Doom Patrol: Dad Patrol
July 30, 2020 3:13 PM - Season 2, Episode 8 - Subscribe
Niles and Dorothy set out to have one perfect day together; Jane and Larry try to appease Kay.
ETA: Cliff serving his daughter the sausage he'd fried in the same pan as a severed human finger is fucking nasty. What the hell! This is the kind of thing I mean when I suggest the show is asking a lot for me to be outraged that Roni murdered a...contract killer or something. We're way past that kind of gaucherie.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:49 PM on July 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:49 PM on July 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
kittens for breakfast, I totally agree. I was invested in the Vic/Roni storyline when it seemed Roni was a normal person who had done some awful things in Iraq or Afghanistan, suffered a debilitating injury, and was now trying to come to terms with who she is or was. This made her a great foil for Vic, who was in the same situation except for feeling too much guilt over his mother, and a probably appropriate amount over his father. Now she’s a super-powered murderer and all nuance has gone out the window. I hope at least that Vic feels some angst over the fact that it was only his bringing her to Doom Manor that got her the superpowers she needed to murder Fake Erik Prince.
I do like that Vic is still portrayed as someone who doesn’t quite live up to his reputation or ego. That FBI dude saying “Great, now we have the Justice League up our ass,” was hilarious since Vic doesn’t seem to spend any time with them at all. Maybe they’re all fighting crime and enjoying waffles without him while he hangs out with the losers at Doom Manor?
Rita is my favorite character so all the ups and downs of her new Beekeeper persona are hilarious. And the part where Roni just pushes past her shows that she hasn’t thought this through, beyond a role she can play to earn adoration. Maybe they’re just saving this for later but I would have loved to see Rita just go full Blob Lady and crush/smother Roni into submission.
I am invested in the Jane story. It’s classic inner conflict except all the competing urges have different names and cool costumes. The idea that Jane has been not ruthless enough to defend Kay, so now Miranda is killing alter egos that actually engage with the outside world like Scarlet Harlot and Jane herself, is fascinating.
The Jane/Larry pairing was a new one, fun to see how the two most self-involved characters bounce off each other. After the events of the last few episodes, I thought we might never see another Matt-Bomer-as-Larry flashback, so that was nice. Hey, when we see crispy Larry out of his bandages, is that Matt Bomer Or Matthew Zuk under the makeup?
Cliff’s Being Your Daughter to Work Day was fun. Loved his squeeing when he got a wedding invite. Too bad it’s inevitable that he will either (a) miss the wedding due to comic book stuff or (b) ruin the wedding due to comic book stuff.
My main takeaway from the Niles/Dorothy plot was how sweet the gas station mini-mart lady was. It was heartwarming how she knew exactly what Dorothy needed, but that just made it more tragic that Niles locked Dorothy away for 90 FUCKING YEARS with no friends to help her learn to navigate her life. Now, because Niles was a shit dad, some other shit men feel the need to kill her. Maybe they’ll be proven right, but I get the feeling that if Dorothy has spent some time with her mother learning to walk in her boots, this would all be unnecessary.
posted by ejs at 4:55 PM on July 30, 2020 [6 favorites]
I do like that Vic is still portrayed as someone who doesn’t quite live up to his reputation or ego. That FBI dude saying “Great, now we have the Justice League up our ass,” was hilarious since Vic doesn’t seem to spend any time with them at all. Maybe they’re all fighting crime and enjoying waffles without him while he hangs out with the losers at Doom Manor?
Rita is my favorite character so all the ups and downs of her new Beekeeper persona are hilarious. And the part where Roni just pushes past her shows that she hasn’t thought this through, beyond a role she can play to earn adoration. Maybe they’re just saving this for later but I would have loved to see Rita just go full Blob Lady and crush/smother Roni into submission.
I am invested in the Jane story. It’s classic inner conflict except all the competing urges have different names and cool costumes. The idea that Jane has been not ruthless enough to defend Kay, so now Miranda is killing alter egos that actually engage with the outside world like Scarlet Harlot and Jane herself, is fascinating.
