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Let’s Talk About ‘Subconscious Patrol’:
- Vic relives a traumatic childhood memory that took away his childhood.
- Jane and the others become puppets in adult Kay’s version of ‘Underground Avenue’.
- Cliff revisits his past and is forced to confront some awful behavior.
- Larry revisits one of his most painful memories — his wedding day.
- Thanks to the Eternal Flagellation, everyone in the world has swapped places with their own subconscious selves so they can no longer hide who they truly are.
- Laura DeMille’s association with the Brotherhood of Evil, how she became known as Madame Rouge, and her mission to the future are revealed.
- Rita introduces herself to the ‘subs’ and tries to convince them to help stop Madame Rouge and the Eternal Flagellation.
- How and why Rita sacrificed herself in the Poconos is revealed.
- The team are reunited and confront their subconscious selves.
The thing I love so much about Doom Patrol is that even with all of its absurdities, the stories can cut deep, touching on a lot of human emotion going back to Season 1 and the whole story of Danny the Street. Our main protagonists have also had their fair share of stories that dive deep into their character — with a lot of mommy and daddy issues — and this week’s episode is no exception. In fact, this one may dig all the way to the bone, exposing past traumas that have never been dealt with before. This episode is deep and may affect the team moving forward, but it isn’t without some fun moments as well. It really is a stellar hour for the series. Everything that happens this week is a direct result of the Eternal Flagellation, which has caused everyone on the planet to swap places with their subconscious selves so they can never hide who the truly are. We know the Doom Patrol have issues, but these may be too much for even them to deal with.
Victor Stone/Cyborg
Vic is transported back to his childhood when he and Silas were in a toy store. Young Vic was dropping action figures on the ground leading the store manager to believe he was vandalizing the toys, threatening to call the police. Silas had to intervene, offering to pay for any damage, and pulling his son aside to warn him that they — meaning Black people — can’t afford to make any mistakes because something as simple as this could cost them their lives. (The series does not shy away from reflecting issues in our own society back on us.) Vic said he was just looking for a Black superhero, but Silas just hands him a General Tony toy, a Black soldier. It’s not what Vic wants, but it’s the best he can get. Present day Vic watches it all unfold.
Jane
Jane finds herself a puppet in a brightly colored version of the Underground along with puppet versions of the other personae. Kay, however, is human and introduces Jane to the world of Underground Avenue. Also part of the group is the sheep doll Jane rescued from the well. While Kay is an adult now, she is not well-adjusted. She asks the others if they know what trauma is, and with that the Dada Bird lands on her shoulder and she vanishes, leaving the puppets alone.
Cliff Steele/Robotman
Robotman finds himself outside of Steele Racing where he encounters Cliff Steele. They’re both comically shocked and Cliff tells Robotman that he’s a memory in his subconscious. Cliff also tells Robotman that he looks worse than he imagined. Robotman tells Cliff he looks awesome. It’s the moisturizer! But music is coming from inside the building and Cliff tells Robotman that it’s time to face that music. The Dada Bird lands on Cliff’s shoulder and he vanishes, leaving Robotman to say ‘fuck it’ and join the party, dragged in by Cliff’s (former) best friend.
Larry Trainor/Negative Man
Negative Man Larry finds himself in a church, entering a room and finding his human self dressed in a tux. Larry tells Negative Man that if he’s there to change things, he can’t, it just repeats itself. The Dada Bird lands on a table and Negative Man picks up a card wishing Larry and his bride good luck. Negative Man says they needed more than luck, and Larry Trainor vanishes.
The ‘Subs’
Larry finds himself in Doom Manor along with Kay, Cliff and General Tony, watching TV as a child describes a fog covering the Earth and strange creatures roaming around. General Tony asks for an explanation, and someone enters offering one — Rita Farr. She explains they are subconscious versions of themselves, she is not a sub, but she has traveled from the past to work with the Sisterhood of Dada to create this global phenomenon — the Eternal Flagellation — which will bring the world to its knees. Everyone in the world has swapped places with their subs. General Tony is a memory, Kay is a fantasy, Larry is buried shame and Cliff is a deep, dark secret. No one on Earth can hide their true selves anymore, and that will rid the world of evil. And it’s art so if anyone has a problem with it, they can stick a pipe in it. Cliff says he’s fine skipping all this because he’s comfortable with his shame, and Larry says that’s the problem. Now their conscious selves have to relive their shame over and over again unless they have a breakthrough. Larry says that’s pretty evil, but Rita replies it’s ambitious and a bit pretentious but it’s not evil. Evil is Madame Rouge and what she did to the Sisterhood. (I believe this is the first time that name has been mentioned.)
