The Doom Patrol tries to restore the memories and abilities of Flex Mentallo, while Rita confronts her self-doubt and Larry realizes how tied he is to the Negative Spirit.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Accidental Misnaming: Flex calls Cliff "Scrap" as he still has the Bureau's label on his forehead identifying him as such.
- Bad "Bad Acting": Cliff's guest appearance on a sitcom in the Eighties.
- Bring It: At the end, Mr. Nobody stares out to the audience telling them (or rather the Doom Patrol) that if they want to save The Chief, then come get him.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The Negative Spirit shows Larry a memory of him refusing to help Flex who promised to help him escape the Ant Farm and had the power to do it. Larry's decision left them trapped at the Ant Farm for some time until Niles was able to rescue them and it was emphatically torturous for both of them. Larry is horrified to discover that his choice left him and the Spirit trapped in a living nightmare and is willing to die once they're separated so that the Spirit can return home.
- The Reveal: Rita's Dark Secret is finally shown. She refused to invoke Sleeping Their Way to the Top with a sleazy executive but did make a deal where she would send actresses to him that were willing to do so in exchange for opportunities. One of the girls she sent to him wound up pregnant and they turned to Rita for support. The actress killed herself a week later and only Rita knew about the baby left behind. She considered taking care of the child but didn't give a second thought after she was cast in Forbidden Congo.
- Signs of Disrepair: Invoked by Jane when Cliff asks her to remove the "Scrap" label from his forehead. Cliff catches on quickly.Cliff: You just ripped the "S" off, didn't you?
- Sleeping Their Way to the Top: Rita makes a point that she didn't do this with one particular Hollywood executive but she did send girls to him that were willing to invoke it.
- Tastes Like Friendship: Cliff attempts to ingratiate himself to Flex by giving him ice cream.
- Wham Episode: Mr. Nobody hasn't been trying to stop the team from looking for him but actually wants them to find him, implying to the audience that he's been helping them work through their issues so they can do so.
- Wham Line: One by Nobody that upends everything up to this point.Nobody: Finally a superhero team I can use!
- What You Are in the Dark: Larry and the Negative Spirit are now separate from each other but without the Spirit Larry can't stay alive. Larry, remorseful over how he's made the Spirit suffer for decades, is perfectly fine with this and tells the Spirit it's free to go home. The Spirit does fly out of the mansion but decides to return and merge with Larry again as it can't live with the idea of freedom at the cost of his life.
- Rita had a decidedly less positive one of these in her past. An actress she sent to a sleazebag executive was left pregnant and only Rita knew about it. When she saw that the actress had killed herself Rita briefly thought of looking after the baby but promptly threw the idea out the window when she received a call that she had been cast as the lead in Forbidden Congo. She's been haunted for years by the guilt not just of doing so but also how easy it was for her.
