The Mask

"The Mask" is the seventeenth episode of the second season of Teen Titans Go!, and the sixty-ninth overall episode of the series.

Summary

Robin's past is cloaked in secrecy, and even his mask does more than hide his true identity, it also serves to hide a terrible secret!

Plot

The episode begins in the middle of street where the Titans are fighting against Punk Rocket, however they cannot handle his angry, loud music that nearly destroys Jump City. Robin decides to fight music with even worse music, by viciously screaming at him. Punk Rocket blasts Robin with hypersonic waves from his guitar, which removes Robin's mask, much to his agony and covers his eyes. He retreats back to the Tower with the T-Plane, after he crashes into a wall with the R-Cycle. Raven punches Punk Rocket much to his defeat.

Robin crashes the T-Plane into the Titans Tower, reaching the bathroom for a mask replacement. After he finishes, the other Titans wonder about his mask issues. Robin claims that he's preventing the other villains to easily catch him on sight by sealing his true identity, otherwise that would put him and the Titans in danger, and also could provoke the destruction of the Tower. However, Raven assumes he has trust issues for not showing his face even to his own friends. Robin leaves, and the Titans begin to have thoughts of how he would look like without his mask, but to prove their theories, they are off to remove his mask. Eventually they fail, as Robin still will not reveal his identity for how much he cares for Titans' lives. Later on, the Titans decide to move out for how Robin doesn't seem to trust them that they can keep a secret too for his true identity. Making Robin nervous, he finally removes his mask , much to Titans' excitement, revealed to have a handsome face with strong cheek bones, beautiful eyes and a wide chin.

The Titans are amazed at Robin's face without his mask on, and they wonder why he had to hide it from them, as they would like to have a handsome face as his, while Robin claims that his face is a burden. While the Titans are crying about their own faces for not being as handsome as Robin's, he tells them that it is also a reason why he did not desire to reveal it. Suddenly a giant space ship made of shiny diamonds from outer space arrives on the Tower's roof, revealing to be Klatak, queen of the Marshrouvian Empire, who is searching for beautiful creatures as her to be her king, as she found Robin matching his face with her's. However, the Titans do not allow her to take Robin away without a fight. As they start to fight against Klatak, she is invulnerable to "ugly and dark" powers and her technology is too handsome.

Robin takes her out by himself, enough to overwhelming her by its beauty face until she explodes, along with her space ship. Now the Titans understand why Robin's identity needs to be hidden and tell him to put his mask on back for their sake and the world's. Even if it means that they will never see his gorgeous face again, they will always have the memory of Robin's beauty face. While the Titans are memorizing his face, Robin sneaks up behind the roof-access elevator, removing his gorgeous mask to his normal face with his own mask on, whispering that he succeeded in covering his own identity. But when he truly removes his mask, it is revealed that he has a parasite-twin on his left eye, just as how Starfire thought he would look like without his mask at first. It ends with Robin giving his parasite-twin a grape as a snack as he munches on it.

Characters

• Robin
• Beast Boy
• Raven
• Starfire
• Cyborg
• Silkie (cameo in picture)
• Klatak (debut)
• Punk Rocket (debut)
• Robin's Parasitic Twin (debut)

Trivia

• This episode aired one year after "Starfire the Terrible", and 10 years after the original series episode "Revolution".
• This is Punk Rocket's first appearance in the series.
  • This is also the first episode to reveal Punk Rocket as an enemy of the Teen Titans; his debut from the pilot episode of the original series had been cancelled due to its showing time, though he has been seen (without lines) in the last few episodes.
• An original spoof of Teen Titans was seen showing Robin's mask. The episode used was, of course, "Masks".
• When Robin pulls off his actual mask, his (right) eye shape and brows are the same as Raven's.
• In the original series' comic line, only Starfire is known to have seen Robin unmasked in "Regarding Robin". It is possible the other Titans have as well, or that he trusted Starfire more than them.
• When Robin showed off his mask in the original Teen Titans series, the Team Titans Theme Song played instead of the theme song for Teen Titans Go!
• Robin breaks the fourth wall when he says "For the original Teen Titans", mentioning the original series.
  • This line has had some confusion among fans and some have speculated that the current Titans are a different team, and Robin was the only one who wasn't replaced.
• This is the first time someone other than than Robin came up with a crazy method that turned out to be true, in this case it is Starfire.

References

• The title of this episode is the same title of the 1994 fantasy slapstick action comedy film, The Mask, starring Jim Carrey as Stanley Ipkiss and as the title character.
  • The title of this episode also shares the same title as a half-hour episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog about an abusive relationship, among other factors.
• There is an assumed reference to 9/11 when Robin crashed in the plane into the Titans Tower, but it appears more of a reference of him crashing the plane into Killer Moth's base in "Missing."
• When Robin is about to show the original Teen Titans spoof, Silkie can be seen in a picture dressed as Batman.
• The design of Robin's fake face may be a reference to the Handsome Face meme.
• On one of the boxes Robin was putting his fake masks in, it says "masks of the phantasm", which is a reference to Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
• Robin's fake face may be a reference to Jacob Black from The Twilight Saga.

Continuity

• The T-Plane reappears for the fourth time, whereas the R-Cycle reappears for the third time.
• Robin's blindedness continues from the first season's episode "Driver's Ed" during an optometry test in one of his flashbacks.
• However, the ending of this episode proves Robin's appearance from "Sandwich Thief" true and his appearance from "Driver's Ed" to be false.
• This is the eleventh time that Raven was seen unhooded.
• This is the second time Robin has used part of his costume to conceal a deformity, the first being in "Baby Hands".
• Robin's Parasitic Twin would later be featured in "Beast Boy's St. Patrick's Day Luck and it's Bad" when a close up of Robin's face shows him and Robin's other eye through his mask.

Errors

• Robin's false face shows him having brown eyes. In actuality, they are meant to be blue.
• When Beast Boy was removing all of Robin's masks, there wasn't a pile until all the Titans were present.
• In the scene were the rest of the Titans thought that they would be handsome, each of them had trophies that were all male, yet Starfire and Raven had male trophies but they just imagined it.
• In "Driver's Ed" Robin had tiny dots (eyes) but in this episode he had normal eyes (like Raven's) and a little eye buddy.
  • Although it is possible that the face we saw in "Driver's Ed" was another mask like the handsome face.

Gallery

The image gallery for The Mask may be viewed here.