The Stop Button

How do you follow up an episode where your season villain, an omnipotent time deity played by Charity Cervantes, changed the entire world into a musical? If you’re “Doom Patrol,” with an almost limitless well of human despair. The main cast—April Bowlby, Diane Guerrero, Matt Bomer, and Brendan Fraser—are all rapidly aging to their deaths. And half of them have either new or pre-existing conditions in play as well; they’re not just on the decline; they’re even further than they expected.

While Bowlby is playing Donna Reed to ignore the situation, Guerrero, Bomer, and Fraser are all luxuriating in their individual miseries. Guerrero can’t find the other personas in the Underground, and she’s thinking maybe she does like that girl (Madeline Zima, who only appears in flashbacks), but she’s also having uncontrollable slips in time back to her profound childhood abuse. Bomer—with Matthew Zuk doing a fantastic job doing the physical work on set—is trying to figure out what to do about his radioactive space symbiote when he dies. It means he doesn’t have time for love interest Sendhil Ramamurthy, who’s also about to die because Cervantes turned out to be a high school theater department narcissist and not a benevolent god. It also means Bomer doesn’t have time for best friend Bowlby.

And then Fraser just wants to go see his daughter and grandson, trying to involve Guerrero in his shenanigans, but she’s still a little put out he betrayed them all. Except she can’t stay mad at him forever (how could you), giving the duo a fantastic mutual despondence arc. Absolutely phenomenal body acting from Riley Shanahan this episode, too. So, so good.

Joivan Wade is off at Star Labs with dad Phil Morris, talking through his regrets at giving up Cyborg. It’s basically just an opportunity to get Wade and Morris a scene in before the end of the season (and show, we now know); it’s so good to see Morris again. It’s also a good showcase for Wade, who gets to hash out a lot of his internal angst.

Wade’s not dying with the rest of the team, nor is Michelle Gomez. Gomez spends the episode trying to save the Doom Patrol, except they’re all too aged to want to help. Bowlby, in particular, has resigned herself to her fate, which figures into the outstanding cliffhanger.

All the acting’s real good. Bowlby gets a great scene “with” Bomer (I do wonder how they record his conversations; are they really just dubbing him over line readings, in which case the other actors are even better). Gomez has some great moments (she’s the show’s de facto lead at this point). Cervantes is great.

The show’s trucking along just fine towards its finish. Director Omar Madha might not have clicked with the musical material, but he’s real darn good with the angst.

Oh, and the butts.

The butts are back.