Last episode saw Cliff give his longevity to Wally Sage and Casey Brinke arrive to save the day, only to fail and for Immortus to rise, taking the form of Isobel Feathers.
What does a world with Isobel Immortus in it look like? Let’s dive in and find out!
The End of the World
The Doom Patrol and their allies slowly pick themselves up from the dust and rubble of Orqwith’s remains, reluctantly reassembling to the tune of Skeeter Davis’ “The End of the World.” Casey sits in shock, with her dead father Torminox on one side and deceased creator Wally on the other. The rest of the gang stumble around, dazed — including Isobel, for a moment. Then she gets herself together and trudges out of the crater, beginning to walk back to Cloverton.
With few other options available to them, the Doom Patrol begin to follow her. They debate whether she is Isobel, or Immortus, or both. Dorothy asks Casey if she’s okay. Casey doesn’t know; she’s lost her father and her creator, her only opportunity to find out why she was here.
Deric stops walking, telling Vic that they just blew up a pocket dimension in the middle of Ohio, so he needs to go check on his kids. He calls for an Uber. Before leaving, Deric points out that Vic really does love what he does — the superhero stuff. He can’t go back to being the old Cyborg, but maybe he can be his own version.
While the group are debating whether or not to kill Isobel Feathers, a guy in a truck drives by and overhears them mention her name — Isobel Feathers! They found Isobel Feathers!
World of Wut?
After several months, the body of Isobel Feathers has been found — alive. Isobel is interviewed on World of Wut? In the kitchen of the mansion, the Doom Patrol are gathered around, watching her on TV. Questioned about what happened to her while she was missing, Isobel’s voice changes and she goes off into a creepy monologue about time, space, and death being just an illusion. The Doom Patrol cringe, and Cliff questions whether this is what they’re going to do now — spend their old age watching supervillains on television.
On screen, Isobel seems to be losing it. She looks distressed and, with little more than a lift of her hand, she reverses time so that she can answer the question again. No one seems to notice other than Rouge, who senses that something is off. She tells the group that she had a strange feeling of deja-vu, but no one seems overly concerned, debating whether they should just leave Isobel alone.
Except for Cliff, that is. He has a sudden moment of memory and goes to check the freezer, where there should be a frozen Zombie Butt, the one he couldn’t bring himself to kill back before midseason hiatus. Except, of course, the Zombie Butt has long since escaped. Cliff curses, and makes up an excuse about looking for ice cream.
On screen, Isobel makes mention that the Doom Patrol — who found her, of course — will likely be at the parade in Cloverton that is being thrown in her honor. Rita thinks that’s their chance to go and check things out. Rouge and Vic agree, but Jane is having her own issues in her head — or not in her head, as the case may be — and Cliff stomps off with her, saying they’re too old for this. Larry is too morose to help, telling Rita that maybe they should face it that they lost. He has to figure out what to do with the little time he has left.
Nowhere Girls
Meanwhile, Dorothy takes Casey to see her father’s spaceship. It’s a little decrepit, and Casey is a bit baffled to be told that it runs by feeding apples to a goat. Dorothy tries to talk to Casey about her feelings again, but Casey doesn’t know. She’s never felt these real-life feelings before, but she doesn’t like this one. Dorothy tells her that grief can be a gift, like smell and taste. It lets you know that you’re alive. She gifts the spaceship to Casey, so she can go anywhere she wants to. Casey decides she needs a new mission, and agrees to assist Dorothy with helping the Doom Patrol as they deal with losing their longevity.
Elsewhere, Jane is struggling, lost in her own head once more. She cries out for help, lost and unable to find a station in the Underground. When she shouts for help, Casey appears — help! She can do that.
Jane is irritated and astonished, coming back to herself and immediately questioning how Casey got inside her head. Casey doesn’t know what she means by that. Dismissive and visibly shaken, Jane leaves.
She soon runs into Casey again, though. Heading back to her bedroom, she finds Casey there — along with piles of the blank puzzle pieces Jane has been struggling with. While Casey is reintroducing herself, Jane is distracted by the pain and noise in her head and she yells at Casey for trying to help. Losing her temper, Jane tells Casey that she is not real — she’s just a nosey, fictional girl who organizes other people’s stuff into random piles.
As she leaves, dejected, Casey tells Jane that the puzzle piles aren’t random. She divided them up by color. Jane is confused, looking at all the blank pieces.
A while later, Jane approaches a melancholy Casey as she sits in one of the window seats. Slowly, the two began to chat and relate to each other as women with similar “don’t quite exist” experiences.
No Butts Just Chairs
Cliff searches for the defrosted Zombie Butt, but has no luck. Dorothy comes across him leaning on a table, cursing his aging and his Parkinson’s as he struggles. She hasn’t seen anything small and dangerous. She came to give Cliff a gift — Niles’ old wheelchair. Cliff is less than impressed, and makes sure to tell her so. He hated Niles and he doesn’t want a chair.
