Doom Patrol is hands down one of DC’s most outlandish creations and the superpowered weirdos are coming back for season four on HBO Max.
The story follows a group of people who all experienced traumatic events that gave them superpowers and how they cope with their lives. It stars the lovable Brendan Fraser, who voices Cliff Steele/Robot Man, April Bowlby as Rita Farr/Elasti-Woman, Matt Bomer as Larry Trainor/Negative Man, Diane Guerrero as Kay Challis/Crazy Jane, and Joivan Wade as Cyborg. Riley Shanahan performs in-costume as Robot-Man and Mattew Zuk performs in-costume as Negative Man. They’re led by the brilliantly mad Niles Caulder played by Timothy Dalton, and they get into all kinds of bizarre trouble.
What can we expect from Doom Patrol season four? Here’s everything we know so far.
New and returning cast
The main cast will be returning for season four, minus Dalton, whose character died in season three. An appearance of some kind shouldn’t be ruled out because death hasn’t stopped them before (and this is based on the world of comic books, after all). Fraser, Bowlby, Bomer, Guerrero, and Wade will all be back, and so will Michelle Gomez who was introduced in season three as Laura De Mille/Madame Rouge, an enigmatic woman with the ability to shapeshift into people, animals, and objects.
New to season four is Joseph Aviel who will be playing Codpiece. Yes, you read that correctly. It’s unclear what his exact role will be in the show, but he makes it on the list of one of Doom Patrol‘s most ridiculous characters, and that list is long. In the comics, a girl told him he wasn’t big enough when he was in high school, and he misinterpreted her meaning. His inferiority complex got the better of him, and he built a super-suit with a codpiece weapon system and turned himself into a villain. This sounds strange, but it’s par for the course in Doom Patrol.
Crazy Jane’s alter ego, Doctor Harrison—played by Catherine Carlen in Jane’s underground psyche and by Guerrero herself in reality—is also back in the new season. Doctor Harrison appeared in season one when Jane was institutionalized. She would manipulate patients and force them to harm themselves, so her dynamic with the team should be interesting. The all-powerful Mister Nobody (Alan Tudyk) was committed to ruining the team and convinced the bad doctor to start a cult with deadly repercussions. At the end of season three, she returns and is now Jane’s current primary host of Jane.
Also announced was Madeline Zima as Casey Brinke/Space Case. She was created by the sentient Danny the Street, and she’s responsible for driving the team through time and space.
The story so far
Doom Patrol season three began with the unfortunate demise of Niles Caulder after the team’s fight with the reality-warping Candlemaker. The villain Madame Rouge time travels to meet the Doom Patrol—only she can’t remember what she came there to do. There are many misadventures throughout the season, including the team traveling to the underworld, fighting were-butts (lycanthropic, violent butts), and becoming brain-eating zombies. They faced threats from The Brotherhood of Evil, Gorilla Grodd, The Brain, and Garguax, and as you can see, this season was really packed with content.
Rita uses Laura’s time machine and travels back to 1917 to try and fix her problems, but she suffers amnesia as well (which is bit of a pattern) and ends up joining the Bureau of Normalcy, where she meets Laura from an earlier time. She meets other metahumans working for the government and falls in love with a man named Malcolm (Micah Joe Parker) who has a birdcage in his chest and can bend light to make himself invisible. Laura betrays the team by classifying them as weapons to be sent to war, and Malcolm dies as a result of her actions. When Rita returns to the present knowing Laura’s past, she’s determined to defeat Laura, but the Doom Patrol have other problems to worry about.
A team of metahumans on a mission to change the world have their sights set on the Doom Patrol. The Sisterhood of Dada implements the Eternal Flagellation, an event where people are forced to confront their subconscious trauma in an effort to evolve society. Rita travels back to 1951, infiltrates the Brotherhood of Evil, and Laura has become Madame Rouge. They plan on stealing Niles Caulder’s blueprints to destroy him once and for all. This activates Rita, and she continues traveling through time and setting up the events that brought her to 1917 in the first place (or second place) to stop them.
In the present day, the Doom Patrol has switched places with their subconscious selves due to the effects of the Eternal Flagellation. To undo it, they travel through portals and reclaim their former selves who’ve been imprisoned. With her memories restored, Madame Rouge steals Robot-Man and brings him to the Brotherhood of Evil. They plan on using his body to infiltrate the team and destroy the Doom Patrol, but they don’t fully trust her and inject her with a substance that knocks her out. Later, the Brain’s actual brain is placed in Robot-Man’s body, and Cliff’s brain rolls into a giant red robot. Rouge escapes and commandeers the giant robot, but Robot-Man takes control, and she flees. He returns home to Cloverton to make amends, but he can’t stop moving so his friends have to get involved. Rita finally finds Madame Rouge. Even though Rita could kill her, she decides it’s not worth it. Rita uses her powers like never before, grows into a giant, and pushes Robot-Man back to save the town.
Doom Patrol season four
Season four will pick up with the Doom Patrol as real heroes. They’ve forgiven Rouge, and instead of just reacting to problems, they seek to save the world from strange threats that they’re accustomed to handling at this point. The season four trailer begins with a classified government project that they’ve weaponized as a force of nature. It turns out to be were-butts performing a musical. It only makes sense. After the Doom Patrol’s fight them in season three, one was able to escape, alluding to the idea that we’d see them again. The footage then shows the full team walking together in a classic superhero lineup and taking on strange cases. The season will open with the team time traveling into the future where they’ll have to decide if the fate of the world matters more than their own happiness.
Doom Patrol crossover
We know for certain that Titans season four will crossover with Stargirl, and there’s a chance that Doom Patrol could be involved as well. All three shows are separate from the Arrowverse CW shows, and they first aired on the DC Universe streaming app. While certain characters appeared in the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event, they didn’t interact with one another. The storyline regarding this potential crossover isn’t known, but once it is, we’ll be all over it.
Doom Patrol season four release date
Doom Patrol, season four, part one, will premiere Dec. 8, with the first two episodes out of the gate. New episodes will release each week until Jan. 5, 2023, then it will have a midseason break and resume with the last six episodes later in 2023.
Published: Oct 14, 2022 11:36 am