The Jane/Larry pairing was a new one, fun to see how the two most self-involved characters bounce off each other. After the events of the last few episodes, I thought we might never see another Matt-Bomer-as-Larry flashback, so that was nice. Hey, when we see crispy Larry out of his bandages, is that Matt Bomer Or Matthew Zuk under the makeup?
Cliff’s Being Your Daughter to Work Day was fun. Loved his squeeing when he got a wedding invite. Too bad it’s inevitable that he will either (a) miss the wedding due to comic book stuff or (b) ruin the wedding due to comic book stuff.
My main takeaway from the Niles/Dorothy plot was how sweet the gas station mini-mart lady was. It was heartwarming how she knew exactly what Dorothy needed, but that just made it more tragic that Niles locked Dorothy away for 90 FUCKING YEARS with no friends to help her learn to navigate her life. Now, because Niles was a shit dad, some other shit men feel the need to kill her. Maybe they’ll be proven right, but I get the feeling that if Dorothy has spent some time with her mother learning to walk in her boots, this would all be unnecessary.
posted by ejs at 4:55 PM on July 30, 2020 [6 favorites]
Yeah, I mean I like Jane, but you're right, I find it hard to fundamentally care which of her personas comes out on top - they're all her.
Rita is simply the best. I'm not just saying that because I'd like to have brunch with her.
And yeah, I get the impression a big chunk of Roni storyline was cut for 'rona purposes maybe? Because it sort of went from like you said, an interesting guilt comparison between Vic and Roni's pasts to.. Uh. This. I mean, it was a given, given the name, but eh? I'm not sure why I care she killed a dude?
I love how much the actress playing Dorothy is able to emote through the heavy prosthetic. It would've been easy to fall down into like the Land of the Lost Cha-Ka mask, but she pulls it off.
posted by Kyol at 7:39 PM on July 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
Rita is simply the best. I'm not just saying that because I'd like to have brunch with her.
And yeah, I get the impression a big chunk of Roni storyline was cut for 'rona purposes maybe? Because it sort of went from like you said, an interesting guilt comparison between Vic and Roni's pasts to.. Uh. This. I mean, it was a given, given the name, but eh? I'm not sure why I care she killed a dude?
I love how much the actress playing Dorothy is able to emote through the heavy prosthetic. It would've been easy to fall down into like the Land of the Lost Cha-Ka mask, but she pulls it off.
posted by Kyol at 7:39 PM on July 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
And yeah, I get the impression a big chunk of Roni storyline was cut for 'rona purposes maybe?
I've wondered about stuff like this a lot in the second half of this season; what I read made it sound like production was closed an episode early, but I'm not sure whether production may have been modified before they had to shut it down completely. That would explain why Vic and Roni seem to be on a different show 90% of the time; it may have been safer to film a lot of scenes with just two actors. I'm inclined to attribute the general wonkiness of the last few episodes to the production team scrambling to work around the beginning stages of the epidemic -- it feels like that happened -- although I'm not certain at what point the show became an HBO Max property, and how that also could have affected matters. Whatever happened, I really think that...well...something happened; you can feel the change in the fifth episode.
Hey, when we see crispy Larry out of his bandages, is that Matt Bomer Or Matthew Zuk under the makeup?
It definitely looks like Matt Bomer, but I kind of wondered whether his burn scarring wasn't CGI? That's a hell of a lot of makeup, at least in this episode, when he saw a lot of his body. In deep shadow as he was, I feel like a talented VFX team could make digital effects pretty convincing.
I love how much the actress playing Dorothy is able to emote through the heavy prosthetic. It would've been easy to fall down into like the Land of the Lost Cha-Ka mask, but she pulls it off.
She's really a wonderful actress, and they're ridiculously lucky to have found her. Her makeup wisely is built to frame her face, leaving her eyes and mouth more or less untouched; but even so, she's able to do so much with her voice that she could probably be in a full face mask and make it work.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:09 AM on July 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
I've wondered about stuff like this a lot in the second half of this season; what I read made it sound like production was closed an episode early, but I'm not sure whether production may have been modified before they had to shut it down completely. That would explain why Vic and Roni seem to be on a different show 90% of the time; it may have been safer to film a lot of scenes with just two actors. I'm inclined to attribute the general wonkiness of the last few episodes to the production team scrambling to work around the beginning stages of the epidemic -- it feels like that happened -- although I'm not certain at what point the show became an HBO Max property, and how that also could have affected matters. Whatever happened, I really think that...well...something happened; you can feel the change in the fifth episode.
