Dumb Patrol
Acting as the proverbial second half to last week’s episode, Doom Patrol returns with a heavy dose of hilarious stupidity as the group find themselves succumbing to a deadly virus. All of this makes sense in the context of this absurdist superhero drama of course and much like we’ve seen across the previous episodes, this series tends to take these ideas and turn them into something that works incredibly well. We begin episode 7 of Doom Patrol Season 2 with Cliff crashing back down to Earth. As he does, he slams straight through a billboard for Mineral Man’s new book. Overcome with rage, Cliff spends most of his time cursing and coming up with creative uses of expletives to use against Niles. Vic returns to the Manor with Roni but finds Larry distant and staring outside. This soon changes though when a box arrives at the mansion. Despite profound warnings not to, the group open it up and immediately find themselves infected with Scants – microscopic beings that cause its infected hosts to become incredibly dumb. Larry’s negative attitude changes to a real can-do positivity as he opens up to Miranda and decides to visit Dex in hospital. Posing as a doctor (which he believes is a fool-proof plan) quickly goes awry and he’s forced to teleport away with Miranda. Vic meanwhile decides to do surgery on Roni himself given the Chief “isn’t that great a scientist anyway.” As Roni lies on the surgery table, Vic tells her he loves her. Kipling arrives just in time to reveal the box they opened was infected. The only way to stop this infection is to destroy the Queen. While Kiping heads off, complete with a mask to protect him, the others watch an educational video all about Scants and exactly how dangerous this is. Hilariously, none of them believe they’re infected and ask Miranda to give more of a “can-do” attitude to their upcoming fight. With her back turned, the group plunge head-first into the painting in a bid to kill the Queen. Only unfortunately Larry and the others wind up captured by a group of Scants after introducing themselves. The four pink-colored aliens take them before their Queen. Only, Kipling suddenly shows up too without a mask and it turns out he’s been infected with Scants. The Queen finally presents herself and reveals she’s draining their idiocy and turning it into Uma Jelly that she can drink. Only, it doesn’t work with Miranda. She, and the other girls in the Underground, team up together and save the day by killing the Scant Queen. While all this is going on, Jane has a real heart to heart while tending to bees. Ironically this is just the therapy she needs as Jane monologues about her problems. Dressed in her bee-keeper outfit, she confronts a mugger in the street and uses her powers to save a boy. Niles meanwhile touches down and walks through the frozen wasteland to an altar. Upon the dancing flames, he speaks to the Candlemaker who towers over him and reveals that he’ll be there for Dorothy long after he’s gone. With the Doom Patrol back to normal (or as normal as one can be with these powers), the group return to their previous ways. Larry heads to the hospital but learns Dex has been discharged. Vic and Roni head home but the latter shows off a vial of shining white liquid. Meanwhile, Jane speaks to Polly as trouble is clearly brewing in the Underground. Scarlett has gone missing and as Jane heads into Scarlett Harlott’s station she finds the lights flickering and for some reason all trains closed for business. As the episode closes out, Kipling visits Niles in the woods. It turns out he’s summoned him for “that” call. As Niles holds back tears, it seems like his plan is to do with Dorothy but quite what it entails, remains to be seen.
The Episode Review
Doom Patrol’s latest episode delivers some decent laughs alongside the drama and this week in particular, it manages to tie everything together nicely. Trouble is seriously brewing in the Underground this season and that almost certainly means trouble on the horizon. Alongside that, the show continues to advance each of the different characters nicely and the final reveal with Clara waiting for Cliff at the mansion is a really nice touch too. Given Cliff’s character has been consumed by rage and anger for much of these episodes, it’s a nice way of mellowing out his persona a little. So far this second season has been consistently great but not quite at the same level as the first season. Having said that though, the show continues to build up some great moments and it’s definitely one of the stronger shows this year.
