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) s02e01 – Fun Size Patrol

“Doom Patrol” starts off answering the outstanding question—who is Chief Timothy Dalton’s daughter? Her name’s Dorothy, which could be perfect but I don’t want to get ahead of myself hopefulness-wise with the character. She’s half-twentieth century human, half-20,000 century BCE human. Abi Monterey—who’s not in the opening title credit roll—plays the part, in makeup a little bit less than, say, Kim Hunter in the original Planet of the Apes.

Oh. Right. The episode opens with Monterey in a cage in a 1927 London circus with the ringmaster taunting her as an “ape girl” and torturing her conjured reindeer-bear monster. Then the bigger monsters come out. We don’t get to see them unfortunately, but we do get to see Dalton and Monterey reunite.

Fast forward ninety years and she’s still basically a tween. A young, energetic one.

Except the team is all in a bad mood because they’re still tiny from last season finale—they’re living in a campground on the miniature train table—though it’s for racing electric cars because it’s TV and electric cars work on TV–and Monterey exhausts them. Well, most of them.

Monterey gets along with April Bowlby for the most part, but she’s more drawn to Diane Guerrero and Robotman (Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan, who I wasn’t sure was back the movement’s so different). And Guerrero and Fraser have no time for Monterey. They’re both mad about Dalton experimenting on them. No one’s particularly happy about it but Bowlby and Matt Bomer are a little more laissez-faire, presumably because they’re older.

Meanwhile, Joivan Wade just wants to be big again so he can leave. Bowlby wants him to stay—and wants him to train her to be a superhero—but Wade’s not buying it. Even though Wade’s not quite good enough, the show’s use of him as the “traditional” superhero works out and his relationship with Bowlby always has great energy.

Good script from Jeremy Carver and Shoshana Sachi; it’s a good refresh on the cast after the season finale and nice setup for the second season, with some forecasting on the upcoming perils.

Really good Timothy Dalton. Guerrero’s… not better. Monterey seems to be a good addition. Excellent music from Clint Mansell and Kevin Kiner. Though the special effects seem off.

Oh, and Mark Sheppard is better than last time with his cameo here. He’s not a goof anymore.

Sadly Fraser’s in-person flashback cameo is probably his worst work on the show so far, like his experience voicing Robotman has led to him later making bad acting decisions.

But it’s a good episode and a successful launch for the season.

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e15 – Ezekiel Patrol

In terms of ambition, scale, and execution, I’m not sure there’s anything better than Ezekiel Patrol. Writers Tamara Becher, Jeremy Carver, Shoshana Sachi, director Dermott Downs, the cast—they set a new bar. With Ezekiel, even though it’s from Grant Morrison, “Doom Patrol” has just fulfilled the concept of Vertigo TV. It’s sophisticated… okay, not suspense. Sophisticated superheroes.

The episode starts with a truly magnificent recap narrated by Alan Tudyk, which makes perfect since since he’s a cosmic narrator and whatnot; it’s not even Tudyk’s delivery, which is fine but not great, it’s the writing. It’s specific to each cast member and it seems like it can’t all be from the comic. But if it somehow is from the comic… I mean, bravo Grant Morrison. It happens.

After the recap and the resolution of the outstanding reveal, which shakes the foundations of the series to its very core and we still don’t understand all the fallout—the cast once again gets split and forced to confront themselves and each other. Some are more self-destructive than others, some are more empathetic than others, some are more uplifted than others—Matt Bomer’s arc with the Negative Spirit seems too good to be true, versus April Bowlby discovering the real world—despite being something she can tolerate if necessary—is really shitty.

Meanwhile Robotman (Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan—maybe my trepidation about being a big Fraser in “Doom Patrol” fan is because it seems to overshadow Shanahan’s movement work) and Diane Guerrero form a quizzically symbiotic relationship. Guerrero manages to get a lot of sympathy this episode, just because the storytelling is so good.

