Doom Patrol season 3, episode 5 review: Dada Patrol

“Hey, we are not the kind of people who kill people!” “Unless they’re Nazis…or butts.” Spoilers for Doom Patrol season 3, episode 5 follow.

Madame Rouge, formerly known as Shannon, enlists the Doom Patrol into making sure that the Sisterhood of Dada will not bring about their cult.

Thus, this forces the Doom Patrol to reluctantly pursue the Sisterhood for her.

Sisterhood of Dada

After first hearing about the Sisterhood of Dada last episode, with no real clue as to what they actually are, they’re a bit of the key for this episode. They’re the catalyst for it even existing. And surprising, this leads to one of the most normal episodes of Doom Patrol…just kidding. It’s as weird as ever.

As the team is heading off to, wherever, to meet up with the Sisterhood, they get interrupted by none other than members of the Sisterhood itself. Every single one of the Doom Patrol that goes interacts and is confronted by a different member of the Sisterhood, each of which preys on their fears, but in various ways, while all asking the same questions.

The best of these interactions is between Jane and The Fog, who seems to be one of the leaders, if not the leader of the Sisterhood. It’s such a tense, interesting conversation that makes use of something that we have really seen before on the show. Kay’s interactions with others while Jane is acting as her protector. It’s a dynamic that really adds onto Jane’s character arc this season and how she will act with The Fog moving forward. Yes, it has elements of being weird, but it takes itself incredibly seriously, unlike most of the rest of the Doom Patrol’s interactions with the Sisterhood besides Cyborg’s.

Healing robot

A lot of the fun of this episode, and what will eventually turn to disaster in future episodes, comes from Cliff’s attempt to being to treat his Parkinson’s. Once he takes well over the dosage prescribed, it was all well and truly downhill from there.

Honestly though, seeing a giant Robot man be incredibly high from prescription medication is way funnier than it should be at this point. It’s played so well for comedy, while also authentically setting up the fact that he’s going to more than likely become an addict in a few episodes, which will then probably lead to a solid intervention episode.

As for how it plays here though, it’s used to slowly bring the audience into the hallucinations caused by The Fog. The weirdness that Cliff sees could be anything due to how high he is, so the suddenness works, which lets the audiences quickly adapt to the rest of the confrontations that the Doom Patrol has in this episode.

Tumors don’t move

Poor Larry though can’t catch a break. Once he thinks he’s free of the body horror living inside of him, he gets turned to a zombie. Then he’s cured of that and something is trapped in his skin and moving around. But, if the ending is to be fully believed, that tumor that is now lodged into his neck, is his entity, somehow making his way back inside of him, so it will be interesting to see where this leads.

There’s also a My Chemical Romance song used in this episode which is a nice nod to Gerard Way, who is one of the most recent writers of Doom Patrol comics.

Doom Patrol bounces back from one of its weakest episodes with a solid one that balances the drama and weirdness nicely.

Doom Patrol season 3 releases new episodes on HBO Max on Thursdays.

What did you think of Doom Patrol season 3, episode 5? Let us know in the comments below!