Hey, when we see crispy Larry out of his bandages, is that Matt Bomer Or Matthew Zuk under the makeup?
It definitely looks like Matt Bomer, but I kind of wondered whether his burn scarring wasn't CGI? That's a hell of a lot of makeup, at least in this episode, when he saw a lot of his body. In deep shadow as he was, I feel like a talented VFX team could make digital effects pretty convincing.
I love how much the actress playing Dorothy is able to emote through the heavy prosthetic. It would've been easy to fall down into like the Land of the Lost Cha-Ka mask, but she pulls it off.
She's really a wonderful actress, and they're ridiculously lucky to have found her. Her makeup wisely is built to frame her face, leaving her eyes and mouth more or less untouched; but even so, she's able to do so much with her voice that she could probably be in a full face mask and make it work.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:09 AM on July 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
Junior Justice League. I doubt the fed would have been as dismissive if one of the Trinity showed up at the crime scene.
It's funny how we can all have different impressions, but I would have guessed it was Matthew Zuk that we were seeing sans bandages, not Matt Bomer. I say that just based on the body type. I get the impression Zuk is a bit taller or has longer limbs. Mind you, I had an eye on the character's mouth and the voice and lip movements seemed pretty spot on. (Okay, as sad as it is, I just checked IMDB. Zuk is listed as 6'1" and Bomer is 5'11". Neal was shorter than Peter on White Collar, so I don't tend to think of Bomer as being all that tall.)
I have to say that I really appreciated the store clerk's compassion for Dorothy. That was a really nicely handled scene. Although I am wondering where she found jeans for the little girl.
I'd really love to figure out how Cliff's daughter is going to explain Robodad at the wedding, but as ejs mentioned, I doubt Cliff will be in attendance.
Poor Rita, just when she thinks she has her super hero act together, she finds herself confronted with a situation she completely ill equipped to cope with, despite her best intentions.
posted by sardonyx at 9:26 PM on August 2, 2020 [2 favorites]
It's funny how we can all have different impressions, but I would have guessed it was Matthew Zuk that we were seeing sans bandages, not Matt Bomer. I say that just based on the body type. I get the impression Zuk is a bit taller or has longer limbs. Mind you, I had an eye on the character's mouth and the voice and lip movements seemed pretty spot on. (Okay, as sad as it is, I just checked IMDB. Zuk is listed as 6'1" and Bomer is 5'11". Neal was shorter than Peter on White Collar, so I don't tend to think of Bomer as being all that tall.)
I have to say that I really appreciated the store clerk's compassion for Dorothy. That was a really nicely handled scene. Although I am wondering where she found jeans for the little girl.
I'd really love to figure out how Cliff's daughter is going to explain Robodad at the wedding, but as ejs mentioned, I doubt Cliff will be in attendance.
Poor Rita, just when she thinks she has her super hero act together, she finds herself confronted with a situation she completely ill equipped to cope with, despite her best intentions.
posted by sardonyx at 9:26 PM on August 2, 2020 [2 favorites]
I hope no one explains who Cliff is or why he's there, and I hope it gets around that he was that friend of Bump's who wore the Halloween costume Bump made him to Bump's swamp funeral, and all the wedding guests are haunted for the rest of their lives asking themselves why Cliff wore Bump's robot to Clara's wedding
posted by jameaterblues at 6:25 PM on August 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by jameaterblues at 6:25 PM on August 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
That FBI dude saying “Great, now we have the Justice League up our ass,” was hilarious since Vic doesn’t seem to spend any time with them at all.
