In honor of Pride I'm
spending this month looking at writing techniques in queer stories. This
week I'm focusing on HBO MAX's great queer superhero show DOOM PATROL.
One of the great ways DOOM PATROL plays its shell game is by not letting us know there's a game going on at all. From the start of its first season, it's clear who the villain of the piece is and the danger that he poses. Mr. Nobody's abduction of the team's father figure/savior Niles Calder is in fact the inciting incident for the season, forcing the group to slowly confront their own fears and histories and work together to find and save Niles. It's a classic story setup: the team are Mario and Luigi, Mr. Nobody is Bowser and Niles is Princess Toadstool. Let's do this.
Along the way other antagonists pop up, most especially Victor's father, who from the first time we meet him just does not seem on the up and up when it comes to Victor's accident or desires for him. Eventually some of those hunches are confirmed, with terrible emotional consequences for Vic. Later he seems to turn to the good, breaking Vic out of Super Power Prison Experimentation Camp -- by seeming to betray him, of course. But even after, he just doesn't seem trustworthy.
So we've got two Big Bads, the mad scientist and the monster, and each of them is 100% convincing as the Not Nice People we need to worry about.
Except it turns out their presence and the dangers they've represented have all also been a way of hiding the real Big Bad, which is Niles himself. In the finale we get the reveal in flashbacks that Niles was in fact responsible in one way or another for the events that ruined each of the character's lives, and has been using them ever since to try and find a way to live forever.
Icing on that cake, we get the surprising flashback scene between Vic's dad and Niles where Niles is trying to advise/play him, and Vic’s dad calls him out on all the horrible things he's done. And suddenly most of what we've seen him do in relation to Vic in the season,
which is where our distrust of him began, is cast in a totally different light. Rather than trying to manipulate Vic he's been trying to protect him, because he knows the harm that Niles poses.
It's such a satisfying and surprising turn of events. And stepping back we see that the surprise of it all has come not only from the villains pulling focus, but the presentation of Niles himself. From the start he's this kindly old (and handsome) scientist in a wheelchair who loves chocolate pancakes and has dedicated his life to helping these tormented people that society has rejected. Having the series start with him surrendering to being taken by Nobody only further emphasizes both his fragility and his goodness.
If you've got a big turn in your show, DOOM PATROL has some great ideas on how to hide it: don't give the audience the sense there there is one; paint your Big Bad in colors we don't expect; and have others who are legitimate threats to keep the audience from looking around.
TOMORROW: PLAYING THE CON
