Doom Patrol preview: A blast from the past and a suspicious namedrop

Sticking with last week’s theme, Doom Patrol’s sixth episode will give us another look in the past… this time with the original Doom Patrol team.

Even after reversing the apocalypse and bending their moral code to work with a supervillain, the Doom Patrol won’t get any rest this week. Their pursuit of tracking down Niles Caulder again will likely continue, but they have other issues.

In a double-sighted episode, “Doom Patrol Patrol” will introduce the Doom Patrol’s predecessors: the Doom Patrol. As you’ve probably already guessed, flashback, awkward meeting, or somewhere in between, the Doom Patrol and Doom Patrol meetup is going to get weird.

Larry, Jane, Victor, Rita, and Cliff haven’t officially declared themselves a team or voted on a team name yet, but they’ve already started to work and grow as a team — even when Flit and the portal to Nurnheim separated them. Now that the Decreator’s doom is out of the way, the found family can look to the original superhero team in an episode truly inspired by Arnold Drake and Howard Purcell’s original Doom Patrol comic run.

Sure, Mr. Nobody planted some nefarious subconscious clues for Jane to follow. Maybe Morden wanted to reveal the strange family tree within the already weird family, or maybe he has more calculating plans for the extended family reunion. Nevertheless, we already know from the comic book history and her repetitive mentions of Mento in the latest trailer that Rita Farr already knows at least one of the original team members.

While Steve Dayton (otherwise known as Mento) and Rita were married in the comics, we can assume they were also married at some point before Steve left his crimefighting days behind. After Mr. Nobody fiddled with the team’s psyche in his sanity-warping portal disguised as a donkey, Rita’s distorted memories hint that she had a child before her days at the Doom Mansion.

And while we know Garfield Logan is her son in the comics and in DC Universe lore, the baby in her vague memories probably isn’t the green-haired Titan, seeing as Titans “Doom Patrol” showed that Gar was a lot older before he joined the Doom household (and before Rita adopted him).

The ominous baby in Rita’s Modern-induced visions doesn’t directly hint at her and Steve’s former marital status. However, we can feel her disdain in the way she says “Mento,” in the episode promo clip. Honestly, we relate because Mento is a jerk.

Following last week’s weird adaption an already weird tale about a decreating eyeball, some Doom Patrol writers have vaguely confirmed this week’s episode will be a big deal as well. Seeing as Mento is well-versed in heroism and villainy, we can expect to see some new twists in the coming episode.

Hopefully, Ezekiel found a healthy outlet to cope with the fail apocalypse attempt last week. We don’t want either of the heroic teams to gloat while our favorite talking cockroach is grieving, but we’re still glad the almost official team wasn’t decreated.