Review: Doom Patrol Season 2, Episode 3, “Pain Patrol”

The latest episode of Doom Patrol, “Pain Patrol,” is funny, tender, and is overall a great distillation of what this show is all about.

A pain-themed episode is very fitting for this show. There’s plenty of pain to go again, physical and emotional, with Cliff and Jane fighting to be a part of a family again, and Larry, Chief and Rita struggling with pain from their pasts. For the most part, it’s a solid outing.

Rita and Chief go on a mission to rescue Larry from an extra-dimensional being known to humans as Jack the Ripper, and Jane accompanies Cliff on a journey to see his daughter for the first time since becoming Robotman. The filmmaking is pretty straightforward by Doom Patrol standards. There are few crooked or quirky angles, and not much in the way of dramatic, symbolic lighting.

Robotman reunites with his daughter at the worst possible time, when she’s having a baby shower. Unable to handle her rejection, Cliff has a minor mental breakdown and proceeds to wait on top of his bus until the party is over. This leads to some funny interactions with cops and a great rant about life, full of Cliff’s signature colorful vocabulary.

Meanwhile Jane is going through an intervention in her Underground. Many of her other personalities ask for her to stop using drugs to suppress them, putting her position as primary at stake. Jane makes a great speech about how her life has revolved around cleaning up the messes made by the other personalities. It’s a great reminder of how detached the other personalities are from the real world and why it’s such a struggle for Jane to exist with them.

Over in the Rita and Chief section of the episode, an extra-dimensional being that feeds off pain to survive holds Larry in a room and forces him to remove his protective bandages so he’ll slowly kill the people around him with radiation. It’s a pretty horrifying tactic. When this being reunites with Chief, he asks if Chief would like to join him in his devilish game. Niles declines, but then tricks the being into believing he changes his mind, and once close enough, kills the thing. But before he can do this, Rita must brave the radiation rolling in waves off Larry as she rushes in and uses her elongated arms to save him and the people with him, her first act as an active superhero.

Cyborg has never been depicted better onscreen than he is on this show. Vic gets a visit from his lady friend and they spend an intimate night together. We get to see a side of Vic that didn’t change with his transformation. There’s a part of him that is still just an ordinary human teenager. It’s great to see Cyborg getting the depth he deserves.

“Pain Patrol” is full of pain, torture, love and laughs. It reminds us of what this show is about: absolute absurdism in every way.

The next one is called “Sex Patrol.” Enough said.

Grade B+

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