WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Titans Season 3, Episode 11, "The Call Is Coming From Inside the House," available now on HBO Max.
One of the most important throughlines in the latest episode of Titans, "The Call Is Coming From Inside the House," revolves around Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow trying to prove he's capable of doing damage on his own. As Bruce Wayne/Batman notes, a key trait of Crane's is that he works through proxies -- like Jason Todd/Red Hood. However, while by the end of the episode Crane proves Batman wrong, the villain's biggest foe, Dick Grayson/Nightwing, is taken out by a proxy: The people of Gotham City.
In last week's episode, "Trouble Water," Crane turned Gotham against Nightwing by claiming the vigilante was responsible for the poisoned water supply. That forced the Titans to go on the run, as pretty much everyone in the city -- including the Gotham City Police -- were against them. "The Call Is Coming From Inside the House" opens with Red Hood publicaly challenging Nightwing to a fight so that he might look like the city's savior. Initially, Nightwing tries to find a way not to fight Jason, but Crane and Red Hood cut off all of his alternate options.
When Jason and Dick face off, the latter ends up proving dominant. While Jason is certainly a deadly fighter, he just doesn't have the training and experience that Dick does. As the fight draws to an end, a crowd of Gothamites gathers, and they make clear they support Jason over Dick. Eventually, Dick turns one of Jason's guns on him, but the hero opts not to kill his foe. Then, one of the onlookers shoots Dick.
The first shot bounces off Dick's armor, and he moves forward to calm down the citizen. However, Jason eventually gets up and turns his weapons on Dick. The hero then moves to face his opponent, and the citizen fires more bullets at Nightwing. This time, though, one of the bullets hits Dick's exposed neck, downing him. The crowd then starts beating on Nightwing as Jason flees.
As of right now, things don't look good for Dick. The episode makes clear the hero is no longer in the shape to fight off his attackers, and so they're likely to have captured him in the next episode. The Titans will then have to come to his rescue to keep him from dying. But in the meantime, there are a lot of bad things that could happen. Nightwing could, for example, get unmasked, which would do huge amounts of damage to his own life and that of his allies.
Still, the ending for the episode emphasizes that, while Crane may not have physically been present for Nightwing's downfall, he orchestrated events. However, as the episode ends, Crane finally takes full control of himself and becomes capable of doing direct harm to others without difficulty. So going forward, Nightwing and the Titans will be facing a fully realized version of Scarecrow. And if one random onlooker can nearly kill Nightwing, imagine what a real supervillain can do.
The first 11 episodes of Titans Season 3 are available now on HBO Max. Episode 12 releases Oct. 14.