The Doom Patrol heads to Paraguay — well, mostly — as we break down Season 1, Episode 3 “Puppet Patrol”. With the Chief missing it’s up to Cyborg to rally the troops and save him. Naturally, things don’t go well, and instead they tangle with a Nazi puppeteer. Meanwhile, we find out a lot more about Larry’s backstory, and meet Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man.
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Full Episode Transcript
Alex: Zigga zigga zoom, welcome to the Doom Room. I’m doomed, I’m Alex.
Justin: Boom, boom, you’re in the Doom Room. I’m Justin, and I’m doomed.
Pete: I’m Pete.
Alex: We are on episode three, we’re definitely going to run out of rhyming things pretty soon, but we’re going to be talking about…
Justin: I said the same one every time, I think. I ran out at the beginning.
Alex: Yes, so far. Season one, episode three, Puppet Patrol. Very exciting to give you a little bit of recap and reminder in case you’re checking back in with these episodes later on. The Doom Patrol is looking for their missing chief who has been taken by Mr. Nobody, played by Alan Tudyk. In this episode, they head down to Paraguay to try to track him down and instead find a bunch of Nazi puppets and fight them. Other things go on throughout the course of the episode, we find out a lot more about our characters, particularly Larry Trainor AKA Negative Man, big episode for him, but big episode for everybody, and most of all, big episode for us. Now, Pete, I do actually want to start with you.
Pete: Whoa, really?
Alex: Yes, and this is kind of a shocking take. You don’t like Nazis, right? As far as I’m aware.
Pete: This was my favorite episode, because there is nothing better than ripping Nazis in half and beating Nazis to death with half of a dead Nazi body. You know what I mean? Just living life.
Alex: Now, for a counterpoint, Justin, you love Nazis, right?
Justin: Right. That is the head-to-head we’re going to take here. Well, let me throw this out, I don’t love Nazis, but there is really only one Nazi in this episode, puppeting many regular people who may or may not have been Nazis, Pete.
Pete: Don’t throw that at me.
Justin: You’ve got to think about it. Those are really…
Pete: Now I feel bad, I was having fun.
Justin: A lot of those people were Bavarian’s, a rich German culture.
Pete: Love their pretzels.
Justin: Loves pretzels, their beer, and their fondness for short pants and flowing tops.
Alex: That is really too bad. The reason I was actually asking though is I know generally you get uncomfortable with anything that involves the Nazis, but it sounds like you were okay with it since they were getting the shit kicked out of them, so that’s all right. But, why don’t we take it back to the beginning here?
Pete: I mean, that really makes me concerned. I don’t know why you would think normally I… I’m trying to think of what in the past where I’ve been like, “Hey, Alex, take it easy on those Nazi scum.”
Alex: No, that’s not what I was saying. You’ve not been like, “Whoa, slow pet all the Nazi hate, one Jewish member of the podcast.” What you have done is you’ve just very much not wanted to be involved in anything that mentions Nazis in any way.
Justin: Pete don’t like to…
Pete: Yes.
Alex: Which is fair, that’s fine. I think a zero tolerance policy for Nazis is an okay policy to have, that’s just fine.
Pete: Okay, cool.
Justin: I mean, the thing is having Nazis are like the villain, it’s the 20th century villain, so it’s a go-to. I think if anything it’s a little exhausting to constantly…
Pete: For a longer time than the 20th century, I would say it’s a, it’s kind of been a…
Justin: Well, they weren’t around much before the 20th century, Nazis.
Pete: Okay. All right, I don’t know. I’m just saying [crosstalk 00:03:32] showed up until now.
Alex: Time travelers. Time traveling Nazis, they were very active, in dinosaur times too.
Justin: Yes, exactly. The Nazi dinosaurs are the worst.
Pete: The worst kind of dinosaurs.
Alex: Terrible. The ideology is confusing at best.
Justin: Indeed. What about Hamibal Lector?
Alex: That’s where I wanted to start.
Pete: Come on.
Alex: That’s where I wanted to start because we can’t skip over the most important character that’s getting teased here. Obviously, Pete and I know because we’ve watched a couple of episodes. Pete, do you want to review how many episodes we’ve each watched again or are we good?
Justin: No, I think we’re covered. [inaudible 00:04:07] I think we don’t need anything.
Alex: Okay. Obviously, huge character coming down the pike. I actually don’t remember if this comes back in any way.
