Doom Patrol Season 4 Episode 11 Review: Portal Patrol
Diana Keng
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As the series nears its final curtain call, Doom Patrol Season 4 Episode 11 examines and addresses the team's individual challenges while pulling some top-shelf time travel shenanigans.
The most satisfying element is Jane's reunion with the alt personas of the Underground and Kay. Jane's last session ever with Niles even connects a few dots that have been drifting in space since the first season.
The return of Timothy Dalton as Niles Caulder, aka The Chief, is the most obvious signpost that this truly is the end. His scenes throughout the team's Time Stream adventures provide a lot of closure. It's just too bad Dorothy couldn't have been part of that.
Predictably, looking for Immortus's longevity skin tag without having to contend with Immortus involves dealing with Niles in various phases of his life.
Cliff gets to tangle with the earliest version of The Chief, and it's a doozy of an encounter.
Of course, it happens in a pub and Willoughby's at the bar, wasted on Paraguayan Paralyzers or whatever, moaning about Baphomet.
Lord, it's nice to have Kipling back on screen for one last drunken hurrah.
Tell me, barkeep, have you ever had your heart shat upon by a horse?
Willoughby
Willoughby is rightfully cautious of any knowledge of the future, and the fact Niles is quite irritated by the idea of having his memory wiped indicates this isn't their first go-round with time travelers.
(Which ties directly in with Larry's line when he and Jane portal into 1996 Doom Manor. Brilliant narrative weaving.)
Willoughby: Future knowledge is a toxin, Niles. Those who possess it are consumed by it.
Cliff: That checks out. My buddies and I discovered a future where killer Butts have taken over the Earth…
Willoughby: STOP TALKING ABOUT THE FUTURE!
However, the really breathtaking bit of cause-and-effect action in Paraguay is how they answer a question I've never asked: Why does Niles Caulder use a wheelchair?
I've always accepted it as a play on the Professor X visage. Of course, Niles isn't a metahuman or a mutant, and he lived the life of an adventurer. Ending up in a wheelchair isn't too surprising when you're a frail mortal climbing mountains and exploring primordial wastelands.
So it's a shocking reveal that Cliff inadvertently breaks Niles's back trying to protect him from Von Fuchs's henchman. (It also makes me wonder if it's what caused Cliff to react so angrily to Dorothy's offer of the wheelchair on Doom Patrol Season 4 Episode 9.)
Niles: All right, you’re up. Take their heads off.
Cliff: Yeah, here’s the thing. You created me with one weakness. Electricity.
Niles: How’s that?
Cliff: I’m a brain, in liquid, surrounded by metal. Don’t look at me like that! You created my ass! Now, you want me to take on two electric axes?
The pure ouroboros nature of Cliff injuring Niles in 1948 only to have a memory-wiped, wheelchair-bound Niles resurrect him as Robotman in 1988, giving him the super strength that will eventually cause the injury, is only the tip of the mind-boggling pretzel reasoning we are treated to here.
I’m sorry for whatever’s happened to you. For whatever I may or may not do to you. But I am not that man yet. And if I become him, then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Niles
When Cliff contemplates taking the longevity talisman off Niles, he unwittingly toys with breaking the cycle and setting off whatever that would look like in Doom Patrol-verse.
Consider it: Cliff takes the talisman, and Niles dies. Niles never forms any of the Doom Patrols. Cliff returns to the Time Stream with the talisman, but there are no portals left to his present day because it doesn't exist anymore. He, Rouge, Vic, Larry, and Jane are stuck until they choose some alternative world to bust into. Signal a spin-off?
While everyone else travels into their pasts, Vic solves their Time Stream issue by collaborating with the future.
Obviously, he does not ascribe to Willoughby's memory-wipe elixir way of forgetting knowledge of future events. Come to think of it, none of the Doomies do. They just run around with all sorts of apocalyptic information -- no wonder they're so angry.
Rouge: Who the hell is talking?
Vic: It’s Grid, my operating system. Usually, I’m the only one who can hear it, but Keeg must’ve hacked into it.
Rouge: You have a voice in your head that talks to you?
Cliff: Fuck it. That’s not even the strangest thing about him.
As Cyborg 2.0, getting thrown into the Time Stream gives Vic a good chance to test out (and show off) his new tech.
His glimpse into the future gives him hope and reassures him that he's made the right decision.
Vic: How does this kid know how to calculate time portals?
Deric: You. You taught them, Vic. You wanted to be a hero in a new way and I’m sitting here looking at it.
Vic: I’m talking to the future.
Deric: You’re talking to your future.
