Season 1 Episode 6. “Following a clue left by Mr. Nobody, Jane, Larry and Rita visit a school where Niles’ previous team of heroes — the original Doom Patrol — has retired; Cliff and Vic tenuously bond over their mutual “father issues.”
The Good & The Bad
The Good
1. Doom Patrol Patrol kicks things off and you immediately understand it’s a Rita backstory eccentric episode. I’m fine with these backstories. I never read any Doom Patrol comics, so understanding the characters fully is important. Can I give a nod to the Time’s Up movement scene at the start? After Rita gained her powers, it’s understandable she struggled to get anymore acting jobs. However, the director or owner of a studio was trying to seduce her into sex to give her work. The scene ends with her accidentally killing him however, but it was a nice touch to see this kind of thing in Hollywood is very easily done.
We also got a glimpse of Rita’s first relationship since gaining her powers with Mento. A psychic superhero part of the first and original Doom Patrol. He can read her mind, and at one point allows her to briefly control her powers by putting her legs back to normal. We were told early on the relationship ended sourly, and we understand the reasons behind it. We see a woman in Mento’s fear driven stories of a woman who slices her wrists and dies. After Rita and Mento slept together, he reads her mind and discovers this, obviously shocked by this discovery and walks out, prompting Rita to join Niles. It’s an interesting ark, because Rita has an extremely dark past we haven’t saw that much of yet. I’m sure as the episodes go by we will see more of this unfold, and Rita’s closet will finally open.
2. I loved this weeks episode with the relationship circle of Cyborg, Silas, and Cliff. More so Cliff having a massive realisation moment, noticing his daughter is on social media. He asks Vic to hack into it so he can see what she’s up to. Vic is a good guy, so obviously this was turned down immediately.
Moving on from that, we constantly see Vic afraid of his father, and is especially scared when he knows he’s about to be rebooted, thus being shut down for a period of time. He asks for help from Robot Man, who agrees under the condition Vic helps him. I like this back and forth relationship. I laughed when Cliff went for a high-five with Vic because they were robots. The conversation between Cliff and Silas peaked my interest a lot. Silas explains to Cliff that he would’ve done the whole robot things differently, and that his tech is so old he would have to go back in time to find repairable parts. This really did raise questions. Could Silas potentially do something with Cliff down the line to upgrade him? Especially now I’m eagerly awaiting the upgrades for Cyborg. This peaked my interest so much during the Puppet Patrol episode and wanting to know what upgrades the chamber had for each character.
At the end of the episode we see Silas show more empathy to Cyborg’s situation, he disables privacy mode and tells him to stay with the Doom Patrol. After Silas unplugs the flash drive that rebooted Cyborg, we see him go in for a cuddle and take the flash drive. What’s on the drive? That’s the biggest question. We know Silas is holding a lot back with Cyborg, will he finally see the true potential he has? The lack of action so far with Cyborg has got me begging for the upgrades, just so we can finally see him at his best.
3. When Jane, Rita, and Larry go back to the original Doom Patrol house. We soon realise that Mento is controlling everything to make it look like a happy place, and that it’s really not what it seems. I enjoyed this, especially when he starts turning the groups fears against them. Seeing the shock, and the sheer vulnerability of the group was heart wrenching. Each actor here played their characters brilliantly, another nod to Jane, she’s incredible with every personality. For me she’s the best part of the show so far.
4. This edged a good for me, but I will explain my reasoning. We see the original Doom Patrol go to fight Mr Nobody with the Chief by their side. We hear two sides of the story. One from Mento, and one from Arani. Mento claims he went in bravely and won the fight so easily. Arani said Mento soiled himself at the thought of it. We see the group go to fight him, but my bad here is again the lack of action. We never saw the fight, and the original groups powers seemed so good, and would of been an enjoyable watch on-screen. However, knowing Mr Nobody is a sheer force in the Brotherhood of Evil just makes me want more of him. He’s such a badass villain. I just want to see some action in the episodes, more so with him involved.
The Bad
1. Confusion. Again. The last couple of episodes have been quite confusing. Not understanding the time era they’re in, and what’s really going on. Obviously this can bounce to a good as it’s extremely unpredictable but I would love a straight forward episode without the constant time jumps.
2. The dinosaur vegetable guy. I’m not sure if that CGI was meant to be like that in the CCTV footage to be funny, but I was genuinely shocked more than anything. Literally looked like a teddy bear attached to his body. Kind of funny, but kind of a let down, especially after the build he had in the “Puppet Patrol” episode.
3. Another lack of action episode. At this point I’m begging for a massive fight scene. Six episodes in and we’ve had a few moments, but nothing as of late. Too many confusing parts to the episodes. I’m not going to go into much more than that as I did on my last episodes review, but as of now, it remains on The Bad.
Holy Shit Moment
The energy surge was this episodes Holy Shit Moment. He piped up out of nowhere to take Mento’s helmet off and give it to Rita. Finally we are seeing more of the heroic sides of the surge. It was a brief moment that didn’t last very long, but it was beyond exciting to see. I really hope next episode it brings more of that out.
Easter Eggs
Another Justice League mention. This time from Silas, stating that Mr Nobody isn’t that big of a deal for the Justice League, and that’s why they’re not involved with the current situation.
The Verdict
A massively interesting episode. A lot of character progression, more so with Rita this week. The banter with Robot Man and Cyborg makes me laugh. Jane touching Vic and saying “hey Siri” did so much for me. The episode had a lack of action, and got confusing at times but nonetheless a great episode. It answered multiple questions that needed answers, Larry’s energy surge made a heroic entrance, and Cyborg is progressing with every episodes. A much better and more insightful episode than last week.
Rating 8.4/10