Pete: I don’t think it does.
Alex: I don’t think it does, but very funny. I want to meet that hamster someday.
Pete: So badly, yes.
Alex: Do you think that hamster eats other hamsters though?
Pete: Yes.
Justin: No, I think that hamster eats humans.
Alex: Oh man, wow.
Justin: Here’s the thing, my sister had hamsters named Coyote and Roadrunner.
Alex: Gave birth to hamsters?
Justin: Yes, she had two hamsters, immaculate birth.
Pete: Alex, why would you ask that?
Alex: You said “had,” that implies something.
Justin: Richard Gere gave birth to a hamster, I believe, at one point.
Pete: Oh my God, what is happening.
Alex: Differently, different than that.
Justin: Differently, yes.
Alex: The junior way.
Justin: What is that? My sister had a good term throughout their… my sister had hamsters, Coyote and Roadrunner, and I’ll tell you what, Coyote ate Roadrunner.
Alex: That’s horrifying.
Justin: It was a hamster that ate another hamster.
Alex: Jesus.
Pete: Why would you bring that up? Oh, that is awful.
Justin: It was literally what we were talking about.
Alex: We were talking about hamsters eating other hamsters, so it’s actually very applicable. That was great. Love the thing immediately after that with Jane putting up the, “Have you seen this chief?” signs all over town, and just this whole opening sequence was very fun. There’s less of a focus on Jane in this episode, even though she does get some fun hero moments throughout. Giving her this punk rock, counterculture aesthetic throughout, that felt like the big thing they were driving home for her throughout this episode.
Pete: Yes, I mean the reveal of… you think it’s just her and then the pan-out of the angry mob that’s following her, I mean, that’s got to feel good…
Justin: The town’s mad.
Pete: Yes. It’s got to feel good to staple somebody in the forehead though, you know what I mean?
Alex: That’s terrible.
Justin: That’s the thing, that guy did not really… he didn’t move fast enough, he had to see that coming.
Pete: You had to.
Alex: Maybe she was the personality that moves quickly with staplers, that’s a possibility, we haven’t really been introduced to it yet, [inaudible 00:06:18].
Justin: That’s true.
Justin: [inaudible 00:06:19]. Let me say, before we get too far into it, this show is great. I can’t believe no one told us about it coming into it. This show…
Pete: It’s literally the thing that we get the most is people being like, “Why aren’t you talking about the show?”
Justin: Well, I think those people should have tried a little bit harder because I would’ve really enjoyed this earlier on in my life. It’s so fun. It’s really well balanced, at least these first three episodes between the different characters. They’re all dealing with similar tragic flaws that they keep not dealing with.
Pete: It’s driving me nuts. In this episode, I am over Trainor, dude. I am so sick of his shit, it’s ridiculous.
Justin: But what I was going to say is, even though they’re going through very similar sort of journeys, each one feels different, and I like all the characters. I feel sorry for them, at the same time I’m like, “Come on, get it together.”
Alex: I want to get back to this crazy Trainor hate that you have, Pete, in a second. But I do want to mention, in terms of the viewing thing, one of the reasons I think the show was hurt was it was on DC Universe for the first two seasons, something like that, which was a very under-watched service.
Justin: Not a good place.
Alex: Yes, not a great place for it, and not easy to find, not easy to watch, not easy to track to down, certainly…
Pete: But…
Alex: Hold on. I think it hasn’t necessarily seen an explosion, but it’s gone to a much wider audience now that it’s on HBO Max, and I think that’s something they knew. They knew if they moved it over there to HBO Max, it’s not just going to move that same audience over, but it’s actually going to grow the audience naturally. But also, like you’re saying, it’s a good show, so people are able to go back. I think the other part of it that I would speculate is you’re not necessarily getting into a show episode by episode. By the point it’s on HBO Max, they were going into the third season, so you already know, “There’s that back catalog of I can watch two full seasons of the show.” I think people are very hesitant to get into a new superhero show or any new show that they think is going to be instantly canceled, particularly… they got DC Universe, everybody knew that’s just not going to be around for a while. I think if you were hesitant at all, you’re like, “Nah, I’m out.”
