This year on Doom Patrol, everybody’s working through their own emotional issues. But Larry Trainor may have it worse than anyone else currently occupying Doom Manor. Things were bad enough when all he had to worry about was leaking radiation from his body. But when Larry learns about his son’s death at the beginning of season 2, he sinks even lower. According to Matt Bomer, this will make for some quality storytelling as the new episodes continue.
Bomer shed new light on Larry’s character arc this season in a new interview with Collider. It may be true that a lot of superhero fans are just itching to see some action from the series. Regardless, Bomer insists that exploring its characters’ psychology is what makes Doom Patrol stand out.
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“I don’t think it would be a season of Doom Patrol, if all of the characters didn’t have to get personal, at some point,” Bomer explained. “Throughout the season, working with LGBTQ acceptance, mental illness, body image, PTSD, abuse, and all those things. When we find Larry, he’s living in closer harmony with the negative spirit inside of him. He learns that his estranged, youngest son has recently committed suicide. And that leads him to try to reconnect with the surviving son, only to be forced to deal with the generational damage that he’s done to his family.”
“And so, there are these incredibly abstract scenes, that are, so filled with pathos, where Larry is seeing his son, for the first time,” Bomer continued. “But he’s 1960s Larry, in the prime of his life, and doing a scene with this son, who’s much older than he is now, and he’s seeing him for the first time, since he was a little child. So, you can imagine how painful and moving that is for him and, hopefully, for the audience.”
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Bomer also has the added challenge of conveying Larry’s struggle while mostly confined to a recording booth. Although he provides Larry’s voice in present-day scenes, Matthew Zuk physically portrays the character in his mummified form. Not being on set with the other actors can definitely be challenging. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be hurting how well Larry interacts with April Bowlby’s Rita Farr.
“I love their relationship,” Bomer said. “I love their understanding of each other. I don’t know how deeply I wanna get into this, but she comes from a time period where women had an acceptance of gay men and they didn’t have to talk about it, if it wasn’t something that the man or woman was comfortable talking about. And so, there’s just an unspoken love and acceptance there, that I think they spent 60 years having in the mansion, before Larry was able to come out. I think there’s something so profound and beautiful about how she’s known, all of this time, and loves and accepted him, long before he could ever tell her who he really was.”
The next episode of Doom Patrol premieres this Friday on DC Universe and HBO Max.
Are you enjoying Bomer’s performance as Larry in the new season? Let us know in the comments down below!
Recommended Reading: Doom Patrol Omnibus
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