Alimi Ballard shows up, including for some flashbacks with Timothy Dalton. Ballard’s not great. It’s too bad. It seems like he could be great, then it falls apart. Doesn’t matter, everything else is great. Like guest star Curtis Armstrong. He’s great. Tommy Snider’s great. Charmin Lee’s great (she’s Vic’s mom in flashbacks). Dalton’s great.

And then there’s Phil Morris.

Morris isn’t the “hero” of “Doom Patrol: Season One”—it’s Bowlby because of course it’s Bowlby, she’s phenomenal—but his performance in the show is singular. I thought it was great before. Morris doubles it this episode. So good.

Great music from Kevin Kiner, great photography from Magdalena Górka. The special effects are excellent. Everything about it is excellent.

It’s been a long time since something’s had such a good first season close as “Doom Patrol.”

I can’t wait for what’s next.

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e14 – Penultimate Patrol

It’s a superb episode. Lots and lots of content—including some surprising devices to extend the narrative, which seems iffy at first but ends up working out great. Although you see the budget when it comes to a Groundhog Day-esque montage and the exact same footage keeps getting reused. “Doom Patrol” is even more impressive when you take them being on the cheap into account.

This episode indeed does have more Devan Long, but nowhere near as much as I was expecting. It’s fine, the episode’s so good they didn’t “need” him like they do when, you know, Diane Guerrero’s supposed to be holding her own. And while I missed him, they do die him a great scene.

Also surprising is Joivan Wade’s participation in the episode; they’d given him permission to skip “Doom Patrol Duty” to hang out with Phil Morris. Turns out even though that bonding time goes somewhat awry thanks to some real talk—Morris is so good, just so devastatingly good; his performance ought to be taught—Wade’s not really with the team by choice. Because it’s time for a big reveal.

And not one of the many reveals we’ve been promised—okay, there are maybe two outstanding mega-reveals (though this episode does raise some questions when it flashes back to everyone right before they become, quite unfortunately, “super”)—it’s an out of nowhere reveal. There’s some foreshadowing for a reveal of some kind, a truth divulgence and so on, but the stakes aren’t really established. And the show’s able to kick-off an entirely different take thanks to it. Penultimate Patrol doesn’t feel like an abridged two-partner so much as a “giant-size” episode, even though it’s only one of the forty-four minute ones.

Possibly because of the great script, courtesy Chris Dingess—who wrote the comic “Manifest Destiny,” which I read for a while—great script, great direction from Rebecca Rodriguez; I don’t blame anyone for the montage editing except Warner for not giving the show more money. Though with more money you probably wouldn’t have the same cast and, Penultimate confirms, everyone else makes up for Guerrero. I mean, Brendan Fraser’s voice acting is along far enough, Bowlby delivers greatness every episode, Bomer’s working out, Timothy Dalton….

I mean, Alan Tudyk isn’t doing what they seem to think he’s doing but he’s a lot closer than Guerrero, who actually gets some sympathy here when she’s just so incapable of doing the part. It’s almost mean they made her.

Great music—I thought for sure it’d be some Clint Mansell, but Kevin Kiner’s solo on this episode. Mansell and Kiner have done some great scoring this season.

The cliffhanger’s just right too.

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e13 – Flex Patrol

Devan Long is back this episode—looks like he might recur the rest of the season in fact—and he’s so good I almost want to watch his other stuff. He’s got the right amount of humor and the right amount of heart for the show. He’s stuck with Matt Bomer, Diane Guerrero, and Robotman (Brendan Fraser—and I may come to regret this statement later—is doing fairly well at this point—and Riley Shanahan) while April Bowlby gets to go and try to provide emotional support to Phil Morris and Joivan Wade.

Again, I know there’s the age difference and Wade’s nowhere near as good as Bowlby, but there’s definitely something more shippable about them than anyone else in the show. Though I guess there’s nothing shippable at all about anyone else in the show. Regardless, lots of good scenes for Bowlby, who’s trying to apply her recent personal growth to being a good friend and… dare I spoil… leader.