Pete: Everybody did know, I was pulling for it. I also just wanted to say this show has been a fan favorite for a long time, so it’s one of those things where the fans have been keeping this show alive and keeping it going, even though it’s had different platforms and kind of different audiences, as far as how many people are watching it. But, it’s definitely the little show that could because it’s been really solid since the first step, as we’re all finding out now.
Justin: It’s really funny at the same time, having excellent drama going, and tonally, it reminds me sort of a cross between the old The Tick cartoons, the really great episodes of The Tick, and the TV show, Preacher.
Pete: That’s a fun cross there, I like what you did. Every episode, there has been a real laugh out loud moment and I…
Justin: A bunch of them.
Pete: Yes, it’s been impressive that even going back and watching this again, it still gets me. It’s really such a good show.
Alex: Well, to be fair, you are the sort of person who watches things a lot of times and enjoys them every time, which is a very laudable trait.
Pete: To be fair.
Justin: Like a goldfish, a human goldfish.
Pete: That’s right.
Alex: Well, I did have another question for you while we’re working through the beginning here, Pete. Right after the scene with Jane, we go over to Cliff exploring the Chief’s office, looking for clues, and he finds an entire drawer filled with I believe it was Kit-Kat wrappers that he’s eating and it was the like, “Woo,” he probably had diabetes. Do you have a drawer like that in your house? You’re a big candy fan.
Justin: Candy man.
Pete: Oh my God, I feel so called out right now.
Justin: See.
Pete: Yes, no, I’m not going to open up my drawer of candy and…
Alex: I wasn’t actually asking you to open it up, I was asking if you had it, and I guess the answer is yes.
Pete: Yes, yes I do.
Justin: You reminded him, now he’s fiending.
Pete: Oh man, yes, I don’t… hopefully, I don’t ever get diabetes, but man, I’m a sucker for a candy drawer.
Justin: Hey, we’re not here to get you… we’re not your parents.
Alex: We’re not diagnosing you with diabetes here live on the podcast or anything. Do you want us to?
Pete: No, I should go see my doctor, you’re right.
Justin: We bring up candy and Pete’s like, “Are you a cop? Are you a fucking cop?”
Pete: Just don’t tell anybody, all right? But yes, I got some candy.
Justin: You’re a grown man, you can have a candy drawer if you want in your room full of comic books.
Alex: I do love what this brings up though, just in terms of the overall relationship of the episode. We were talking about this last episode as well with the Cyborg introduction where there’s this big push and pull here between him wanting to act like a superhero team and nobody else wanting to do that, or know what that means, which segues really nicely into this very fun briefing sequence where everybody’s just taking the shit out of him the entire team.
Pete: Oh my God. I want to back up the truck a little bit. We get to see…
Alex: Do you want to talk about Hamibal Lector again?
Pete: I mean, I really want to take it back to the DC flip, but I won’t. To see the Vic and mom stuff was so powerful, we get to kind of see the accident. But if you notice, it seemed like when he kind of flipped over the stuff and then re-watched the footage…
Alex: Sorry, was he DC flipping over the stuff or…?
Justin: That’s a good call.
Pete: Wow.
Justin: The only flip in the episode.
Pete: It looked like there was a bigger explosion that came not from Vic’s explosion, but it looked like something else was happening.
Justin: I think it’s pretty safe to say that there’s something up with the accident that killed his mother because when he was like, “It’s my fault,” and then seeing it and when he literally did it, I was like, “This is too much here. This is clearly something.” I like the way, again, we’re slow playing this mystery of Vic’s dad probably faking this to shift the blame off something that he did that probably killed the mother.
Pete: But also, both his parents, pretty cold as ice. You know what I mean? His mom also was like…
Alex: Well, I didn’t think his mom was cold as ice. We only got that brief scene with her, and it seems like they have a pretty good relationship right before she gets blown up.
Pete: It seems like they have a great relationship, but she was just kind of like, “Hey man, listen, this is… you fucked up, you’re going to have to pay the price.” I was like, “All right.”
Justin: Your candy drawer is empty and you can’t believe you went too much in there and you’re in trouble. He’s like, “I love candy.”
Pete: You have no idea the fucking tip of the iceberg that you guys are fucking dancing around right now when it comes to me and candy, all right? Let’s just walk away because, no, it’s going to get dark and you guys… let’s just keep it moving.
Justin: Don’t you mean the tip of the Mounds candy bar?
Alex: It definitely feels like you’re some sort of witch luring us to your candy house right now, like whatever you do, don’t ask about this enormous pile of candy that I have, guys.
