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Let’s Talk About ‘Nostalgia Patrol’:
- Rita continues to wallow in despair after being rejected as team leader until a surprising offer literally lands on her doorstep.
- Jane is shocked to see Shelley’s eye in the puzzle pieces, and even more shocked by a foggy manifestation.
- Vic makes his way to Detroit to see his old pals but the reception is much chillier than he expected.
- Larry doesn’t know what to do about Keeg hiding in the walls, and tells Rouge that she needs to deal with her own issues before offering solutions to his.
- Madame Rouge’s time machine is coming in handy as they can hop quickly to the past to stop a crime before it happens.
- Rita attends the Rita Farr Retrospective Film Festival but becomes more of a participant than she expected.
- Rouge wants the group to begin team building exercises, but it’s really an excuse to help her fix her relationship with Rita … if they can find her.
- Minor comic book villains Dr. Janus and Mr. 104 are introduced.
So the Butt-pocalypse has been averted, right? Right? Well, we still don’t really know what Cliff did with the frozen zombie butt so we’ll have to wait and see if that figures into the remainder of the season. We have bigger fish to fry in the coming weeks with the reveal that certified ‘Big Bad’ Immortus is on the way. But apparently he’s going to need some help getting here, and that’s where this week’s episode figures into that. (And for the uninitiated, Immortus and Nile Caulder had a long history as Niles helped recreate a potion that extended Immortus’ life indefinitely. But Nile sabotaged the formula when he learned Immortus was evil and the two parted ways, leading to Immortus being a sworn enemy of the Doom Patrol.)
This episode, ‘Nostalgia Patrol’, is really Rita Farr’s episode (and a tour de force for April Bowlby) which involves everyone but Vic, who has gone off to Detroit to reconnect with his old school buddies … except even though he was invited, they seem less than happy to see him, perhaps because he’s just Vic now, not Cyborg. The animosity seems to come from the fact that his three buddies remained in Detroit to sort out their own lives while Vic left to become Cyborg, even though he never asked to become that. But Vic really wants to reconnect and when the chance comes for them to play a game of laser tag like old times, against a team of teenagers who are the current champions, Vic and his friend Deric finally have a real conversation about what they’ve been though over the past decade — although in the middle of the game which leads to their loss. But in the end Vic feels accepted, and Deric gives Vic the robot the four of them created since the originally agreed to share custody of it. Vic only arrives back at Doom Manor after the rest of the crew has gone through their own wild ride.
And that all starts with Rita, still hurt and angry that the title of Team Leader was taken away from her and bestowed upon Rouge, her now sworn enemy. But Rita is pleased to learn that there are people out there who appreciate her when a flyer for a Rita Farr Film Retrospective at the Cloverton Art House lands on her doorstep (and eagle-eyed viewers can quickly glimpse that it is a Dr. Janus Production). Wasting no time to meet her adoring fans, Rita is off to the movies. Meanwhile Larry is still dealing with Keeg separating from him and hiding among the wiring of the manor — and he’s not too keen on Rouge offering him advice on how to deal with the situation while she has her own situation with Rita to deal with — and Jane is trying to ignore the pile of puzzle pieces on the floor but is drawn back to them once again, this time finding a piece with an eye on it, and eye she recognizes as Shelley, aka The Fog, from the Sisterhood of Dada. Suddenly Jane is enveloped by a fog and … has an orgasm? It’s all a bit much for her and she tries to talk to Cliff about it but the last thing he wants to do is talk about orgasms.
Enter Team Leader Rouge, or DeMille, with a plan to make them stronger together with TRUST: Team building, Respect, Unity, Solidarity, Tea time. Of course her team building part of the exercise is actually her way to repair her relationship with Rita. Rouge has really been devastated by the rift that has grown between them, truly remorseful for everything she’s done over the decades, and even more upset that Rita won’t stop for a minute to try and heal things between them. She cajoles the rest of the team into helping, but Larry says no. Rouge suggests that he needs to fix his own issues with Rita as well so he really has no choice. Keeg can wait. But Rita is nowhere to be found in the manor but they do have the flyer and Cliff and Jane are not even sure Cloverton has an Art House because they can’t think of anyone in town who would be interested in (or intelligent enough) to want to go there. But that must be where she is, so that is where they will go.