Peewee Justice League, if you please.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:57 PM on September 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
Peewee Justice League, if you please.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:57 PM on September 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
So the theme of the season seems to have been split in two 1 Fathers dealing with their daughters being adults (Niles/Dorothy and Cliff/Clara) and the Danger Within (Jane/Miranda and Dorothy/Candlemaker). The Danger Within...didn't entirely work for me because a lot of this was covered in first season. You have Larry, Rita, Cyborg, and Jane dealing with this conflict and finding a resolution. So having Jane return to this situation seems like a regression for her character.
The difference from the Danger Within conflicts of the first season is that Fake Miranda and Candlemaker aren't like the other internalized personas. They are masquerading as such to their own ends. I would have liked to see more of what happens when you realize that something you identified as being a part of yourself turns out not to be you at all. Perhaps that was what the last ep of the season was going to be. As it is...I'm left feeling it wasn't entirely successful because a lot of it felt like a retread to me.
The father/daughter conflict did, however, really work. Cliff's giddy excitement about getting an invite was just too precious. (I may have even gotten a bit misty.) And I was honestly pissed on his behalf. It does kill me that while Niles gets to spend time making up to the daughter he imprisoned for 90 years, Cliff can't even get time off to go to his daughter's wedding. And Cliff, for all his flaws, has made more progress realizing the impact his behavior has on his daughter than Niles has. And Niles had decades more time to figure it out. I'm just saying, if Niles got to have a state fair day with Clara, Cliff deserves to celebrate his daughter's wedding. But I know that not how this world works.
posted by miss-lapin at 3:34 PM on June 13, 2021
The difference from the Danger Within conflicts of the first season is that Fake Miranda and Candlemaker aren't like the other internalized personas. They are masquerading as such to their own ends. I would have liked to see more of what happens when you realize that something you identified as being a part of yourself turns out not to be you at all. Perhaps that was what the last ep of the season was going to be. As it is...I'm left feeling it wasn't entirely successful because a lot of it felt like a retread to me.
The father/daughter conflict did, however, really work. Cliff's giddy excitement about getting an invite was just too precious. (I may have even gotten a bit misty.) And I was honestly pissed on his behalf. It does kill me that while Niles gets to spend time making up to the daughter he imprisoned for 90 years, Cliff can't even get time off to go to his daughter's wedding. And Cliff, for all his flaws, has made more progress realizing the impact his behavior has on his daughter than Niles has. And Niles had decades more time to figure it out. I'm just saying, if Niles got to have a state fair day with Clara, Cliff deserves to celebrate his daughter's wedding. But I know that not how this world works.
posted by miss-lapin at 3:34 PM on June 13, 2021
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*Remember when it seemed like Vic had found love with a disabled veteran? I sure wish that's the road they'd gone down. Instead, we have this prosaic black-ops storyline. Roni's whole entire deal is way too normal for this show, and that's bad; but to make matters worse, almost her whole entire deal exists as pure exposition. Virtually none of her story outside of Vic has actually been dramatized. Maybe I'd care about her having murdered this guy, whoever the hell he is (???) if I'd actually seen it happen, but since I haven't...I mean, how do I know she even really did it? And again, how am I really supposed to feel about it, anyway? I'm pretty sure he was some kind of supervillainous Erik Prince, so who really gives a shit what happens to him? I guess Vic has to give a shit because he's a superhero or whatever, but I'm not. Fuck that guy!
*I hate Jane's storyline, too. Ultimately, all of these characters are Kay. Unless Miranda is some sort of alien consciousness that's invaded Kay's brain, this is all like that Calvin & Hobbes storyline where Calvin is getting ransom notes for Hobbes. Spoiler alert: Calvin is fucked up. Now, if Miranda is an alien inside of Kay's brain, that's a pretty cool story! Like, you think all these people are you, but then, whoa, holy shit, this one person is NOT you -- that's pretty wild! But we only have one episode left in this season and this is like the C-plot, so...probably not?
*I love everything about Niles and Dorothy in this episode. Just great. Honestly, I think the show needed to find a way to make the other characters a part of that story this season. It was all one story (more or less) in the first half, and it was great. Since then...um...well, I still love it, but yeah.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:40 PM on July 30, 2020 [1 favorite]