Pete: Oh my God.
Alex: This is the only thing I can think about now. The Cyborg briefing stuff is great though, love the relationship between the Cyborg and Cliff, who doesn’t even know what a briefing is, very fun.
Justin: I love that they disseminate, like he doesn’t know. Cliff just has so many great lines in this episode, “Look, that fucking donkey,” just across the board, he’s very funny. I bet Aquaman never loses his keys, very funny.
Pete: Also, when we see Jack Trainor, the light being put him up on a beam, and the Post-It note was stuck to his head. I love this light being, I feel like… as far as who is the… I’m team light being all the way.
Alex: First of all, Larry Trainor.
Pete: Sorry.
Alex: Why don’t we get into with it right now, because it is wild to me how negative you are about the storyline?
Justin: You’re the negative spirit, Pete.
Alex: Considering how the flashbacks are so poignantly emotional and so well tie into Larry Trainor’s arc that he was a closeted gay man, he has all of these things inside of him and he held everything inside, and now he is literally trapped in his body, completely closed off, completely hidden.
Pete: But, he’s completely lying to himself. We get this heartbreaking flashback where he’s in a truck with his boyfriend, and also is just keeping his boyfriend at this distance that is just not fair. Even his boyfriend called him out on it and he’s like, “Oh yeah, I’m the one with the issues.” It’s heartbreaking. First off, I don’t know the struggle and the fact that he has to lie who he is and all that kind of stuff, but the boyfriend is being like, “Hey, man, these people that we all are around would hate us if they knew who we are,” and that’s heartbreaking in itself. To have him be in honest with this person and share who they are together and then still kind of pushing him away, it’s just heartbreaking. Then, when he goes home and lies to his wife more about how much, it’s just…
Justin: But, she knows.
Pete: She definitely knows something’s going on. Then, you get the laundry list of places that they’ve been running from.
Justin: I understand that you don’t like that. Here, Pete, let me throw something at you. I think you don’t like it because it’s well done drama, because it’s not like we’re like, “This is perfect. This is just how I would want it to go.” I think we are emotionally invested in the story the same way, and that’s why it’s a successful little tale, and it is tragic.
Alex: If it helps you at all, Pete, in terms of somebody hiding a secret away, a big secret that they’re keeping hidden, think about it as some sort of, I don’t know, candy addiction, something like that. Let’s say you had a closet full of candy, you’d want the person to open that closet and let the candy come out, but they still want to keep it in there because then it’s going to be all out over the rug, and what do they do? What do they do when it’s out there?
Justin: When we use the term closeted, we’re talking about candy here on this podcast.
Alex: Always.
Justin: Yes. It is tragic, especially later on in the episode, after the accident when John comes to talk to him on the heels of his wife saying, “I’m leaving, I can’t do this anymore.” She doesn’t relish that choice, she’s upset as well, all the more tragic, no one’s happy here. Then, John comes and he’s like, “Hey, I’m here for you. I have to speak in code because everyone’s here with me, but I’m staying.” Then, John is like, “Go.”
Alex: Go.
Justin: He only gives him one word. At that moment, John is…
Alex: Larry. John is the guy…
Justin: Yes, sorry. Larry says, “Go,” and John knows in that one moment…
Pete: I think it was Larry, and then Mo. There’s no Mo.
Justin: Larry is then alone, again. He loses everything in this one thing, and just to see it all, except for this spirit that he has in him, that he’s also fighting with.
Alex: The thing that we don’t necessarily explicitly get into in this episode, but I do think is always rendering under everything that Larry does, to the point that you’re talking about, Pete, is he sees himself as a monster. He knows that he is cheating on his wife. He knows that if this ever comes out and he was true to himself, it would destroy his family, it would destroy this life as a test pilot that he leaves, it would destroy absolutely everything. He feels like a horrible person. Then, when he finally looks like that on the outside, he is rejected by the life he thinks he is supposed to have, and then he rejects the life that he truly wants because he thinks he doesn’t deserve it anymore. I think it’s complicated, but it’s very beautiful storytelling.
Pete: It is.
