In honor of Pride I'm
spending this month looking at writing techniques in queer stories. This
week I'm focusing on HBO MAX's great queer superhero show DOOM PATROL.
This post is less a "See What They Did There?" and more "Reason #347 Why I Love This Show".
In Episode 206, written by Neil Reynolds, we’re introduced to a group of astronauts who have been living in outer space for 55 years. One is Yelena, a Russian woman who has a spirit inside her, similar to Larry. The other two are these manically upbeat 20somethings who speak in 30s patter and seem to be constantly slapping each other on the ass. They are by turns fascinating and annoying.
Over the course of the ep they keep popping up repeating the same banter. It gets weird and tiresome. And then Yelena explains that they are in fact dead. Their bodies have been inhabited by a spore of some kind.
And then there's a further twist of the knife – that spore probably can’t survive on Earth. So what we're seeing happening in front of us is the two guys actually dying. At the end of the episode they’re left to pass away, mumbling little bits and pieces of their patter, and it’s actually really sad.
So, in the course of a 45 minute TV episode, we’re introduced to two all new characters, they go from delighting to annoying us, and then somehow end up breaking our hearts.
I could sit here and try to break down how Reynolds and the writing staff and the performers did that, or talk again about how well this captures the beating queer heart of the show, where no one is left just a joke or a monster. But really all I got in me is gratitude and wonder.
NEXT WEEK: I'M MOVING!
I've got some posts about queer movies I'm hoping to get up, but we'll see how we go. (Wow does packing takes forever!)
