Yes, I get that he's supposed to be so traumatised that he's perhaps doing things that we wouldn't expect. That's what trauma is, after all, it's something else controlling the way we behave, making us "not ourselves". And the lads do seem to reject families in general in the eps (except for Doyle's comment about Bodie's shoes - "I bet your mother's feet are cold."!) So I can go along with that set-up. I struggle with the idea that bolshy-Doyle's response is quite so passive and uncertain though, I really do. Do we ever see him uncertain like that in the eps? (I know, we don't see this happening to him in the eps, but still...)

I can see Gabe perhaps acting the way he does with Doyle, I think I struggle to see Doyle reacting the way he's shown to react...

I don't know that people necessarily "infantalise" those who need help as a general rule. Speaking carefully and sensitively is definitely a thing, but... And again, it's not so much what Gabe does and says, as the fact that the author's written Doyle as needing that... Back to the trauma-makes-us-different, perhaps...

As you say though, I think it's the mixed-up writing that's what's really making me dizzy though - one minute Doyle is tough and competent, the next minute he's facing something where it seems his competence should kick in, but the author seems to want us to believe that it doesn't for whatever reason. And I'm not sure she's convinced me enough that the trauma will beat Doyle's competence...