In Review: Doom Patrol – Puppet Patrol

Synopsis: The Doom Patrol set out for Paraguay where they discover the Nazi doctor who created Mr. Nobody and the connection between The Chief and the two villains.

Review: Our favorite dysfunctional family goes off in search of Strumbanhfuhrer Von Fuchs to learn the connection between him and the chief.

The Story

Crazy Jane, Robotman and Negative Man head off to Paraguay for a really weird encounter with Strumbanhfuhrer Von Fuchs. Cyborg and Elasti Woman wind up staying behind while the others meet Fuchs via a bizarre puppet show presentation.

While all this is going on. Negative Man aka Larry Trainer is having issues with the entity, which is seemingly the only thing that is keeping him alive.

The Acting

Diane Guerrero puts in a marvelous performance as Crazy Jane as we get to see a few of her meta-powered personalities take the creepy Strumbanhfuhrer Von Fuchs to task over his weird experiments and his lack of morality. Julian Richings is fantastic as the twisted scientist who has somehow scienced his way out of death via the use of one of the creepiest iron lugs you’ll ever see.

Overall

This was a pretty solid episode, which was so heavily based on the strength of the character beats that the pacing suffered at times. I loved the puppet show depicting the connection between Fuchs and The Chief and wonder what this revelation is going to do to help our group of dysfunctional heroes.

I also quite enjoyed the flashbacks regarding Larry Trainer and his on and off again dispute with the entity, which makes him the Negative Man and also keeps him alive.

Also enjoyable was the long conversation between Elasti Woman and Cyborg as the latter learns that he is not quite the hero that he aspires to be.

Overall. A fairly good episode, which builds on the mythology of the characters, but does very little to advance the story arc.