Doom Patrol – Season 2 Episode 6 Recap & Review

Space Patrol

Doom Patrol returns this week with another pretty decent episode, one that progresses the fate for most of our characters while leaving the door wide open with a cliffhanger ending. Compared to last year though, Doom Patrol feels like it’s lost that same urgency and uniqueness that was helped by the presence of Mr Nobody. There’s enough here to enjoy in the meantime though and this episode certainly gives some decent pay-off to Larry’s ongoing issues.

Episode 6 of Doom Patrol season 2 begins with Dorothy weeping over the webbed body of Jane that lies motionless on the floor. In the Underground, Hammerhead and the others look in shock at the devastation caused by Dorothy’s conjuring. After a vote, they all decide on a funeral procession to honour Baby Doll’s memory. Unable to get through to the others, Jane instead speaks to Kay and requests her help in dealing with the Underground

As Baby Doll is taken before the well, Jane confronts them all and tells the group they need to work together to try and understand what happened. Suddenly, Miranda appears from within the well and reveals that whoever goes down is reborn some time later. As they eventually dump Baby Doll into the depths of the Well, Jane is forced to stand aside in favour of Miranda, who takes the position of Primary.

Rita heads to her theatre audition and learns they’re doing a rendition of “Our Town”. Only, “our town” literally refers to their own town and the play is re-enacting the incident involving the donkey last season.  One of the girls there is playing Rita too and they get talking about the character and her persona. Unfortunately this results in some pretty harsh home truths and Rita realizes she has a new arch enemy.

Cliff heads down to the basement and finds Jane. He brings her up to the Chief, questioning him incredulously about what happened. However, there’s more important matters to attend to when a spaceship descends down outside Doom Manor.

Niles refuses to meet them though, especially given the serious Dorothy issue, and instead tasks Larry with meeting the Pioneers of the Uncharted. As it turns out, one of them happens to be known as “The Russian” and she too has a Negative Spirit inside her. This fives her and Larry plenty to talk about.

Interestingly, she sees the negative energy as a blessing rather than a curse which allows for some intriguing juxtapositions to play out. As they keep talking, she eventually gives Larry the perspective he needs to try and work through his problems.

Back inside the mansion, Niles finds a letter from Dorothy downstairs apologizing and revealing that the Candlemaker was the one responsible for what happened to Jane. As they look outside, they notice the Pioneer’s spaceship launching into space and realize Dorothy is on-board. After touching down, she walks across the Moon berating Candlemaker for what he did. However, the spirit simply tells her he’s doing what she commanded.

Cliff and Niles touch down on the Moon in their spaceship too. Desperate to get her back, Niles tasks Cliff with heading out and retrieving Dorothy. Together, they talk about what happened and eventually she agrees to go back with them to the spaceship. While they fly home however, Niles suddenly casts Cliff out into space and tells him they’re not all heading home together.

With a couple of dramatic twists and an outer space adventure to boot, Doom Patrol continues to mix in the absurdity with decent character drama. Both Larry and Niles get some decent development here and the ending certainly leaves the door wide open for where this one may go next.

There’s lots to like with this one this season though and the show continues to revel in all the elements that made the first season so enjoyable. At the same time though the show has struggled to hit the same peaks offered last year and some of that comes down to the lack of a compelling antagonist. Still, we’ll have to wait and see how the rest of the season progresses from here.