Doom Patrol review: 5 best moments from Frances Patrol
Cliff fights a giant alligator to win his daughter’s love and Larry finally learns to let go in this week’s emotional Doom Patrol.
Throughout the first season of DC Universe’s delightful surprise Doom Patrol, narrative momentum has often taken a back seat to the emotional development of its main characters. Sure, we have episodes where The Chief makes love to an ape-like primate woman and a man eats beard hair to track people down, but then we have episodes like this one where the focus is putting its characters through the wringer emotionally to help them grow into better people.
Doom Patrol Season 1, Episode 11, titled “Frances Patrol,” puts the focus on the two characters with the biggest ties to the past as we see Cliff travel to Florida to be there for his daughter, and Larry works with his special friend to overcome the demons that have been haunting him since the 50s. Although light on weirdness, this episode still largely succeeded because of how successfully the show has made us care about the titular character.
Without further ado, let’s get into the five best moments of “Frances Patrol.”
5. Vic is more machine than man
Although the main focus of this episode is Larry and Cliff, Cyborg gets a terrifying subplot where he learns he’s becoming more machine than man. A few episodes ago had the tease of Cyborg’s Grid becoming smarter and adapting to situations, and this episode we learn just how dangerous that is for Cyborg.
Poor Vic learns that the Grid is slowly changing him. Before he was only 41% machine, but now he’s jumped up to 63%. Whoops.
4. Bump carpe diem’d so hard
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When Cliff died, his best friend Bump took in his daughter Clara and raised her as his own, much to Cliff’s chagrin. Well, I guess Cliff had the last laugh? Turns out Bump had a bit of reckless streak and decided the best thing to do was go out and hunt Frances, a gigantic legendary alligator with less than stellar results. Another show would’ve had Bump die peacefully in his sleep or something, but come on, this is Doom Patrol we’re talking about.
3. Rita is Gertrude Cramp
A small moment, but one of great significance for the character is how Rita introduced herself to Big D. The self-absorbed former movie star actually used her real name because she’s trying her own form of personal growth. Her story has taken a bit of backseat compared to Larry and Cliff’s in recent episodes, but it’s nice to see she’s going through her own sort of character development to accept who she really is.
2. Cliff goes hunting
Everyone knows the best way to win back your estranged daughter is by wrestling the alligator that killed her adoptive Dad right? Well, that’s the mentality Cliff is in as he goes out to find Frances in order to retrieve the gold watch that means so much to Clara.
It’s really just a way for him to avoid actually talking to her, yet he’s still determined to hunt down that Frances no matter what. And the shot of Frances lunging at Robotman was by far the best shot in the episode. If only we could’ve seen the entire fight!
1. “There’s definitely a connection there”
The spirit within Larry spent the entire episode forcing him to reconcile with his past. It all culminated with Larry finally working up the courage to go see his lover John and getting some much-needed closure.
We’ve seen Larry slowly start to emerge from his scared shell before but this episode provides the biggest step forward for him. He and his spirit friend have finally started working together which is very promising for their future.
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 Fridays on DC Universe