Headscratchers / Doom Patrol (2019)

• Why does Caulder need to ruin peoples' lives in his quest for immortality, when as far as we can tell he was immortal already? And how did Rita and Larry help him do that anyway?
  • Explained in the second season that his immortality comes from an outside source, a totem he wears that could be easily stolen or lost (or as it happens, bargained away in a desperate move). We don't know when he got it, but it's entirely likely that he began experimenting prior to acquiring it, and continued experimenting to find a means to live without it.
• Why does Dorothy look like an ape? Her mother was hairy but otherwise looked fairly human...
• Mento broke up with Rita because she didn't do more to help the woman who later killed herself? And because she set up the meeting that led to the situation? I'd assumed she smothered a baby or something, from the way he reacted.
  • Possibly, while what we see isn't *that* bad, he's only seeing it through Rita's own filter, and Rita hates herself. She possibly remembers what she did far worse than it was and he's taken her self-loathing-induced exaggeration at face value.
• Why did Danny the Street need anyone's help with the Bureau of Normalcy? They wound up handling it without Cyborg or Larry really doing anything.
  • Correction: The Dannyzens handled it. But Danny didn't want them to put themselves in harm's way (Remember Darren did bring a lot of guys with machine guns, did you think they intended to shoot up the street's asphalt?), so logically Danny tried to reach out to Niles for help.
• What happened to Flex Mentallo after he sent the team to White Space? Did the writers forget about him?
  • He remained with the Dannyzens, and comes by later.
• Why is Robotman's body so poorly constructed? You'd think Silas could have helped with flexibility, at least.
  • Brain death occurs maybe a few minutes after body death. Beyond that I have no idea. Silas did say Niles ignored every piece of advice he tried to offer so it may be simple pride or, more likely I think, Niles may have intentionally done a lousy job. He's not designing him to be a superhero, after all, only a guinea pig.
  • Fully explained in season 2, Niles himself just isn't that skilled with robotics, and because of their issues Silas refused to work with him. It's possible that Silas could have done a better job, but he wasn't involved in the project and Niles just lacks his skill to do better.
• Why could Flex Mentallo use his powers to open and close a hole in the wall at will, but not loosen his own straps?
  • Each muscle does a different thing, his 'loosen straps' muscle is likely one that's being restrained by the straps.
• Did the Negative Spirit really have no options for getting itself and Larry out of the Bureau? It could have messed with their systems, let the other prisoners loose, incapacitated all the guards...
  • It possibly didn't know what to do long-term, and it was afraid Larry would die if it left him for too long to do anything.
• How does Larry's gauze wrappings and coat prevent him from Chernobyling everyone around him to death exactly?
  • The material of the gauze is radiation dampening. It's specifically explained in a S2 flashback that they're specially made by Niles for the purpose of blocking radiation.
• Cyborg is furious with Silas for letting him believe that he killed his mother, when it was actually Silas who chose to save Victor and not her. But, Victor still caused the explosion, so isn't he still just as guilty? As guilty as the scientist who left all those explosive chemicals sitting around, anyway.
  • I kept expecting it to be revealed that Victor didn't cause the explosion at all and it was just coincidental timing. Whenever they showed the footage, Vic throws the chemicals against the wall to his left but it looks like the explosion comes from the wall across him, perhaps originating in an adjacent room. But this is never pointed out or addressed so that may not have been the intention.
  • Well yeah, logically Vic is just as guilty (assuming he did still cause the explosion), but he's still mad that Silas chose to save him and not her. Survivor's Guilt is nasty, and when given an outside entity to blame, the mind will make you blame them as much as you can. Let's remember that Vic's anger isn't meant to be rationl.
• Did I miss the part where it is explained why Mr. Nobody hates Caulder so much?
  • In Puppet Patrol, Heinrich von Fuchs's show says that Niles Caulder interrupted his time in the White Room that turned him into Mr. Nobody by shooting it up with him inside. Add to the fact that he led the original Doom Patrol who fought him regularly. Really, if you think about it, he's had maybe 75 years to build up reasons to despise him.
• Why is the Chief, across the various flashbacks, shown to be in a wheelchair? Flashbacks to the 60's and 70's show him confined to his wheelchair despite his introduction in the 'Titans' episode showing him with the ability to walk until the very end, where he becomes paralyzed from the waist down and loses his ability to walk. That episode takes place in the (almost) present day.
  • Explained in the Titan's episode. Rita says the Chief has only recently healed and been able to walk again. His back was re-broken by Rachel at the end.
  • The Titans show version of the DP aren't canon to the show.
• Why is the Chief played by 2 different actors here and in the Titans show? This was planned before both shows debuted so it’s not a case of having to recast after the actor becomes unavailable so what happened? Why cast 2 different actors in 2 different shows when both shows take place in the same universe?
  • I've heard that the shows don't take place in the same universe, stupid as that might sound. The other explanation would probably be that the producers weren't willing to pay Timothy Dalton for one episode.
  • It's pretty simple: casting for the actual show didn't take place until after the Titans episode was filmed. So while they could dub in Brendan Fraser and Matt Bomer's voice, they couldn't just replace Bruno Bichir with Timothy Dalton, so they left him. It's a case of The Other Darrin.
  • Given what we see of the Doom Patrol, the Chief getting turned into a Mexican man for a while is barely worth commenting on.
  • Officially, the shows are in separate continuity from one-another.
• What, exactly, are Mr. Nobody's powers? The comics version could only drain people's sanity.
  • He seems to be doing a pretty bang-up job of that already.
  • As the apparent Narrator of the show, he seems to have reality warping powers, able to manipulate places however he pleases.
    • In fact, it seems like Dr. Fuchs' machine has given him some kind of trans-dimensional ability, but in doing so it caused him to transcend the barriers of fiction, meaning his power is literally having No Fourth Wall, but since he's still anchored in the Titanverse, he can manipulate reality by treating it like a story that can be told or imagined differently.
• If Danny the Street can have an orgasm, why can't Robotman? He's at least got a biological brain.
  • He likely doesn’t possess the genitalia necessary to have one.
    • And a street does?
    • A street that's sentient, can communicate via signs and other visual cues, can teleport, and lives off of the positive vibes of their denizens? Sure, they have sex organs and the capability to orgasm. With how many absurd things Danny possesses, orgasming organs hardly seems out of the realm of possibility.
  • It's possible Danny is just playing along or can "feel" an orgasm because the other inhabitants of the street are experiencing one. They seem to have a telepathic/empathic connection to their inhabitants.
• In "Jane Patrol," Cliff is allowed into the well because he's "not a man." The montage playing and Black Annis' gestures towards Cliff's groin implies that this is because he doesn't have a penis. It seems really strange to me to equate gender with genitalia, especially with the previous episode "Danny Patrol" being so LGBTQ+ affirming and the original comic being most known for its run under a nonbinary writer and for being one of the first comics to have a transgender character. Can anyone explain this?
  • Black Annis represents Jane's mental defenses against her deepest traumas which, due to her father's emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, instills in her a fear of men, at a base level. In shedding his former self's image in Jane's mind, its less about him literally not being a man, than him not being the threat Jane perceives in men. The amount of gesturing toward Cliff's groin here has to do with the fact that she was sexually assaulted: Its at the root of what she's afraid of in men. Which, in this case, entails shedding this image of himself unfamiliar to Jane, and presenting himself as the person she had connected to before. The language around this issue certainly leaves some to be desired, but what's clear is that its not talking about masculinity in the sense of gender identity, but the connotations and anxieties Jane has around masculinity in her perception.