursue Starfire to the ends of the galaxy. Despite Robin's continued interruptions, Cyborg has managed to rig the T-Sub to launch into outerspace.

After landing on a purple planet, Starfire is attacked by a large plant that resembles Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors. Despite her struggles, the plant overtakes her, swallowing her whole, and then suddenly spits her out with a disgusted look.

Feeling at her lowest, Starfire breaks down in tears by a lake only to be befriended by a strange lady in white. She explains that Starfire is going through the growth rite of "Transformation" which is quite standard for Tamaranians of her age.

The rest of the team is hard pressed to find Starfire. In homage to The Empire Strikes Back, the team's craft is seen racing out of a tunnel in the middle of a planet as large sets of teeth slowly close at the mouth of the end of the tunnel.

Starfire questions why she has been growing horns and claws when her sister only turned purple for few days during transformation. The stranger explains that transformation is different for all Tamaranians. Starfire's symptoms denote that she is one of the rare individuals who transform into a chrysalis during this process.

Starfire begins to transform into a chrysalis and she questions how the stranger knows all of this, and it just so happens that the stranger is really a Simirilean Chrysalis Eater. The Chrysalis Eater transforms into a huge, fanged, spider like alien who is ready to eat her whole.

The rest of the Titans arrive just in time and fight off the Chrysalis Eater. After Robin frees her from her chrysalis form, Starfire learns that she has returned to normal, sort of. Her transformation has left her with the ability to shoot green blasts from her eyes, which she quickly uses to spank the Chrysalis Eater, who ironically ends up being consumed by the plant that attacked Starfire when she first landed on the planet.

I feel that going with a third person Narrator was an inspired decision on director Alex Soto's behalf and it helps steer the episode away from the contrivances I had originally anticipated for this episode. A surprise re-appearance by Plasmus and making Starfire's "Transformation" bear lethal consequences helped keep the episode action packed.

More importantly, this episode further shows how the series is starting to take shape as a whole. Hopefully we will see an expansion in plot lines and story arcs as the series continues to grow. Seeing villains from previous episodes pop up from time to time helps build that, but also expanding each character's depth plays an integral role in that as well.

My only complaint with this installment is that the result of the Plasmus battle is a plot thread left hanging because we never learn how the team finishes him off. Other than that, the show continues to grow, and I am more and more hooked with each episode.

Next Week:
Terra returns and Raven extends the warmest of welcomes. Perhaps she suspects something. Will the Titans add a new member to the crew, or is this merely a ploy by Slade to infiltrate the Titan ranks? This one looks promising folks, so tune in for the showdown!

Mario Anima