Titans S01E04 Review: A House For Gifted Children

Titans, Season 1, Episode 4: Doom Patrol

I can't lie, I really dreaded this episode. Not because I dislike the Doom Patrol -- I love them! But I was really worried that randomly shoehorning the pilot to a different series four episodes down the line, especially when the cast of the Titans show hasn't even been established, was going to end up in a mess as Titans tries to bite off more than it can chew. I mean, DC's material has been proven to be liable to that sort of stuff.

The thing, though, is that "Doom Patrol" is actually a pretty fantastic episode. It's a pretty ballsy move, incorporating Beast Boy's relatively complex origin story (it involves a whole different superhero team!) into the fourth episode of a season, but it genuinely works well! It doesn't hurt that the entire episode is basically focused on Rachel and Gar, and that focus is certainly welcome if you're going to introduce a bunch of new cast members.

And I honestly feel that despite also being a pilot episode, the episode still works very well in the context of the Titans show. It shows Garfield's backstory -- a kid who nearly died from a bizarre comic-book disease until he was saved by the enigmatic mad scientist Chief, Niles Caulder. And apparently hes not alone either, because this shape-shifting teenager is one out of four other "freaks" living in the Caulder mansion. The Doom Patrol is basically the prototype concept for the X-Men, a bunch of social outcasts with superpowers that is hated by the world, but try to make do and get on as decent people.

I also do like that the show makes great usage of both "show" and "tell". We go through the three members of the Doom Patrol pretty quickly. Robotman is a racer who gets his brain transplanted into a robot body after a near-fatal accident, and he quickly tells the audience (and Rachel) that origin story. Great little scene showing him asking everyone in the table "tell me, how does that food taste like?" We can imply that Elasti-Girl, Rita Farr, has had a similar life-altering condition, and the show manages to showcase this in a great "show" moment as we see her hiding her face before dinner before showing up in a bombastic, old-school actress flair, while at the same time hinting that there's something different about her with the gigantic amount of food she consumes... and when her gloop-like flesh is exposed, it's more of a "huh, so that is her condition" more than just someone rattling off their powers and origin story.

Larry (or Negative Man) is a bit more enigmatic, being a completely bandaged man wearing sunglasses and giving us a gloriously hammy cooking sequence, but he doesn't actually show off any of his powers in this episode. And I do think it's a good thing -- the episode's not about the Doom Patrol entirely, after all, but how they relate to Garfield. He's a member of a family of social outcasts, so it's clear why he's so easily accepting and drawn to Rachel, even after he blows up the monastery. At the same time, Gar's also the "kid" of the family, and basically all but trapped in the house with strict orders to never show his face outside. This ends up striking an instant chord with Rachel, who, like Gar, is stifled by a group of older, if well-meaning, superheroes.

And, as always, especially from the costuming department, the characters are truly brought to life in  costumes and looks that are unapologetic for homaging their comic book roots. It's admittedly frustrating that Starfire, Raven and Beast Boy are still in civilian getups throughout all this, but eh, I can live with it.

And as is true to its comic book roots (well, the Morrison run, anyway), the leader of the group, mad scientist Niles "Chief" Caulder, isn't... the most altruistic of people. We do see him and the rest of the Doom Patrol help out a heat-manipulating metahuman (Fever from the comics!) and Rachel shows up with her emotion-manipulating powers to help out, but Chief ends up seeing Rachel's condition as something he has to cure, and it's a pretty hard scene seeing Rachel strapped to the table begging that she changed her mind and wants to be let out, with Garfield refusing to help Niles. "Never disobey me again" indeed. The show also manages to skirt the line between making Caulder an unredeemable villain and just an overzealous scientist pretty well, and I'm assuming that the moral ambiguity behind Caulder's going to be explored in 2019's Doom Patrol spinoff.

The Dick/Kory scenes... wow, Kory really isn't much of a character in this one, yeah? There's only really so much that amnesia can accoutn for, but she basically spends these four episodes just wandering around as the plot demands, and now just responding to everything Dick says. It's not a critique on the actress, which plays the role well, but more on the scripting. The notable bit in their storyline is the sudden aggression Dick unleashes upon the hunter/poacher while looking for Rachel, and said poacher turns out to be innocent.

