Thursday, December 29, 2022

My Review of Doom Patrol's 4x05: "Youth Patrol"

 


Written by Shoshana Sachi
Directed by Christopher Manley

Willoughby (to the gang): "There are no depths to your collective stupidity, are there?"

The last episode of 2022 but actually not the last episode of the first half of this season and things certainly took an interesting few turns here. After the previous episode's detour with Dorothy and Casey, this one was more focused on the gang royally fucking up yet again.

Okay, so Immortus is basically looking for something that Niles had put into most of the Doom Patrol, which was why they were ageing slowly and hence the little trinkets he's been getting others to collect at his behest. Niles also had an experimental deageing spell of sorts that Rita accidentally used due to Cliff's interrupting her and shenanigans ensued. Oh and Willoughby came to the manor to warn everyone about Immortus and comment on the gang being fuck ups for food measures.

Excluding Larry who had his own storyline going, everyone including Willoughby got turned into a teenager and as teenagers, it did not take long to separate from each other, fight and go party with other teens at a swimming pool of all locations. Willoughby, Cliff, Jane and Victor really embraced their younger selves with predictably mixed results.

However while some fun was had, Willoughby's attempts to reverse the spell by finding a woman named April were derailed and only Willoughby got changed back due to Bunbury needing him with the Knights of Templar. Jane on the other hand got turned into a baby, Cliff got too lost in being a party animal and kid Victor ended up trying to reconnect with Derek. 

As for Rita and Laura, well being turned into teenagers gave both characters a chance to work through their own issues. For those hoping that Laura's attempts of turning over a new leaf was genuine, well this episode gave you what you wanted and them some. Michelle Gomez delivered her best performance of the season so far as Laura's breakdown with Rita was heartfelt, sincere and touching in one go.

However the highlight of the episode for me was actually Larry's storyline with Rama aka Mister 104. Both men learned far more about one another than expected and there's definitely a romantic connection burgeoning with the two of them. It also seems that Larry offering to help Rama was the thing to get Keeg to reconnect with him too. Then things ended with the both of them being sucked into a portal, so that can't be good, right?

- Rama can turn his skin into lead, making him able to touch Larry and can also augment the air around him. 
- Jane was about to do some self love before she got pulled into the underground. She also had a great scene with Kay later in the episode.
- The episode had fun referencing teen shows such as Euphoria, Freaks And Geeks and Riverdale.
- Chronology: Not long from where the third episode had left off.

Youth Patrol had fun with it's premise and really took things up a notch too. The episode really had so many highlights - the effect of the main premise but it's really the scenes between Rita and Laura as well as Larry and Rama that were my favourite moments this week.

Rating: 9 out of 10

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