Tuesday, June 30, 2020

My Review of Doom Patrol's 2x01: "Fun Size Patrol"


Written by Jeremy Carver & Shoshana Sachi
Directed by Christopher Manley

Dorothy: "It's time for bed. We have to go to sleep. All of us."

It's been such a long time since the end of the first season for me that I have to admit to forgetting the fact that our main characters (minus Larry) were shrunk and yeah, that made up the majority of this second season premiere.

From where we left our band of misfits, things were certainly boiling over as Larry wasn't yielding results in restoring his friends to normal size while everyone else was either at each others throats, getting restless, killing rats and then there's Dorothy Spinner to add into the mix.

Nicely played by Abigail Shapiro, Dorothy seems to be the main focus of the second season and in particular with this episode as we learned a bit of her backstory and saw how the Chief, Cliff and Jane mainly interacted with her.

It can be weary adding cutesy precocious children into the mix and the affected English accent that Shapiro uses for Dorothy could've easily sent the character into the land of annoying but so far, I think we're onto a winner here. She might physically appear to be an eleven year old but she's actually in her nineties played by an actress in her twenties.

Dorothy's story opened with a flashback where she was kept as a circus freak and one of her imaginary friends came to life and killed all the cruel people who were jeering at her. In this episode, she seemed to genuinely care for her father while also trying to connect with Jane and Cliff. In the case of the latter, that also lead to Dorothy being freaked out when a mother rat ate the weakest of her litter.

As for the gang themselves, there were plenty of nice moments, particularly with Cliff and Jane and Rita and Victor as one of our main character now wants to be an actual hero. Of course, amusing as the shrunken antics were to watch, this episode also made the wise decision to bring back Constantine wannabe Willoughby and have the gang back to their normal size while a cryptic plot surrounding the Chief's imminent demise could be the thing to send Dorothy over the edge as the season progresses.

- The title sequence has remained the same but the HBO Max logo now appears instead of the DC Universe one.
- Dorothy's imaginary friends include Herschel and Darling as well as a mysterious voice. Larry also had flashbacks to his son Gary, who has recently died.
- Victor left the manor at the end of this episode, which didn't seem to faze Rita while Jane's personalities banded together as a change was needed.
- Chronology: 1927 London for the Dorothy flashback and I assume 2019 or 2020 for the present day scenes.

Fun Size Patrol kicked things off in a rather low key but delightful fashion. I've missed the quirkiness of this show (it could sometimes give Legends Of Tomorrow a run for it's money in that respect) but also the heart and humanity of these characters. Dorothy's an intriguing addition to the series as well and I'm interested in seeing where her story goes this season.

Rating: 7 out of 10

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