There are moments when heroes get tired of doing the right thing. Especially heroes who never planned to be heroes. And even heroes who thought for a long time that they were villains.
Doom Patrol Season 4 Episode 10 poses the question, “What if they all just give up at once?”
Rita, Cliff, Jane, and Larry are dying and content to run out the clock. Vic spends time with Silas and rethinks his hero persona, giving up on his attempt to be just-plain-Vic. And this leaves Rouge, the unlikeliest of heroes, alone to oppose Isabel/Immortus.
And that’s no easy task.
Isabel has all the godhead powers of Immortus to serve the mega-egotistical and mercurial intentions and aspirations of Isabel Feathers.
I mean, it would’ve been a lot worse if Immortus had integrated with someone smarter, I guess. The Brain. Or Teddy the Butt.
The Butt-pocalypse future would be 100% guaranteed if Teddy had manifested Immortus’s powers.
Instead, Isabel wields the ability to control space, time, and possibility to feed her vanity and buoy her deep-rooted insecurities.
I’ve done a lot of soul-searching in the past eight hours after you and your friends completely destroyed my holiday utopia, and I realized it wasn’t super cool to force all of humanity to love me. I’m not Disney.
Isabel
It’s a laughably narrow scope but not a completely hopeless situation as she needs an audience and, therefore, at least a portion of humanity — those willing to love and adore her — is safe from annihilation.
Rouge, being a shapeshifter, is also a master of shifting her outward allegiance to suit the situation.
Where Jane and Cliff (and probably Vic) would call BS as they see it, and Larry and Rita would’ve had viscerally nauseated reactions to Isabel’s one-woman show, Rouge is able to convincingly state that she enjoyed it.
That is the superpower that keeps her in the game.
Cliff: We’re all about to drop dead, and you want us to go up against some all-powerful theater major who can control time?
Rouge: Oh yes, there is some risk involved.
Cliff: Oh, SOME risk. This chick could blink us into a reality where we’re tortured around the clock by flesh-eating Beanie Babies!
Of course, her mission to slice the longevity-granting skin tag off Isabel’s neck is really a quest for redemption as she tries to atone for her past bad acts.
Rouge: I’m not saying we should do this. I’m not. But we could rewrite history and you could be, literally, Queen of the World.
Isabel: Oh my god. Love that. It’ll totally humanize me.
But her nature is one bent on survival, and allying with Isabel seems to be the choice with the best chance of weathering her storm of neediness.
Who could’ve guessed when we first met the Doom Patrol that there would one day be an entity with a craving for adulation so great as to make Rita Farr seem modest and unassuming?
Isabel: I’m workshopping it this afternoon at the Cloverton Playhouse and then we, me, I open tonight!
Rouge: Wow, that’s um…
Isabel: Fast? I know, but I’m being realistic. Probably won’t make it to Broadway till, like, next week.
Even as Rouge considers throwing in with Immortus, the longevity-deficient team members let their truths hang out as they feel the weight of their mortality.
Cliff has only one desire, and that’s to redeem himself as a father and grandfather, but he has to give up when he physically can’t get to Clara and Rory.
Jane’s been lost since losing touch with the Underground. The puzzle is the key, and Casey is somehow part of it, too, but as she ages, Jane’s mental ability to juggle the conscious and subconscious responsibilities is failing.
Larry’s driven to find a safe situation for Keeg, and he turns his back on Rama because he blames him for giving him hope that Immortus could make things right.
Rama: Once I see Tamil Nadu, I’m gonna rent a boat, sail deep out into the Bay of Bengal, go for one last swim, then while I still have control over my abilities, turn myself into a block of lead. And that’ll be that.
Larry: And you call me dark?
As Rita points out, all Larry wants to talk about is death. All he thinks about is what will happen to Keeg when he’s no longer there. Everything he does is in preparation for that end.
And Rita is tired of that. She is, after all, the oldest of all of them, the first of Niles’s Doomies, and she was the first to lose her longevity.
