Doom Patrol (2019) s04e10 – Tomb Patrol

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.

Doom Patrol (2019) s04e01 – Doom Patrol

Last season, “Doom Patrol” had to recover from a Covid-19-induced shortened second season, then get the show into a decent spot for HBO Max to cancel them. Thankfully, HBO Max did not cancel them, and now the show gets to do, presumably, at least this fourth season.

You never know with HBO Max, however.

Anyway.

This season premiere picks up about six months after the finale, which saw the Doom Patrol becoming superheroes under April Bowlby’s enthusiastic, if questionable, leadership. Bowlby’s still team leader, Robotman (Riley Shanahan walking, Brendan Frasier talking), is almost rebuilt, no longer Cyborg Jovian Wade and dad Phil Morris are doing that rebuilding as they try to bond, Diane Guerrero’s having a multiple personality crisis, Matt Bomer and Matthew Zuk (Bomer talking, Zuk wearing the hot costume) are bonding with their new electrical alien parasite, and Michelle Gomez is still trying to atone for her many sins as the latest team member.

Now, Gomez is in the opening credits as “special appearance by,” which isn’t a great sign for her longevity. I kept waiting for her to do a runner this episode, but the show seems sure she’ll be around for a while. Hope so; she and Bowlby are even more fun together hating each other. Or, Bowlby hates Gomez, while Gomez is trying to play nice but noticing the team leadership problems.

It’s a fine place to start the season, with Guerrero narrating. Her primary persona now is the psychiatrist, played in the Underground (where Guerrero interacts with the personalities) by Catherine Carlen. The narration is Guerrero’s psychological observations about the team, which is an excellent device.

However, things go wrong once they go on mission, finding themselves thrown into the future—which the audience has already seen in the episode prologue—and discovering most of their future selves dead, all because of some imminent mistake they’ll be making in the past. There’s a nice mix of action, deception, and character drama, with loads of good acting from the cast. The episode even gets in a great music montage (Clint Mansell and Kevin Kiner) where everyone’s moping around the mansion, realizing the new season’s started and shit’s getting real again.

There are a couple significant reveals in the third act, along with a cameo in an epilogue, lots of future angst, and contemporary drama—the season hook is solid. The episode might feature Guerrero’s best acting on the show, albeit doing a Carlen impression.

So glad “Doom Patrol”’s back. So glad.

Doom Patrol (2019) s03e09 – Evil Patrol

The episode opens with a flashback to 1917, when April Bowlby is still new to the past, and before Michelle Gomez has killed her boyfriend and turned all of her friends into unwilling weapons. It provides some more context for Bowlby and Gomez in the present, ready to duke it out, only Bowlby isn't prepared for Gomez to run instead of fight. The juxtaposing of Bowlby and Gomez, two recovered time travelers now floundering, is one of the episode's more subtle moves. They'll both have big moments—eventually—but they start from an exhausted quiet.

The rest of the world is recovering from last episode's Eternal Flagellation, which didn't just affect the show's cast, but everyone on the planet. Including Phil Morris, who's just discovered son Joivan Wade has had his super-power enabling cybernetics replaced with regular-looking (albeit technologically based) skin. Morris bares his soul to Wade, and it's too little too late, making for a devastating scene. Unfortunately, it's also the only time director Rebecca Rodriguez doesn't do a good job—were Morris and Wade even on the same set—which makes it a little less effective, but it's still devastating stuff.

Meanwhile, Matt Bomer and Matthew Zuk are having nightmares about trying fatherhood again, Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan are on the outs with daughter Bethany Anne Lind, and Diane Guerrero is trying to figure out what's going on with her and Skye Roberts. Everyone's got a lot going on, but it seems they're in slightly better shape than before having their externalized emotional meltdowns last episode.

It leads Bowlby, who's been away from her friends for thirty years but is willing to let them think she's still the same person as before she left, to believe they are ready for a mission to take on Gomez. Bowlby figures Gomez has regrouped with the Brotherhood of Evil, specifically the Brain and Mallah, who have retired to comic effect in Boca Raton. Bowlby's right about the villain team-up; she's just wrong about the team being ready for a mission, especially since Gomez is very much prepared to prove her evil self.

