Cyborg having trouble keeping it together. Photo courtesy of KSiteTV.
Please Keep In Mind That This Article Contains Potential Spoilers For “Francis Patrol” and Events That Occurred Prior
Well damn. That ended dark didn’t it? With an episode that involved living flying butts, who would have guessed that it would have gone to such a grim place. I guess that just further speaks to the great writing of the show that those two extremes can exist in the same episode—let alone show—without undermining each other.
There’s no way I can’t start without addressing Cyborg. Poor Vic man—he’s now killed both of his parents. As Mr. Nobody put it, his origin story is now complete. I have no idea how someone would be able to stand up and walk away from the trauma that such a event would incur. So needless to say I am extremely interested to see how Vic handles all of this. More than likely, this deeper vulnerability is what Grid needed to dig his metaphorical feet deeper into Cyborg’s system. The moment where Vic actually ends his Father’s life was masterfully done. I felt disbelief that it had actually happened. Yet, it did. Just like that, Silas’s life was gone. With just a few brutal unhinged punches, Mr. Nobody won. Larry holding off the rest of the group from getting too close was a great subtle moment that further elevated an already emotional intense scene.
I don’t think this is going to end well for Silas. Photo courtesy of KSiteTV.
You know I have plenty of good things to say about this episode, but the CGI work in particular was not one of them. Look, I give TV series’ in general plenty of leeway. I know they have a limited budget to achieve their goals. However, when it threatens to undercut important moments—well that’s where it becomes an issue. In particular, that came into play with Cyborg’s big moment as Mr. Nobody showed up to gloat. Hands down, that is some of the worst CGI work that I have seen on any medium in recent memory. It’s like someone took a 480p render of a poorly created Mr. Nobody model, and with some terrible green screen work, photo shopped it sloppily into the scene.
When it comes to Mr. Nobody as a character, well this episode further shows just how sadistic he is—and how big of a threat he truly is. Has he truly taken Vic off of the board? Probably not, but he has certainly struck a critical blow. As for the other antagonistic forces this episode, The Bureau of Normalcy returned for some more action. They still haven’t really grown into anything super special, but it was cool getting to see the Ant-Farm. Now with everything that has gone down, is the Bureau gone for good? Simply slowed down? I guess only time will tell. Honestly though, I’m happy to have less of them and more of Mr. Nobody (hopefully with improved CGI).
Karen’s Back! Photo courtesy of KSiteTV.
As for the rest of the gang, well this is the first time that we’ve really seen them working as a team. That alone was neat to watch, and seeing some legitimate team dynamics in play was great. There isn’t much to say about most of them in particular, but I do want to make note of one very particular matter. How was Larry able to move around and function at all with the Negative Spirit outside of his body? Shouldn’t he have collapsed and gone unconscious as he has every other time? Furthermore, is the Spirit’s presence not the thing keeping him alive? You’d think that without it, all of that radiation would start to do its work. Hopefully all of this is eventually addressed, because otherwise it’s potentially a huge continuity error that could present endless head scratching questions.
While not the best installment of the show, “Cyborg Patrol” was still fantastic—even despite some particular gripes. With Silas Stone now dead at the hands of his own son, the team has taken a huge hit from Mr. Nobody. But hey, at least they know the next step in locating Niles—finding this mysterious Flex Mentallo.
Bonus Notes:
- When everyone was being let free from their prisons, I couldn’t help but notice that 98% of these people looked like regular old joes. I would have figured that more of them would have been more distinctly…well, odd.
You can catch new episodes of Doom Patrol when they air on DC Universe streaming network every Friday.