Also, he guarantees that Future Vic will set up Mr. Invincible to receive that S.O.S. and make sure Joy's Math game is super on-point. It might be self-serving, but knowing how certain things have to turn out can be immensely beneficial.
The reflexiveness of each Doomie's plot thread is freakin' ingenious.
Larry and Keeg chatting with the Negative Spirit provides insight and clarity. Larry's narrow (and, ironically, negative) view of his fatherhood skills and Keeg's future gets a slap-in-the-face.
Is the legacy he is passing onto Keeg one of fear? Is this what the trauma of his life has reduced him to? Will he learn to actualize his potential and become the star the Negative Spirit foresees?
As the Negative Spirit is in control of 1996 Larry, Future Larry doesn't remember meeting Keeg, but since the Negative Spirit probably doesn't memory wipe future knowledge either -- Willoughby's starting to look like he's in the minority -- the Negative Spirit knew all this for thirty years before leaving Larry pregnant with Keeg on Doom Patrol Season 3 Episode 2.
Mind blown. Again.
The only encounter I can't quite get to fit nicely into the continuum is Rouge.
While her portal leads her to 1949 Niles, already in his wheelchair and spending all his time in the lab at the Ant Farm, it actually takes her to herself, where she spews a lot of truths at the very smug 1949 Laura De Mille.
1949 Rouge: Time traveling to the Ant Farm is quite a risk to take for your friends.
Future Rouge: Well, they helped me be a better person.
1949 Rouge: And why would we need to be better?
Future Rouge: Because I have spent my entire existence trying to undo all the horrible shit that we’ve done. I know you want to believe you’re good. You want power so you can change the world. But this isn’t the way. The Bureau isn’t the way.
Unless there's a mass memory wipe assigned to all Ant Farm personnel, you'd think an ass-whooping like that would leave enough of an impression on De Mille to make her more mindful of her choices.
Mind you, Future Rouge, in all her self-awareness, does address that too.
1949 Rouge: I’m not you.
Future Rouge: Not yet. I’m sure you believe you’re good. Because you have become a master at deception. I mean, you’ve even managed to con yourself as to your noble intentions.
1949 Rouge: That’s not true.
Future Rouge: But I know it is. Because I am working hard over here and I am still no better than you. And I know now we won’t change. Not till it’s too late.
So maybe, just maybe, Rouge is just one of those river versus butterfly-type people. Interference in her timeline is just a blip that is quickly eroded by the passage of time.
But the highlight and crowning jewel of this script is Jane reuniting with Niles, the first man she ever trusted, for help with what might be her last chance at peace.
Jane: They’re all gone.
Niles: Who? The personas? What does that mean?
Jane: It means I’m getting old as fuck, and I’m losing my mind. It means I can’t form a normal fucking relationship outside of these assholes in this house and I need to figure out a puzzle that could change what life I have left. It means that in some weird, fucked-up way, you might be the best person to help me.
There's a glorious bit of causal magic elegantly melded into their discussion.
Jane asks 1996 Niles why he decides not to give up on her despite having a room ready for her in Joshua Clay's house. This was the home of the first Doom Patrol that Niles abandoned.
Jane's Doom Patrol visited Clay and the first Doomies on Doom Patrol Season 1 Episode 6.
The Niles of 1996 can't answer her because he hasn't made that decision yet.
Maybe the others are extensions of your purpose. They’ve helped you survive. You’ve helped them. Maybe if you let it out, it might free you to do even more than you were designed for. More even than whatever this new purpose might be.
Niles
Moments later, after Jane is recalled by Cyborg's knuckle plate, Niles sits there, contemplating the Willoughby memory-wipe drink and clearly not drinking it, and we have our answer.
Niles doesn't give up on Jane because he witnesses her healing and knows there is hope.
Kay: You’ve always known. Just say it.
Jane: It happened to all of us. It happened to me. I was raped by my father. The moment we were created, we could feel the memory.
And we do, too.
Seeing the personas one last time -- united, vulnerable, but ready to move on -- has to be one of the most exhilarating emotional crescendos in recent times.
Riding that train as the Underground crumbles with Kay and the alt personas (including Stephanie Czajkowski's awesome Hammerhead) riding into a glorious kaleidoscope future, and I couldn't care less about Immortus and the Butt-pocalypse.
Of course, there is that rock and a hard place finale to come.
What are you expecting of the finale, Fanatics?
Will Dorothy return with Casey and Danny for the final battle? How will Nicholas combat Teddy's Butt and Were-Butt negativity? Can Immortus resist the most unusual chorus line ever?
Hit our comments with your wishlist for whackadoo ending elements!
Diana Keng was 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.