In the process of rejecting the chair, Cliff lets it slip that he once talked to Niles ghost. He never told Dorothy about it. Reminding her that’s because he’s an asshole, he storms off.
Dorothy finds Cliff again later, when he’s trying — and failing — to climb the stairs. She apologizes for upsetting him, but reminds him that if he’s going to be there for his family he has to take care of himself. She scolds him for being obstinate. Eventually, he snaps, yelling at her that he doesn’t deserve it. It will be better for everyone when he’d dead and gone.
She doesn’t stand for it, reminding him that people love him. When the others get back from the parade, maybe they can work some things out.
Reminded about the parade for heroes, Cliff remembers that there are people that love him, and he needs to remind them why. Not quite what Dorothy was going for. Regardless, Cliff announces that he’s headed to the parade.
Reassembly
Larry hides out in his room. He lays back on the bed, talking to Keeg, apologizing to him for things not going to plan. He swears to give him all he can until his last breath. That’s quite depressing, a disembodied voice tells him. Beside the bed, a glittering cloud of atoms and light appears. It’s Rama! Or what’s left of him, anyway.
Larry tells Rama that he thought he’d disappeared on him. Rama confirms that wasn’t the case, it’s more that Keeg’s power disassembled him. Larry apologizes — he had no idea. Immediately, Rama forgives him, but tells him that he needs his help.
Larry despairs. He doesn’t know if there’s a solution. He tells Rama that he made a mess of everything while Rama was gone. He tells him that he’s aging, and knows that Rama understands how dangerous that is for a radioactive being like him. He’ll become little more than a dirty bomb in the end.
As Larry talks, Keeg raises Larry’s arm, puppeting his body and making him touch and reach into the cloud of energy that is Rama. Keeg is onto something — a healthy dose of radiation might be enough to rehabilitate Rama’s particles.
Larry’s bandages begin to fall from his arms as he reaches out to Rama, revealing his scarred, radioactive hands beneath. After a moment it seems to work. A hand darts out of the Rama-cloud, grasping on to Larry’s. Touching him — solid. Rama begs him not to let go. With a lot of effort, Larry manages to pull Rama through the cloud, reassembling him.
Rama stumbles into the room, into Larry, who hangs on to him tightly. They hug, laughing in relief before they tumble off-screen.
Untangling themselves on the floor a while later, Larry and Rama talk about what happened in Orqwith, and why Larry didn’t follow their plan. He tells Rama that he wouldn’t understand, but Rama quickly works out that it was Keeg. It was too impulsive a choice to be just Larry’s doing.
Rama reaches out and holds Larry’s hand — still without any bandages — and tells him there is no shame in believing in miracles. He always has. Larry promised they’d find another way. Larry tells Rama that he needs to find a home for Keeg. Their discussion about Larry mentally penciling Rama in as a foster parent for Keeg if needed is interrupted by Cliff knocking on the door — he wants to go to the parade, and he needs help walking.
Doom Patrol Day
The parade preparations in Cloverton are in full swing. Isobel Flowers is the center of attention, at least until her rescuers — the Doom Patrol — arrive. The mayor makes her way over to greet them. Real superheroes in Cloverton! Isobel is upset that they are getting attention instead of her. As she yells, a storm brews…until she reverses time and tries again. Once again, no one seems to notice other than Rouge, who senses something isn’t right.
Rita and Isobel end up on World of Wut? together. Rouge and Vic watch from behind the scenes as the two snipe at each other, trying to steal the spotlight. Rouge tries to convince Vic that something is wrong, but even when Isobel uses one of her time loops to threaten Rita for stealing her spotlight, Vic doesn’t pick up on it.
Afterward, Vic questions Rita on what she thinks of Isobel. Rita is drugged enough on fame that she’s willing to let Isobel go, for now. She also tells Vic that he should still do big things. He may not want to be Cyborg, but he shouldn’t have to stick around the aging Doom Patrol.
While they talk, Rouge approaches Isobel. She confronts her about being evil and calls her Immortus. Isobel flips again, her voice changing as she challenges Rouge for daring to utter her true name. Then she rewinds once more, and Rouge is back to calmly approaching the gazebo where they spoke. This time, Isobel flounces off before they can talk.
The parade begins. As the Doom Patrol soak in the crowds adoration, they confess a few things — Larry that he’s dying and Mr. 104 is destabilizing, and Cliff that he didn’t kill the zombie butt.
Unfortunately for Isobel, who thought she was being given the key to the city, it turns out the mayor just wanted her to present the key to the Doom Patrol. A lot of people have come to see Cloverton’s superheroes — there’s even a parade balloon of The Blob! In fact, they’re going to name today “Doom Patrol Day!”
Doom Patrol Day?! Isobel is horrified and furious. “Doom Patrol Day?” she repeats, over and over, before letting rip with her sonic screams again, the same sound as when she destroyed Orqwith.
The first six episodes of Doom Patrol season 4 are streaming now on Max. Be sure to stay up to date with all of our coverage!
