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Let’s Talk About ‘1917 Patrol’:
- Rita’s travel through time brings memories and tears, but each tear purges her memory, which helps explain Laura DeMille’s amnesia.
- Rita’s arrival in Iowa is a surprise, but it isn’t long before the Bureau of Normalcy shows up to cart her off, while the Brotherhood of Evil watches from a distance, plotting the next move.
- Jane puts Kay on the train to the outside world so she can buy the shoes she wants.
- Victor grapples with why exactly he’s Cyborg, but Cliff is of no help. He’s too busy selling everything to keep gambling online and paying a video sex chat worker.
- At the Bureau, Rita meets Laura DeMille and is thrilled they both have the same name. Or not. But a quick test reveals Rita’s power and Laura designates her as ‘not a weapon’.
- In the present, Laura questions Cliff about what he saw while with the Sisterhood.
- Rita is put to work in the mail room and she meets others like herself. A piece of mail for Niles Caulder (‘out on assignment’) seems to trigger a memory. She also encounters a segregated lunch room where the Metas are not allowed to eat with the others.
- Cliff has an epiphany that everything that’s happened from his car accident to cybersexing was part of some grand scheme to make him a better person for his daughter and grandson.
- Kay is enjoying the real world, taking a bike for a ride but encountering a stranger, which freaks out Jane. But he was just trying to keep her from riding into the street and getting hit by a car.
- Larry learns that his son Paul wasn’t dragged into this situation, he signed up for it.
- Vic hikes to the spot where he encountered his mother in the afterlife and finds the rocks she told him she’d place under the tree. Vic also has an epiphany.
- The others in the Underground are not happy that Jane allowed Kay to leave, but Jane counters this was her first step toward growth. They tell her she knows nothing about growth.
- Larry’s traveling lump appears on his chest and causes him great pain.
Everyone seems to learn a little bit more about themselves on this week’s Doom Patrol so let’s dive in head first.
Probably the smallest journey this week was Victor’s, wondering why exactly he’s Cyborg. Unfortunately, asking Cliff was not the best choice since he’s preoccupied so Vic decided to go for a hike to the area where he met up with his mom in the afterlife. And sure enough, he found the rocks she put there every time she went hiking and that triggered an epiphany in which he seems to have found himself. So much so that he booked an appointment with a doctor to perhaps have his outer tech removed and replaced with skin?
Cliff also doesn’t have much of a journey but he does have an epiphany, but it seems to be one that is more due to the drugs he’s taking than any actual self-awareness. Cliff spends all of his time gambling online and having a ongoing video chat with a sex worker who, granted, spends more time with him than anyone should. Of course when his credit card maxes out, it’s she who suggests that maybe Cliff can sell some items to keep paying her. He’s actually sold almost all of his stuff so why not sell his ‘roommates’ stuff too! And then he has his own drug-fueled epiphany that everything that’s happened to him from the car accident to right now was supposed to put him in this place to be a better person for his daughter and grandson. But … he’s out of money again. He does, however, have an offer from someone with the user name FuzzyRimJob42 offering 50K for the blueprints of his body and brain. For one brief second, Cliff knows he shouldn’t sell that, but when the countdown to the next hand of video poker starts he makes the sale. If you look closely, Cliff’s screen name is BOTCOCKS and his listing says ‘no offer too stupid.’ He may be finding out that is not entirely accurate.
Jane’s journey is actually with Kay. She sends the girl out to experience the real world for the first time in 70 years so she can buy the new shoes she wanted, under Jane’s watchful eye of course. And she does well. She even finds a bicycle (did Kay just steal a bike?) and teaches herself to ride. Pretty Polly shows up to give Jane a hard time and question her decision. Jane asks if Polly has ever done a kindness. But while Kay is riding, a man jumps in front of her and Jane freaks out, trying to tell Kay to not talk to the man. This is obviously a trigger and Jane feels something bad is about to happen but … the man was just trying to keep Kay from riding out into the street in front of a car. Crisis averted. While Jane waits at the station for Kay to return, she is confronted by the therapist, the secretary and Pretty Polly, telling Jane she can’t take risks like this even if she is the primary. The train arrives and Kay exits with her bicycle, thanking Jane. Jane gets to smugly tell the others that Kay looks pretty happy, and that watching her experience joy for the first time in decades was a sign of growth. The doctor says Jane knows nothing about growth, and if she doesn’t stop the divisive behavior, she’ll get what she wants. Jane asks exactly what that is, but no one has an answer. AS usual, empty threats from a second rate doctor in cheap shoes. Jane gets on the train and leaves the Underground, and Polly asks the doctor what’s next. She says no more empty threats.
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Larry comes to a big realization this week as he tries to take care of his son who is still suffering the effects of their encounter with the Sisterhood of Dada. Poor Paul is just speaking gibberish like ‘the stapler flies at dawn’, and Larry says he’s sorry Paul got dragged into this mess. He says the Bureau of Normalcy will pick a target and pit family members against one another, but Paul surprises Larry and tells him he chose to be part of this. Larry says that can’t be because the Bureau is evil, but Paul tells him at least he didn’t run away with his tail tucked between his legs … and he doesn’t appreciate Larry calling him ‘son’ because he wasn’t there. Larry tells him he stayed away to protect the family, but Paul says he stayed away to protect himself. Larry basically gives Paul a major ‘fuck off’ speech telling him he didn’t choose to burn up in his plane, and he didn’t raise his hand to merge with an alien entity that turned him into a nuclear waste dump, and he didn’t volunteer to wrap himself in bandages every day from head to toe and then have to unwrap just to piss, and then not be able to touch anyone for 70 years. He loved Paul from the moment he knew he was coming. He listened to the World Series with him while he was still in the womb, and those are memories no one is taking away from him. Larry tells Paul if he’s feeling better now, then he could leave. Paul looks a bit shell-shocked by all of this information and hesitates, but he still walks out on his father. But after he leaves, the mobile lump appears on Larry’s chest, causing him enough pain to make him crumple to the floor.
