DC Universe’s Titans season 1, episode 4 recap: Doom Patrol

The latest episode of Titans sets up the Doom Patrol spin-off show and finally brings the Titans team together.

Two years ago, in Congo, we see a young Garfield Logan (Ryan Potter), sans his green hair, dying in a makeshift hospital bed. Doctors in hazmat suits have given up trying to save the patients and leave. A frightened Gar pleads with them to stay, but no one listens. Shortly after, a mysterious figure enters the tent. When he hears Gar call out, he tells the crying boy he can save him before injecting Gar with a green liquid. Thus begins the fourth episode of Titans.

At the end of episode three, Rachel (Teagan Croft) had blown up the convent she was hiding in. While on the run, she comes across Gar in his tiger form in the woods nearby. Relieved to see a friendly face, Rachel follows Gar to where he lives. On the way, they stumble upon a couple of hunters who have maimed a deer. Outraged, Rachel intervenes but the hunters are unphased. Tiger-Gar (or Ti-Gar?) appears and frightens them away. Rachel’s soul-self calms the dying beast but isn’t able to save it. Or so she thinks. As Gar and Rachel leave, the deer’s wound appears to heal.

Meanwhile, Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) and Starfire (Anna Diop) find the convent in ruins. The elderly nun who had locked Rachel away to ‘protect’ her in the previous Titans episode is of no help, feebly repeating, ‘there’s no stopping it now’.

Gar and Rachel in Titans — Ep. 104 — Photo Credit: Steve Wilkie / 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved

Worried, Dick and Starfire head to the nearest police station. The two of them bicker like an old couple about Dick having left Rachel alone in the convent, and for trying to abandon her in DC. Has Geoff Johns been monitoring these Titans reviews? Because Starfire seems to be echoing all our vitriol about Dick’s behavior on the show so far.

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At the police station, Dick finds out that two hunters had seen a girl matching Rachel’s description. Grateful to have a lead, he and Starfire set off for one of the hunter’s homes. When the hunter is less than forthcoming about Rachel’s whereabouts, Dick goes into a berserker rage, believing the man has hurt Rachel. This entire act is witnessed by the man’s child, who rushes to protect his father. Dick promptly leaves, and Starfire is left to placate the victim with money. She does get the location to Rachel, though.

Starfire is unimpressed by Dick’s display of violence, so he tries to explain it away by saying he ‘went through something when he was a kid’ and trusted in the wrong people. He doesn’t want Rachel to do the same. Starfire’s retort ‘so, this is all about you’ makes me think Geoff Johns has definitely been spying on our recaps! She reiterates that despite what all of them may have gone through, ‘no one manages alone’.

Back at the old Calder house, Gar takes Rachel to the basement, where he apparently lives. Rachel is astounded by all the vintage geek stuff he has, including arcade machines, Abbott and Costello posters, and toys. He’s quite a collector.

Just as they’re getting comfortable, a voice calls for Gar. Gar hides Rachel in the closet and pretends to be playing a game. A figure walks into the room and asks Gar where he’s been and if he’s been keeping a low profile. Gar lies through it all, but Rachel gets caught anyway.

The voice belongs to Cliff Steele/ Robotman (voiced by Brendan Fraser), who is livid that Gar brought Rachel to the house. Once a race-car driver whose brain was saved by the Chief (Bruno Bichir) and re-housed in a robot body, Cliff is an intimidating figure. When he insists Rachel leave before Chief returns, it seems like Gar might listen. But, instead, Gar is convinced the ‘great doctor’ can help her as he did with ‘all of us’. Curious to find out who ‘us’ is, Rachel wanders about the house until she comes across Larry/ Negative Man (voiced by Matt Bomer) cooking up a storm in the kitchen. Unlike Cliff, Larry is delighted by Rachel’s presence and invites her to join them for dinner.

Gar is sent to set the table and call down the other resident of the house. Rita Farr/ Elasti-Girl (April Bowlby) doesn’t answer, but we see the inside of her room. It is a shrine to her past life as a film star, but the woman herself is a specter of who she once was. Without cell cohesion, she looks like a giant amoeba on the bed.

At dinner, Rachel is an energetic influence. She happily describes the texture of the food for Robotman, who can’t eat, and shows off some cool robot dance moves at the table. Seems like Rachel is happiest when she’s away from Dick. Rita makes a surprise appearance dressed in a comic book-accurate red and white dress. She piles her plate high with food because her ‘condition’ requires it – I’m not sure if the audience is supposed to be disgusted or awed, but it’s really annoying to see DC return to the thin-woman-eats-too-much trope, especially as it should never have existed in the first place.

Rita loses cohesion soon after, so Rachel reaches out with her soul-self to calm her down. She sees flashes of Rita losing her mind in a cell and also of her falling through the pier into the water. We can expect more embellishments to these backstories in the spin-off show Doom Patrol.

Rachel and Doom Patrol in Titans — Ep. 104 — Photo Credit: Christos Kalohoridis / 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Chief appears with a patient who was doused with liquid nitrogen. Despite their efforts, Doom Patrol is unable to save her; the patient’s body is reacting badly to the Chief’s serum. Rachel comes to the rescue by easing the girl’s pain, allowing her vitals to stabilize.

Chief is not happy with Gar. He chastises him for bringing Rachel to their hideout, calling him an ‘incredibly selfish boy’, before apologizing for being so stern and reiterating that he only does it out of concern. It appears Chief expects Gar to be beholden to him for saving his life but this is classic abusive behavior. Have the Doom Patrol members had to suffer through this all this time?

However, Rachel allows Chief to examine her, but when he tries to inject her with his serum, she wants out. But he refuses to stop so Gar tries to help Rachel, even threatening to turn into Ti-Gar, but Chief injects him with a sedative dart. Emotional turmoil usually leads to Rachel’s soul-self being unleashed, and it is quick to attack Chief, violently throwing him against a wall and breaking his back.

At this point, Dick rushes into the house to find Rachel opening some kind of portal. Dick admits that he was wrong to tell Rachel that she was on her own in the previous episode of Titans. He promises that he is going to be there for her. This declaration finally snaps Rachel back to herself.

Doom Patrol decide to stay with Chief, who is convalescing after Rachel’s attack. But, they tell Gar to join Dick, Starfire, and Rachel. After a tearful goodbye, Gar leaves his old team. Finally, the Titans are together!

What did you think of this episode of Titans? Tell us in the comments below!