Titans
DC Universe
Season 1: Episode 4 “The Doom Patrol”
The fourth episode of DC’s ‘Titans’ begins right where we last left off, with Rachel escaping the convent and fleeing into the woods. After wandering around for a bit, she encounters a strange sight:
a green tiger. That green tiger then transforms into the green-haired boy she met at the bowling alley. They quickly befriend each other, with the boy revealing himself to be Garfield ‘Gar’ Logan. They make their way back to his home, which is the basement of a giant mansion. Gar’s room is filled with vintage toys, video games, records, and a stocked soda cooler. Shortly after this, she meets Gar’s ‘unconventional’ family, to say the least.
Without spoiling anything, this episode had me laughing harder than any superhero tv show I’ve watched. Robotman and Negative Man stole the show with their quirky behavior and cheesy one-liners. The entire cast sold themselves as a misfit family out of place and out of time perfectly. Elasti-Woman was basically Marilyn Monroe but with disturbing body horror and a looney backstory to go with it. April Bowlby was absolutely perfect and I’m so happy she wasn’t recast for the upcoming ‘Doom Patrol’ spin-off. The Chief was as manipulative and cunning as he could be without becoming a full-on villain. Bruno Bichir was great and I hope we get to see more of him before he hands the reigns over to Timothy Dalton.
The writing and dialogue flowed smoothly, much better than what we’ve seen before, probably due to the fact that Geoff Johns wrote this on his own. John Fawcett’s direction and style for the Doom Patrol was absolutely perfect, you couldn’t ask for a better live-action introduction for these characters. Between this episode and the fact that he created BBC’s Orphan Black, I’m shocked he’ not the ‘Doom Patrol’ showrunner.
Overall, this was the best episode of ‘Titans’ yet, and I’m not sure it can be topped. Everything about it was absolutely stellar, from the character design to the direction, to the writing! If everyone episode from here on can be this good, ‘Titans’ may end up being one of the best comic book shows ever.