Pete: It’s very well done. It’s very well acted. It’s very moving. I just want him to be honest with himself or the light being because even when he’s arguing with the light being and he was like, “My life was perfect before you ruined it,” it wasn’t. It was on the verge of collapsing and whatever, but I want him to finally start being honest with himself and start treating this light being a little bit better because this light being has a ton of power over him and can save his ass and also destroy things, as we saw with the truck, which is hysterical when he’s driving and… oh my God, that was so funny, where the light being trashes the truck and everybody’s passed out.
Justin: Well, I think even though he had all that secrecy, he was always in control of the situation. He was the one who was making the choices to hide himself, and now he’s beholden to this. He’s living another double life, except he doesn’t have the power anymore. He’s vulnerable here. He’s still hiding his identity under these bandages, but there’s this… the light being is like, “I do what I want. You’re not capable of making good choices, so I’m going to make some of them for you,” it feels like.
Alex: I’ll just mention, before we move on to another character, I do think the scene where he does get his humanity back is kind of incredible.
Justin: Great.
Alex: It ties into… this isn’t exactly the right thing, but if you talk about another comic book character, it’s very Ben Grimm, The Thing, whenever he becomes human again and you get those brief touches where he’s like, “This is me, I’m human again,” and then, the rocks come over him for whatever reason or he has to take his powers back to save everybody. Here it’s forced on Larry Trainor, so it’s not even his choice, and it is probably not even real, like it was just imagined or part of this process or whatever was going on. It’s just unfortunate and sad that he gets thrust back into this life again.
Pete: It was such a cool shot of him in the chamber, and then we saw Mr. Nobody get sliced into bits, his bandages come off in a similar way, which artistically was done so well.
Justin: Yes, he’s freed from these bonds that hold him, but he immediately… he hasn’t learned anything. He immediately drops into it like, “I’m out of here, you suck, let me go.”
Pete: It’s so frustrating.
Justin: I think that he can’t be free of this, he hasn’t learned anything yet. He’s not ready to move on, he hasn’t changed.
Alex: Well, and I also think this gets a little into the storyline that I wanted to talk to you about next with Rita and Cyborg. But, I think across the board, something that this show does that is so smart is regular people don’t learn lessons every 42 minutes.
Justin: I mean, I do. I learn a lesson every 42 minutes.
Pete: It would be cool if you could.
Alex: But, watching a TV show, you’re used to everybody sitting around and being like, “Well, what’s the lessons we learned here so I’ve grown as a human being?” All of these characters are much more realistic despite their superpowers where they’re like, “Well, I learned nothing this episode, leave me alone. The only thing I learned is I’m in stasis here, I’m happy the way I am, even though clearly I’m not happy, and I’m going to keep going that way.” All the character growth that we get, if we do get any character growth, it’s like 1%, 2%, rather than supposed to be this 100% character growth that oftentimes doesn’t even carry forward until the next episode.
Pete: I’m glad you cut it off at 1% because we can get into skim milk and stuff like that, then it’s just gross. You know what I mean? 1%, 2% decent, but…
Justin: The lowest percent.
Pete: Yes.
Alex: My favorite is 3% milk.
Pete: Wow, that’s not a real thing.
Justin: Very expensive.
Alex: I add 1% and 2% together, I make it myself.
Pete: That’s smart.
Justin: I don’t know if that’s how it works.
Pete: I remember that was in that Diehard thing where he had to fill the water jug with a certain amount of percent.
Justin: Anyways, I wish there were more beverages.
Alex: “Now I have 3% milk,” he says.
Justin: That’s good. I wish there were more beverages that were skim. Skim beer…
Pete: Gross.
Justin: I love just the top, whatever can just slide off the top of stuff, skim.
Pete: But, what’s interesting is here’s… we see Jane who has got a lot of issues herself, and it takes her two seconds to walk up to him and be like, “Listen, you douche-waffle, you’ve got to start treating people with respect, it’s that simple.” It would’ve been nice if that leveled him and sunk in a little bit.
Justin: Here’s the thing, I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this in the real world, but it’s often easier to diagnose someone else’s problems than your own.
Pete: Wow, yes.
Justin: She’s pretty comfortable being like…
Alex: I don’t get that, leave me alone.
Justin: Boom, boom, you’re in the Doom Room. She has a ton of problems and she’s like, “You’re a douche, you need to be nice,” but she’s not working on…
Pete: Douche-waffle.
Justin: Yes, she’s not working on herself.
