Doom Patrol (2019) s01e11 – Frances Patrol

I remember opining “Doom Patrol” might give Matt Bomer a great part, but it was the pilot (I think) and they managed to simultaneously ignore his character development while also doing the peculiar flashbacks to the 1950s and Bomer’s closeted affair with Kyle Clements. Then it got better a few episodes ago, then Bomer took the last two episodes off, now we get his episode, resolving most of the things with Clements.

There’s some weirdness to the whole “sixty years” thing—when Grant Morrison wrote the comic, it had been thirty years since the characters—Bomer and April Bowlby (who’s all support this episode but absolutely wonderful, save a single moment aside for herself)–were in their heydays. It just works better. When Bomer’s talking about sitting around doing nothing for sixty years, including any personal growth… though given his subplot has gone from being sensational about the closeted affair, this episode deepens it. Bomer’s stuff this episode is absolutely fantastic. Maybe not a new bar for the show to clear going forward, but definitely a high one.

The other plots have Bowlby going down to Florida with Robotman (voice of Brendan Fraser, body performance of Riley Shanahan; Shananhan’s profoundly good this episode, Fraser is… not) to crash his daughter’s memorial for her adoptive father. It could go better, it could go worse, it ends up being something of a shrug; more like the show itself, rather than writer April Fitzsimmons, decided just to give up on it for now and deal with it later. It’d be frustrating if it weren’t so predictable and if the Bomer story weren’t so good.

And the Joivan Wade and Diane Guerrero one so eh.

Guerrero and Wade acting opposite each other—at the beginning of the episode, it seems for like three minutes Guerrero has magically improved; spoiler, she hasn’t. Anyway, they’re not good together and putting them on mission… doesn’t work. Also all of a sudden Marc Pattavina’s editing is bad on some of their talking heads stuff—Wade’s got news about the future of his cybernetics (they’re increasing whether he likes it or not) and the scene where he talks about it to Guerrero….

Should be good.

Isn’t.

Guerrero.

But also Wade a little (not much) and the editing. Is the editing bad because there wasn’t enough coverage or was the scene really bad as shot. Based on Gurrero and Wade’s driftwood chemistry and director Wayne Yip’s otherwise competent direction, I’m thinking the latter. The cutting room floor on Guerrero’s performance has got to be something.

It’s incredible the show can overcome her, yet it does. Even with a perplexing—as in, am I watching “Doom Patrol” out of order—cliffhanger reveal.

Hunters (2020) s01e03 – While Visions Of Safta Danced In His Head

Maybe it’s just knowing Logan Lerman started in a YA franchise attempt (he was Percy Jackson) or because he’s got the dagger in his hand during the awesome opening titles every episode, but I wasn’t expecting him to have a whole “I feel super-guilty about killing these Nazis who are trying to kill us” arc.

While the team gets their introductions—Carol Kane is great, Josh Radnor is great—Lerman hangs out with his civilian friends and frets about his lifestyle choices. Except he’s also reading his safta’s journal entries from the concentration camp and her young ghost, Annie Hägg, is haunting him while he does awesome Saturday Night Fever dance routines to show how carefree life can be when you don’t think about the Nazis.

And there’s very good reason to think about the Nazis—turns out they’re plotting to do something terrible in a couple weeks, just the latest in an annual list of terrible things they’ve been doing since the end of the war—like assassinating Kennedy.

The episode also shuffles second-billed FBI agent Jerrika Hinton quite a bit. She starts the episode in imminent danger from evil little Nazi hitman Greg Austin, but ends it completely out of that danger and free to go on her expository investigation. She meets up with a fellow FBI agent—Sam Daly (Tim Daly’s kid)—and it seems like it means something, but not really. Just more treading water in her investigation, more exposition drops, then some more of her home life problems. Turns out Hinton’s closest lesbian story arc doesn’t just remind of “Mindhunter,” it directly lifts from it.

There’s some great stuff with Dylan Baker, a fantastic “how to spot a Nazi” public service announcement commercial with Radnor and guest star Hailey Stone (not all White people are Nazis but all Nazis are White people), and some iffy “you’re the Batman in our friend group” reinforcement for Lerman.

So Lerman’s not the lead I was expecting and Hinton’s pretty thankless all things considered, but “Hunters” is still sturdy.

Even if the idea of an open all night comic shop in late seventies Brooklyn is wholly absurd. I could be wrong. But… it seems absurd.

Hunters (2020) s01e02 – The Mourner’s Kaddish

The important series story development this episode is it turns out Logan Lerman isn’t okay with torturing and killing Nazis hiding in the United States. He’s still the same softie as in the first episode when he thought Darth Vader probably wasn’t all evil and didn’t, you know, kill a bunch of little kids in his youth or something. This episode’s Nazi—and that part is the possibly important practical series question, is there going to be a “Nazi target of the week”—but this episode’s Nazi is John Hans Tester. He’s fine, but nothing special. He tries to kill Lerman, just like the last Nazi, only Lerman still isn’t grokking it.

Meanwhile, however, Jerrika Hinton—who’s somehow simultaneously become the show’s most “real” character and the one most seemingly a knock-off of the “Mindhunter” female lead role (Hinton’s got a girlfriend, so she’s a Black lesbian FBI agent in 1977, which is a lot)—anyway, Hinton’s realized the Nazis are still around and they’re still really bad. She has a nice monologue about how Hansel and Gretel is really just a story about how some little German kids robbed and murdered a Jewish woman.

Now, where Hansel and Gretel as great of villains as the Nazis on “Hunters,” which doubles down on giving Dylan Baker some amazing material. Baker’s an unappreciated acting treasure and seeing him (an American) do a German pretending to be an American lying about his not murdering his own family is awe-inspiring.

Now, despite him being so amazing, the show doesn’t give him a peppy theme like it gives evil Nazi boss lady Lena Olin. She’s got theme music. It’s a little weird.

Also this episode has young Nazi Greg Austin threatening children and pregnant women. It makes you feel guilty for enjoying Austin’s performance. You feel seen, admiring what a great psychotic Nazi he can create.

There’s also a very cheap “Tarantino-esque” introduction to the rest of Al Pacino’s “Hunters.” We later find out its how Lerman is processing the things around him. Basically Kate Mulvany, who’s the killer MI-6 nun lady, doesn’t like him but team goof Josh Radnor owes him because of Lerman’s grandma so they’re bros. Pacino doesn’t really take a mentor position but more a concerned family friend one. It’s very interesting to see Pacino in television, even streaming. He’s got lots of energy but very little ambition. He also falls back on his accent for his character when he starts getting too Pacino-y.

It works. Good cast. Especially Carol Kane and Saul Rubinek as the married Qs who do all the tech work.

Mulvany’s an exception, though it’s the script. The balance between the supporting cast is off.

Good music from Cristobal Tapia de Veer. I also noticed the photography is William Rexer (it’s excellent, but it’s also just nice to see him lighting projects people will see).

I had been thinking it’d take the season for Hinton to team up with Pacino and Lerman but it’s seeming like it’s going to happen sooner than later, which is good too. Because, so far, “Hunters” works.