Doom Patrol: The Complete Second Season – Blu-Ray Review

DC Comics’ most lovable team of misfits returns for another season of wacky adventure, horror, and heartbreak in Doom Patrol – The Complete Second Season, available on DVD and Blu-Ray January 26th!

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of Doom Patrol – The Complete Second Season Blu-ray that I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own. 

Doom Patrol easily remains the champion when put up against the other live-action titles that DC Comics created for their adventure into the land of online streaming services. Despite the fact that the DC Universe streaming service has fizzled out and merged almost entirely with HBO MAX, I’m just happy to know that Doom Patrol will continue on with a third season sometime later this year. 

I’m always worried when it comes time to watch the second season of an already good show, because I know that the new season will either need to be just as good as the first season or it will fall short of expectations and end up being disappointing to watch. And as somebody who watches a lot of TV, there’s nothing more frustrating than watching a TV show you love begin to dwindle in quality as new seasons arrive. However, I’m happy to say that Doom Patrol managed to take what was already great about its first season and make the second season even better!

The second season of Doom Patrol mainly revolves around the newest addition to the cast, Dorothy Spinner, the Ape-Faced Girl, played by Abi Monterey. Dorothy is The Chief’s daughter, with extremely powerful and temperamental powers that must be kept in check at all times. With the ability to legitimately bring her imaginary “friends” into the real world, there’s a huge problem to be had when Dorothy gets sad and accidentally lets one loose. However, the biggest threat is when Dorothy get angry and decides to purposely let one of her “imaginary friends” free to wreak havoc on the world and people around her. 

Doom Patrol draws its strength from the fact that it’s a team show, so all of the individual characters get their own story arcs to explore, joining up together to fight the season’s big bad. The Chief is trying to make right by his mistakes…..his many, many, nearly unforgivable mistakes. Dorothy, new to the gang, wants to assert her independence and grow up. Rita finally stops trying to hide her powers and decides to train herself in how to properly use them. Jane takes on a spooky mystery in the Underground. Both Larry and Cliff navigate continued familial issues. And Victor tries to find normalcy.

While I think that season two of Doom Patrol did a great job handling the stories for Dorothy, Jane, and Rita, I have to admit that I wasn’t too fond of the stories for Larry, Cliff, and Victor. For Larry and Cliff, their stories are ones that technically carry over from unresolved stories of the first season. Larry is trying to make amends with his family after “abandoning” them after his accident. Meanwhile, Cliff is trying to get back into his daughter, Clara’s, life. These stories aren’t necessarily bad. They’re both heartfelt and heartbreaking, but they aren’t the most exciting. And considering the fact that Larry is gay, I personally wish that the show would try to steer his story arcs away from ones that revolve around not being accepted. 

Victor (Cyborg) seems to struggle the most in the show in terms of relevance. It almost seems as though the writers don’t really know what they want to do with the character. At times, it even feels like Victor is the throwaway character in the series. This happens because Victor is played as the straight-man in the show, wherein the rest of the characters are wackier. And while I do think that it’s important to have more serious characters (like Victor and Chief) to balance out the crazy, the writers need to give Victor something else to do other than complain about being half-robot and falling into a relationship with a random woman. 

Another thing that the second season of Doom Patrol improved upon was the villain. Now, Alan Tudyk as Mr. Nobody was phenomenal in season one. He was creepy and powerful, although I never really considered him that much of a threat because he was so comical throughout the entirety of the season. The second season decided to go full-horror with their villain, bringing to life the character of The Candlemaker, one of the “imaginary friends” from inside Dorothy’s head that constantly calls on her to release him from her imagination so that he can grant her a “wish”. 

The Candlemaker is absolutely terrifying. If not for his creepy voice or his haunting appearance, then for the fact that he seems totally invincible. In fact, The Candlemaker has one of the most terrifying scenes in the entire show, wherein Dorothy unleashes him upon Jane’s Underground, giving him full access to all of the alternate personas we’ve come to know throughout the seasons. The introduction of this villain really creates a perfect contrast between the comical nature of Doom Patrol and the genuine threats that the team come up against. 

And finally, the last thing that I thought really worked for this season of the show was the shorter episode order. The first season of Doom Patrol had 15 episodes, which I personally felt was a bit long. Despite the fact that the first season’s story was fun and enjoyable to watch, there were times where it felt as though things were getting dragged out just to fill the extra time. In comparison, season two of Doom Patrol had an original order of 10 episodes, but kicked the total order down to 9 due to COVID shutting down the filming. And despite the fact that one episode got left behind, the second season still felt whole and well crafted. Even better, it gave the audience a truly terrifying cliffhanger that will lead into season three. 

Doom Patrol – The Complete Second Season: Blu-Ray Bonus Features:

• Doom Patrol: The Magic of Makeup: This featurette sits down with Bill Johnson (Makeup FX Designer), Derek Garcia (Special FX Makeup) and Eric Garcia (Special FX Makeup), who speak about the decisions behind creating makeup looks for the characters. You get to see behind the scenes footage of costume prosthetics being created and applied to the actors, as well as you get to hear the thought processes that go on in regards to translating a look from the comic books into live-action. (9 minutes)
• Doom Patrol Season 2: Come Visit Georgia PSA: I personally thought that this was a pointless feature to add to the disc-set. Production Designer, Carey Meyer, talks about what it’s like to film in Georgia and how the production team has ample access to great filming teams and locations., but other than some nice words about the state, there’s nothing really of interest in this very short bonus feature. (2 minutes).

Personally, I’m a bit upset with the extra features that came with the Blu-ray edition of this show. With a show as loony as Doom Patrol, I honestly expected some cool bonus features, including some kind of blooper reel. I can only imagine what kind of funny shenanigans went down behind the scenes for some of these episodes. I think it would’ve also been cool if there had been some featurettes that explored the source material in terms of the storylines and characters so we could see how the comics were translated for live-action. All-in-all, the bonus features felt very lackluster for me. 

The Blu-ray edition of Doom Patrol: The Complete Second Season contains a 2-disc set with two special bonus features. Both the DVD and Blu-ray editions of this season will be available for purchase on January 26th, 2020. Doom Patrol, season two, is currently available to own on digital via digital retailers, as well as currently streaming on HBO Max. 

Are you guys excited to pick up the second season of Doom Patrol?

Let us know in the comments down below!

Author: Rodney

Rodney has a bachelor’s degree in English Literature. Aspiring to one day write television shows and novels, he’s an avid slash-shipper and enthusiast for all things gay. Rodney’s especially a lover of magic, mystery, and superheroes—holding Harry Potter, the X-Men, and Scooby-Doo close as his own personal favorites. But when he’s not fantasizing about how cool it would be to have magic, he’s busy writing fanfiction and re-watching old TV shows.

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