Alex: But, Jane does actually make some big moves this episode, in terms of stepping up, which is interesting on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Justin: Well, she’s like the hero here. Including Cyborg, she’s the most heroic, I would argue, in the show. She’s proactive, she makes choices, she dove into what we found out was the donkey mouth earlier in the last episode, and she’s willing to make moves here that do put her at risk, even though she’s not able to really face the issues that she has to deal with.
Alex: I think that ties into what she puts on the window of the plane at the end of the episode, she writes out, “Control is a weapon for fascists.” I think that points to she doesn’t like anybody being in control. She’s looking for the Chief now, she’s saying that, but I think we saw pretty clearly when the Chief was there, she didn’t want to listen to the Chief. When this guy at Fuchtopia…
Pete: Wow.
Justin: Fuchtopia.
Alex: Sorry everybody.
Justin: That’s disgusting.
Pete: Spell it.
Alex: When he tells her what he is going to do, she’s like, “Nope, I’m absolutely not going to do that.” It’s partially her being a hero, but it’s also partially her just raging against the machine no matter what the machine is.
Justin: Yes, even if it’s a puppet show, my favorite thing to rage against.
Alex: Exactly.
Alex: That’s what they were writing about, the band, right?
Justin: They hate puppets.
Alex: They saw one Marionette show at the park and they’re like, “That’s it, here comes our album.”
Justin: That’s it.
Pete: Fuchtopia is what [crosstalk 00:25:49].
Justin: When they say rally around the family with a pocket full of shells, the family they’re talking about are the Muppets.
Alex: Right, and the pocket full of shells is peanut shells.
Justin: That’s exactly right. They love peanuts and hate puppets, rage against the machine.
Alex: Check them out, yo.
Pete: Oh man.
Alex: Let’s talk about Cyborg and Rita though, because I do think this is a really interesting relationship that’s developing, along the same lines, this very much refusal of the call of being a hero. Rita is digging in her heels the most, but Cyborg is pushing against her the most. How did you feel about how that played out in this episode?
Pete: Well, first off, the timing of “Rita, get out of the bathroom, hurry, we’re going to go do this,” and then everybody being like, “Fine, let’s just leave her,” she’s like, “I’m ready,” and they’re gone, was just magical. That was just really fun. The comedy, I’ve pointed out numerous times, is just so enjoyable.
Justin: Well, she can’t control her powers, she’s losing control of her powers, so she’s refusing to do anything. In an episode where Rita and Cyborg get left behind, they’re pretty chill about it. Even when they catch up, they’re like, “Wow, all right.”
Pete: It’s interesting because Rita does reveal that she started to get a grip on things and be able to control it. Then, when Mr. Nobody came, it kind of really shattered her and brought her back to square one or worse than before, which is an interesting kind of thing of she’s really struggling even though the mention of him, her face started to go… but, it’s interesting to have Vic be sitting there and be like, “Hey, let’s go, let’s do things,” and she’s like, “What? What can I do? What do you think can happen?” This reality that Vic is fighting against. The two of them being sidelined, as Trainer pointed out, he is the only one with any kind of hero experience and we didn’t bring him along, that’s not a good idea.
Justin: We also meet a really important character in their sequence, Ring-Ding.
Pete: Is he the guy waiting for the bus?
Justin: No, he’s the guy when Cyborg’s working on the van and he says…
Alex: What’s his rhyme? It’s like, “Hey, I’m Ring-Ding a leg,” or something like that.
Justin: He just says his name’s Ring-Ding, which brings me to an important lesson, be careful with your nickname because that guy’s walking around being proud of Ring-Ding. You’ve got to workshop this stuff.
Alex: Wait, I was thinking of Ding Dong’s. Ding Dong’s are the chocolate discs with cream in the middle, right?
Justin: Let’s check in with Pete on that one.
Pete: Yes, that’s correct.
Alex: I was going to say it’s a good nickname because Ding Dong’s are pretty good, but Ring-Ding.
Justin: A Ring-Ding is a treat, right, Pete?
Pete: Yes, that is true.
Justin: Hey, Treat Pete, is Ring-Ding a thing?
Pete: Yes, it also is a thing.
Justin: Treat Pete and Ring-Ding.
Alex: Oh no.
Justin: Wow, that happened really organically. I can’t believe how that worked out.
Alex: We do actually get to meet a very fun character in this episode though, which is Steve the tourist who pairs along with him the entire time. He’s played by Alec… what?
