Doom Patrol “Butt Patrol” Review

Season 4 Episode 2 – A desperate Doom Patrol strategize ways to wipe out the zombie butts and reverse their grim future.

Please note, our reviews are based on likes and dislikes. These contain significant spoilers. If you haven’t already watched the episode, we recommend that you click off the article and come back once you have watched the episode. Enjoy!

What I Liked

1. Throughout the episode, we see flashbacks of the Bureau of Normalcy and how they attempted to tame the butt monsters. After several failed attempts, they bring in a woman named Doctor Margaret Yu. She is shown to be very quirky and odd with a deep love of musical theater.

2. One of the flashbacks show Dr. Yu teaching the butts to dance to the song “Shipoopi” from The Music Man. This scene was in the trailer for the season and it still managed to get me to burst into laughter after I saw it again.

3. In a desperate yet still kind of half-hearted attempt to save the future, Rita tells the team that they all need to make small changes to themselves, such as her not wearing high heels anymore and Cliff swearing a lot less (what makes it even better is that Cliff obviously refuses to follow that rule and decides to swear even more). Rita’s attempts to change the future are as useless as they are hilarious.

4. The team decides to boot Rita from the role of team leader in favor of Madame Rouge due to her background as a leader. This naturally makes Rita very upset. Unfortunately for her, the team ignores her protests. It’s not hard to see where both sides are coming from. Rouge has a clear background of authority and knows how a supervillain would act. Since they are looking for Darren Jones (who had turned into a zombie butt), she naturally fits the role better than Rita. However, Rita felt a clear sense of purpose in the role of team leader and to lose her position to the woman she despises more than anyone is clearly frustrating. On top of that, it was her idea for them to become a superhero team, so this decision obviously stings even more now.

4. Rouge tricks Larry, Jane and Vic into waiting to leave so she can take Cliff to go and find Darren Jones themselves. This plan is so insane that even Cliff points out the flaws in it, but he is still pressured to go along with it. It’s very interesting to see that despite Rouge seeming like a better leader on paper, she is just as ineffective as a leader as Rita.

5. Larry starts to have trouble with Keeg who leaves his body and hides from him in this episode for unexplained reasons after sharing a moment with the future Larry’s Negative Spirit. 

6. Jane discovers that Kay left her a bag full of puzzle pieces. Unfortunately they are impossible to put together. This is unresolved by the end of the episode, setting up an interesting mystery for possibly the season.

7. After discovering that Rouge and Cliff ditched them, Vic and Jane decide to go to look for a second zombie butt that the Bureau of Normalcy managed to capture. It’s always fun to see Jane and Vic pair up. These two are almost polar opposites yet have a great dynamic with each other.

8. While looking for Keeg, Rita follows Larry and chastises him for siding with Rouge. After one complaint too many, Larry snaps at Rita and bluntly tells her that their friendship hasn’t been the same since she came back from the past. It’s very surprising to see Larry get angry with Rita as we have not seen that side of him towards her before. 

9. While waiting for the Bureau to show up with the zombie butt, Vic reveals to Jane that Kay had asked him to interview her like Niles had done with all of the other personalities in the underground. This shocks Jane and she immediately asks to hear more about it. Unfortunately, they are interrupted. It is a very nice moment between the two and I had not realized the importance of the scene between Kay and Vic last season but now it feels like it has a whole new meaning.

10. Jane and Vic meet “The Butt Hunter,” a gruff and ridiculous looking bounty hunter who has a striking resemblance to The Beard Hunter. However, he is apparently a completely different person and neither Vic or Jane even bring up the fact that he looks exactly like their beard eating enemy from season 1.

11. Vic and Jane are able to take the frozen butt zombie and teleport away just before the real Bureau agents show up. It is a surprisingly tense scene as you don’t know if they will be caught and lose the butt zombie or if they will be able to get away with their plan. Thankfully it was the latter.

12. Vic reaches out to an old friend of his. It’s nice to see Vic interact with people outside of the group and his father. We haven’t really seen that aspect of him besides his relationship with Roni so that was interesting.

13. Jane watches the tape of Vic’s interview with Kay. She looks on in shock as Kay states her desire for the other personalities to find their own purpose instead of just protecting her. Diane Guerrero once again just kills it in this scene, not having to say a word yet still conveying so many emotions.

14. We discover that after being fired from her position of looking after the butts, Dr. Yu secretly saved one before the Bureau of Normalcy could kill it after they decided to get rid of the butts. It’s now living with her in her apartment, setting up for one of the conflicts of the season.

What I Disliked

Nothing to report this week.

Favorite Moment

Cliff and Rouge find the zombified Darren Jones, who is now a peaceful farmer. He states (through zombie talk) that he no longer wishes to follow the code of the Bureau of Normalcy and just wishes to live a normal life. He even allows the two to do what they have to do and kill him to prevent the bad future. While Cliff refuses to do so at first, Rouge removes the bike helmet that he was wearing in order to make Darren go into a primal state and try to eat his brain. This forces Cliff to kill him in self-defense. Unfortunately, he discovers that by killing Darren, he used his first opportunity to touch something by killing a person. He is naturally horrified and devastated by it but surprisingly doesn’t get angry with Rouge despite her intentionally making it happen. Meanwhile, Rouge experiences an overwhelming amount of guilt from her decision as she remembers her actions of turning people into weapons despite them not wanting to be. This entire sequence goes from hilarious and heartwarming to shocking and downright depressing.

Standout Character

The standout character for this episode has to be a tie between Madame Rouge and Cliff. The subplot with the two was already engaging and hilarious but the scene of them killing Darren and realizing what they had done was one of the most jaw dropping and sad moments in the entire series. The scene where Cliff hesitates in putting down the frozen zombie butt while Rouge secretly watches him in sadness just says it all.

Verdict

This was a phenomenal episode that was even better than the last installment. Seeing Darren Jones meet his end as a villain was very satisfying yet surprisingly heartwarming and sad at the same time. It also provides a great look into our characters like always but showcases them in ways that we have not seen before, especially in regards to Cliff, Jane and Madame Rouge. It looks like we are in for a fantastic ride with this season.

Rating 10/10