Cyborg’s Turmoil
We begin this week’s episode of Doom Patrol at The Ant Farm. This secret government branch have apprehended Cyborg and after a meeting with a hamburger-eating army General, we get a good look at this operation. As the experiments intensify and Victor is thrown into a jail cell, he gets talking to the man in the cell next to his, simply referred to as 722. Meanwhile the guys at Doom Manor try to come up with a plan to break Cyborg free. Larry has encountered The Ant Farm before and he knows firsthand how dangerous these people can be. However, Silas arrives at the Manor looking for his Son and after learning the truth, decides they need to break his son out of the facility. Despite Rita’s objections, they all band together to break him free. Unfortunately, Silas lied to them all and as they get to the facility they’re ambushed and captured. It turns out he made a deal to free Victor in exchange for the rest of the supers being put under their control. As our heroes are tortured and experimented on by the scientists in the facility, Victor discusses matters with his father. In an interesting twist of fate, it turns out the Doom Manor misfits knew about this plan all along and were in on it the whole time. Rita appears from inside Cliff who finds himself currently hanging on a giant magnet on the ceiling. She frees him and they go after Jane who is about to get cut up by her torturer. As fate would have it, a familiar song comes on the radio and Karen appears in her stead, coercing him to free her before they run into Robotman and Jane in the corridors. As chaos ensues and the Doom Patrol break free of their cells (with Karen reverting back to Jane in the process), Larry and Cliff decide to free the rest of the prisoners in the other cells. Once free, a swarm of walking butts overwhelm the soldiers leaving the corridors eerily quiet. We then end the episode with Victor and his Father butting heads over his plan for escaping. Silas tells Victor to take a chip that will save his life but he sees security footage, courtesy of his cybernetic implants, that show his father wanting him to turn into a robot. Victor loses his temper and lashes out at his Dad. Beating him down to a bloody pulp, a strange graphic pops up in his mind’s eye and Negative Man appears before him.He was coercing him all along, manipulating Cyborg into hurting his Father. One maniacal laugh later, Negative Man disappears, leaving Victor to stew over what he’s done, cradling his father while the rest of Doom Manor watch on. Throughout its run time, Doom Patrol has continued to deliver exciting, unpredictable episodes. With a couple of well worked twists thrown in, DC’s latest superhero show proves once more that there’s more going on here than there first appears. This is easily the best superhero show on TV right now and the benchmark this show continues to hit every week is a testament to the great work everyone has put into this series. Of course, it’s a little early to call this the best show of 2019, especially given we still have a handful of episodes to go, but the number of outstanding episodes here certainly puts this on track for that accolade.
