The Titans, “Doom Patrol”, Review!

Kory has found Rachel and takes her away from the Nuclear Family to St. Paul’s Convent.  The sister there recognizes Kory and she goes to a bowling alley where Garfields meets Rachel, and then Dick who takes Rachel and Kory back to the convent.  Kory steals Dick’s car and he finds her at a storage room looking over clues to Rachel.  They both see an explosion as Rachel escapes the convent into the woods.  It opens with a military helicopter in the Congo two years ago.  Hospital workers are in environmental suits.  Garfield is a patient and gasps in his bed.  The workers are evacuated leaving their patients behind. Garfield tries to plead for their help, but they leave him all alone. A man in another environmental suit (Chief?) is startled to see Garfield alive.  He checks out Garfield’s vitals and finds his arm is scaled and green.  Garfield is injected with a green serum in his neck and starts to Hulk out.  The origin of Beast Boy, he first appeared in Doom Patrol #99 (1965) before joining the New Teen Titans.  Rachel is running into the forest.  She hears growling and then turns to see a green tiger.  The tiger transforms into Garfield Logan. He takes her hand and leads her away.  Dick drives his Porsche up to the convent surrounded by emergency vehicles.  He flashes his badge and examines the ruined wing of the convent.  

They find the wounded sister who pleads they only wanted to keep her safe.  Garfield starts a fire to warm Rachel in an abandoned shack.  She says that she is dangerous.  They hear a gunshot. Two hunters have shot a deer.   Rachel runs and shouts to protect the deer.  The hunters turn to see the green tiger.  The hunters fall and one shoots his rifle into another’s shoulder.  Rachel checks on the deer as Garfield transforms back to human form. She cries at the death of the deer.  Garfield says she isn’t evil.  They leave and the bullet wound heals with the deer coming back to life.  Garfield leads her to a mansion in the snow.  He leads her down the steps to turn on the power to a parlor filled with a pinball machine, Space Invaders, and a refrigerator filled with soda. Rachel calls him a geek.  She sees a picture of Garfield and his parents and he says they died.  They hear a scream, “Gar!” and Garfield tries to hide Rachel in a closet.  He puts on headphones as heavy boots clump into the room.  He turns to see Cliff, who thinks he was talking to someone, Garfield tries to go back to fake playing his video game. Cliff with his robotic voice and robot hands is worried that Garfield slipped away without the Chief knowing.  The relationship between the two reminds me of Beast Boy and Cyborg.  Cliff walks away and Garfield thinks everything is now safe when the face of Robotman (Jake Michaels) bursts into the closet.  For some reason, trying for comics accuracy, makes me think of The Tin Man in The Wiz (1978).  Brendan Fraser voices Robotman and his picture is seen on the mantle.  The actors from the series seem to have voiced their characters in this episode.  He escorts them upstairs, Garfield explains that they are the “conventionally challenged”, Robotman tells Rachel to go home.   

THE TITANS -- “Doom Patrol” -- Christos Kalohoridis/2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.  

Garfield tells Rachel that Cliff was a race car driver and got into an accident so Chief placed his brain into a robot.  Garfield says Chief saved all of them. He argues with Robotman as Rachel wanders off.  She looks at the kitchen as a meal is being prepared by a man wrapped in bandages, Negative Man!, played by Dwain Murphy and I think voiced by Matt Bomer from the series.  He dances and sings as he prepares the meal.  Rachel enters, but is caught by Robotman, Negative Man invites her to dinner after she asks him if he is invisible underneath the bandages.  Negative Man takes a vote with Garfield and considers the matter settled.  Dick has driven his Porsche to the police station worried about Rachel.  He tells Kory that she’s wanted by the police. At the station, Dick gets a report by the hunters who saw a green tiger and a girl with purple hair.  Dick asks about the hunter’s name.  Garfield walks the hall of the mansion. He walks up stairs calling for Rita and then knocks on her door. She doesn’t answer and Garfield takes away her finished tray of food.  Inside the room are the pictures of Rita Farr and her movie poster, the Crimson Lady, this is old Hollywood.  She seems to be reduced to Norma Desmond watching old movies of herself.  Rita watches her black and white movie on the television screen.  A quivering mass is on the bed.  Rita Farr was known as Elastic-Girl, but of course that name has been taken by Helen Parr in The Incredibles even though Rita came first.  I think they will go with Elasti-Woman.  

