DOOM PATROL 01 & 02 - “Premiere” and “Donkey Patrol”
“That was a finesse their dear old daddy hadn’t bothered to teach them...”
“Who are you talking to?”
“Grant Morrison fans, Reddit trolls with DC subscriptions, and the three new fans who stuck around after the donkey fart!”
“You still think you control this story, don’t you?”
“Haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary, old friend. To wit: you’ve slipped through my fingers for the last time...”
:O
Hold on, I have to pick my jaw up off the ground, in between bouts of tears; tears at how much pathos the Doom Patrol members are able to express, at how hilarious and funny this show is, and how as a fan and long-time advocate of the Doom Patrol, this show is everything I could have wanted it to be and more.
I love the Doom Patrol so much. They’ve always relied on their unique flavor of dark humor and unrepentant absurdity to bridge the gap between mirth and misery, creating some of my favorite comic stories.
(By the way, if you haven’t read Gerard Way’s Doom Patrol run, do yourself a favor, stop right now, and READ THAT SHIT.)
Yet, I always had the lurking suspicion that all this anarchy came with the unspoken conceit of medium exclusivity; perhaps it was just too niche, too corny, too weird, too melodramatic to unironically work outside of a comic book page. I mean, would you watch a movie about a robot, a walking hole in reality, and a guy who looks like the Invisible Man with a Macklemore coat, and tell me that it was some highbrow artistic experience?
(I probably would, but my point is that the Doom Patrol are a distinctly Silver Age creation.)
Clearly, I was wrong.
Alan Tudyk as Mr. Nobody. This is one of the rare cases where breaking the fourth wall actually makes things seem more bleak for the main characters. As Mr. Nobody puts the team through horrible pain and ostracization, he turns to the audience and explains that this suffering is the inevitable, comics-decreed fate of the Doom Patrol. Yet, it’s so cleverly written, you have to laugh along. His omnipresent, fourth-wall breaking narration kept these episodes on their toes.
There isn’t a single development in the two episodes that doesn’t work. Every emotion, every interaction, every striking image is completely earned. Too much media tries to emphasize that its protagonists aren’t Big Damn Heroes, but here, they make it work; these aren’t superheroes, they’re people with horrible conditions and ruined lives. The world has rejected them, but deep down, despite what they tell themselves, they haven’t rejected the world.
AND THE LITTLE MOMENTS, OH MY GOD. The cockroach at Cloverton (AND THE OBITUARY IN THE DONKEY UNIVERSE ERGERGWEFWEFREFRE). The relentless quotability of Mr. Nobody. The whole sequence when Cyborg and Cliff are trying to lasso Crazy Jane, and Rita and Larry are on the front porch as Mom and Dad because the kids are running inside!
Maybe I’m dead and this is an elaborate illusion, made to content me forever on the way to Perdition. Either way, I’m going to enjoy it. Somehow, they were able to take comics’ weirdest, most impossibly niche heroes and turn it into the best comic show I’ve ever seen. Hats off to Geoff Johns and Greg Berlanti; I will forever be in your debts.
I enjoyed this episode at - wait, is there still any ambiguity over what I thought? 6/5, period!
RANDOM THOUGHTS:
1: This is one of the most different and interesting Cyborgs I’ve ever seen. The idea of Silas offering “upgrades” to Victor in response to good behavior, his active encouragement of vigilantism, and his goal of getting Cyborg into the Justice League are off-putting at first, but I want to see where this goes.
I bet that after this season, Cyborg will leave the team and join the Titans.
That would give us a team opening...
2: WILL CASEY HAPPEN. GREG BERLANTI, PLEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN. GEOFF JOHNS, PLEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN.
3: The CGI is... kinda shoddy, but it didn’t bother me. The costumes, sets, everything that isn’t CGI looks stunning.
4: I think that Danny has been keeping Doom Manor from Mr Nobody’s eyes throughout all these decades.
“What the fuuuuuuck??”
“...”
“...”
“...whathefuuuuuuuuck?”