On the surface of the moon, a robot man comforts an immortal 11 year old girl that ran away and tells her that she may want to be alone right now, but this too shall pass. She finally smiles and they walk hand in hand towards her father’s spaceship. Welcome to Doom Patrol.

“Can I… Sit here a while?” — on a moon of crystals, a robot offers much needed warmth to an immortal 11 year old.

Clearly inspired by Grant Morrison's comic book run of the same name, Doom Patrol stars Timothy Dalton as The Chief, a wheelchair bound genius. Brendan Fraser as Cliff Steele, a racecar driver whose brain was transposed into a robot body to keep him alive. Joining these two big names are Larry Trainor (The Sinner’s Matt Bomer), an irradiated man host to a powerful spirit, Rita Farr (April Bowlby), movie star of the fifties now fighting to stay in control of her elastic body. And Jane (Diane Guerrero), a temperamental young woman whose mind shattered into 64 personalities, each with their own powers. For all intents and purposes… they are monsters.

Adding to the group is Cyborg (played by an excellent Jovian Wade), a more traditional superhero who finds a lot more in common with these "freaks" than he thought he would.

In the past couple of years where I've fallen in love with the show, I've found it very difficult to sell to people. After all, it seems like a very bizarre piece of TV maybe a bit too weird and off putting for most. And with its second season just come to an end, I thought I'll try anyway.

It’s a show about a bunch of “freaks”, that have been dead to the world for years, living under the care of The Chief (Timothy Dalton). And then one day the Chief is kidnapped. So they have to go out and find him. That’s the synopsis. But oh guys you have no idea. There are so many things in this show I can guarantee you’ve never seen before.

I could sell it to you by telling you about Danny the Street, the gender queer sentient street whose heart is a 24h cabaret. Or I could sell it by telling you about Animal-Vegetable Mineral man, a guy who also has a velocipede head and broccoli feet. I could tell you about the Beard Hunter, an incredible warrior who tracks his prey through their facial hair, which he eats.

But all of that is the surface, the weird, fun, wacky stuff that I absolutely love. But I want to talk about the heart of this show.

It's a show that keeps giving all our deformed characters opportunities to become monsters. And after all, why the hell not? You've been tortured, abused, lied to, betrayed... and that would make sense, you know. It just would. Go ahead, get mad, fuck em up! After what you've been through, I'd understand.

But they never do.

Even after the abuse shattered her mind into 64 personalities, Jane holds on to her humanity, holds on to the idea of healing, while the rest of her desperately wants to shut down. Even after Larry is rejected by everyone he loved and tortured by the government he gave his life to, he never becomes what they fear. He retreats into his routine and his gardening. And he makes great pancakes.

In between episodes where they face sex ghosts, nazis and death cults, there are episodes of deep introspection. Sometimes literal, like when Cliff wanders the depths of Jane's mind and meets a bunch of her personalities, which leads to difficult realizations for both and a very literal manifestation of confronting trauma. Sometimes not so literal, as Rita tries to find purpose by auditioning for a play.

Incredibly emotional and cathartic, those episodes are pieces of weird and beautiful poetry. Grounded by incredible performances and pushed so far by really intriguing aesthetics and settings, these episodes show the love and care that the creators put into the show. In a blink and you'll miss it moment of the finale, the creators put a hidden message in a newspaper asking for support to get the show renewed because they love doing it and "we get to say fuck a lot" - don't play a drinking game with the number of times Brendan Fraser says f*ck in the show. It's a dangerous game.

It's in those episodes that April Bowlby, who plays Rita, shines. My favorite performance of the show, she puts on this fifties movie star air, including the accent and demeanor at all times, including in her devastating moments of self realization or helplessness. With frequent flashbacks, we forget the craziness of the show in favor of a grounded character study of a young actress in seedy fifties Hollywood... and the things she had to do. What she still struggles with and represses. In spite of her having powers, the show is happy to spend several episodes in a row without using them. We follow this broken woman on her journey of self acceptance, and it’s incredibly riveting.

In spite of the weird shit that happens, not a single episode feels messy. Even when there are three storylines happening at the same time, involving different characters in different settings, you realize that they are all connected by a theme. In a single episode, we have Cliff talking to his daughter, Rita talking to a mother about what her own mother did and Jane going back to the farm she grew up in. All link up to parenthood and each character draws their own personal conclusions pertaining to their relationships with their parents.

With a show so intent on exploring misery and trauma, it is also very happy to melt your heart with little moments of joy. Like when Robotman teaches a kid how to dance the robot or Larry getting a second chance to talk to the man he loved. It's beautiful, heartfelt and above all... human. A lesser show would be happy with wallowing in misery, dragging the viewer further into the rabbit hole of The Big Sad. But this is not it. This leaves you with a smile on your face and a feeling that you want to hug everyone.

And oh my god it's so fun. I loved watching Cyborg and a drunk wizard with a flaming sword fight off death cult assassins made of letters that were never sent. Watching the Chief sigh as he casually opens a pack of muffins that seems to ring like a phone and using its contents to answer a call. Watching Cliff and Jane pummel some nazis with panache. Or a fake trailer for an 80s cop show called Steele and Stone where Cliff and Cyborg are dressed in trenchcoats with 80s synth backing? Or even watching the Sex Men (basically sex ghostbusters) try to contain the impending end of the world happening because of a mass orgasm. I mean cmon, you're not curious?

Can I just add that the villain is a fourth wall breaking Alan Tudyk who at points is wearing the show's own merch? And that he laments that the show probably lost viewers when the donkey farted in the first episode. (oh yeah there’s a farting donkey, no no stay with me)

The look of the show is something else too. Robotman being a costume rather than visual effects gives him a clumsiness, a weight, a tangible realism. He just doesn't walk or move right, and it works so well. A single blink of the suit can be weirdly expressive at times. The worlds we are introduced to are colorful, baroque, scary, each with their own identity and style. It's incredibly refreshing to see a show have so much fun with its production design. So much of it is real, practical sets, but it never feels cheap. It's all colourful and whimsical, taken straight out of the Wizard of Oz or Pan's Labyrinth. Visual effects are used when absolutely necessary, seemingly as a last resort. Being able to feel that the world is really there is absolutely essential with the kind of things this show asks us to accept.

And I mean… Doesn’t the show just look beautiful anyway?

On the surface Doom Patrol is a show where a Robot Man chases a farting donkey through the ruins of the town it swallowed. But it's really about the journey of an irradiated man to the acceptance of his sexuality. About a father dealing with the fact that his estranged daughter has had a better life without him. About someone trying so damn hard to not lose the parts of herself that allow people in. About a man in a wheelchair desperate to be there for his daughter.

It's about moments where the absolute insanity of that world suddenly makes more sense than the one we see on the news. It's about being kind. It's about family. It's about never giving up on people.

So when you go back to that scene I first talked about.

It's about a father who has lost everything comforting a scared little girl and telling her that it's going to be okay. Doing better by her than he did his own daughter.

A little trailer for yall.

Film and TV reviews

Doom Patrol: Beautiful Monsters