Doom Patrol: Fun Size Patrol

June 30, 2020 7:31 PM - Season 2, Episode 1

Our heroes return, but they have a small problem. Plus! A new addition to the family -- a strange little girl named Dorothy -- tries to find a place among the Doom Patrol, and she's bringing a few friends.

This and the next two episodes all debuted last week, but I've only had the chance to watch this one. If anybody wants to take over these posts, please do! A lot of us seemed to really enjoy the first season. This one is off to a very promising start.

posted by kittens for breakfast (10 comments total)

I was a little confused when this episode started, it seemed like I missed something. I think a short recap would have been nice.
posted by demiurge at 10:25 PM on June 30, 2020

We were also confused, but a recap would have ruined the discovery that they were small, or I guess come after that reveal which is probably weird, too
posted by snofoam at 4:08 AM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Dorothy is the child of Caulder and his 'neanderthal' lover from last season's 'Hair Patrol' episode and after...

And I think everyone got turned into tiny people at the end of last season but what with that, the explosions, and the cockroach/rat makeouts I don't even know any more.
posted by prismatic7 at 4:31 AM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

I realized quickly that I didn't remember a lot of major plot points from the first season (I still don't remember why they were small), but most of the stuff that seemed germane to this episode was touched upon. I don't recall whether Niles set out to "breed" Dorothy deliberately, or if it was just a thing that happened, though; maybe we're not supposed to know that yet.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:38 AM on July 1, 2020

I liked that there was no recap of last season. I think this show is probably meant to be binged.

But also, this cast really does give it their all, and that makes it rather amazing. It's probably the best superhero show out there, but yet nothing really happens and few are saved.

Also I really wish they could have used John Constantine instead of this other chap who is clearly him.

That robot rat scene -- you know the one, not sure what episode it's in, I've seen all three -- that's what I want to cosplay.
posted by Catblack at 9:49 AM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

I've not watched this yet, but if the other chap you're referring to is Willoughby Kipling, that's authentic to the comic. Yes, he is obviously Constantine, but Grant Morrison's gonna Grant Morrison. Something to do with the feud with Alan Moore.
posted by Grangousier at 10:56 AM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

YES IT'S BACK, BABY!!!

I love this fucking show so much !! I re-watched the first season in anticipation of season 2 so I didn't really have any problems getting into it.
posted by Pendragon at 12:39 PM on July 1, 2020

Yay it's back! I didn't realize Diane Guerrero was the top billing from the pilot onwards. Deservedly so.

Probably my favourite depiction of a Jackalope.

confused/ missed/ think/ don't even/ didn't remember

Same boat. I think I might need to stop after finishing this one, and binge s01 again before hitting e02.

The "miniature" sets are absolutely fantastic. Very well done technically and artistically. I used to (try to) build miniatures when I was a kid and it also hit my nostalgia right in 'The Borrowers" (the books). The making of the minifood is bs, but so adorable.

lol!! Cliff's ratskin cloak. (Since there wasn't enough time to tan it, it would have been super rank and nasty very quickly.)

That's a pretty mild depiction of infantiphagy. irl, the meal is still alive for quite some time, often vocalizing; mice/ rats' instinct to go for the softest tissue first and the evolutionary drive for durability. It's more like nibbling/ gnawing than the rending shown here.

TIME fOR A CHANGE carved onto the bench. That definitely got me in the feels.
posted by porpoise at 7:03 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

I binged the first season last month, when HBO MAX debuted, and it is my favorite damn show on television. As a commenter said in Charle's Pulliam-Moore's review of the season finale for io9, "the self-selection aspect of only NEEDING to have their content appeal to already comic book-logic-literate subscribers was an absolute masterstroke on the part of the DCU." This fills the Legion-shaped hole in my heart.

Something I loved about the first season was that, in a show all about superpowers as body horror, the worst body horror imaginable was aging naturally. It was extremely well done that every character's agelessness was initially barely commented upon and treated as a minor side effect of their "accidents," but in the end it turned out the agelessness was the whole point, and everything else an unfortunate side effect.

At the end of the penultimate episode I was pretty confused by the reveal, because somehow the Chief hadn't aged since 1916 anyway, so why did he need Project Immortus? I'm glad "Fun Size Patrol" explained that well enough. But I'm still left with a few questions:

• Why was it so important that Cliff Steele of all people be made into Robotman, so much so that the Chief had to kill his wife to arrange it? Why couldn't it have been one of the other 47,000 people who died in a car crash that year? (Is it the name?)

• Was Rita Farr's accident actually arranged by the Chief? That seems like a particularly unlikely and unnecessarily difficult one to pull off. And how would anyone know that green goo was there and would confer immortality if they hadn't encountered it already? (I suspect that this one may truly have been an accident.)

• If Jane's agelessness was conferred by the experiment inflicted on her by Project Immortus that gave her her powers, then why did they have to wait to find her to experiment on? There's clearly a connection between her multiple selves and Dorothy's imaginary friends, but would the experiment not have worked on someone less fragmented?

Anyway, this show is wonderful and I can't wait for tonight's episode. Rita Farr is my favorite character—it's great that in all of season 1, she used her special ability constructively only about two-and-a-half times. (1. Stretching her arm to protect Elliot from Willoughby Kipling; 2. Hiding inside Cliff to infiltrate the Bureau of Normalcy; 2.5. Oozing into the donkey's mouth to take a look inside (this only counts as a half because the donkey is perfectly capable of swallowing full-sized people).) Her real special ability is her hard-earned self-knowledge and empathy, and it's surprising how many times she uses it to save the day in season 1. Also I love her Annie-Edison-from-Community-meets-Trudy-from-Mad-Men-and-by-coincidence-they-were-both-played-by-Alison-Brie vibe.
posted by ejs at 4:10 PM on July 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Also, why does Robotman wear classic punk shirts when there’s no indication at all in the flashbacks that Cliff was into punk? (This is a serious distraction for me.)
posted by Ian A.T. at 4:05 PM on July 6, 2020 [2 favorites]