Doom Patrol Episode 13 picks up in the middle of the battle at the Ant Farm. The prisoners are running wild. Vic is holding Silas in his lap, convinced that he has killed his own father. Rita confirms that Silas is still alive but they have to get him out of the chaos. The Negative Spirit goes to the inmate in cell 722, who doesn’t want to leave out of fear of the Bureau, but gives chase when the Spirit swipes his TV remote. Flick comes to the surface and gets the team and the newcomer away, sending Vic and Silas to the hospital and sends Rita along so that Vic isn’t there alone.
Flex Mentallo
Cliff is excited that the team managed to rescue Vic and find Flex. Flex, however, doesn’t remember who he is or what his powers are. Cliff and Jane clean Flex up, hoping to jog his memory. It doesn’t work. All Flex wants to do is sit around watching his soap opera. Cliff tries to put Flex under duress, but rather than fight back, Flex cries, so Cliff makes him an ice cream sundae and watches TV with him.
721
Larry and the Negative Spirit are still separated, and Larry is feeling rough because of it. The Spirit enters Larry, causing him to remember the years that they spent at the Ant Farm. Flex was in the next cell and was confident that he could get himself, Larry, and the Spirit out of the Ant Farm, but Larry was too afraid to help him. Flex understands and communicates with the Spirit, but the Spirit can’t leave without Larry, even though staying means enduring more torture.
Flex remains defiant with the Bureau agents until they bring him a TV. Flex is forced to watch as the agents torture his wife, Dolores. Seeing that is what broke Flex into cooperating with the Bureau’s tests. With that memory, Larry tells the rest of the team that he knows how to make Flex remember who he is. flick teleports away and brings Dolores back. Like Flex, she can’t remember who she is at first, but together they remember their lives and love for one another. As Flex holds his wife, a Bureau device implanted in Dolores begins beeping and she turns to ash for breaking Bureau rules and being with her husband.
Larry is dying. It was the presence of the Spirit that kept his body alive, and without it, Larry is succumbing to the radiation in his body. He tells the Spirit to go and be free, it doesn’t need Larry holding it back anymore. The Spirit starts to go, then decides to return and rejoin with Larry rather than let him die.
Win-Win-Win
Rita tells Vic that he needs to reinstall Grid so that they can track the Beard Hunter and find Niles. Vic refuses. Rita sits and waits in the hospital lobby for Vic to come to his senses and decide to help. While there, she hears a baby crying in a stroller and begins to melt. Attempting to leave the lobby, Rita runs into an old man who is lost and can’t remember where his room is. Rita sits with the old timer and the two recount the mistakes of their past.
Rita was out of work when she became friends with a movie producer. She helped schedule trysts for the producers with young starlets. The producer got what he wanted. The girls went on to win awards and see their stars shine brighter. For making the arrangements, Rita began to get work again. Rita scheduled one of the meetings for a young girl named Mary Beth, who had a baby 9 months later. The producer wanted nothing to do with Mary Beth or the child. Mary Beth turned to Rita for help, so Rita gave her $100 and turned her away. A week later, Mary Beth committed suicide. There was no mention of the baby. Rita considered taking responsibility for the infant, but that’s when she got the call to star in Forbidden Congo. Everything that happened to her on the set and in the years that followed is punishment for turning away Mary Beth and her baby when they were in need, she believes.
The old man, who is Mr. Nobody in disguise, tells Rita to own her mistakes and move forward. Rita does just that, convincing Vic to reinstall Grid and tell them where to find the Beard Hunter, even though Vic will remain at the hospital at Silas’s bedside. Rita returns to the manor, where Flex has control of his mind and powers again, and tells the team it’s time to go get Niles… which is exactly the confrontation that Nobody wants.
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