Doom Patrol episode 12 preview: Movie references and unlikely teamups

Doom Patrol’s new episode this week, “Cyborg Patrol,” gives us another Victor-focused episode as they try to find and rescue him.

There are many things that go into making the Doom Patrol. Strangely extraordinary animals. A bunch of strange people who live in a mansion. Unlikely team-ups definitely aren’t uncommon. And, of course, neither are the stranger villains, who often are just bad at being villains. Sorry Animal-Mineral-Vegetable Man and Beard Hunter, we still love you. The Doom Patrol universe will add movie references in the mix as the team tries to save Victor.

Last week’s Doom Patrol episode had a lot to appreciate. Beyond feeding us with even more mental health discourse, last week gave us a cliffhanger after the Bureau of Normalcy kidnapped Vic. Admittedly, cliffhangers are uncommon for the show, which makes this “Cyborg Patrol” even more peculiar.

Just as the titular episode suggests, this week is about Cyborg. However, we’ll likely find out more about the Bureau of Normalcy in the process.

Based on the trailer and her character development throughout the season, Jane seems to be helming this week’s episode. In her new leadership role (that we hope is long term), she and the rest of the Patrol team-up with Vic’s father. Which wouldn’t be a problem… if he weren’t Vic’s father.

After all, Silas and Vic don’t exactly get along because Silas is simultaneously an overbearing dad who focuses more on Vic’s tech than he does Victor. In Niles’ absence, Silas is their best bet to find Vic, save him from the Bureau, and stop Grid from trying to kill everyone. We doubt Grid’s homicide urge would benefit from Cliff’s talk therapy sessions.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Doom Patrol episode if a lot of weird stuff didn’t happen. Seeing as a couple of movie references make their way into the episode promo alone, we’ll probably see more unabashed references. The meta-comic reference and appearance in “Danny Patrol” led us to Flex Mentallo (even if we haven’t officially met him yet). Sounds like we’ll be keeping a running tally of all the impending movie references so that our fan theories for the remaining episodes can flop. (The things we do for this fandom.)

Above all us, we just want Victor back. He’s become an integral part of the Doom Patrol team, and we hope the team along with Silas’ help will be able to find him. Hopefully, they’ll make Grid less cannonblast-y, too.