It helps she finds a sympathetic ear in Ed Asner, who pops in for an Ed Asner cameo and manages to be exactly what Bowlby needs to act off, which wasn’t a point I wanted to make but it’s definitely one of the things about “Doom Patrol.” There’s not always the actors you need to pull off the scene. Sometimes the other person just can’t carry it—hell, even though Guerrero’s not significantly better like Fraser… being around Long helps her performance. Some of it is definitely just the content—she barely gets anything to do on her own and the stuff she does with Long just suggests whoever cast her didn’t test her with the other actors on the right material—but she’s less bad than usual. She’s bad more infrequently than usual. Whatever doesn’t sound like a compliment and maintains a shade of objectivity.

The end of the episode is some bookkeeping, getting everything setup for the last two episodes of the season, which are probably at least a two-parter given Alan Tudyk shows up and mugs to the camera in full narration, bitching about it taking so long to get from episode one to episode fourteen. They leave Tudyk on by himself too long and you start wondering what it’d be like with an actually dynamic performance in the part instead of just them just feigning it with Tudyk.

The writing would have to be better on the character too… probably wouldn’t work for episodic TV.

Anyway.

The ending does what it can to undue previous successes in the episode, but there’s too much good from Bowlby and Long.

The show also establishes—not at the end—it’s willing to be cruel, whereas the last episode implied there were limits to its narrative cruelness. Here… not so much.

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e12 – Cyborg Patrol

The episode opens with Cyborg (Joivan Wade) imprisoned by the U.S. government—led by Jon Briddell, who is still nowhere near good enough for his part and they also don’t explain how they went from him being missing two episodes ago to the main villain in this one—only Wade has turned off “Grid,” his cybernetics’ operating system so he’s powerless. Sort of? Eventually Wade gets to do the “try and escape from my obviously escape-proof cell, which has a lot of vents” thing but it’s after he does a whole whiney thing about not being a superhero anymore.

It’s awful in a few ways.

But once Wade meets next-door neighbor, a very amusing Devan Long, who apparently hasn’t shaved or cut his hair in sixty years, the episode gets on a little surer footing; Long sits around and watches soap operas; he tells Wade to chill.

Meanwhile, back at Doom Manor (yep), Diane Guerrero is mad because no one’s paying attention to her wanting to call her first team meeting. Eventually everyone gets there and they decide not to tell Wade’s dad, Phil Morris, about the kidnapping. They’re going to handle it on their own. It’s an interesting scene because Guerrero and April Bowlby have a lot more information about Wade’s current problems than Matt Bomer or Robotman (Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan). It seems like it might go somewhere.

It doesn’t because Morris shows up immediately, demanding to see Wade, and they immediately change their minds and tell him. Only then Morris decides he’s going to lead the mission himself and it takes some convincing to get the team to go along with him.

The episode’s that adventure, which has its ups and downs, what must be comic book guest cameo and what one only hopes can be (hashtag beware the butts), and a fairly effective—albeit obvious and predictable—conclusion. There’s some good acting from the regular cast in their action episode, plus great acting from Morris, who really isn’t going to get the credit for the dramatic he deserves; Alicia Ying’s a wonderful guest star.

Mac Wells is so bad you wish Guerrero would kill him to get their scene over with. And when it does finally turn into Guerrero’s scene… they kind of punt as far as having her execute it. “Doom Patrol”’s way too comfortable asking for a pass on Guerrero’s performance.

Good script—Robert Berens and Shoshana Sachi—good performances, not super-impressed sets.

The secret underground lab looks less impressive than the one in Return of Swamp Thing, complete with some Brazil homage. Still doesn’t look particularly good.

And Briddell’s a real drag.

But otherwise….

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.

