Doom Patrol S01E04 Review: Singing Ghost Horse and Paper Cultists

Doom Patrol, Season 1, Episode 4: Cult Patrol

So I guess the episodes of Doom Patrol aren't going to be anywhere as serialized as I thought it was going to be, huh? Because as of this episode, it seems like we're in for a two-parter at the very least revolving around an adaptation of the Cult of the Unwritten Book storyline in the comics, and it's one that, even moreso than the previous episode's jaunt to Paraguay, one that feels more or less standalone, focusing more on the characters dealing with some weird superhero shit than actually furthering some far-reaching plot involving Chief and Mr Nobody. Which I'm totally down with, by the way, for the simple reason that distractions these may be, but they are entertaining as heck. 

And a good chunk of why "Cult Patrol" (and the show itself, and the comic the show draws from) succeeds so well, I think, is how ridiculous everything is, and yet how the episode basically plays most of it straight. This episode features, in no particular order, faceless cult members made out of unsent letters that explode into papers when exploded; the singing ghost of a horse's head that gives prophecies; a child with tattoos of some ancient language that needs to be read; said child being raised by a fake family that proceed to kill each other; a cigarette-activated portal; prophetic chewing gum; a giant eye in the sky that may or may not be the shadow of god; and nun assassins that cut open gateways through dimensions.

So while the Doom Patrol is agonizing over their lack of progress in finding the Chief (while Cyborg and Rita take pot-shots at each other), they get literally thrust into this cult bullshit when an ally of Chief, one Willoughby Kipling, shows up on their doorstep seeking their help in preventing the Cult of the Unwritten Book from catching a boy that they raised as basically the Anti-christ, and reading from the demonic tattoos on his body would summon the Eye, the Decreator. It's like something out of an RPG session, honestly -- on paper, all of the trappings of the Cult of the Unwritten Book is unsettling and weird. And they are. But between our cast's utterly flippant attitude, as well as some scenes like the initial 'calmly walk into portal, then immediately run out clutching the hostage' mission ends up giving everything a sense of levity. And, again, it's this balance between absurd nonsense and playing our characters' reactions straight that works the best.

Kipling is a character I'm wholly unfamiliar with from the comics, and he's basically... John Constantine if the writing team doesn't have to sanitize him for more general consumption, and also ratcheted up his drunkenness and assholishness up to eleven. And while Kipling adds the whole 'Niles Caulder is actually kind of a dick' argument to the hero-worshiping Doom Patrol (particularly Cyborg), this time they also have the excuse that Kipling himself is kind of a drunk prick. That's a step up in credibility from experimental Nazi puppet show, admittedly, but while he is quick to go with the flow, Kipling was absolutely ready to kill the child of the prophecy to stop the end of the world, a call he's happy to make and, he claims, Chief would've made too.

And for the most part, the episode is pretty fun hijinks as Kipling teleports the Patrol members to try and stay one step in front of the Cult of the Unwritten Book. Between exposition and fighting against the Cult's very colourful minions, we get the bulk of the superhero action scenes. Sure, a lot of it tends to be punchy-punch stuff or simply offscreen, but there is a cool moment where Cyborg and Kipling do a sonic-cannon/magic-fire-sword combo against the Dry Bachelors. Ultimately, though, whether it be sonic cannons or magic prayer beads, the Cult manages to capture Elliot and summon the Decreator, creating a big blinking CGI eye in the sky while Cliff and Jane are essentially trapped in the bizarre minimalist town of Nurnheim, which may or may not be in a snowglobe.

Again, though, the characters themselves are what really make the episode interesting. Cyborg's storyline is perhaps the most basic and somewhat repetitive. He's the only real sane, lawful-good person in a gang of borderline-lunatics, trying to herd these cats into something resembling a superhero team, but being met with the near-hostile, extremely-cynical Kipling is just really draining on him. Particularly when, at one point, Kipling's badass back-to-back last stand with Cyborg ends with him shoving Cyborg into the hordes of book-men as a distraction. Rita's storyline isn't as much of a rehash, but it does follow some similar beats of Rita getting off her ass and deciding to help. Still pissed off about last episode's argument, Rita spends almost the entire episode basically being Cyborg's polar opposite. Unlike the rest, who run the gamut from yolo-superhero to begrudgingly helpful, Rita sits on her ass, and even gets ready to leave... until she sees Elliot about to jump off the building to end his life and Rita ends up talking him down and giving a neat speech about the 'beautiful yet horrible' world. Rita even protects the kid later on not just from the cult, but also from Kipling, and I do like the contrast between Cyborg and Rita's different brands of heroism.

The mystery surrounding Larry's Negative Man alter-ego also builds up, because whenever the Negative Man 'wakes up', he keeps making Larry wake up in front of a recording of a conversation between him and Caulder in a tape recording... something that we find out at the end of the episode isn't just the Negative Man breaking up Larry with his boyfriend, but also admitting to Caulder (or at least seemingly) that it feeds on 'torture' in a particularly chilling scene of the Negative entity entering Caulder's machine just to speak a single world. The Negative Man entity also, despite Cyborg's insistence that it's a 'hero', allows Elliot to basically escape. Again, I'm not convinced that Negative Man is completely malicious, but I'm definitely unconvinced that it's heroic either. We'll see.

Cliff and Jane, meanwhile, basically kinda-sorta deal with the fallout of the previous episode, but while Cliff tries (very clumsily, and like any dad out there) to talk to Jane, in-between fighting cultists and Jane's personalities fritzing around and leading with the very unhelpful Penny-Farthing, the two of them end up being trapped in the world of Nurnheim, where they are brought in front of the Archons -- the true forms (ascended forms?) of Elliot's parents, who are able to basically swap around perceptions of how Cliff and Jane see themselves. In addition to allowing actor Brendan Fraser to actually show up outside of flashbacks, this also lets Cliff see that, consciously or not, he's been seeing Jane as his own daughter. Also, the fact that Jane sees Cliff as the blood-soaked violent robot monster from the end of the previous episode. Also, that Cliff's "true" self, as he sees it, is a brain on the floor, while Jane's "true" self... is the scared, young Kay, the original and presently missing personality.

Ultimately, though, everything ends up on a bit of a cliffhanger. And sure, the Decreator and the Eye in the Sky does feel like it should be some sort of end-game threat for these sort of superhero shows... but this isn't just any superhero shows. It's Doom Patrol; a world-ending cult is kind of just Wednesday for them. A pretty solid episode, and, again, it's pretty neat that they made me far, far more invested in the characters like Cliff and Jane's relationship more than the actual doomsday cult storyline.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Cult of the Unwritten Book, as well as basically everything surrounding it in this episode (the town of Nurnheim; their worship of a being called the Decreator; a child with tattoos on his skin; the members including the Archons, the Ladies of the Razor, the Hoodmen, the Dry Bachelors) are taken from Doom Patrol, vol. 2 #31, and the subsequent issues.
• Willoughby Kipling is a crass magic-wielding member of the Knights Templar that occassionally aids the Doom Patrol in the comics. He first debuted in the same issues that introduced the Cult of the Unwritten Book.