The main story this week belongs to world-renowned time traveler Rita Farr, and by extension, Laura DeMille. As Rita begins her journey back to 1917, he sheds a tear for each memory that is recalled, but each tear purges her memory so that when she arrives at her destination, she is a blank slate. This explains Laura DeMille’s memory loss when she arrives in the present day. But not long after she pops out of the ground on a farm in Iowa, the Bureau of Normalcy shows up to cart her off, unaware that The Brain and Monsieur Mallah are watching as The Brain hopes to reverse engineer the time machine to carry out his plans for world domination.
Once at the Bureau, Rita is taken to the Meta Recruiting Lab where she speaks with Laura DeMille. Rita says that’s her name and Laura shows her the name plate on her desk. They both have the same name! The look on Laura’s face says they do not. Laura then lights a match off the bottom of her boot, but Rita does not react so that rules out telekenesis. Laura ‘accidentally’ knocks a tea cup off her desk and Rita stretches her arm to catch it. When asked how that felt, Rita said it felt good. Rita is determined ‘Not a Weapon’. So she’s put to work in the Bureau’s mail room, and her co-worker names her Bindy since Rita has no idea what her name really is. Others gather to watch as Rita stretches her arms to pick up and place mail in their proper slots. The others look very familiar … they are the Sisterhood of Dada.
Bindy goes to lunch and sits at a table in the lunch room, but the people there scatter. Laura is at another table and gives Bindy the evil eye. Lloyd (the guy with the bicycle wheels coming out of his back) sees Bindy and tells her to follow him. The walk through a door marked ‘Metas’. Obviously Bindy and the others are facing a whole lot of discrimination as someone in the lunch room says ‘Freaks’ after they leave. And Lloyd introduces Bindy to the others who had been watching her: Shelley, Sachiko, Holly and Malcolm. Bindy is surprised that she can understand Sachiko, who speaks Japanese. Meeting this group has made Bindy feel a bit more at ease. Back to work, she receives a piece of mail for Niles Caulder, who is ‘out on assignment’. Something about the name and the coat she sniffs seems to trigger something in her momentarily. This intrigues Laura and she asks Bindy what’s so special about Niles and does she remember anything about the Sisterhood of Dada. Bindy really has no idea, so Laura tells her it’s high time she found out. They are enveloped in a fog and suddenly in an apartment where everyone else is partying the night away. It finally hits her that this is the Sisterhood. They know Bindy is from the future so they are curious to know if they’re important, but she can’t remember. All that matters is now. And then they get high. Bindy was particularly interested in Malcolm but he’s nowhere to be seen … because he’s invisible. He and Bindy share a song and he appears. He tells her his story of trading his heart for a canary, and reveals he actually has a bird cage embedded in his chest where his heart (and ribs and lungs) should be. Bindy thinks this is so romantic.
The group play a game of words and sounds while they are stoned out of their heads, and Bindy wakes up the next morning telling Laura the night was pure joy. Laure tells her that their lives have been hell, and some of them think the Sisterhood can become something bigger, which she believes is an unthinkable notion. Bindy asks why they don’t plant their flag, move forward and make a difference, and Lloyd tells her he’s lucky to be standing. Not everyone can take that kind of risk. But Bindy won’t hear of it and she stages a revolution in the lunch room, daring once again to sit among the regular people, and getting the other metas to join her. But the staring causes Bindy to start blobbing and she tries to run out of the room but her leg blobbing almost causes her to fall. Malcolm appears and says he has her, and Shelley joins them saying ‘piffle paffle’, and they all repeat it until Bindy regains control. Then Sachiko changes all of the normals’ clothing into clown outfits, and the metas all cluck like chickens until security arrives, ushering them out of the room. Rounding a corner, the security guard morphs into Laura who tells them she will stand by the Sisterhood but the real guards are coming and they have to go.
Bindy goes to where the time machine is being kept and stares at it, trying to remember anything. Malcolm joins her and says he doesn’t care why she’s there but he thanks his lukcy stars that she chose this time and place. Bindy wonders if her purpose was to take the Sisterhood someplace safe, but Malcolm points out the machine looks to be designed for one person, but maybe her purpose was to show them how to bend and shape a better world. He asks if she thinks there is something better out there but she says nothing could be better than the here and now, and decides that she’s staying. As a gift, Malcolm gives her a heart-shaped paper clip, and she attaches it to two paper clips and hangs it in his chest cage for safe keeping.
Back in the present, Laura is looking over papers, photos and Cliff’s drawing of what he saw while with the Sisterhood, and says whatever Dada is after it won’t be her. She smashes a tea cup in the fireplace and begins to hear voices. As the fire grows beyond the fireplace and up the wall, the voices say ‘maybe it will’ in response to her, and as the flames die down, burned into the wall are the words ‘piffle paffle’.
New episodes of Doom Patrol drop Thursdays on HBO Max.
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