Overall, this was definitely the best of the three seasons so far. Crane was a very interesting villain (the best so far by a good margin), the plot was probably the most coherent of the three seasons, and a lot of the obnoxious behavior in the first two seasons was largely corrected. I also appreciated the slightly unhinged take on Batman, this Batman is old, tired, and worn down....and I think that was a good way to shift the "hero reasonability" onto the Titans.
That said, so far every season of this show fails to stick the landing for me, and always has a moment that is so outrageously "bad" that it ruins a lot of the enjoyment for me.
In this season, its the moment that Nightwing uses the Kyptonite on Superboy. It is so incredibly dumb to me....that I just have to describe it in words
First, this season has the "Superman problem". Ultimately, I like the Superboy character in this show, and yet there is no reason that Superboy doesn't just win everything. There is a moment where Krane has literally showed Nightwing that he is in the batcave. Superboy should have had him tied up and delivered to Dick before he could even turn around. But of course they don't do that, because we need to have a show.
Now the show has a solution to this problem. There is a secret Batman vault that contains Kryptonite (because its Batman, of course there is). Red Hood knows where that vault is (he literally leaves a recording for Dick there). So it seems extremely simple, at some point Jason steals the Kryptonite. We either have a scene where Superboy swoops in and gets hit with the green....or Krane flaunts the Kryptonite, ensuring that Superboy has to be cautious and work with the team. Seems a very simple and logical way to avoid the "Superman problem".
But they don't do that. Instead Dick decides to go after Jason one on one, so much so that he has to poison Superboy to do it. Now if this was season 1 Dick....I could buy it. That Dick was a complete loner and didn't really trust anyone. But Season 3 Dick is supposed to be a changed man, we have had two full seasons of Dick supposedly learning how to build, trust, and work with a team (more than a team....a "family"). Now is the moment to show that....Dick has the one weapon that can stop Superboy, this is in the bag. Superboy captures Jason, rushes over and gets Crane. We all go home by lunch. But no.... we have to have this insanity of a subplot where once again good old Season 1 Dick rears his ugly head. It is stupid, insane....and show I'm getting really tired of it.
Even if you had to throw out the idea that Dick was "ready to kill Jason".... I still don't buy it. Have Superboy tie him up and bring him to Dick. If Dick wants to finish him off later, fine.... but still seems prudent to do that in your living room instead of endangering a bunch of innocent people while betraying Superboy all at the same time.
Now the season ending is probably the best of the seasons so far. But its still pretty flat to me. Crane was a cool villain for most of the season, but then he goes "whackjob" for an episode which took away the part that actually made him interesting. Further, there are way way WAY too many ressurections in this season, my lord talk about removing stakes. Jason gets ressurected...okay. Then Donna, hey that was actually a cool episode I really enjoyed it, I'm on board. Then Tim Drake....um....ok I guess. Then Nightwing....show are we really doing this? And then....the whole damn city!!! Really, the ending is, we have a magical resurrection using super dark magic (the lazarus pit in the comics will often make people insane afterall) but apparently in the show has no consequences whatsoever, talk about pressing the easy button. At least the blasted plot device has been removed by the end.
And then that brings us to the final scene, where Rachel and Dick decide to give a mental patient a lifetime of apparently endless torture. Um...go good guys? Seriously, we have this whole scene of forgiveness for Jason (who lets be honest killed a whole lot of people), but the man with actual serious mental problems is exposed to endless torture? Honestly if Nightwing had just upped and shot him, I could have understood that more than what they wound up doing. Its completely messed up.