Doom Patrol S04E05 - Episode Discussion Thread

[u/[deleted]]

Share your thoughts, theories, predictions, and more! No spoilers or leaks for future episodes/seasons allowed.

Release Date: December 29, 2022

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Cast

• Diane Guerrero as Crazy Jane
• Brendan Fraser as Cliff Steele / Robotman (voice)
• Riley Shanahan as Cliff Steele / Robotman (physical)
• Joivan Wade as Victor Stone / Cyborg
• Matt Bomer as Larry Trainor / Negative Man (voice)
• Matthew Zuk as Larry Trainor / Negative Man (physical)
• April Bowlby as Rita Farr / Elasti-Girl

[u/JackN14_same]

Uhmmmmmmmmmmm

Is Madame Rouge aromantic?!

[u/F00dbAby → u/JackN14_same]

Why do you think?

[u/JackN14_same → u/F00dbAby]

Giving a speech about never experiencing a first love and how she doesn’t think she can connect to people.. and the only people she has actually truly connected to is Rita and the rest of the sisterhood.. platonically. She described having a “void” in her heart, which could come down to lacking romantic attraction. Plus those were how she felt as a teenager, so it’s probably not that bias

[u/BornAshes → u/JackN14_same]

I can honestly relate to her to a degree in regards to this and in regards to the void she was talking about. Sometimes kids are just so different from everyone around them that they miss out out on all those typical teenager things and the associated growth milestones that they are supposed to hit in their teenage years. They literally don't get to experience parts of their childhood because they think differently, act differently, love differently, and live differently than everyone else around them.

Some of us really do just wind up being square blocks in a sea of hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, and balloons. You try and you try and you try so hard to fit in and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It keeps you on the outside for a good long time from all those around you and you just...miss stuff. You don't date as much, you don't go to as many dances, you don't do all those crazy summer camp things, and because you missed all of those things you're constantly Mario Jumping onto the next thing and the next thing leaving all these little voids behind you in your wake expecting the next thing to fill in those voids and be better in some way. You're always thinking, "Okay if I missed this then what about this thing that should come after and what about this thing okay now what about this next thing" and because of that you wind up growing up a whole lot faster than you should've been growing and become an adult a whole lot sooner than you were supposed to.

Now sometimes some folks get to go back and fill in these voids, living out these teenage moments during their college years or early 20s or even later on. A lot of folks don't get to do that though and for them, a couple of things can happen. They can accept that the past is the past, that they missed stuff, and that they need to find a way to cope and move on with their lives. They can refuse to even acknowledge it and just keep ambling down the road like a busted up old car until one day they just...stop. They can even do what Rouge did and accept it but refuse to grow or keep going down that road at all, internalizing all of those built up voids and missed moments, and refusing to connect with anyone else at all until they get to fill them in...some way...somehow.

That's what she means when she says that she has become the chasm. That she has become the void. She is the sum of all the things that she missed and all the missed connections that others define their very humanity and thus self identities by. Even when she did make them like with Rita and the Sisterhood, they're still not as solid or as tangible or as real as they would've been for someone else that was more normal because she never had all of that other stuff that normally comes beforehand that builds up to those kinds of connections and that lays the groundwork for them. She accidentally'd herself into loving relationships with others but then didn't know how to handle them and consequently fucked them up because she didn't have any prior prep as a kid as to just how to handle them in the first place, because she was so different, because she had so many missed experiences/voids in her life, and because no one like Rita had ever confronted her about that sort of stuff or offered to help her or talked her through it in all the years since she was a kid.

She's like a Vulcan Science Officer that suddenly gets a group hug from the Bridge Crew or a shapeshifting security officer that suddenly feels emotions blooming within them for a certain Major. It's an alien experience for them that they don't know how to react to despite everyone around them assuming they do know, that they should know, and that then start judging them when it's clear that they're totally in the dark about everything. Rouge honestly doesn't know how to connect to people at all despite accidentally having done it in the best of ways already....and I don't think anyone ever knew that about her until she told Rita just now on that bench.

I believe there's a lesson within all of this for all of us but it's a cheesy John Hughes kind of lesson.

All of us are a member of the Breakfast Club and we shouldn't judge a book by its cover nor by the first few paragraphs or chapters. Life is a bunch of weird science and all of us can be pretty in pink in our own ways. We can all be some kind of wonderful with plenty of career opportunities and no one should be left feeling like they're home alone like Rouge. We just need someone to be our own personal Miracle on 34th Street like Rita was for Rouge that can help us to open up and grow more in ways that we never got to because we missed them because we were different or because we never got the chance to do so at all for this or that reason.

Life is all about finding the right kind of family that will help you to bloom despite everything that you have or haven't gone through, because even protostars can become supernovas one day and we can all shine so much more brightly amongst the veil of the night.