‘Doom Patrol’ Season 4 Ending Explained — What Happens in the Series Finale?

Editor’s Notice: The following contains spoilers for Doom Patrol Season 4.

The Big Picture

• Doom Patrol‘s weirdness sets it apart from other superhero series, and the series finale delivers more of the same while concluding the characters’ arcs in an emotional way.
• The team faces off against Immortus and the horde of butts in a chaotic final battle, although they ultimately do little as their enemies defeat themselves.
• Although they temporarily regain their longevity, the Doom Patrol still loses two members, and Rita’s death leads to the team disbanding as the rest find their own path forward.

Doom Patrol‘s characters have been through a lot over the show’s four-season run, from the inexplicable journey into the donkey’s butt to their more recent rapid aging. The show’s weirdness caught the eyes of fans and distinguished Doom Patrol from the other superhero series on TV. The dysfunctional team has created many of its own problems and always found unconventional solutions. Since the mid-season announcement that the series would end with Season 4, fans of the show have wondered how the ending will wrap up the wacky story, and the series finale turned out to be an emotional conclusion as the characters say goodbye. Since their introduction, each character has come a long way, and the finale takes care in wrapping up their arcs to prove that.

The penultimate episode leaves them in a dire situation as Cliff (Brendan Fraser), Jane (Diane Guerrero), Vic (Joivan Wade), Larry (Matt Bomer), and Laura (Michelle Gomez) make a last attempt to recover their longevity to save Rita (April Bowlby) from her impending death due to old age. After a confrontation with Immortus (Charity Cervantes), they are sucked into the timestream, where Vic senses their missing longevity. Though they failed to find it, Jane had an emotional breakthrough, uniting her various personalities into “The Kaleidoscope,” though she’s unsure of what that means. Finally, the team returns from the timestream, still doomed but determined to use their final moments to save the world from Immortus and the horde of butts that returned to kill them. The last installment of Doom Patrol picks up here as they face Immortus for one last time.

The Doom Patrol Fights Immortus and the Butts in the Series Finale

The all-powerful god, Immortus, returns earlier in Season 4, stealing the longevity that kept the team alive. As a result, they are forced to age rapidly as the attention-hungry immortal performer tries to gain glory with the stolen power. In the fight, Cliff struggles with his worsening Parkinson’s disease, but fortunately, Jane has use of each of her persona’s abilities. Laura flees, leaving the others behind as she fears once again being the final survivor of her team. Rita recognizes Laura’s struggle, and though their friendship has been tenuous at best, they return to the fight together, but they are too late.

The confrontation ends quickly as the butts storm in. These are old enemies of the Doom Patrol, an experimental species of living butts that escaped from their creators and have gone rogue. The Doom Patrol tried to whip them out and failed, incurring their wrath. Now, they have returned for revenge, surrounding the Doom Patrol while performing the musical number “Shipoopi!” from The Music Man. But Immortus is enraged at being upstaged and sings a song from her role in the Clovertown musical. The butts join her song, and Immortus’ power grows. The Doom Patrol escapes the building in the chaos. They watch as Immortus’ power consumes the building, pulling it into the timestream and taking the villain and the butts with it. Admittedly, the Doom Patrol itself does little to defeat these enemies, but either way, the world is safe once again, allowing them to focus on personal matters.

The Doom Patrol Is Still Dying in the Series Finale

With the Immortus gone, the heroes question if the butts were the real heroes as they celebrate their success. But their aging hasn’t stopped, and it seems the end is near. Vic shows off his returned Cyborg suit, this time with tattoos to remind him of those he cares about, including the Doom Patrol, who will not be around much longer. Just as they get comfortable with reality, Immortus returns. The characters expect a fight but instead are met with Immortus’ thanks. After falling through the timestream, years have passed for Immortus despite the mere hours the Doom Patrol experienced. With the performing butts, she achieved the fame she always wanted and returned to thank the heroes for the introduction to her partners. In thanks, she gives them toenails to eat that will restore their missing longevity and a mysterious crystal for Cliff.

Eager to return to their former selves, they eat the toenails as instructed, and it works. But before they can get Rita’s longevity back, she dies. As Rita is the most afraid of aging of all of them, the team wants to travel to the afterlife (again) to save their friend, but she returns in ghost form to dissuade them. Ghost Rita announces that upon dying, she realized that she succeeded in her life’s mission, and not by restoring her fame. Rita is ready to move on and plans to do so in death, which is a stark change for her character. She suggests they all make changes by disbanding the Doom Patrol to become better people, especially as they caused most of the problems in the first place, and shockingly, the team agrees. For a final mission together, they memorialize Rita, burning her body. To her ghost’s disappointment, it is a less-than-classy affair, with an expanding and gassy body and friends honoring her fixation on her appearance and drunkenness. But instead of having a tantrum as she would have for most of the series, Rita lets it go, fading to the afterlife where she reunites with Malcolm (Micah Joe Parker), her dead love.

‘Doom Patrol’s Characters Must Move On in the Series Finale

Unsure of what to do next, the group mourns their friend by watching her old movies. When the team is asleep on the couch, Cliff sneaks off to see his daughter Clara (Bethany Anne Lind) and grandson, but Jane catches him before he leaves, giving him one last middle finger as a goodbye. As the rest go their separate ways, Laura struggles with the decision. Unsure of if she is good or evil, she drunkenly asks Vic for advice, and he shares that in the timestream, he learned to make his own path and promises to stop her if she goes too far. Laura decides to set things right and returns to the Ant Farm, where she once worked to destroy it. Meanwhile, Vic leaves being a hero behind to teach robotics with his friend, Deric (Elijah Rashad Reed), as he sees the future. These two characters were largely unsure of who they wanted to be, and in the end, they figured it out by choosing their own path.

Larry and Keeg are unsure of what to do next as well, with the former mourning the loss of Rita and his missing boyfriend, Roma (Sendhil Ramamurthy), who contained himself before he could explode and destroy the world. Remembering that he was too afraid to be with the man he loved before the explosion, Larry decides not to wait any longer. With Keeg’s help, Larry finds Roma, reviving him in space, where they can be together without endangering the world. Meanwhile, Kay, as the newly combined personas choose to be called, thinks she should search for a normal life. But her apartment hunting is interrupted by the arrival of Space Case (Madeline Zima), who sets off the manor’s alarm system. Casey plans to take the Doom Patrol’s rocket on a new adventure, and Kay asks to join her rather than be normal. On the spaceship, she can still paint, and she and Casey share a kiss, resolving the romantic tension they shared.

With his family, Cliff attends his grandson’s first birthday, gifting him a car that they can fix together, but at the event, he discovers that the magical toenails didn’t cure his Parkinson’s disease. As Clara works on the car, Cliff sits in the front seat with baby Rory, and in the reflection of the crystal from Immortus, he sees Rory as a teenager, driving his pregnant wife to the hospital, leaving his family, caring for an aging Clara, at his mother’s funeral, and meeting his own grandchild. After seeing Rory’s future, Cliff dies — but he is content that he saw Rory grow, if not in the literal sense.

Though bittersweet, each character found a satisfying ending, getting something they wanted while leaving their old lives behind. The separated Doom Patrol and the death of several characters may be an unconventional ending, but what else could be expected from this unique show?

Doom Patrol is available to stream on Max in the U.S.

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