Doom Patrol season 1, episode 8 review: Danny Patrol

“Follow the cake Vic. Always follow the cake.” Minor spoilers for Doom Patrol season 1, episode 8 follow.

The Doom Patrol continues to search for Niles until an unexpected package arrives at the manor door, leading Larry and Vic to a place called Danny Street that doesn’t actually appear on the map.

Meanwhile, Rita and Cliff try to rein in one of Jane’s worst personalities, Karen.

The living street

Many of the best parts about this episode focus around the introduction of Danny Street and the message the episode is trying to send as a whole. This entire episode is about acceptance and love conquering hate, and it pulls off the message beautifully. It’s also telling that a living street named Danny isn’t the weirdest thing on this show as well, which is fantastic because this show is so wonderfully odd.

By using a concept so wonderfully odd as Danny the living street, the entire message of Doom Patrol gets pulled much more into focus. Danny has a singular goal, and it’s to protect those that feel ostracized from society. And what better way to help those who feel that than with a talking, teleporting street. This is very similar to Niles bringing Rita, Larry, Cliff, and Jane to Doom Manor respectively, although, it often feels like Niles has a much more cynical view of those four compared to Danny.

The fact that the villainous group hunting Danny is called the Bureau of Normalcy is incredibly topical given that there are many groups who try to squash anything not considered “normal.” This show does a great job of demonstrating good and evil amidst all the weirdness, so by having that evil being the concept of “normal,” it makes for a much more compelling show and really helps move the overall message along.

More of Larry’s past is revealed

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As mentioned above, this episode does a lot to show why Larry is so conscious of who he is even more so than he has been shown previously. Being abducted by a shadowy organization that wants to harm you and others for being “different” would make anyone closed off and resentful.

Many of the flashbacks involved in this episode make the way that Larry has acted in the present much more reasonable and retroactively makes him a less annoying character. Larry, at several points throughout this season, has been a frustrating character to want to root for, but this episode makes up for it by really explaining why he’s been acting the way he has. It’s great character development and hopefully the character continues to move forward.

Karen, the 64th personality

The least enjoyable, but still very enjoyable, aspect of this episode was the B=plot of the personality of Karen taking over Jane’s body and going back to an old flame. Much of this part of the episode felt like filler, even though, with the way that the episode ends, the actual story isn’t. There were simply several elongated scenes that didn’t really need to be present in the actual episode itself.

There are ways that this storyline could’ve been trimmed down, which may have given off a more sinister and unsettling feel to it, as well. Rita explains that Karen is psychotic, but you really don’t see that in this episode other than when Hammerhead pops out. You just see Karen being very, very clingy and obsessive, but never really psychotic. The ending though lends itself to what can possibly be another great episode of the show.

Even with a slightly lackluster B-plot, Doom Patrol continues its trend of being thoroughly enjoyable, along with presenting a great message in the process.