Doom Patrol (2019) s03e10 – Amends Patrol

This season finale of “Doom Patrol” is not perfect because it realizes all my hopes for the season; it’s perfect and just happens to realize all my hopes for the season. First and foremost, it doesn’t play chicken with the network (or, in this case, streaming service) as far as renewal. We get closure. There are open plot threads, with things primarily unresolved for about half the team, but nothing to ruin a binge or rewatch if they didn’t get a fourth season. Not like they did last time, though Rona played a part there.

The episode opens with a resolution to the previous episode’s cliffhanger and a return of the Sisterhood of Dada. Well, at least Wynn Everett, who’s got some strong words for April Bowlby while also working on her low-key seduction of Diane Guerrero (who can exist in Everett’s inter-dimensional fog separate from her host). Everett takes Bowlby to task for everything Bowlby needs to be taken to task about and sets up a resolution for that arc.

Bowlby gets her whole arc this season, ditto Matt Bomer and Matthew Zuk, ditto Michelle Gomez. Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan get some resolution, but there are also some open issues. Guerrero and Joivan Wade are similarly in the resolved enough camp. Good enough for a finale. It’s really Bowlby, Gomez, Bomer, and Fraser’s episode, with the show really leveraging Gomez and Bowlby. Gomez “wins” in terms of best performance, but it’s also because she’s got something of a softball compared to Bowlby, who’s still gazing into the abyss.

Especially after Bowlby confronts the villainous Brain, who’s assumed Fraser’s robot body, meaning Zuk gets to go wild with the physical performance this episode. The way the show’s been able to introduce the Brain and sidekick Monsieur Mallah into the main narrative and get them a complete arc in, what, three episodes, is incredibly impressive. It’s not as remarkable as the closure on the Bowlby and Gomez time-traveling stuff, but it’s still fantastic work. The time travel stuff and the layers upon layers of character development running through it are “Doom Patrol: Season Three”’s singular achievement. I didn’t think they’d ever be able to pull it off, and they do. Just right, scene after scene, beat after beat.

Guerrero’s got a reasonably good arc about placating bossy fellow persona Catherine Carlen before getting a nice tense, cliffhanger-ready plotline with Fraser. Wade’s entirely support this episode, starting with Bomer and Zuk, but it’s good support; Bomer’s got to make some big life decisions, which juxtapose nicely with Wade’s recent big life decisions. So while Wade doesn’t get his own thing here, he’s set to have an exciting arc next season.

“Doom Patrol”’s successes here are, obviously, hard to compare to anything else because “Doom Patrol”’s not really like anything else. Even as it plays with the same toys as other superhero media, its character development-driven stakes are entirely different. Not to mention the acting’s mostly spectacular and leagues beyond other franchises.

It’s an actually wonderful show, and I can’t wait for season four. I mean, I can because season three wraps up so nicely—the thing could jump every shark (impossible thanks to the cast, of course), and there’d still be a fantastic thirty-five-episode complete narrative. “Doom Patrol”’s such rare delight.

Superman & Lois (2021) s01e10 – O Mother, Where Art Thou?

Turns out when “Superman and Lois” wants to do a fairly straightforward “Superman” episode, they can do it. Like it balances out well, even if Elizabeth Tulloch gets shockingly little to do but stand around in a show where her character’s name is in the title. And there are some performance problems, but it’s a solid action suspense episode.

The episode starts with a resolve to last episode’s two cliffhangers, beginning with season villain Adam Rayner dropping a truth bomb on Tyler Hoechlin. Everything Hoechlin always knew to be true was a lie—or at least a truth from a certain, lying point of view—and he spends the first ten or fifteen minutes recovering from it. There’s not a lot of time because eventually, they’re going to have to run Emmanuelle Chriqui through the Kryptonian brainwashing machine to stop Rayner.

Despite being relatively thrilling—it’s the end of the world as we know it, after all—Chriqui’s pretty terrible in her new part this episode. One of the things I’ve always liked about CW Arrowverse shows—outside “Arrow,” I suppose—is they clearly tested the actors with material not in the pilot. They really should’ve tested Chriqui with this plot development. She completely fumbles it. The new part—essentially an extended cameo—is difficult, sure, and underwritten (Adam Mallinger gets the script credit, which bungles a lot while still being effectively plotted)… but Chriqui’s bad in it.

And it’s an otherwise well-acted episode. Like, even Angus Macfadyen. Okay, maybe Macfadyen isn’t good, but he’s better than he’s ever been before, as he reveals his Jor-El is kind of… not super… smart? Like, if Macfadyen’s overcompensating, his performance makes a lot more sense. As well as Hoechlin being sort of mediocre at being Superman without Dylan Walsh around to tell him what to do.

A lot of the runtime is Inde Navarrette trying to figure out what’s going on with her parents, as mom Chriqui teams up with Hoechlin, Tulloch, and Walsh—since Rayner’s basically uncovered as the season villain now—and dad Erik Valdez has been possessed by an evil Kryptonian. Of course, no one was going to tell Navarrette until Jordan Elsass (fed up with adults lying and not learning from their mistakes) tells her the whole story. It’s a good arc for Elsass and eventually Navarrette, with Alex Garfin doing an all-right support job.

As for Rayner… I mean, given the way the plot’s going I guess he’s better post-big reveal. He’s still not really good, but it’s also a fairly bland character. It’d be nice if “Superman and Lois” had something up its sleeve besides recycled Man of Steel or “Supergirl” plots.

