Doom Patrol season 2 premiere: Where is the team now?

Doom Patrol season 2, episode 2: Tyme Patrol

We revisit the circus in 1927, but this time we witness events through the eyes of Niles Caulder. He sees his daughter, held captive in a cage, and watches as the ‘beast’ massacres all around him. This beast was a creature that belonged to Niles’ beloved, Slava. It spares Niles’ life and in turn, Niles hides Dorothy with Danny, the sentient street.

In the present, Doom Patrol learns of Niles’ impending death and freak out. Dorothy is beside herself over losing her father yet again, while Rita is sad to see her friend go. Cliff, who has been hurting the most, mocks Niles for having no proper backup plan – all he has are the failed experiments surrounding him. They’re all worried about what will happen to Dorothy, especially since Danny Street is stuck as a brick and until their change form, Dorothy has no hiding place.

The Terrifying Dr. Tyme

As much as Niles attempts to look unconcerned, he’s clearly run out of options. When Rita confronts him at his ‘pity party’, Niles tells her about the time-manipulating mineral called continuinium. Discovered by Dr. Jonathan Tyme who apparently traveled through history, finding more of this otherworldly material might be the only course of action.

Rita excitedly gets Cliff and Jane onboard to recover Tyme’s helmet and thereby some continuinium. While they successfully find Tyme in 1980, getting his helmet off isn’t quite so easy. For one, the clock face he’s wearing happens to be part of his head. When Rita accidentally breaks his head, Cliff glimpses how Niles had him chopped up and turned into Robotman.

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Alongside him, Jane glimpses a past she wasn’t aware of. Rita is able to turn back the clock and bring Tyme back to life, but all she gets for her troubles is the unkind reminder that her mother believed Rita was a fraud. The team returns empty-handed.

Cliff seems to want payback for Niles’ actions, but Jane is haunted by her personalities’ desire for a change. The vision she had was of Miranda’s past, but why is this relevant?

Miranda jumped into the well in the Underground, never to be seen again. But Jane is told that Miranda was very powerful since she knew what the original host, Kay, wanted. She would probably be the best choice to become the primary in the present.

Healing

Vic has been struggling through a lot and he’s decided to return to Detroit and join a support group. He walks in partway, interrupting Roni Evers (Karen Obilom) as she works through her pain. Vic assumes she’s talking about being injured as a vet, but she’s dealing with her mother’s death in an accident.

Since the camera closes in on Roni’s features, my guess is that she’s intended to be Vic’s love interest. I would have preferred it if she had been positioned as a friend and confidante, rather than immediately angle the story towards romance.

Vic and Roni don’t see eye-to-eye on most things, either, so I worry that the showrunners are rushing to build this relationship without letting it flow naturally. Roni demands Vic turn off his camera in group, and Vic reluctantly does so even though shutting down his systems makes him vulnerable. I wonder if this vulnerability will impact Vic later in Doom Patrol season 2?

Elsewhere, after Larry learned that his son Gary had taken his own life, he decides to attend the funeral. Larry stands aside but when bidding farewell, his other son Paul – a veteran – recognizes his voice and invites him to the wake. Larry doesn’t attend the party but discovers some of Gary’s belongings in the barn.

He kept his father’s memorabilia and his handwritten letters asking for his father’s whereabouts. Larry is heartbroken when he leaves. As Larry tries to hitch a ride, he comes across a swarm of butterflies. But this beautiful sight soon turns terrifying as they crowd around him.