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Brotherhood of Evil 1949
After turning over her friends to the Bureau of Normalcy and being unceremoniously kicked out by Niles Caulder, Laura DeMille is now having an audience with the Brotherhood of Evil, or what’s left of it, The Brain and Monsieur Mallah. Laura is offering her services as a guinea pig to travel to 2021 in a time machine they reverse engineered from a drawing they made 30 years earlier (see the third season episode 1917 Patrol) so she can steal Niles Caulder’s inventions and bring them back to 1949 so the Brotherhood can ‘invent’ them first, stealing Caulder’s dreams and ruling the world. The Brain and Mallah are more impressed with Laura’s evil accent, and they ask how attached she is to her name. Mallah blurts out her new name is Madame Rouge and asks how she feels about that. Laura replies they had her at ‘fuck Niles Caulder’.
The Eternal Flagellation
In Larry’s subconscious, he has to deal with the pain of being forced into marriage while not admitting to his mother, or himself, that he is gay. Confronting his mother, who may be speaking to the Larry she sees and not the Negative Man we see, she says she’s been praying for him and she knows he doesn’t want to bring his shame to her life because they are God-fearing members of the community. (How many gay kids have had to hear this speech?) Larry reminds her that she suffocated her own son. But she offers him her wedding band for his soon-to-be wife, telling him to carry on the tradition of righteousness and true salvation. He says he’s always been invisible to her and this isn’t what he was meant to be. She can’t — or won’t — hear him.
In Underground Avenue, Pretty Polly is hysterical that Kay is gone and wonders if Kay has gotten better. What will happen to them if she does? Jane tries to calm them all down, and when Polly’s nose falls off, she replaces it, telling the others that she fixed it and she can fix this situation. Harry the sheep says no one can fix this, and he is the only one Kay tells her true feelings to. Jane tells him to shut up, and when she hits him in the head, he begins bleeding yarn blood. She tells him they’re not going to listen to a stuffed sheep about what Kay does or doesn’t want, and the others all join in in beating the crap out of Harry, eventually tearing him to bloody yarn shreds, laughing maniacally at what they’ve done.
Back in his childhood bedroom the Dada Bird flies in and suddenly Cyborg is the toy inside the box … although young Vic still sees the general. The whole incident at the toy store has led young Vic to throw out all of his toys, telling the General Tony doll that he has to grow up and be a brave, disciplined warrior. Cyborg tries to tell himself that it’s okay to be a child, but his younger self can’t hear him.
Robotman is enjoying the party at Steele Racing, and Cliff’s friend seems oblivious to the talking robot. Robotman reminds Cliff’s friend how he screwed Cliff’s wife every Thursday, but his friend just tells him what a great friend Cliff is … and they have a surprise for him. They push in a mock-up of a race car with a cake on the hood and a stripper inside, popping out of the roof. Robotman decides this isn’t as bad as he thought it would be.
In the real world, Rita has explained what Madame Rouge has done and General Tony says that whole story sounds like a bad comic book. (Oh, snap!) Rita says she is coming to destroy Niles’ legacy, which is them, so they have to stop her and protect themselves. And there’s also the little matter of getting revenge for Laura killing Rita’s lover Malcolm. Cliff reminds Rita that he’s a sub, he creates messes not cleans them up. Kay says the lesson for the day is ‘you’re on your own’. Rita tells the group their conscious selves are lazy, self-pitying and cruel, but at least they have spunk, always protecting the little guy, so they can all go through the Eternal Flagellation by putting their shit on display for everyone in the room. Who’s going first? No takers. General Tony ends up ushering them all out of the manor and into the fog asking Rita if she’s sure about this. ‘You have no idea,’ she replies. With everyone in the fog, they see the talking bicycle in a bubble roll by and Rita tells them to not turn back because they’re on a mission. Rita is reminded that she is on a mission, the rest of them are just visiting. She says if they go back, it will be more truth and self-loathing. They all turn and run back, leaving Rita alone in the fog.
1949
Before she leaves, Laura returns to the Sisterhood’s apartment. She doesn’t know Rita (Bindi) is there, and surprises her with the question is she going on a trip? Laura says she is, to the future, in Bindi’s time traveling ship. Bindi confronts her about her service to the Bureau, to which Laura says she did her duty — well — to the end. Bindi reminds her she still got tossed out on her ass, and says Laura only did what she did for her own power and she lost every friend she had in the process. Laura tells Bindi that the ‘art’ she was producing with Malcolm was bullshit, but Bindi says that art saved her life … then Laura destroyed it. Bindi then extends her rubbery arm and tries to choke Laura, but the shapeshifter transforms into Malcolm and Bindi can’t watch him die a second time. Laura, through Malcolm, said she wanted to say goodbye to Bindi because she was the one true friend she’d ever known.
Bindi disguises herself and makes her way into the Bureau of Normalcy, taking the time machine, her journey now narrated by an unseen voice (although she seems to be able to hear it). According to the narrator, physics and sheer story inertia bring back memories of her other life — Rita’s on-set accident, her childhood, etc. But with her new old memories coming back, Rita had to wonder what would happen to her old new memories, if that makes any sense, and the one memory she could not bear to lose — Malcolm. But with a time machine of indeterminate function, Rita took a detour to the Poconos to make sure the lovers’ loop would never be broken. Now Rita would have it all, including revenge on Madame Rouge.