Rita: Ever since you voted against me for team leader…
Larry: Oh my god, you’re still upset about that? Who the hell cares? It was just a stupid title.
Rita: Not to me, it wasn’t. You all think that this is just another one of Rita Farr’s tiresome ego trips but it had nothing to do with that. It was about us. It was about all of us. When Niles died, someone needed to hold this family together, so I did it and never asked for anything in return. But I have really been struggling lately. I have no one else in my life like you or Jane or Cliff. All I have is us. And it would’ve been nice if somebody had stepped up for me the way that I have stepped up for them. And, at the very least, come to dinner.
April Bowlby has always been impressive as Rita, but her presence in this last arc of the series has been nothing short of incredible.
As they’ve added the makeup and prosthetics to emphasize the look of Rita’s rapid aging, it’s Bowlby who has conveyed the feel of growing old, the change in thinking and priorities, and the need to enjoy simple pleasures.
Cliff: Is that a fossilized little turd?
Rouge: No. This was a necklace worn by one Dr. Niles Caulder.
Cliff: Chief wore a little turd around his neck?
Rita: The clothes maketh the man.
It’s a softer side to Rita than we’ve ever seen. A calmer and more contented spirit than she’s ever known. And it’s Bowlby’s portrayal that makes it feel genuine when it could feel contrived and forced.
Even as she plans the family meal no one intends on sharing with her, Rita exhibits the leadership qualities Niles saw in her.
If Rita Farr has a love language, it’s in her service to others. She’ll never give trinkets or compliments naturally. She’s not emotionally demonstrative, but what she does for others goes above and beyond the necessary.
In much the same way, Jane and Cliff’s connection in what is presumably their final days is more tender and gentle than these two foul-mouthed poop-disturbers have ever allowed themselves to feel.
It makes weird Doom Patrol sense that Jane’s puzzle begins to form when she feels safest, surrounded by her team, resigned to their fate.
My greatest concern as we hurtle towards the series finale is that Jane’s narrative won’t be resolved. How do you make right a trauma as tragic as Kay and Jane’s?
And as Jane ages, does she consider how Kay’s spent most of her life hiding, observing from the Underground, with only the occasional surfacing (like on Doom Patrol Season 3 Episode 6) where she could experience the real world?
I’m unsure if I buy Jane’s belief that she has dementia.
Does she think that because she doesn’t hear the voices of the alts anymore? Because that’s a weird measure of mental health by any standard.
Is it because she can’t put the puzzle together? Besides the fact that it’s mostly a metaphor, she actually ate pieces of it previously, so chances are it’s unsolvable at this point.
Those times when she’s trapped in the Underground, lost and unable to surface, are certainly frightening, but she used to be dragged down there regularly.
In any case, she’s clearly distressed by how her life is ending. And never one to go quietly anywhere, it makes sense that she chooses to go out fighting Were-Butts and egomaniacal god-actresses.
For an offering that represents as a chance for the Doomies to go quietly into that good night, there are several jarring elements included in the mix.
Isabel’s highly disturbing stage exit after her birthing, complete with dragging umbilical cord, is probably the most memorable.
However, the return of Ernest Franklin, Butt Hunter, and Dr. Margaret Yu, beloved partner of Butt Nicholas, is not without its WTF value.
And now that Cloverton’s populace (and Dr. Yu) have been turned into Were-Butts, there’s a sense that this town isn’t big enough for a burgeoning Butt-pocalypse AND an Isabel Feathers opening night.
Oh, and welcome back, Cyborg 2.0.
Because that happened, too.
Doom Patrol has always been a bonkers mix of the sensational and the ridiculous. As we careen towards its curtain call, we can only expect the unexpected and embrace the crazy.
What do you see in your crystal ball, Fanatics? Could the Butts recruit Isabel? Can Immortus prevent the Butt-pocalypse?
Will our team unite to save Rita? Or does Rita deserve a rest after all she’s been through? Hit our comments below with your wishlist for finale shenanigans!
Diana Keng is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond ’til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. Follow her on X.