Titans S01E09 "Hank and Dawn" Recap

Hank sits with Dawn in the hospital while she is still in a coma. He reflects back on his childhood in which he tried to save his little brother Don from being sexually abused by the football coach. When the coach manipulated and blackmailed Hank by threatening to get both of them expelled, Hank lashed out at his brother to make him leave so that he could be the one abused instead.

When the brothers got to university, they got into fights on campus until they were kicked out. They decided to become vigilantes together and began to target sex offenders when they discover the high number of them living in their neighborhood.

While Dawn is in a coma, she recalls her earlier life during which she was a ballerina. This was also the last time that she saw her mother alive. Hank and Dawn met when they accidentally bumped into each other on the street and almost immediately after this a car crashed right by them and both Don and Dawn's mother were killed in the freak accident. Hank and Dawn continued to get to know one another as they are both part of the same grief counseling group.

As the two get closer through their shared grief, Dawn eventually accidentally discovers that Hank and Don were vigilantes. She does not judge him for it and he opens up to her about the abuse he faced as a child by the school football coach. Dawn leaves and goes after him and orders him to confess. He threatens her at gunpoint and the two beat each other up until Hank arrives. When Dawn finds child pornography on the man's computer, Hank tells her to leave so he can finish the job. Later that night, Hank and Dawn sleep together for the first time.

While both of these memories are unfolding, Rachel is trying to reach both of them to call for help. Dawn wakes from her coma because of Rachel's calls and she wakes a sleeping Hank to say that they need to find Jason Todd in order to help Rachel, despite neither of them knowing who Jason Todd is.

"Titans" airs on Fridays on DC Universe.