There's a great action scene, a great dramatic scene, a great cliffhanger. Also, an impressive physical sequence from Shanahan. Lots and lots of great… although it does take the episode a while to get going. The episode rushes the post-Eternal Flagellation stuff for the team as a whole; they've got their own stuff going on, so they don't have to bond for a while, but their own stuff just gets teased. For example, Roberts and Guerrero are in unknown, internal danger, but Bowlby berates Guerrero for wanting to deal with it instead of going on a team mission, delaying the reveal.

Though there's a great twist with it, which kicks off the aforementioned great cliffhanger. It's a chain reaction setup to the cliffhanger, with pieces established throughout the episode.

If that early scene with Morris and Wade had been better directed, it'd probably be a standout "Doom Patrol," even with the sluggish first act. It's still fantastic; it's just not the most fantastic "Doom Patrol"'s been. Especially after last episode, which is a singular hour of television.

Some outstanding acting throughout, particularly Bowlby, Gomez, Bomer, and Fraser. Guerrero and Wade just don't end up with as much to do.

The episode's also impressive in how much new plot it works in, establishing Gomez as a villain in the present just two episodes after she was–if not one of the good guys, good guy adjacent. But it also makes the Brain and Mallah into active villains when they've just been cameos before. It's real good.

And that cliffhanger's just mean, especially for the penultimate episode of the season. It's "big" enough it could've been the season finale cliffhanger; somehow, having to wait a week is worse than waiting for the next season.

Doom Patrol (2019) s03e08 – Subconscious Patrol

On rare occasion, a show will do an episode where they realize all the things I’ve been waiting for it to do, good or bad. But nothing has ever quite come along and repudiated my concerns like this episode of “Doom Patrol.” Subconscious Patrol, directed by Rebecca Rodriguez, with a script credited to Tanya Steele, is an almost inconceivable success. The show takes all the things it’s been working on this season and finally brings them together, both tonally and physically, and hashes it all out.

If it weren’t for one of the cliffhangers interrupting a mega-action beat, it’d be a perfect season finale. The season’s laborious character development pays off, with the episode managing to bake a bunch more in at the last minute.

I’m now also wondering if Matthew Zuk plays Matt Bomer’s character in the trench coat and gauze wrap… ugh. Yep, a quick Google later, and it’s Zuk on set. Whoops. I’ve been crediting it wrong the whole time. Major props to Zuk, of course.

Anyway. The episode.

The Eternal Flagellation is underway, and it’s time for the Doom Patrol to figure themselves out, thanks to art and April Bowlby. It’s still unclear how Bowlby got together with the Sisterhood of Dada once she got back to the future, but there’s a flashback explaining how the time travel memories thing works. While Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan, Joivan Wade, Diane Guerrero and Skye Roberts, and Bomer and Zuk, all get to hash themselves out on screen, in front of one another and themselves, Bowlby’s character development happens in the past. She has a final face-off with Michelle Gomez in the past, which seems like it’s going to be the episode’s impossibly high acting point, but then almost everyone’s going to get one. I’m not even sure Bowlby wins by the end of the episode.

Because it’s also time for Fraser to confront himself about what a shitty person he’s committed to being and how it’s threatening everything, particularly his relationship with daughter Bethany Anne Lind. Great acting from Fraser—who appears onscreen as a personification of the character’s subconscious—and Shanahan. Their scene opposite each other is phenomenal.

But is it better than Zuk and Bomer’s scene? Maybe, maybe not. Absolutely fantastic acting from Bomer (onscreen) and then Zuk and Bomer doing the costumed stuff. Fraser’s backstory is about being a shitty human being; Bomer’s is about forcing himself into the closet. They’re both intense and tragic, but they also have some agency to them. We find out Wade’s backstory is all about the time dad Phil Morris told him to start acting respectable so racist white people wouldn’t try to get him killed by cops. It’s devastating stuff, with Wade’s subconscious alter ego coming in the form of Richard Gant as a (Black) army toy.

