TV Review: ‘Doom Patrol’ Season 4, Episode 9 Is Musical Fun
by Frank Martin
It’s kind of strange to think that Doom Patrol has yet to have a musical episode — but that changes this week. The format is a bizarre anomaly in television. They are meant to be fun and goofy ways to mix things up while also providing a fresh take on a show that may be getting repetitive. This is certainly the state of Doom Patrol now that it’s in its twilight years. But there is always the chance that the musical episode can be a serious misstep in a show that’s been floundering. Luckily, Doom Patrol‘s musical is a return to form for the ridiculous superhero team as the episodes succeeded on multiple levels.
At the end of last week’s episode, the Doom Patrol awoke to find reality altered. All the team’s members have been cured of their various ailments and were living under the rule of Immortus (Charity Cervantes). In fact, they were going to happily celebrate a holiday for Immortus. Fortunately, Rouge (Michelle Gomez) seemed to be immune to her powers and snapped out of the trance that caused them all to spontaneously burst into song. As she revealed the truth to the Doom Patrol one by one, some voted to stay while others wanted to break free. Eventually, all of them decided to escape, but Immortus is a powerful god and is determined to make them pay for their betrayal.
A lot of times, shows need to jump through a lot of hoops to justify a musical. For Doom Patrol, it wasn’t that hard. Having Isabel Feathers as a reality altering God was enough of an excuse. Furthermore, the songs were actually pretty good. They also fed into the theme, plot, and character arcs of the episode. Not only that, though, they also poked fun at the musical nature of the episode in several instances. For example, Cliff (Brendan Fraser) started to urinate in the middle of Victor’s (Joivan Wade) song, which was interrupted multiple times. Although Doom Patrol loves being wacky and absurd, it leaned hard into this musical episode and breathed fresh life into the season.
Doom Patrol streams Thursdays on Max.
