REVIEW: Doom Patrol – Season 4, Episodes 7 and 8, “Orqwith Patrol” and “Fame Patrol”

"Maybe she's dangerous and normal. Like us."

Television Reviews

***SPOILERS***

In “Orqwith Patrol,” Rita and Madame Rouge are forced to deal with the fallout of their actions and avoid detection in the Ant Farm. Meanwhile, Jane, Cliff, and Vic are put in cages in Orqwith. Rita grapples with inadvertently killing a man as Rouge tells her to get a grip. Back in Orqwith, Cliff is surprisingly interested in what Rama has to say. Vic and Deric reconnect over their creativity. Rama reveals his plans to Jane and Cliff, enraging them. However, Rama holds out Niles’ old necklace, and they grab it. They are transported to a grocery store, where Clara orders Cliff to help him look for Rory. Vic and Deric find Larry, but he’s staying put. At the Ant Farm, Rita and Rouge successfully create a portal to Orqwith. After returning to reality, Cliff decides to give up his immortality in exchange for his fantasy world. Rita and Rouge arrive to save everyone, and so do Vic and Deric with a reluctant Larry. Even Casey and Dorothy come to help. However, it’s too late: Immortus rises.

“Fame Patrol” finds our heroes and Immortus heading to Cloverton, following her inadvertently destroying Orqwith. Back at Doom Manor, the group works on a plan for Immortus. Dorothy shows Casey Niles’ spaceship and offers it to her, but Casey wants to stay on Earth. The two decide to help the Patrol. Rama manifests himself to Larry and asks for his help. Immortus, AKA Rita’s former thespian nemesis Isabelle Feathers, has the ability to alter events as they happen to suit her desires. Casey tries to help Dorothy’s friends but only angers Jane. Rita horns in on Isabelle’s spotlight, prompting a dire warning for Rouge. The gang attends a parade for heroes and upstage Isabelle, causing her to blow up again.

Victor and Deric and Rita and Rouge are basically split into pairs to work on their trauma in these episodes. Rita and Laura hash out the pain they’ve caused one another while Deric and Vic discuss how their lives have changed since they lost touch. Both are effective, but I found the latter very affecting. Victor chose to shut his friends out when he got hurt, leading them to believe he was dead. It’s tempting and very easy to do this in difficult times, but I think it ends up being worse for you and the people or person you won’t talk to. Even though they’ve reconnected, Vic lost years of friendship with a good guy, and they’re both essentially different people now than when they were close. This is an example of why I like this show. The situations may be absurd, and the heroes quick-tempered, but the emotions ring true. The relationships among the team are one of the main reasons to watch Doom Patrol, and they’ve already gotten me invested in Deric and his lost bond with Vic. It’s really a shame this will be the last season. I hope they can pull off a satisfying ending.

Why is Cliff’s idea of an ideal fantasy life Clara yelling at him for corrupting her son? Why is he still a robot? If this is all Immortus can offer, he may as well go home and deal with the real Clara’s ire. I understand that Cliff wants his Parkinson’s cured, but Mr. 104 could have made the offer more enticing. And we learn that he was lying anyway, as Cliff still has Parkinson’s when he gets home. He’s no longer immortal but still has all of the same problems from before. What a crappy deal. I think narratively, it makes sense to have one of the team make the wrong choice; you have to keep the story going a little longer. And Cliff is definitely the dumb one, as much as I like him. I just think they would have done him and the story justice by making his choice more understandable. Make his “perfect life” more perfect and less like the one he already has.

Why did the guards in Orqwith seem uninterested in Jane after a while? At first, they weren’t letting anyone go anywhere. But eventually, they seem to have given up on watching Jane and the others, even once Immortus arrives. Casey’s dilemma with her father is resolved rather unceremoniously as Immortus unintentionally(?) kills him and several other followers in Orqwith. I have to admit they got me; I didn’t expect Immortal to be a woman, and I forgot about Isabelle completely. It’s actually pretty funny to take a petty local theater rivalry and give it world-ending stakes. Isabelle maintains all that petty catfight energy even as a god in these episodes. Isabelle has the perfect cover, too; she’s an unassuming valley girl with seemingly no intelligence. What better vessel could there be to hide an apocalyptic threat?

The ending of “Orqwith Patrol” is confusingly edited, or I missed something. When “Fame Patrol” begins and it becomes clear that Casey’s father is dead, Mr. 104 is disintegrated into atoms, etc., I genuinely don’t think this was clear before. Is this an intentional creative choice, or am I picking up on a trigger-happy editor? I was truly confused, so I consider this a flaw with the first episode of season 4, part 2. Some cowardly decisions are made here as well, like preventing Casey and her father from working through their issues and absolving Rita of murder. “Oh, it’s okay, that wasn’t the real Wally you squashed!” This is a cheap tactic to have the tension and trauma of a hero grappling with murder, then just snatching it away to avoid any real consequences.

I want to end with some things I really enjoyed in the two episodes. Rita getting old is handled really well. She looks good and convincing, and I’m intrigued by her reckoning with aging, even if they will, no doubt, reverse this as well. Dorothy tells Cliff all the things she didn’t get to tell her father, Niles, like when she says people love him and will miss him when he dies, and that he needs to let people take care of him. This was very sweet and probably my favorite part of either episode. I’m unclear on whether Rama is a villain. He’s done some awful things, but the show portrays him positively regarding Larry. What’s going on with this guy? Do they want the audience to wonder about him?