Eventually Dick and Kory show up at the Doom Patrol's mansion, and, surprisingly, we don't get a superhero showdown! Part of me is disappointed, but it's honestly kind of the logical thing to do with these characters -- as protective as the Doom Patrol are of their own, they aren't the type to really start off fights. Still, that scene with Dick and Kory walking through the darkened house with Elasti-Girl stalking them like some sort of horror movie monster? That's brilliant.

Anyway, the conclusion to Rachel's Raven rampage ends up Dick running to her and telling her that she's not alone, and that she's got friends and stuff. Pretty standard stuff, but it's given earnestly enough that I don't mind. The Doom Patrol leave the Titans in relatively good terms (except for Chief, who broke his back after the beatdown Rachel gave him), and Gar ends up going with the Titans on their road ride. Overall, I actually did enjoy this episode a fair bit, and I don't think it's hyperbole that this is shaping up to be one of my favourite DC superhero shows. Impressive, after the amount of grief I gave it when it was initially announced.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• While his origin story has been modified to have Niles play a bigger role in saving him, the origin of his disease -- a primate-spread exotic disease necessitating the injection an unorthodox chemical that saved his life -- is pretty faithful to his origin story in the comics.
• I didn't note this in the previous episode, but Gar's white-and-red jacket is, of course, a reference to his original suit when he first joined the Teen Titans.
• The mansion is located in Danny Street, a reference to Doom Patrol character Danny the Street... who is a sentient street called Danny. It's that kind of book.
• The Doom Patrol is a 60's era superhero team centering on "rejects of humanity", and was the result of the retitling of the existing DC title "My Greatest Adventure" to focus on a group of quarreling superheroes, and had some... pretty bizarre and out-there stories, darker tone (of seeing their fates as curses instead of blessings) and concepts due to it being kept relatively secluded from the rest of DC's output at that time. Due to editorial mandates and differing opinions, however, the title (and the entire team) has been cancelled and resurrected multiple times. In relatively recent times, the Doom Patrol is perhaps most well-remembered for being the 'parent' team of Beast Boy/Changeling, a prominent and founding member of the New Teen Titans. 
• Chief, a.k.a. dr. Niles Caulder, Ph.D, is a wheelchair-bound paraplegic genius. He had developed many inventions and unorthodox methods to rescue people from accidents and organize the group known as the Doom Patrol, teaching them to accept ostracized freaks. While initially interpreted as merely a quirky but ultimately well-meaning scientist, starting from the Grant Morrison soft reboot, Chief is consistently depicted as being far more morally ambiguous, and is revealed to have a hand (if not being directly responsible) for causing the accidents that turned the Doom Patrol members into who they are.  
• Robotman, a.k.a. Cliff Steele, is the only consistent member of the Doom Patrol through its many, many incarnations, and as this adaptation mentions, was caught in an accident while racing. His brain was salvaged by Chief and placed in an automaton body. 
• Negative Man, a.k.a. Larry Trainor, is a test pilot exposed to radiation while piloting a jet, leaving him radioactive and forcing him to cover his body from head to toe in bandages. Negative Man would gain the ability to send out a negatively-charged clone from his body, the titular "Negative Man", but doing so would leave his physical body completely defenseless. 
• Elasti-girl, a.k.a. Rita Farr (no connection to Disney's Elastigirl!) was an actress who was exposed to unusual volcanic gases (no, really) while shooting a film in a secluded island, causing her to have the ability to expand or shrink her body at will.
• Her "blob" form is a relatively recent addition given to the character during the One Year Later storyline, where Elasti-Girl's new body was cloned by Chief from samples of her old body, causing her new body to be entirely comprised of shape-shifting flesh -- i.e. devoid of bones and internal organs.  
• The Asian girl, Shyleen Lao, is the alter-ego of Doom Patrol member Fever, member of the third incarnation of the Doom Patrol that debuted in the early 2000's. Fever was a girl with the ability to control heat and flame, although she required gloves to focus her power.