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The Truth
In Cliff’s memory, the stripper tells him there’s a little girl in the back seat of the Camero outside. Robotman flips out and says he wants no part of this anymore. A vortex appears, which he recognizes from his previous journey into the fog, so he jumps through, ending up in Larry’s memory. Another ‘spiraly thing’ appears and they both jump in. They next end up in Vic’s childhood bedroom and find the doll-sized version of Cyborg. Into the vortex they all go, crashing onto the set of Underground Avenue. Seeing puppets, Cliff asks which one is Jane. It’s the one that starts cursing at him. (Jane and Dr. Harrison were bickering about Kay’s bike which started the drama between them.) The four leave and Pretty Polly shrieks that Jane gets to leave them all alone again to clean up the mess she made. Dr. Harrison says ‘not again, never again.’
Traveling in Cliff’s cake car through a psychedelic landscape, they see the words ‘stop’, ‘reflect’, and ‘move forward’ whiz past them. Another vortex opens and they arrive in the manor, finding their subs camped out in a blanket fort built by Kay and General Tony. Negative Man confronts his sub Larry, saying his wedding day represents the day he committed to lying to himself. Sub-Larry says its the day he hid from love, and the bandages give him the excuse to keep people away. Conscious Larry says he is afraid he doesn’t know how to love, and that he’s not worthy of it. On his wedding day, his mother invited him into her trauma and sucked others in too. The sub says he has a duty to himself to learn how to let love in, one step at a time. The sub has to live those moments every day, so make the journey worth what he’s going through. And with that the Dada Bird flies in, Negative Man says he can try, and sub-Larry disappears. A breakthrough!
Cliff doesn’t want to have any part of being honest with himself or anyone else in the fort. He lives every day with the trauma of leaving his daughter in the car so he could score some blow and hook up with strippers because it made him feel like a king. And now he feels nothing when he looks his daughter in the eye. Cliff says that kid interrupted his life, he wanted to feel special. Sub-Cliff says the party had to stop at some point. He may be stuck in a loop, but he’s not blind. Conscious-Cliff is on the same track, tripping on Parkinson’s meds like it’s 1984 all over again, selling his friends’ stuff on eBay while he has a second chance with Clara and Rory, but he’s doing the same shit again. It’s killing both of them, but is it worth it? The say ‘fuck you’ to each other a few times, Robotman says ‘fuck all y’all’ to the group and the Dada Bird appears and vanishes with sub-Cliff.
Vic has had enough and leaves the fort. General Tony says they can just stand there and protect everyone, but Vic says he doesn’t need protection. Tony said Vic has always been a good soldier, but Vic reminds him that he was a child. No one saw that. Tony did, but he saw that Vic lost something along the way as he went from child to soldier, trying to please everyone, never making a mistake, always trying to be perfect. Vic says he lost his childhood and he’ll never get that back. Tony tells him he can make his own choices now, he can do some wrong things, make strong choices even if they are wrong. Vic asks his sub what did he think Vic was trying to do before the Eternal Flagellation (referring to the synthetic skin surgery). The sub is not here to judge, but to encourage Vic to keep moving forward, have fun, find happiness, play, then take back what was taken from him. Vic says that’s crazy, and why is he listening to something he didn’t want in the first place? He didn’t want a soldier, he was a kid. The Dada Bird lands on his shoulder and General Tony disappears.
Puppet Jane tells Kay that Harry told them all that she didn’t want them anymore. Kay asks what is the lesson of the day, but Jane isn’t playing. Kay says the lesson is Jane. Everything she does brings Kay more trauma and pain, and it’s time for her to grow up and be on her own. Jane says Kay can’t survive without her, but Kay says she’d like to try. Jane spirals, and Kay tells her she wishes Jane would die. The Dada Bird flies in, Kay disappears and Jane is human again, but now an emotional wreck. She starts destroying the fort while Cliff and Larry run out to safety. When Jane crawls out of the fallen blanket fort, Vic asks if this is over. Larry says the fog is lifting, and Cliff says they can all agree that what happened in the Eternal Flagellation stays in the Eternal Flagell… and they all vanish. Cliff finds himself back in Florida with Clara telling him that whatever is happening with them is not working. Jane is in the Underground alone. Kay enters, Jane says she knows things were said and she hears Kay, and they are going to work it out. All of them. Kay says the others are gone.
Larry is back in the woods, retrieving the space parasite he’d left to die, now treating it like a child. Silas is in the operating room with Vic and as he sits up from the operating table, a huge scar down the middle of his back, it appears that the skin replacement surgery was a success. But does Vic now regret that decision? Rita is still in the woods as the fog lifts. She hears a twig snap behind her. It’s Madame Rouge and the two have a stare down.
It will be interesting to see where things go from here, but this was a magnificent episode and it was an amazing way to bring the entire cast together.
New episodes of Doom Patrol drop Thursdays on HBO Max.
What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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