But still, pretty good “Superman” action episode. Pretty, pretty good.

Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s06e12 – Bored on Board Onboard

The episode finishes with four actual cliffhangers—two characters are unconscious, one has a secret revealed, and Caity Lotz has walked in on something shocking not involving any of the other three. The implication is even the return of the season big bad–“Legends” only has three episodes left this season, and so this episode’s definitely sending them into the end game.

But the thing I’m now most curious about is who’s going to show up at Lotz and Jes Macallan’s wedding. I’m not sure they’re going to have time to do it this season, what with Covid during filming (even though the Arrowverse doesn’t seem to have had a pandemic, lucky them), but at the beginning of the episode, Lotz and Macallan are wedding planning and banter relates to possible guest stars. Grant Gustin and Candice Patton are seemingly out (the “Flash” stars always lead to a supervillain appearance), but Katie Cassidy (or one of her surviving incarnations from the later seasons of “Arrow”) is in. It’d be nice if the Arrowverse A-listers showed for the wedding; while the “Legends” always seems available to the other shows, it’s been a while since other shows have come around.

Well, minus David Ramsey, but he was directing.

However, wedding planning is not the point of the episode. Most of the team is trapped in a magical mystery mansion, leaving Adam Tsekhman and Dominic Purcell in charge of the ship. After last episode’s interstellar mission, the Legends are stuck in space, and it’s going to take them three weeks to get home. They try to amuse themselves while conserving energy but can’t, so they decide to go pen and paper (not really) with a board game.

Hence the very amusing title, Bored on Board Onboard. They’re bored on a board game onboard a ship. It’s cute. Almost as cute as the subtle Clue references later on, including Olivia Swann and Lisseth Chavez getting annoyed with the shortcuts across the board not necessarily being helpful. When the game starts, they’re playing it on a game board, but Matt Ryan (who’s high on his evil magic juice) wants to show off to Tala Ashe—and piss off her brother, Shayan Sobhian because the evil magic juice is turning Ryan into a dick. So he casts a spell, and they’re in the board game, slowly becoming their appropriately assigned characters, trying to find the murder amongst them.

The episode’s best when they’re still doing the murder mystery game before it turns into a bickering triangle between Sobhian, Ryan, and Ashe. The character stuff isn’t bad, but it’s also not particularly good. It reduces Ashe (back to her glamour girl variation from the flannel one) to prop up Sobhian while only giving Sobhian protective brother stuff. Meanwhile, Ryan’s got an addiction arc brewing; he’s better at that aspect of it than the dickish stuff because the dickish stuff isn’t fun; it’s dramatic fodder. Ryan’s so much better when he’s fun on “Legends.”

There are some decent surprises and solid performances. It’s a good episode—nice direction from Harry Jierjian—but by the end, it’s clearly just… well, moving the pieces around the board to prepare for the season’s final arc.

Doom Patrol (2019) s02e02 – Tyme Patrol

Tyme Patrol is packed; writers April Fitzsimmons and Neil Reynolds make the subplots seem just as big as the main one, which has the team trying to steal some time travel goo from an infamous time traveller (the titular Tyme, voiced by Dan Martin while Brandon Perea handles the, um, roller-disco). He ends up having a surprisingly affecting subplot with April Bowlby, who gets her first great material this episode as she has to take over the team with Robotman (Brendan Fraser, who’s good this episode, voicing and Riley Shanahan moving) no longer wanting to play the part. Also because Joivan Wade has run off.

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e09 – Jane Patrol

Holy shit, they didn’t get a female writer for this episode. Holy shit. Marcus Dalzine. Holy shit. I thought it was….

Wow.

Okay.

So this episode is about Brendan Fraser—guest starring in person and turning out to not be anywhere near as occasionally amusing in person as when he’s voicing and they’re filtering his voice—but it’s about Fraser going into Diane Guerrero’s mind to help her. The sequence where they go into the mind is good. Like, there are good moments in the episode, and it truly doesn’t seem aware of how cringe-y the whole “Guerrero overcomes a history of profound sexual abuse because she’s got a new father figure in Fraser” thing plays.

Though when they turn in into Guerrero and Fraser fighting a figurative Jurassic Park T. rex… I mean, they had to know. But they were too enraptured with being able to pull of a figurative Jurassic Park T. rex with their geek streaming service CGI.

There are also some other interesting creative choices in the episode, which may or may not be better or worse; it’s impossible to know because Guerrero’s such a bad actor. See, inside Guerrero’s mind is a bleak, vaguely City of Lost Children but the trailer world where all her sixty-four personalities co-exist. Guerrero plays some of them, but not all of them. We finally “meet” tough personality Hammerhead (Stephanie Czajkowski) and, well, okay, they don’t credit the Baby Doll one because it’s non-speaking just weird objectifying—but the thing is not giving Guerrero the chance to play all these parts, sort of appropriately CGI-ed, the show misses the chance with the character. If Jane isn’t about her performer playing her personalities, inside and out, what the hell is the character for? Except to give Fraser something to do.

Also, stereotypical nineteenth century British street urchin Anna Lore shouldn’t be able to act circles around Guerrero (and Fraser) by literally laying a bit. Yet, Lore does.

Maybe Matthew Lillard as Cliff?

There are technical strengths to the episode and it doesn’t seem to realize its tone—which seems like it’d be from a Grant Morrison comic in the nineties, which were a long time ago when it comes to female characterization (not to mention multiple personality tropes)—but holy shit, how did they not think they should have a woman’s name credited on this one? Like. Wow.