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And Rita is at the Art House but all of her adoring fans must be late because it’s just her and several tubs of popcorn (she’s got four movies to get through, after all). As the first film unspools, ‘Secret Rendezvous’, Rita begins remembering the making of the film but doesn’t notice the green mist filling up the theater. She smells cotton candy and passes out, waking up in the movie. It doesn’t take her long to realize the situation, but as the other actors go through the scenes she eventually plays along. But she does notice some things are not quite right, however she accepts a necklace from one of her co-stars and continues with the scene. When the others get to the theater, Larry shows that he is an invaluable encyclopedia of Rita Farr’s films, and as things grow increasingly bizarre on screen Larry knows that what they are watching is not the actual movie. They see Rita asking questions of her co-star and him telling her to just say her lines, but suddenly he disappears from the scene and Rouge knows something is amiss. Rouge jumps out of her seat and the green mist begins to envelope the others, but she shapeshifts into a bird to make her escape, now angry with herself for leading her team into a trap.
Rita is transported to another of her films, a horror film that gave her nightmares, particularly the disturbing child who shit his pants that they had to work with. Larry finds himself in the first movie, approached by a man who is not Rita’s co-star but someone who says he can help Larry find and save Rita. The man also gets very personal with Larry, questioning how he can live being in bandages all the time and having no human contact, and Larry begins to feel like maybe there is something a little more to this man than he thought so he willingly follows him. Cliff and Jane, however, are in the same horror movie as Rita and while they claim to not be frightened, the appearance of the creepy child sends them cowering in a closet. Cliff wants Jane to confront the kid but she reminds him that he’s made of metal so he has a better chance at surviving but before they can do anything the doors fly open and … it’s Larry and the mysterious stranger. Rita is confronted by the kid who tells her to do what she’s told so they can all get out of this trap, and again she is transported to another film.
Rouge is back at the manor drowning her sorrows after being unable to find a way to help everyone. She does notice the name Dr. Janus on the flyer and finds a file on them that Niles had, listing some of Janus’a abilities: creates artificial realities and hallucinations. Janus also has a fragile ego and lacks empathy. And how to fight Janus? Oh, Niles has all of that information redacted, not a great help to Rouge. While she goes off to get a bigger bottle of booze, Keeg appears out of the chandelier and looks over the dossier, possibly being able to see the redacted information.
Rita wakes up in a science fiction film, and Larry, Cliff and Jane are there with the mystery man. Judging by the costumes, Cliff thinks Rita was on Star Trek but it was just a cheap sci-fi flick with derivative costumes. Larry ‘helpfully’ tells everyone the film was also her first box office failure. Rita thanks them for coming but tells them they are in danger because this is a trap. Jane says they know that, motioning to the costume, and Larry says they are there to save her from Dr. Janus thanks to the help of his friend … what’s your name? The man says to call him Mr. 104 … you know, the Periodic Table of Elements? No? Sheesh. (Element 104 is Rutherfordium, named after Ernest Rutherford, one of the first to explain the structure of atoms. It is also a radioactive metal that does not occur naturally, which could explain his attraction — science joke! — to Larry, and is only used in research. Apparently 104 used to be 103, aka Lawrencium … Larry? … which also does not occur naturally and has no known biological role and no use outside of research.)
Larry explains that Dr. Janus is trying to collect Rita’s emotional juices in the necklace she was given earlier, but Rita says Janus won’t have much luck on this film since she only took the job for the money. Mr. 104 says that perhaps they should up the stakes then, and Larry, Cliff and Jane are transported to a small cell above a fire pit with only a rickety old bridge for Rita to cross to reach them. Dr. Janus appears and tells Rita she has something that was never hers in the first place, something that was stolen from someone very special and they intend to get it back. Rita says her choices are to impassively watch her friends die a fiery death or she attempts the impossible? Fuck that! She realizes that she needs her friends and they need her so she will cross that bridge and emote her heart out, filling the necklace to its capacity. Once the necklace is full, Janus claps and the necklace flies off of Rita’s neck and into her hands. She leaves them with the words ‘Immortus will rise.’ Rita continues to try to save her friends but one of the board breaks and she falls through the bridge, managing to hang onto one board, her feet dangling just above the flames. Mr. 104 seems to have a change of heart and grabs one of the ropes holding the bridge up and Larry begs him not to let go. Suddenly Keeg appears, apparently erasing the hallucination they are all in but the situation is dire and 104 may not be able to hold on much longer. Keeg flies to him and enters his body and there is a blinding white flash …
The four of them are back in the theater but Rita is still unconscious. They get her back to the manor, but Larry tells Vic and Rouge that they don’t know what’s going on. The only thing that Rouge is certain of at this point is that Rita should definitely be the leader of the team … if she survives.
New episodes of Doom Patrol premiere Thursdays on HBO Max.
What did you think of the season premiere? Sound off in the comments below!
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