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e10 – Hair Patrol

Does Matt Bomer get an episode with the electric demon next or what, because he’s really left out of this one, which is the secret origin of Timothy Dalton—including explaining, or at least implying, why he looks so good for one hundred and fifty plus years old. No explanation for Diane Guerrero still but doesn’t matter, she’s not really in the episode.

The bad acting this episode is instead courtesy—oh, I knew it was him: Max Martini. He’s Dalton’s evil White guy pal back in 1913 when they’re out hunting oddities to bring them back and look at because it’s pre-WWI and they’re not killing everything yet. Curious colonial. They’re in the Arctic looking for some kind of monster. What they find is something entirely different and will change Dalton’s life forever. It’s initially not great, then gets pretty darn great.

The ending of that subplot—the flashbacks—is a bit of a flop but what can you do… it’s Max Martini. And it’s flashbacks to colonial daydreams, even if Dalton ends up a lot more twentieth century woke than almost any other cishet White guy in existence for the time. Presumably. While it’s a nice story and an interesting cliffhanger setup, it’s also not really character development for Dalton. We get to see him bickering with Alan Tudyk a bit… but it’s all obvious red herring stuff.

But what’s almost as memorable is villain of the week Tommy Snider. He’s “The Beard Hunter.” He eats mens’ beard follicles and taps into a quantum realm of information from it, including being able to turn Cyborg (Joivan Wade) lethal, which probably ought to freak April Bowlby out a little more but her being forcefully level-headed is too charming for it to matter.

The stuff with Snider has its ups and downs—the new shadow villains, the Bureau of Normalcy, aren’t anywhere near as intriguing as they might have been in a monthly comic in 1989, which was pre-“X-Files” for goodness sake.

But Snider’s hilariously gross. And I’m still soft-shipping Wade and Bowlby.

The episode tries a little too hard to surprise—especially in its explanations—but it’s definitely successful. Martini aside, obviously.

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.

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e08 – Danny Patrol

I just ran a find on this episode’s cast list because I couldn’t remember who did the voice of the new character, Danny the Street. Only to remember Danny only ever talks in text messages. Not, like, SMS messages, but text they’re able to arrange on the… well, not on the street because they’re the Street. But like marquees and store windows and, I don’t know, leaves in the breeze. Danny the Street’s clearly able to communicate because it really hadn’t occurred to me they didn’t speak.

Though maybe there’s some personified speaking in a daydream sequence.

Hopefully that paragraph will make more sense in a bit.

So Danny the Street is a sentient, gender-queer, teleporting street—like city street—and they’re in trouble. Jon Briddell’s a government agent—with the Bureau of Normalcy, which turns out to have some history with Matt Bomer and his alien ghost spirit laser electricity thing—and he’ll stop at nothing to destroy the street. Even though he doesn’t know what he’s trying to destroy—or who—including his former partner, Alan Mingo Jr. (sorry, in 2020 watching the old White cop, Black cop best buddies thing just seems forced and fake as opposed to admirably working class). Mingo had some significant self-discovery thanks to Danny the Street and gets to embody some of the tension. The obscurity is about the spoilers. Director Dermott Downs and writer Tom Farrell do some really neat things with Mingo’s character development and they’d cooler to see unfold, if only to appreciate the craft.

Bomer and Joivan Wade pair off to investigate the Danny the Street thing while April Bowlby and Robotman (voiced by Brendan Fraser and performed by Riley Shanahan, who apparently doesn’t have any dance training, which comes as surprise after this episode) have to try to save Diane Guerrero from one of her personalities who wants to live in the perfect nineties romantic comedy and turns out to be able to do it. Some good comic material for Bowlby, the aforementioned great dancing from Shanahan, and Guerrero’s at least supposed to be annoying this persona.

That subplot’s got nothing on the Danny the Street one—which gets Bomer closer to standout acting than I thought possible and again elevates the show’s potential; it’s an excellent episode.