DC’s Doom Patrol: A Bizarre Show About Super-Zeros
by Stephanie Bock
There is no doubt that “superhero fatigue” is setting in for many people, including me. I am tired and bored of watching Oliver Queen repetitively finding new, bland thugs to beat down in Star City and seeing Barry Allen struggle with losing his speed for the upteenth time as he faces off against opposite versions of himself. I wish that the MCU would do something different than just the formulaic approach of “a man overcomes his past struggles to defeat the villain”. Rarely do we see studios allow filmmakers to take risks stray from the usual path. Instead, these films and shows blend and blur together to the point where I can hardly remember them.
After reading scattered praises of the show for months on end, I threw my hands up and begrudgingly began to watch another superhero show. Hidden away since the start of last year on DC’s exclusive streaming service, Doom Patrol is now their best kept secret. Equal parts wacky, weird, dark, funny, and serious; it is everything I have ever wanted in a superhero show. It is clear from the first second that you put this series on that this is going to be something different. The camera pans up, and the narrator begins talking to the audience, breaking the fourth wall: “Ready for a story about superheroes? Ugh that’s what the world needs, more TV superheroes. Be honest, have you hung yourself yet? Or what if I told you this was actually a story about super-zeros?”. Most times when I mention this gem of a show, I am met with confused stares. So, what is Doom Patrol? Well, it is truly a story of super-zeros.
A band of four friends all, somehow or another, were in a tragic accident that gave them strange abilities. After each of their accidents, Niles Caulder, a genius researcher, took them into his home to care for them. Ashamed of their odd new abilities, they shunned themselves from society and confined themselves to Caulder’s mansion for decades. They never wanted to, or tried to, be heroes. Rather, an unfortunate set of circumstances forced this rag-tag team together.
Another aspect I admire about Doom Patrol is that it is completely unafraid to take a turn for the weird. The show in itself is completely controlled and narrated by the main antagonist, Eric Morden, aka Mr. Nobody (Alan Tudyk). He is not only a strange character, but a powerful one. After his girlfriend breaks up with him and infamously calls him a nobody, breaking his heart, he travels to 1948 Paraguay to get metahuman abilties from an ex-Nazi. As we go through the season, Mr. Nobody mentally tortures the characters by narrating alternate realities or their deepest desires to them. Just in the first couple episodes, the small town in which these reluctant heroes live gets swallowed into a different dimension by a donkey. That is not even close to the strangest event to happen to this band of misfits. This is by far not the strangest event I have seen on the show. We see a living, genderqueer city block named Danny who has a population of nonstop partygoers, Nazi puppets, singing horse heads, and apocalypse cults.
However, despite its weirdness and humor, it does tackle serious topics. For example, Crazy Jane, one of the members of the group, has 64 different personalities, each one with a different superpower. It is revealed early on that her separate personalities began developing when she was a young child as a result of constant sexual abuse from her father. This is an ongoing trauma that she battles and attempts to contend with. Not only does she have to deal with this experience, but these personalities are people that with which she has to cohabitate and share a mind.
We also have Larry Trainor, a man who is possessed by a negative spirit. After a severe plane crash, this other-wordly radioactive entity is the only thing that kept him alive. However, since Larry cannot survive without the spirit, it more or less controls him. Instead of trying to return to his wife and two sons, he vanished. He also left behind a secret lover, John Bowers. Larry and the Spirit are constantly at odds with one another, as the Spirit gives Larry dreams and memories with John, forcing him to confront his sexuality that he for so long kept a secret. It starts to become clear that the Spirit just wants Larry to be at peace if they are to share a body. Larry’s arc becomes easily the most compelling and one of the most relatable as we see him struggle to accept his homosexuality.
These are just two character arcs out of many. Everyone goes through some form of trauma and gets the screen time they deserve to address and process these issues. Most forms of media with this many characters would just speed through their arcs, or just simply leave their problems unresolved, however the creators loved and cared enough about each character to make sure that each character was well-written and developed. Many superhero shows try to do what Doom Patrol does: the gentle balancing act between character development and weird. Usually when creators attempt to do this, one or the other suffers. However, they found a way to make me care about every minor character that appears onscreen.
If you have not checked out this beautiful piece of television, please do so immediately on its new home on HBO Max!
