Season 1 Episode 11 “While Larry pays a visit to his lost love, John — both in real life and in the Dreamscape — Cliff travels with Rita down to Gator Country to reconnect with his daughter after 30 years; Jane and Vic pursue the “Hero of the Beach.”
The Good & The Bad
The Good
1. The first initial Good of this weeks episode on the Doom Patrol is Cyborg. For weeks they have teased us with both upgrades to his system and cybernetics, and Grid. This week we saw more of Grid as well as the actual upgrades. We see an IM conversation on an old computer between Vic and Grid, to which Grid tells Vic he’s 63% Cyborg. Clearly taken back by this, we later see Vic slice open his arm, at first believing it’s just muscle, but after digging a little deeper he finds wiring. Grid was right.
It seems as though Vic is scared of the AI, while stubbornly rejecting any form of help from his father. This leads me to believe we may see Grid before the upgrades. I’m cool with that. At the end of the show, he speaks to Jane about how he feels with the whole system thing, and shortly after ends up kidnapped. Could this be the corruption that leads to full blown Grid? I hope so. The series is screaming for some action.
2. Larry and the energy surge have a strong episode. The surge takes Larry back to a motel scene where it’s just Larry and John. The surge allows Larry to enjoy the moment before pulling him back. The thing I liked about this was the communication is beginning to grow stronger between the pair. Out of all the characters thus far, it seems that Larry has had the most progression. The surge and him are communicating more. I say communicating, more just Larry begging it to take him back to happier times.
This leads to Larry actually visiting John in the present day. John is bed-bound as it’s been so many years. They both go outside to the decking where they talk for a little while. As Larry tells John about the surge, John dies peacefully in front of the sun-set. A fairly emotional moment for Doom Patrol as we understand how much Larry loved John. It was a sad ending to the flashbacks, but I hope this gives Larry the ability to move on.
The Bad
1. The predictability this week was astounding, and very overwhelming. Cliff finds his daughter, again, after his former best friend Bump dies.
Long story short. Him and Rita go to the bar she’s at. Finds out Bump got ate by an alligator. Cliff watches Clara talk about how Bump was an incredible father after the accident. Bump lost the watch. Cliff goes and fights the alligator called Frances. Drops the watch off. Doesn’t speak to her. It screamed obvious with every scene. We’ve seen this Cliff and Clara thing a couple times now so for me, it’s just boring. We never even saw the fight with Cliff and Frances. A massive disappointment.
2. Another ark. Another story. Another “we need to find Chief” but don’t and do something else. Another lackluster episode with a minimal amount of action. I will leave that there, but I am sick of every episode being completely different and irrelevant to the main story ark.
3. Characters have had an extreme amount of backstory to the point it was perfect. I never read the comics, so the backstories were important to me. However, 11 episodes in no character feels stronger, or better than they did from episode 1. The exception of Larry and the surge but even then that’s just slightly. The shows called Doom Patrol but that name is like a swear word to the team, and they swear a lot. I said team there, they don’t even feel remotely close to that either.
Holy Shit Moment
No Holy Shit Moment this week for me.
Verdict
Boring, uninteresting, a lack of action with no progression to the main story. I’m disappointed again. Doom Patrol has had some incredible episodes, but lately I just don’t get it. This felt filler, and did not even feel remotely important to anything. No progression, no villains, no action, it was just, well, it was just there.
Rating: 3/10