Negative Man brings in a tray of food while the dinner table is filled with burgers, corn on the cob, and a Negative Man made of onion rings.  Robotman stares at Rachel wondering about the taste of the waffles, he can just remember the taste of food. Down the steps, comes a woman.  Cliff misses dancing and Rachel offers to dance with him showing him the Robot. Entering the room is the elegant actress in a red dress, Rita Farr (April Bowlby), who takes a giant slab of steak and heaps of spaghetti. Larry’s kiss the cook remark gets laughs.  Rita’s face starts to melt.  Rachel touches her gloved hand and sees flashes of Rita’s past; flashing from a bridge, yelling in an asylum.  Chief (Bruno Bichir) enters and says he has a new patient sending everyone after him.  Chief’s name is Niles Caulder.  In the series, he will be played by Timothy Dalton.  Rita dresses in a white hospital gown while Chief says the patient’s name Is Arani Desai.  Rachel watches from the top level.  Chief gets all of the members working to help with the patient.   They pull back the sheet and find a burned body of a woman (Hina Abdullah).  Chief explains that she was in a tanker fire of liquid nitrogen. He injects a purple serum.  Robotman sees the alarm.  Arani is now causing the room to go cold.  She starts to panic and speaks in a foreign language.  Rachel is there with demonic eyes saying she can help with the pain. Her face goes normal and Arani’s vitals stabilize.  She becomes the hero, Celsius, who was in the second Doom Patrol team introduced in Showcase #94 (1977).  Later, Chief says he is disappointed in Garfield.   He wants to know about Rachel’s powers and Garfield tells him about the convent. 

THE TITANS -- “Doom Patrol” -- Christos Kalohoridis/2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.  

Dick has driven up to the house of the hunter and asks about the girl.  The hunter (Kevan Kase) tries to close the door and go for a gun, but Dick knocks him down.  Dick starts to punch the hunter until his fist turns bloody, he is stopped by Kory.  The hunter’s son (Evan O’Donnell) checks on his father.  The hunter says the only place would be the Caulder house on Danny Street.  This is a clever reference to the Grant Morrison creation Danny the Street.  Kory apologizes and gives him some money.  At the dinner table, Chief says he helps the helpless, he explains there was a toxic gas that made Rita’s body unstable.  He says Larry was a pilot who crashed his jet and was exposed to negative energy 50 years ago.  Garfield explains that Chief cured him of a rare primate disease and he can shapeshift. Chief says the mansion is a sanctuary, this is really a home for all of the unusual like the X-Men, and he says he can help Rachel. The Doom Patrol first appeared in June 1963 and the X-Men came later in September 1963.  Unusual persons with powers feared by the outside world, living in a mansion, with a leader in a wheelchair?  Doom Patrol came first.  Night, Dick drives and Kory asks him about his rage, like Rachel. Kory says they can’t work things out alone.  Robotman looks at the photos of the Doom Patrol before their changes.  Dick uses bolt cutters to get through the gate of the mansion. Chief has strapped Rachel tightly to a table.  He asks for his case from Garfield.  The Chief is brought the case and removes the serum. He wants to take out whatever is inside Rachel and she starts to panic.     

She pleads for help from Garfield, he’s conflicted, Chief tells him to sit. Garfield refuses.  Chief tells him to leave and Garfield begins his transformation. Chief hits him with a tranquilizer dart.  Garfield falls unconscious.  Now, Rachel’s eyes turn demonic, and threatens to hurt Chief after he hurt her friend. The Porsche stops at the mansion and Kory and Dick step out.  The Titans vs. Doom Patrol?  Rachel expels the darkness and Chief wonders at it. Dick and Kory enter the mansion with flickering lights.  The darkness lifts up Chief and slams him around. Kory and Dick look around the mansion and are warned by Rita who is joined by Robotman and Negative Man.  Chief is slammed against a wall and the darkness frees Rachel. Kory tells Dick to find Rachel while she takes on the Doom Patrol!  Dick moves through the darkness as Rachel opens a portal!  She warns him and Dick says he isn’t going to leave and hugs her.  Kory and the Doom Patrol see the darkness and portal fade.  Later, the Doom Patrol see the Titans off to Dick’s Porsche.  Robotman tells Garfield to go with the Titans.  Negative Man says that the Chief’s back is broken again.  He hugs Rita and then says farewells to Negative Man and he hugs Robotman.  The Doom Patrol see them off. I think they have Crazy Jane as the young member of the team.  Morning, Chief is in his wheelchair, watches the sun though the window.  This is my favorite episode of Titans, it is a little bloody with language, but brings to the heart of superhero teams with the dinner table interaction. No fight between teams, much of the story is burdened with the hunters, but I think the origins of the Doom Patrol.  

Five Wing Dings out of Five! 

#TheTitans, #DoomPatrol, #AprilBowlby, #BrendanFraser