Doom Patrol: Youth Patrol

The chaotic Doom Patrol series is careening towards their end, and this final season is just crazy as the rest of their adventures have been. A major enemy is lurking in the shadows, and striking at them seemingly at will. Now that they’ve apparently lost the special magic that kept them young, they are beset by a new series of problems. Attempts to deal with that go awry, to no surprise at all, in “Youth Patrol.”

The team is scattered around the mansion, enjoying some unusual downtime. Larry seems to be having some odd dreams, which is weird if for no other reason than I didn’t know he particularly slept or dreamed. Victor is alternating between regarding the robot he recently got from his old friends and monitoring something for the team. He and Larry exchange some words before Larry wanders off to try and find another way of helping. Jane, meanwhile, seeks some… stress relief and gets interrupted in the middle of it by ending in the Underground. Annoyed at being randomly summoned, she gets some surprising news and then tries to find out what’s going on, earning some looks from the other personas.

In the garage, which I’m not sure we’ve ever seen before, Cliff is working on the car he ran across when he and Rouge were off on a mission of their own. Surprisingly, Rouge herself did something nice for Cliff here. That’s a bit out of character for her, but she does seem to be going through some changes. They have a decent conversation, interrupted by the sudden appearance of Wiloughby Kipling, who demands they gather the team so he can find out what’s going on with Immortus, a name we’ve been hearing a lot this season.

While Rita notices some changes that really hit her in one of her weaknesses, Larry is trying to take care of one of his own issues, but ends up in a bad situation just as a relatively new enemy shows up and looms over him. Amid the team’s usual sniping and bickering, Wiloughby clues them in about who and what Immortus is, and it’s not good news. Wiloughby tells them how all this relates to them, and something the Chief set in motion years ago. As they react to his warning with their usual lack of caring, he gets in a great line about their “collective stupidity,” uttered with the trademark Mark Sheppard snark.

Rita, never one to let a crisis overshadow her own issues, desperately hunts through the Chief’s office, looking for something to help with her problem. Finally, she finds something that might help, is clearly a bad idea, and does it anyway. Almost immediately, some very obvious changes take place with the team. One of them, at least, managed to avoid immediate effects, or so they claim. Off on his own, Larry ends up getting a peek at the earlier life of Mr. 104, and it’s not a happy scene. Does anyone on this show have a good history? I mean, just by the odds, you’d think someone would. After all this, Larry awakes, and has a very confused argument with 104 about what’s going on as far as Keeg, Larry’s energy being/kid, goes.

Wiloughby works on a first step towards solving the current problem. At first, the team is fine with what happened and mocks him for worrying, until he explains a pretty significant side effect. That gets their attention and concentration, such as it is. As they rush off to deal with this new bit of chaos, Larry’s misadventures continue, and things aren’t great for him, either. It’s an interesting parallel this episode that Larry is actually trying to do the right thing, whereas the team’s current crisis is because of Rita’s selfishness. They end up reflecting on their teenage years, which Jane is just as happy to have missed, since she’s a creation of Kay’s mind and skipped that whole part of life. Rouge and Rita bicker more, Rita still stung by the team choosing her as leader.

The team gets sidetracked at something out of a bad 80’s teen movie, which somehow seems fitting. Larry and 104 share an odd vision and then wake up, mutually confused. After a lot of talk, Jane goes through what’s a rite of passage for a lot of teens, and ends up having a vision of Kay. For once, that actually goes really well, and Jane ends up with the unfamiliar expression of a smile on her face. That lasts until she gets a good look around here, and sees their dilemma is getting worse. Nearby, Rita and Rouge have a deep conversation about who they are and why they’re like that.  They make some progress toward healing their rift, while Jane gets a shock from Cliff about what he’s dealing with. Wiloughby desperately tries to keep them focused on the problem at hand, which goes about as well as you’d expect. Victor somehow or other decides this was a good time to go out on his own and try and make up with his friends for all the time gone by, but then, no one is quite in their right mind at this point.

Larry and 104 compare notes on their lives, and we learn why Mr. 104 ended up working for Immortus. This is actually one of the rare times when serving an evil power makes a kind of sense, and I can understand why he chose what he did. Their exchange ends with an unexpected event that some of the comic book fans might recognize. Wiloughby, desperate, makes a deal to save everyone, but of course, there’s a cost. But at least the team gets out of imminent, if not unique, death.

What I Liked: Any appearance by Sheppard’s Kipling is going to be entertaining. The team’s big problem this time around being self-inflicted is very on brand. I liked Rita and Rouge’s exchange. The various changes the team went through solving all this were entertaining.

What I Didn’t: I wasn’t a big fan of the Larry/104 side trip. Maybe that will pay off down the line, but it kept feeling like it was distracting from the main story, or did to me at least.

It was a decent episode of the Patrol’s usual weirdness. I’ll give this a 3.5 out of 5.