Recap: Teen Titans Go! "Ghost Boy"

One of the things about Teen Titans Go! that some take issue with is the Titans' modified personalities. Their personalities changed on an individual level, to be sure, but every Titan went through one specific change together: They're sociopaths now.

The dictionary describes a sociopath as "a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial behavior and a lack of conscience.." And over the course of about 200 episodes so far, this would seem to describe each Titan to a degree, some more than others.

Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I don't automatically hate this change in the characters. If somebody were inclined to do a comedic spin on the Teen Titans, then antisocial, conscience-impaired behavior isn't necessarily a bad way to go about it. Sociopathy is a staple of comedy. I mean, who among us didn't at least chuckle when the Joker made that pencil disappear? Heck, just look at Deadpool. And no matter how far back you go, you can find examples of humor that rely on a protagonist who doesn't care about others' wellbeing. George Costanza. Edmund Blackadder. Bugs Bunny.

On the other hand, if a character is improperly characterized... well, nobody's going to root for a character who simply comes across as an unlikable meany-face jerk-pants.

Watching Bugs Bunny take Elmer Fudd down a peg? That's funny.

Watching George Costanza's petty little machinations? That's funny.

Watching somebody take advantage of another person's innocent trust simply because he woke up and decided to be an ass to anyone and everyone?

That's "Ghost Boy."

The episode begins with Robin suiting up in his room. He puts his gloves on his oddly-non-baby-sized hands (since the writers haven't thought that joke up yet), straps his belt around his waist, and gets his cape out of his closet, completely unfazed by the dinosaur that pops out and roars at him.

Must be Tuesday.

Robin: "Nice try, Beast Boy."

So Beast Boy heads to the kitchen and sneaks over to Cyborg's cereal while his back is turned.

Cyborg: "If you're regurgitating owl pellets into my cereal again, I am not amused."

Ah, that old gag. And I mean "gag" literally.

Finally, Beast Boy tries to prank Raven by turning into a bug and showing up in her bag of chips.

Raven: "Your wit never gets old."

Yeah, it's surprising what you can get used to when you have no choice. It's like playing one of the Five Nights at Freddy's games. Sure, you might nearly pee your pants the first time one of the animatronics jumps at you, but by the end of it you're simply cussing out Golden Freddy because you were too occupied with Foxy and Bonnie to realize that you'd triggered him. And when one of the people you live with can shapeshift into any animal imaginable... well, the Titans probably instinctively ignore any animal that's green. As such, Beast Boy's recent practical jokes have failed miserably.

Since all of Beast Boy's usual targets have stopped being gullible enough to fall for his pranks, Beast Boy gets the idea to move on to pranking the one Titan who's innocent enough to believe anything: Starfire. He heads outside to find her gardening outside and excitedly started sneaking up on her, relishing the opportunity to finally startle somebody today.

The Plan
Sneak up behind her, turn into a gorilla, and roar.

The Complication
A mosquito starts buzzing around Starfire's head, so she tosses away her watering can before zapping the insect to death. The can conks Beast Boy in the noggin, leaving a sizable bump.

As the dead mosquito falls into Starfire's hands, she hears Beast Boy say "Ow!" This is when she comes to a reasonable, if inaccurate, assumption.

Starfire: "Beast Boy? Is that you in the form of a mosquito?"

And after Beast Boy's abysmal streak of pranks today, he's not about to let this opportunity go to waste. So he hides in the bushes and screams about how he's dying, the pain, oh the pain, et cetera.

Starfire: "By the moons of Xenoglurb, I have killed Beast Boy!"

So... you're not questioning why his body isn't green?

But before Starfire begins to worry about hiding the body, Beast Boy pops out of the bushes to show her that it was all just a joke. Except the sudden appearance of Beast Boy leads her to yet another incorrect interpretation of events.

Starfire: "You... you are a ghost!"
Beast Boy: "A ghost? ...Yeah. Yeah! I'm a ghost."

Beast Boy waves his arms and makes some ghosty noises to scare Starfire away, relishing every second as his teammate flies off. Starfire rushes inside to inform her teammates that she murdered Beast Boy, but the supposedly-dead Titan cheetahs past her and stops her.

Beast Boy: "I bid you not to tell them!"

Okay, I'm about to really nitpick here. (What's new, right?)

Starfire: "You bid me?"
Beast Boy: "...Yeah!"

"I bid you not to tell them" sounds like a suitably ghostly command, right? Heck, it even scans properly in iambic pentameter, so it wouldn't sound too odd coming from Hamlet's ghostly dad.  Except that the way the scene plays out, Beast Boy says "I bid you not to tell them," Starfire says "You bid me?" And then Beast Boy has a little cartoon reaction bubble pop up that shows that he just realized Starfire will believe his ghostly commands to her. Which seems to imply that Beast Boy used the phrase "I bid you" in an off-the-cuff manner, rather than as part of his ghost act. And let's not get into Beast Boy's speech patterns in later seasons that would invariably render this phrase as "I bids you not to tells them, yo!"

Anyway, Beast Boy starts making up some ghost rules.

Beast Boy: "See, here on Earth, if you accidentally kill someone, it's customary to do whatever the ghost says."

Unless the person in question is Santa Claus, in which case it's customary to steal his clothes and continue his work.

And so, Starfire declines to ask why Beast Boy wants his death to be kept secret, asking instead what Beast Boy would have her do. And what Beast Boy would have her do is the old stereotype of having her clean his room and do his laundry. And he even offers advice on how to go sorting it all.

Beast Boy: "Sniff test. Just... hold it up to your nose and sniff."

Are Beast Boy's clothes under some sort of exemption clause from the towers regular laundry days, as showcased in "Laundry Day"? How are they this dirty?

