Doom Patrol “1917 Patrol”

So, this episode has some time travel as Rita goes back to 1917.  But somehow, the other members of the team, if they are a team, somehow keep having adventures, if that is the right word, in the present like time is passing for both groups.

That seems like a time paradox.

Regardless, Rita is in the past, and as a narrator explains, going into the past made all her bad memories go away.  Possibly all her good ones too.  She doesn’t remember much of anything, including her name, after she arrives.  The only thing she has on her person when the Bureau of Normalcy shows up to ask her questions is a piece of paper with “Laura de Mille” and “Sisterhood of Dada” written on it.  Rita assumes that her name is Laura de MIlle.  It isn’t.  Laura is here too as the Bureau’s “recruiter”.  She quickly determines Rita, who can stretch a bit when she isn’t blobbing out, is not much of a weapon and sends her to the mailroom.

You know, a memory free Rita is actually rather happy and bubbly in ways that Rita has never been before.  There’s probably a lesson there.  Not that I think Rita will learn it, but there’s still a lesson there.

As it is, she’s quickly nicknamed “Bendy” and doesn’t get why most of the employees at the Bureau don’t want to eat lunch with her.  It’s mostly because she’s a freak.  Freaks need to eat in their own place.

Oh, and those freaks are all the Sisterhood of Dada.  That includes a quiet man named Malcolm.  He’s kinda handsome and charming, taking a liking to Rita, but it’s implied he has some PTSD from the Great War.  Also he turns invisible and has a birdcage in his chest.

The thing is, Rita is fully accepted into this group, even helping them force themselves into the cafeteria where even in 1917, the room may be desegregated but just to people who don’t have bicycles growing out of them or changing everyone’s clothes to clown costumes.  Laura is even one of them, someone who helps them sneak out by changing shape into a guard.

So…why is the Sisterhood in the present out to get her?

That’s a good question.  So far, there’s no answer, but the Sisterhood in 1917 seems more inclined towards chicken dances, nonsense words, and a few other things.  A more harmless group of people couldn’t be found if you tried.  How or why they become dangerous I don’t know.  I do know who’s really dangerous:  the Brain and Mallah, since they spotted that time machine.

Well, Rita is having fun.  The others, not so much.  Cyborg wants to get some new skin.  Jane let Kay out for the first time in decades, and while that was good for Kay, it doesn’t look good for Jane with the other alters.  Larry finally tells off his lousy son.  And Cliff…he’s selling the others’ stuff to pay for an online gambling addiction.

These people really should have all gone to the past.  They’d have been happier.