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.
This is in some ways an addendum on my last post (and apologies for not posting it yesterday; I'll have one more DOOM post tomorrow).
Season one ends with the group discovering that Niles, the man who has been "trying to help them all this time, the man they've spent the season trying to rescue, has actually been responsible for the tragedies of each of their lives and is using them to try and find a way to achieve immortality for himself.
There’s a little more to it than that--he’s got a daughter who doesn’t age and is incredibly dangerous, so he feels like he has to be around to protect her/protect the world from her.
But even so, it’s quite a brutal turn. And after a first episode of hijinks as the team tries to find its way from where season one left them (tiny and living in a dollhouse – DOOM PATROL is so great, you guys), the characters start to confront that betrayal.
Meanwhile Niles begins to investigate a new means of immortality on his own. And Rita, who comes upon him doing so and getting frustrated, insists the team will take care of it, despite the fact that he tells them not to.
It seems like a pretty big turn given what they've learned. But then when they actually jump into the mission, which involves stealing a purposely ridiculously named substance from a purposely ridiculously absurd time traveling guy, it turns out the only way to get to the substance is to kill him. Which Niles had conveniently not mentioned.
So having only just learned how they’d been used all this time, the characters have let themselves be conned again. And even better, so have we, because Niles continues to be written--here by April Fitzsimmons & Neil Reynolds--and performed by Timothy Dalton without a single nod to his inherent treachery. He is as amiable and genuine as ever.
It's a pretty rare thing to see a story go this way; 9 times out of 10 after the end of season one reveal we're going to get nods to the fact that this guy can no longer be trusted.
Instead the DOOM PATROL writers continue to write Niles at the top of his innocence, as it were, even though he's not innocent at all. And that choice really energizes the storytelling. Every single thing Niles says and does now has to be scrutinized. Is there anything that's not part of the con?
Because he never lets down the mask of innocence we're also left with the question, does he even recognize what a monster he is? And that creates so much interesting space for future episodes to play in, and a fun journey for him as a character.
File this under: Always Write Your Villain as Though He is a Hero.
TOMORROW: ADMIRING GAME
