Tuesday, December 27, 2022

My Review of Doom Patrol's 4x04: "Casey Patrol"

 


Written by Tom Farrell
Directed by Kristin Windell

Dorothy (to Casey): "I could do with a change of scenery. Need any help?"

Speaking of a scenery change, this episode went for it's biggest one by scrapping the entire main cast and taking the audience back to Danny the Street. Did you miss them? I did, so this little detour along with the returns of both Dorothy Spinner and Maura Lee Karupt was surprisingly welcomed.

Last time we saw Dorothy, she had made friends with the Dead Boy Detectives. Since then those roles have been recast and one of them ended up on Heartstopper but here, Dorothy has made her way back in Danny's world and has been struggling to connect with people. Even Maura Lee has had difficulties snapping Dorothy out of her funk and she certainly did her best with Dorothy.

One thing that has offered Dorothy solace though was the adventures of Space Case, aka Casey Brinke (Madeline Zima) and the latter's battles with her purple skinned father, Torminox (Tyler Mane). However for Dorothy her comfort soon became more trouble than expected when both Casey and her father along with his own army came into existence and even Danny the Street wasn't able to protect everyone.

Having Dorothy and Maura Lee teaming up with Space Case/Casey and getting her up to speed on the real world and things such as death being permanent was great to see. These three characters made for a delightful team and Torminox made for a good guest baddie as well, willing to take out his own daughter in order to get Dorothy's necklace.

The necklace being something that Dorothy had lied about in how she acquired it and also in the closure it supposed'y gave her and Niles. In the end, Torminox got the necklace and it somewhat less surprising news, it appeared that Torminox was working with Dr Janus and the Author as part of Immortus's overall scheme. In his own way, Torminox really does love his daughter after all.

As for Dorothy, the events of this episode made her realise she needed a change of scenery and both her and Casey decided to leave Danny the Street to head back to Cloverton. Because the show doesn't reveal a lot in terms of marketing, I'm assuming that both Dorothy and Casey will be sticking around for the most of the season to help the Doom Patrol with Immortus.

- In spite of none of the main characters appearing in this episode, all the actors were still credited nonetheless.
- Despite so many DC projects getting scrapped this year, we're still apparently getting the Dead Boy Detectives series for HBO Max. 
- That's two necklaces that Immortus has collected for whatever their overall scheme will be. 
- Chronology: A few months since Dorothy's last appearance on the show. 

Casey Patrol easily became the best episode of this season so far with a fantastic turn of events here. Much as I love the main cast, I really didn't miss them for this one episode and the episode continued to push the Immortus storyline ahead. Excellent stuff all round.

Rating: 9 out of 10 

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