About a week ago, I finally caught up to the end of Doom Patrol. This strange little show drew a lot of from my favorite run of the Doom Patrol comic book written by Grant Morrison and I was frequently entertained with a quirky mash up of comedy, tragedy and just plain being weird.
But I greeted the end of Doom Patrol with a sense of... relief? As much as Doom Patrol was a show that seemed perfectly made for my decidedly skewed tastes, I also do not think it was necessarily good for my mental health.
The show might be labeled as a super hero series but the oddball collection of misfits who collectively made up the Doom Patrol rarely get to live up to that aspiration.
Everyone involved is a serious fuck up who have made many, many questionable decisions in an endless series of bad choices.
Why do I need to see that on TV when I can just look in a mirror?
Yeah, I know. I need a therapist and/or medication.
Now back to our show.
The TV show Doom Patrol ends with the end of the Doom Patrol.
Deprived of her longevity, Rita Farr (Elasti Woman) dies of old age. Her ghost sticks around long enough to lead one last team meeting and arrange for the funeral of her body. She wants it burned.
The funeral goes comically awry as her corpse loses cohesion and her protoplasmic form reasserts itself, blowing up like a balloon until someone pops it with a stick. Rita's ghost vanishes and she meets Malcolm, the great love of her life, in the afterlife.
Rita is happy. She had to die to get there but hey...
Larry Trainor (Negative Man) reunites with Rama (Mr. 104) in outer space where they can be free and gay while taking care of Larry's baby negative spirit, Queeg.
Larry is happy. He had to leave Earth to find happy but hey...
Jane is not Jane. Or rather...
The 64 different personalities with their 64 different super powers are all hanging out upstairs, working together. Jan can shoot fireballs like Pentecost, use super strength like Hammerhead and teleport like Flit simultaneously.
And Jane is calling herself Kay, the name of the little girl the 64 personas came into being to protect. And for all her power, Kay just wants to get a nice little apartment somewhere and paint.
And that nice little apartment is the space ship of Casey (Space Case), the sci-fi comic book hero who came to life one day and now is looking for a purpose in her life. And maybe even love. With Kay?
Kay and Casey zip off into space where they will see what happens next.
And there's Cliff Steele (Robotman). All he ever wanted was to be there for his grandson Rory before the Parkinson's disease that's rotting his brain finally kills him.
Cliff dies but before getting a look at Rory's future as he grows up, finds love, finds heartbreak, finds love again and becomes a grandfather. Seeing Rory will have a long full life, the robot machinery whirls and clatters one last time and the red robotic eyes go dark.
...
...
What kind of a fucking super hero show is this?
Answer: it's not and never was.
Doom Patrol was about fundamentally flawed and broken people, victims of outside forces beyond their control and victims of their own weaknesses and short comings.
They are fighting problems from within and without and it's lucky they make it as far as they do, to find joy even if they have to die to get it or leave Earth to find it.
I think it's a shame that Doom Patrol will be ignored in the awards season for television. April Bowlby as Rita Farr deserves recognition for her work in developing a fragile woman with ego issues into a stronger, wiser person, a person capable of taking up the leadership of the Doom Patrol.
Diane Guerrero has been extraordinary in the role of Jane/Kay, putting on an outward appearance of strong willed defiance while over 5 dozen voices rattle around in her head. Her struggles to understand what Kay needs and her own role in actually having a life were a remarkable thing to see.
Brendan Fraser may not actually be in the robot suit but that should not undermine his acting contributions as Cliff Steele. Brendan's voice does so much to convey not just Cliff's anger (no one in TV or movies says "fuck" as much as this guy) but his pain and there is a LOT that hurts this brain in a jar. The memories of his being a total asshole to his wife and children; being around people but forever apart, separate in his robot shell; and the death sentence on his brain just as he rediscovers his daughter and her son.
And I gotta shout out Michelle Gomez as Madame Rouge. The same complexity of range she brought to her roles in Doctor Who and The Flight Attendant is on display here. A villain from the comics, this Rouge in the TV series is way more complicated than that. Rouge has done things, bad things that have hurt people, people she cared about. Her role in the Ant Farm and the Brotherhood tried to cast her as a villain but she is more than that. But what exactly is she is? Who is she? Rouge tries her best to make things right with the Doom Patrol, most of all Rita who she hurt in the worst way possible. It's a bravura performance from Michelle.
So Doom Patrol is over and it won't be on my viewing schedule to kick my psyche around anymore. On one hand I will not miss this show that could somehow make me MORE depressed.
But I will miss the show that challenged my perceptions and expectations.
Next week, lo there is another ending of That Damned Thing.
It is the end of... The Crown.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.
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