Doom Patrol review: 5 best moments from Hair Patrol

The Chief gets a tragic backstory and The Beard Hunter grosses everyone out by eating hair in this week’s tonally wacky, yet strangely satisfying Doom Patrol.

We’re all extremely lucky. We live in a world where we can turn on an episode of Doom Patrol and in a span of an hour, watch Timothy Dalton fall in love with a primitive ape-like woman and also have the rest of the team deal with a dude who eats hair to learn your every secret. Is this real life? How did we get so lucky?

Season 1, Episode 10, titled “Hair Patrol,” works to both tell what was happening with Vic and Rita while Robotman was inside Jane’s subconscious, while also finally peeling back the layers a little into what type of man the Chief really is. Tonally, it was all over the place, but Doom Patrol still manages to strike the perfect balance between dramatic, funny and bizarre. Check out the list below for the five best moments of “Hair Patrol.”

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5. The Chief gets a backstory

Out of all the routes they could’ve gone with the Chief’s backstory, raise your hand if you guessed “fell in love with a primitive ape-like female in the early 1900’s.” Nobody? Yeah, me neither.

This plotline revealed a lot about where the Chief came from and how he became so fascinated by the strange and bizarre. Timothy Dalton carried most of the episode by himself, a feat not many people could do and just shows what a treasure he is for this show.

His storyline was a lot like Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Revenant only 10x more interesting. I’m not saying this episode was better than that movie, I’m just saying Leonardo DiCaprio never had sex with an ape-like woman and had to fight a moose spirit.

We also learned from this flashback that the Chief was a part of the Bureau of Normalcy before it was called that. Originally, it was the Bureau of Oddities and their mission was to investigate strange things, not eliminate them. Interesting!

4. The Beard Hunter takes the cake for strangest villain on this show to date.

Did anyone else almost hurl when the newly introduced Beard Hunter dug out the Chief’s beard hair from the bathroom sink…. And then proceeded to eat it? Yeah, Doom Patrol’s new villain is possibly weirder than Animal-Vegetable-Mineral-Man and Danny the Street combined, which is really saying something.

By eating someone’s beard hair, this schlub learns everything there is to know about a person, meaning all their secrets and lies. He can even find out where people are, as their beards call to him. Although his fate at the end of the episode looked a little grim, here’s hoping he’s still around for more gross-out humor.

3. The Flex Mentallo tease

Two episodes ago, Danny the Street gave Cyborg a comic book as a clue to where the Chief might be. This episode follows up on that by teasing none other than Flex Mentallo, another odd hero who will probably fit right in with this lovable band of weirdos. At this point, it seems like Flex has gone missing from an advertisement in the comic book. It’s like he just walked out of the panel he was supposed to be in.

The likeliest thing is that this is eventually setting up season two, so we’ll see where this plot goes for the rest of the season.

2. Could the Chief be the show’s main villain?

Everyone keeps telling the Doom Patrol that the Chief isn’t as nice as they all think he is. There’s clearly a darker side to the character and this episode straight-up confirmed it by having the Chief say he would gladly let terrible things happen to the Doom Patrol just so Mr. Nobody wouldn’t have the satisfaction of breaking him.

Is he telling the truth? If so, can we really trust this guy?

There’s been so many different interpretations of the Chief in the comics, a lot of them more villainous, that it wouldn’t be surprising if the Chief turned out to eventually be the Big Bad of this show. It certainly make for compelling television.

1. What’s Mr. Nobody after?

Although Mr. Nobody is the main villain of this season, we’re still almost completely in the dark about what he wants. With every small appearance, he seems like just a chaotic presence who enjoys tormenting the Doom Patrol and trying to get something out of the Chief.

This episode might finally be setting up his end game as we learn he’s desperate to find the primitive ape-lady that the Chief fell in love with. Why? Does it have something to do with her and the Chief’s immortality? Could she be the missing link that could help Mr. Nobody get his actual body back? Maybe we’ll find out more next week. Or not. Who really knows with Doom Patrol.

What were your favorite moments from this week’s episode? Be sure to let us know down in the comments and we’ll be back next week with another review!

New episodes of Doom Patrol are available on Fridays on DC Universe.