Pete: Poor Steve.
Alex: No, Steve’s so happy. What are you talking about?
Justin: Are you talking about raptor-face-celery-hand?
Alex: Yes. This is an actual character from the comics, this is Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man. He was introduced in Doom Patrol Number 89. He’s played by Alec Mapa here, it’s crazy. It looks crazy, but I love his reaction at the end that makes me laugh out loud, just being so pleased about his dinosaur head on his head, very funny.
Justin: Very fun. Also, he’s like, “Was I in there too long?” That was so funny, it was just so perfect.
Pete: Well, that’s the thing, there was this moment where Cliff was like, “Hey, should we sweep and look for people?” Then, Jane was like, “No, we’re torching this whole thing.” But, poor Steve was still in there, which was like, you guys came with Steve, you could have at least looked for him a little bit, but I guess they didn’t really care about Steve.
Justin: I don’t think he was really part of the team though.
Pete: Well, no, but he was there.
Alex: I think they were kind of put off though. They were put off when he first said… they asked him what power he wanted and he said magnet feet. They were like, “Why do you want that?” To climb up walls, very funny.
Pete: I mean, metal walls.
Justin: But, it’s very… not a lot of walls are made of pure metal, he’s not climbing very many walls. [crosstalk 00:30:30] statue…
Alex: He can climb up The Bean.
Justin: Climb The Bean.
Alex: In Chicago.
Pete: Thanks, we didn’t know what you were talking about.
Alex: Yeah. I just didn’t want people to think I’m saying climb up random beans, climb up The Bean in Chicago, or like you were saying, the Statue of Liberty, you could probably climb on. Is that magnetic?
Justin: No, it’s not, because it’s copper.
Alex: I guess I don’t know what The Bean is made out of either.
Justin: Really, Alex? You don’t know?
Alex: It’s weird I wasn’t able to pull that fact out of my head. We meet him, what else? I feel like there’s somebody we’re missing in the episode.
Pete: His commentary during the puppet show was really fun. He’s like, “Oh well, I guess this is all Nazis.” He’s like, “I’m still in.”
Justin: I love that… all the Nazi stuff, he’s sort of like, “Bummer, oh well.”
Alex: Didn’t see that brochure.
Alex: I also… it’s such an easy joke, but the length joke with the puppet show where they started and then cut to three hours later, very funny.
Justin: Very funny. I mean, just the whole Fuchtopia sequence, arriving there, having the weird puppet show, and then learning later that everyone’s being puppeted by the Nazi like Von Fuchs is great. It was really well done.
Pete: Puppet master.
Pete: Even when he dies, the detail of the puppet dying as well is just really good.
Alex: Well, and it’s also, just on a thematic level, a really good villain for them, because you have somebody who is all about control, is all about everybody is the same, everybody is me, and they’re all these weird individual characters that just don’t fit together as a team, and so they’re contrasting with that. Just on that level, I think it works really nicely for a superhero story as well. Any…?
Pete: Well, I just wanted to say, just when the puppet show started and how Cliff was like, “What the fuck?” just great use of swearing in this episode, I love it. I just want to circle back around to douche-waffle. I mean, as someone who likes to use the word douche bag, I really appreciated douche-waffle.
Justin: Real creative take on it. I feel like that may be entering your heroic vernacular.
Alex: A couple of other moments to call out that I really liked, I just loved the whole trip to Paraguay, the fact that they pull off a bus, it’s going to take two weeks, the bus driving…
Justin: So long.
Alex: So long. The bus driving over the map was a very fun visual. I think it was Cliff and Vic pushing the bus at the end.
Justin: Yes, at the hotel, very fun.
Alex: Also, very fun.
Pete: Also, the fact that Rita is the oldest and she was driving so slow was really fun, that it was driving everybody else insane, it’s the peddle on the right.
Justin: Cyborg being like, “I’m going to get the PJ,” and we’ve all been there, obviously, then you don’t get the keys.
Pete: What?
Alex: Wait, what?
Justin: The private jet, PJ.
Pete: Oh, the private jet, PJ. I was like…
Justin: Wow, I guess you guys [crosstalk 00:33:35].
Alex: I thought it was a cool, fast way of saying peanut butter and jelly, you were skipping the B.
Justin: It is a cool, fast way of saying something, but not what you think.
Alex: But, overall really good episode.
