Doom Patrol season 3, episodes 1-3 review: Possibilities, Vacay, and Dead Patrol

“Look even if the guy’s a supervillain, which he’s not, he’s on vacation.” Spoilers for Doom Patrol season 3, episodes 1, 2, and 3 follow.

As Dorothy has her final confrontation with Candlemaker, the Doom Patrol begins to mourn, and slightly celebrate, the death of The Chief.

As the rest of the team mourns though, Jane struggles to gain back control of her psyche and save Kaye.

Doom Patrol season 3 premiere: Possibilities Patrol

As far as Doom Patrol season 3’s premiere goes, it feels exactly how the first episode of the second season of Titans felt. It’s not a season premiere at all. Rather, it’s the true finale to the previous season. In this case though, it’s a bit more forgivable as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down production for a while, causing the second season to be cut short. As such though, this episode finishes out the storylines from season 2 in a mostly satisfying way even if it would have played better if aired when originally planned.

Much of this episode is dealing with the Doom Patrol’s grief, or the lack thereof, of Niles’ death and everything about it felt real and in character. The mixed and confused feelings that most of them had over his death were so in-line with how they all felt with him in life, which is something that most people can relate to, especially Larry’s reaction of wishing him dead, but feeling sadness over the fact that he is now dead. It’s all incredibly relatable and handled well.

Combine that with Jane’s fight against the fears, anxieties, and doubts that were masquerading as Miranda, this is a very emotionally charged episode. Just over the past two seasons, Jane has been through so much and to see her have some joy and connection, even for a few seconds, it’s wonderful to watch. Seriously, when she hugs Cliff, if you don’t feel something, it would be shocking.

The worst part of this episode though is Dorothy and Candlemaker’s final confrontation. It’s so insanely rushed that it feels like an afterthought, despite the fact that he was the main villain of the season. The entire confrontation between the two takes up make five minutes of the episode and is very disappointing because of that.

Doom Patrol season 3, episode 2: Vacay Patrol

What’s there to do when things seem so completely out of control? Go on vacation of course and that’s exactly what the Doom Patrol does in this episode. As you should come to expect by now with this show, their vacation does everything but help with their problems, it just exacerbates them even more than before. The anger, the pain, the sadness that they all feel just comes to the forefront of the true premiere of the third season and it’s once again an excellent character exploration for these characters that takes them all in new directions.

Before we got into the sadness that perpetuates much of this episode though, we got into the weird oddities that Doom Patrol is known for, in this case, being two of DC’s weirdest villains, Brain and Monsieur Mallah. They are in this episode for a very short amount of time, with the ending implying that we’ll be seeing more of them as the season progresses, and mainly are used to introduce Garguax into the fold. This weird, green knock-off of Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z (yeah, yeah, he was created before Piccolo, whatever) was an absolute delight in this episode. Sure, he’s a “villain” in the plainest sense, but there’s a surprising amount of depth to him here. And the first meeting between him and Cliff? Gold.

In all reality though, this episode of Doom Patrol is what the show has always been, depression-ridden characters dealing with their issues in destructive ways while being surrounded by absolute insanity, and it’s great.

Doom Patrol season 3, episode 3: Dead Patrol

It really shouldn’t be surprising by now that the Doom Patrol was randomly killed by a red alien and then their bodies sent for Larry to discover in horror. It’s honestly one of the least weird things that the show has done so far.

However, despite being in hell, it doesn’t really feel like they are. There are no horrors or machinations by demons, well, except in Cliff’s case, but rather it’s allowing them a catharsis that they would never have gotten in life. These are some great, touching scenes that are a nice reprieve from the dour character work the show normally puts its characters through. However, it just feels a bit out of place given the actual setting that they’re in.

The best part of this episode though was easily the Dead Boy Detective agency. If there wasn’t already a show in development for these characters it would be extremely easy to begin to call for a show to spin-off of Doom Patrol. They are so fun in this episode and feel like their own separate characters with lives outside of the Doom Patrol, which is ripe for their own series to explore. They added so much to this episode, so it was a bit sad to see them go by the end of it.

Doom Patrol starts out its third season by being just as good as ever with enough oddities thrown into as to not feel completely weighed down by the heavier themes.

What did you think of Doom Patrol season 3, episodes 1, 2 and 3? Let us know in the comments below!