Not only do I need to know what happens to my favorite crew of screw-ups, I need more of them working through their trauma and growing. The thing I adore about Doom Patrol is that no one on the show is static. Miranda mentioned in the episode that she wanted to keep Kay and all her personalities moving forward, and even though she was maybe evil when she said that, she’s right.
It’s a weird show about broken people healing each other, which is always my jam, and found family, which is also always my jam, and YES ALL THE GRANT MORRISON THINGS, but it’s also so hopeful, and surprising, and tender and Timothy Dalton is doing IT ALL this season which is not a thing I thought I’d ever write.
If Succession — another show about which I will talk to you for hours — is about illustrating the effects of inter-generational trauma, about how kids would rather believe they’re pieces of shit than hold in their minds the idea that their parents are wrong, then Doom Patrol is about how we go on from the realization that our parents WERE wrong, and what you do when your whole inner life was formed in a funhouse mirror.
The house only looks haunted if you grew up in it.
You keep stumbling forward, limping forward, clawing forward with your nails and the teeth you sharpened in the dark while you waited for someone to pull you up out of the well. And it’s the joy, the unspeakable unfurling wing-spreading joy of grabbing the rope and realizing you’re strong enough now, to pull yourself out. Hand over hand.
A.