TV Review: ‘Doom Patrol’ Season 4, Episode 5
by Frank Martin
After a couple episodes trying to figure out what it wanted to do this season, it seems Doom Patrol returned back to the core of what made it special. Even more than its sister show, Titans, Doom Patrol is about trauma and character growth. The show excels when it showcases this growth through weird and quirky plots and storylines. This week’s episode, which had the Doom Patrol age back to their teenage and adolescent selves, was just the right amount of goofiness to prepare for the seriousness to come as the season’s main villain begins to emerge.
The episode kicks off as Willoughby (Mark Sheppard) makes an appearance to inform the Doom Patrol that Immortus is rising. Immortus is a mythical god which the Chief had used a part of in order to give the Doom Patrol their various forms of immortality. But before their search for Immortus could begin, Rita (April Bowlby) accidentally dropped a de-aging curse that caused all of them to begin a de-aging process that would ultimately result in them phasing out of existence. They try to break the curse, but since they are teenagers, they get distracted and end up partying. All this happens while Larry (Matt Bomer) continues to try and reunite with his spirit.
This season seems to be in a transition period. First off, it started with the man-eating butts. Once that was finished, it had an interlude episode. Now, it seems to be moving towards Immortus as the villain, but it’s not there just yet. The Doom Patrol is rightly fed up with all of these world ending events that they have to deal with. After all, they aren’t really heroes. So there is certainly some character drama along the way. At the same time, this one episode demonstrated that the fight is coming and that the show is still not done with its absurdity.
Doom Patrol streams Thursdays on HBO Max.