Justin: Wait, sorry, Alex, one other thing real quick. Now, do you feel like you and your family, to your kids, need a cooler, faster way to say peanut butter and jelly? A way faster than PB and J?
Alex: We’re wasting a lot of time on that middle letter, we have other things to do. Kids, we’ve got to go to school. PJ, that’s how we say it. We’re like, “Put on my PJs here.” No, don’t put on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Justin: Oh my God.
Alex: It’s a whole thing every morning.
Pete: All right, was I the only one who was really having fun when it was just Nazi ass-kicking time?
Justin: No, it was a great fight sequence.
Alex: I was sad because I like Nazis, just to loop back to our conversation from earlier.
Justin: Yes, our early conversation.
Pete: You’ve really come a long way, man.
Justin: Cliff murdering them and then feeling instant remorse I thought was sort of…
Pete: It was weird because it was like he blacked out and then kind of came-to and was like, “Oh, what did I do?” That was a weird moment because I was having fun with Cliff, and then all of a sudden I was like, “Oh wait, am I supposed to feel bad about this?”
Alex: Well, he hasn’t done anything like this before, right? He was a bad guy when he was alive when he was a normal race car driver. But, the only thing we’ve really seen him do so far is destroy a road to help Rita, he’s mostly been helpful. This contrast with earlier in the episode, when he very gently pets the kitten, and here he can’t feel his body, he can’t feel what’s going on with it, he doesn’t know what it is. He doesn’t realize the strength that he has. I think that’s the reaction, it’s not about blacking out, it’s not some mystery or something like that, it’s he goes ape shit, he now has a robot metal body, rips these dudes apart, and doesn’t realize what he did or what it looks like until Jane comes up to him. I don’t think he’s ever killed a person, so it’s just that crashing realization of that.
Justin: Yes, especially not a boy’s choir from middle Germany, or whatever they were.
Alex: One last thing, I really liked the teleporting moment when Jane’s like, “Forget it,” and they go there and immediately are like, “You could have done this the whole time?”
Pete: The whole time.
Alex: It’s a very funny moment as well.
Justin: Very fun.
Pete: That’s back to her thing of nobody’s in control, it’s like they do what they want when they want, she can’t make anybody do something that they don’t want to do.
Alex: There you go.
Pete: Plus, sometimes the trip is… the traveling there is half the fun.
Justin: I’ve never heard that before.
Alex: Before we wrap up here, who was most doomed in this episode? Pete, who was most doomed?
Pete: I would say most doomed was that German team of people who got ripped to shreds, unfortunately.
Justin: Yes, Von Fuchs, I agree with you, was very doomed. For a scientist who’s powered by a hand crank, it feels like maybe you’re not focusing your energy where you need to be.
Alex: Justin, what about you, most doomed this episode?
Justin: I mean, it’s a tough… like I said earlier, this show is doing a great job of making all the characters equally in the worst position. I am going to go with Rita here. Rita feels like she’s changing the least and is the least capable of doing anything. She’s barely holding it together, literally in the bathroom, trying to keep her body from falling apart, and she’s not able to take any steps forward. It feels like Larry at least is maybe on the precipice of moving on.
Pete: Let’s hope so.
Alex: I’m going to give it up to you, Hamibal Lector, I’m really worried about that little guy. We just know that he’s lost.
Pete: Yes, but so many people took the number to call, so maybe somebody has…
Alex: I know, man, but Jane’s going around putting those signs for the Chief up there, they’re going to forget about Hamibal very quickly.
Pete: How could you forget about Hamibal?
Justin: Alex, do you think he’s lost or do you think he’s finally free?
Alex: I think he probably found a bean, but it was some fava beans and a fine Chianti.
Pete: Wow.
Justin: That’s why you can’t climb The Bean with magnet feet, it’s made of fava.
Alex: If you like supporting our show, there’s Patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube. Come hangout, we’d love to chat with you about Doom Patrol. You can check us out at comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and many more. As always, we’re going to leave you with a piece of advice from Pete LePage. Pete, take it away. What’s your big piece of advice for this week’s episode?
Pete: Hey, maybe it’s time that you’re not ashamed, maybe it’s time to let your freak flag fly, be okay with your candy drawer, all right? You don’t have to hide your candy, let people see it.
Justin: Wow, advice to yourself.
Alex: Really beautiful, Pete. That got me.
