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The previous episode of Doom Patrol seemed to get a lot of flack from the viewers for being what they basically referred to as ‘filler’. Not a good description for the third episode of a new series. I didn’t feel that way at all. I enjoyed the trip to Fuchtopia, but what I do miss is Alan Tudyk’s narration and Timothy Dalton’s Chief (although being listed as ‘Special Guest Appearance by’ indicated Dalton would not be featured in every episode). But with the first two episodes setting up Mr. Nobody’s abduction of Caulder and the ‘team’ hemming and hawing about not doing anything until Vic Stone showed up and gave them a kick in the pants, it seemed like the overarching storyline this season would be finding the Chief. And honestly, that could have gotten a bit boring over the course of fifteen episodes.
So this week, even though Vic has mapped out 37 alternate universes in which Caulder could be held captive, the group had some bigger fish to fry this week, namely the end of the world. The episode started with a cute montage of a boy, Elliott, celebrating various birthdays. There were noticeable makings on his skin that covered more and more of him until he reached his 18th birthday, at which point his mother declared the book was ready to be read and Elliott was going to save the world. Except he wasn’t. His father warned him to run because he was going to destroy the world, but that was all he had to say as his wife violently slit his throat while Elloitt made a run for it. Of course, instead of running out of the house, he ran to his room. Why do people always run UP stairs to ensure they have no escape when they need to escape?!
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We were also introduced to Willoughby Kipling (played by Supernatural fan fave Mark Sheppard), a ‘Doom-blazer’, some sort of magician — think John Constantine (and really, why not just let Matt Ryan do a guest appearance?) — who claims to know a very different Caulder than the group at the house knows. He’s come to get Niles to help destroy the book before it is read, which would summon the Decreator (a giant eye in the sky) and destroy the universe, but he’s stuck with Caulder’s group of misfits. Rita, as usual, wants nothing to do with getting involved or being a team. She is in fact quite resistant to allowing the group to be called a team. But for once, Larry actually does want to help … or at least the creature inside of him does. So he, Cliff and Jane move through a portal Kipling creates and brings back Elliott, whose location was foretold by the oracle Baphomet, a singing horse head. They then discover Elliott is the book and the only way to save the world is to kill and burn him. No one is down for that, much to Kipling’s frustrations.
But his magic is limited and not even an incantation using lyrics from The Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’ are strong enough (he laments he should have used ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ but he can never remember all the words). But with killing Elliott not an option, they must find another way to end the Cult of the Unwritten Book before they open the gates to Nurnheim, which leads to the destruction of the world. Cliff and Jane (or Hammerhead) travel to Spain to make sure the gates do not open. Ah, but they are not actual gates, but metaphorical — stigmata that appear on the hands of a priest which must be sewn shut. With Rita refusing to participate, Jane/Hammerhead volunteers that she knits. But once they get to the church, the images and memories overwhelm Hammerhead and she attacks the priest with the stigmata.
Cliff tries to pull her off but the gates open wide before they can sew them shut and the pair are transported to Nurnheim, which looks strangely familiar to Cliff. But this time it’s not Hammerhead he’s with, it’s Penny Farthing, which pisses off Cliff because he’s been butting heads with Hammerhead — who was calling him a monster for all the mayhem he caused in Fuchtopia — but now he can’t finish the conversation. Now they are facing the Archons of Nurnheim, giant, clownish versions of Elliott’s parents who keep toying with Cliff’s perception of reality, ultimately making them see who they truly are — a brain and a young girl named Kay. As Mother Archon revels in the pair’s deconstruction, the camera pulls pack to reveal Nurnheim is a city inside a snow globe in Doom Manor. No wonder Cliff thought the place looked familiar.
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But with their failure to close the gates, Nurnheim’s forces descend on Doom Manor to retrieve and read Elliott, who had considered jumping to his death to end it all. Except it was just the second floor so he might break a leg but death was not imminent. Elliott was talked down from his perch by an unlikely ally, Rita, who seems to have finally decided that she is part of a team, at least when it comes to saving this boy’s life. Unfortunately, not even Vic’s sonic cannon arm and Kipling’s magical flaming sword can hold off the hordes, who abduct Elliott and take him outside to begin reading the writing on his body.
As they read, the remaining members of the team run outside to find a beam of light shooting from Elliott’s body into the sky, causing the Eye of the Decreator to open, fulfilling the prophecy of the Cult of the Unwritten Book … and leaving us with a giant cliffhanger.
There was one other plot point of note this week. Poor Larry seems to be losing more and more control of his body to the energy being inside. He keeps waking up in front of a TV playing a videotape of Chief’s questioning of Larry when he first arrived at the Manor. Larry keeps walking away but always ends up back in front of the TV against his will. Walking away again, he almost misses the moment when Niles was able to draw the being out of Larry. Intrigued, Larry goes back to see what happens and discovers Niles had a device in which he hopes to communicate with the being. Asking the being to enter the device so they could talk, Niles asked a few questions that garnered unintelligible answers, but when asked how it binds itself to Larry, the only word that is heard is ‘torture’ before the device shorts out. So this leads to the question, is the energy being torturing Larry from the inside, or was it telling Caulder that being inside his device was torture, which is why it was destroyed? Two cliffhangers this week for the price of one.
What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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