Starfire: "Is it necessary to conduct this test upon all of your clothing?"Beast Boy: "Only the ones on the floor."

How does Beast Boy have this much dirty laundry? He never changes out of his costume!

So Starfire continues her job as somebody knocks on the door. Beast Boy hides under a box as Robin enters. And Robin is very interested in knowing why Starfire is sniffing Beast Boy's dirty clothes. And since Beast Boy has commanded her to keep his "death" a secret, she lies like... Well, like the clothes on Beast Boy's floor.
Starfire: "The truth is on my planet, sniffing dirty clothes is good luck!"

She continues to sniff the clothes, choking down vomit and claiming that she's having the best of times, making Robin slowly back away from the crazy alien until she is alone with Beast Boy again.

Starfire: "I told Robin an untruth. And it makes me feel dirty."

Yeah, we're about nine episodes from this scene getting either retconned, contradicted, or ignored. By an episode written by the same writer. Funny how that works.

But speaking of dirty, Beast Boy holds up his gross, fly-ridden boxer shorts and invites her to "sniff sniff."

Oh, look, Beast Boy is trying to coerce Starfire into smelling his junk funk.
In an official Teen Titans adventure.
DC Comics put their seal of approval on this, people.

Thankfully, Starfire gets to forego the discovery of what Beast Boy's crotch smells like when she asks why Beast Boy went to the trouble of hiding under something rather than flying through the wall.

Beast Boy: "Here on Earth, you need to be a ghost for a few days before you can fly through stuff."

And dogs bark at them, from what I've heard.

Anyway, Starfire starts doing Beast Boy's laundry on a washboard... which is a bit confusing. Why isn't Starfire using the washing machine? Did it break after the events of Laundry Day?

Beast Boy forklifts in more dirty clothes before topping it off by slinging the pair he's currently wearing onto her face. So I guess now she does know what Beast Boy's crotch smells like.

This episode's writer, Steve Borst, has been nominated for an Emmy.
Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Back with the other Titans in the living room, Robin notes that Beast Boy hasn't tried to prank them in six hours. Something must be up. Starfire, defeated and dejected, comes in to lie on the ground. She refuses to tell them what's been going on and claims that a ghost has bid her not to tell them anything, cluing everyone in on what Beast Boy's been up to.

Cyborg: "I think Beast Boy's playing a prank on you."

And that's enough to make even the perpetually happy-go-lucky Starfire snap.

Starfire: "What a clorbag varblernelk!"

So she and the other Titans decide that turnabout is fair play, and Beast Boy wakes up the next day in a casket. His own casket.

Which appears to be in Sleeping Zelda's chamber from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

He gets out and finds the other Titans mourning his death by random meteor.... and doesn't believe it for a second. After all, if he were really a ghost, he'd be able to move his hand through solid objects... like the pole he just put his hand through. And as if that weren't enough, he even drifts through Robin.

Robin: "Whoa, I just got a chill up my spine!"

As Beast Boy screams and runs into the next room, no doubt panicking over whether or not his continued presence on the mortal plane has barred him from ascending to any sort of afterlife, the Titans all laugh to themselves.

Starfire: "He fell for it hook, line, and weighty object!"
Robin: "And putting that spell of transparency on him? Brilliant, Raven!"

Dear Teen Titans Go,
Transparency and intangibility are not the same thing.

Beast Boy returns, and surmises that his current phantasmal existence will allow him to live out one of his lifelong dreams. Namely, jumping into a volcano.

Raven: "What kind of dream is that?"

Beast Boy runs off, unaware that the spell will wear off before he even gets to the nearest volcano, and the other Titans rush after him to stop him from dying for real.

Once at the nearest volcano, Cyborg spots a mountain lion and assumes that Beast Boy has transformed to make climbing easier. The subsequent mauling proves him wrong, leading to Cyborg's second death in the series and the first actual ghost in the episode.

Raven: "The irony."

I'm actually too creeped out by Cyborg's look of utter peace to wonder why his robot parts are ghostly, too.
Maybe he was born a cyborg?

But they continue their journey up the mountain nevertheless. Ghost-Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire have no trouble ascending, but Robin's inability to fly leads to some issues with the terrain, leading to his death. Still, he takes it well, since he now truly is a "Flying Grayson." Speaking of them, this means that he ended up dying the exact same way his parents did.

Huh. Now that would be an interesting thing for an episode of the original show to cover; a ghost Robin dealing with dying the same way as his parents.

Anyway, they still have to go find Beast Boy.

Robin: "Careful. There are still many dangers on this volcano. Falling rocks, lava flows...."
Starfire: "Laser beams."
Raven: "Laser wha?"

Beams, Raven.

Raven: "Where did that even come from?"
Starfire: "On my planet, it is not uncommon to be struck down by a stray laser beam from outer space."

Makes sense to me. Laser beams from space battles have to go somewhere after they miss their target. That is why you check your damn targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a damn firing solution!  But Beast Boy is still in danger, so they all fly to the top. Starfire easily dodges the falling rocks in their path... only to get struck down by a second laser beam from space.  With all four Titans dead, they quickly float to the top to keep Beast Boy from jumping. When they arrive to warn him... he laughs.

Beast Boy: "Got you guys! I wasn't gonna jump. I knew you guys were pranking me the whole time."

The Titans are really ticked off about this, with Starfire actually mad enough to try and push him in herself.

Beast Boy: "But you can't. 'Cause you're a ghost."

But karma stops by to make Beast Boy trip on a rock, causing him to fall and burn alive inside a volcano. And now, he truly is a ghost. The other Titans have a laugh over this as the music plays and the episode.... segues into the stinger.

Cyborg: "So... what now?"
Titans: "...."

Well, looking like that, you could always tell Luke Skywalker to go to the Dagobah system.

And with that, the episode ends. So let's review.