But then Guerrero and Roberts’s hashing out is about something entirely different, which makes sense since last season was about working through their backstory. Some of their subplot involves a felt puppet talk show. It’s wild and amazing and wonderful and gut-wrenching. Guerrero gets to play the part straight for a while—with Roberts possibly doing the voice of the adult Guerrero as she interacts with the other avatars of her teammates—and it really works out.

The episode just gets better and better, starting like another splintering of the cast but then bringing them all together and doing the impossibly hard work. It’s beautiful work.

Gomez’s also great, but she’s support to Bowlby—outside her fabulous first meeting with the Brotherhood of Evil.

Subconscious Patrol is a perfectly executed, truly exceptional hour of television. It’s going to be so great to get to when someday marathoning the show.

Doom Patrol (2019) s03e05 – Dada Patrol

“Doom Patrol” has a standard plot structure for most episodes. With another show, I’d call it concerning, but with “Doom Patrol,” the show’s able to utilize and achieve with that structure, so it’s a have-at-it situation. Especially since they’re constantly reminding each other they’re not a team; why expect team dynamics.

The structure is a split-up one, where each member goes off on their own personal adventure. While they’re all separate, they’re all full of anger, danger, and sorrow. The split-up structure is familiar from comics when you’d have regular pairings of team members. So, for instance, Robotman and Jane go to save a nuclear power plant while Negative Man and Cyborg go to do something else. I never read Doom Patrol so I’m not sure how the split-up structure worked there, but in the show, instead of pairings, everyone’s on their own. Except for April Bowlby and Michelle Gomez, who sit around the mansion getting hammered on gin and making bad decisions.

This episode’s mission involves Gomez’s newly discovered old gang (from the 1920s, the Sisterhood of Dada—some great jokes about Dada throughout) trying to bring about the end of the world. Maybe. The team—minus Bowlby—goes out to see if they can get some answers, only to discover the Sisterhood’s got the upper hand. One thing about the season I’m underwhelmed about—through future streamers aren’t going to care—is how it’s a sequel to the first season, not the second. The Sisterhood were some of the prisoners the team freed at the end of season one. They just haven’t been mentioned until now, a season and a few episodes later.

It’s a slight peeve and doesn’t affect the episode’s quality. Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan have the most physically and comedically involved adventure because Robotman gets super-high, leading to hilarious dialogue for Fraser and some excellent bodywork from Shanahan. It’s Shanahan’s most impressive episode this season. But the writing is also just fantastic (Shoshana Sachi gets the credit). Not just when they’re on mission or when Fraser’s tripping balls, but also when Fraser’s playing on the internet. It’s all great.

Diane Guerrero’s adventure involves her and little girl inside her Skye Roberts interacting with the outside world again. Or at least outside elements, which leverages Guerrero’s effectiveness as protector. She’s funny when she’s bantering with Fraser; she’s sincere with trying to protect Roberts. Here, Guerrero and Roberts both find themselves seduced—appropriately, I’m just flexing on the vocabulary—by guest star Wynn Everett. Guerrero and Roberts’s arc this season is by far the most affecting, even though Guerrero’s the least capable regular cast member.

Jovian Wade’s got a Black man in America arc with a little dad issues with Phil Morris thrown in. It’s good. Morris only appears in a FaceTime call where no one thought about how he was sitting in relation to the camera, but Rona, right? While all of the arcs feel interrupted, only Wade’s feels like it won’t get explored later, which is too bad. I’m probably wrong, though. “Doom Patrol” consistently pleasantly surprises.

Matt Bomer’s got the smallest arc, involving his missing extraterrestrial symbiote, old man son John Getz, and a giant, moving zit. It’s good but set up.

Meanwhile, Bowlby and Gomez are back at the mansion talking about time travel, revealing all their secrets—which is incredible—and, again, making some bad and predictably drunk decisions.

It’s nice having someone opposite Bowlby who’s always making an excellent acting move. Gomez can keep up with Bowlby, something no one else really can, not when Bowlby lets loose.

“Doom Patrol” is, as ever, fantastic.