Doom Patrol season 1, episode 10 review: Hair Patrol

Has Cyborg, the only legitimate hero in this show, finally met his match in the Beard Hunter, the show’s most vile villain yet? Plus, Doom Patrol continues to hint that Niles Caulder has a dark side.

The last time viewers saw Doom Patrol‘s motley crew of antiheroes, Cliff ventured into Jane’s mind as if he was in an episode of The Magic School Bus. Jane was trapped in the Underground, a subconscious map of her various personalities. Throughout the subsequent adventure, both Cliff and Jane explored their own psyches. In the end, Jane seemingly won this battle with her demons, though the war is far from over.

All season long, each of the main characters have struggled with the past. With the Chief still missing, the heroes will have to keep confronting their internal conflicts while dealing with this overarching external problem.

Shortly after “Hair Patrol” begins, it sets the stage for the latest progression in the conflict between the Doom Patrol and the United States Bureau of Normalcy. (The Bureau opposed the titular team in “Danny Patrol.”) After the titular team foiled the antagonists’ efforts to catch Danny, the Bureau decides to active Ernest Miller, or Beard Hunter, a sleeper agent whose weapons collection is straight out of Hot Fuzz. They believe that Hunter can level the playing field and help them defeat Niles and the Doom Patrol.

Rita and Vic had their own adventure last episode

“Jane Patrol,” as the title might suggest, focused on Jane and, to an extent, Cliff, who also explored her subconscious. Near the end of the episode, Rita and Vic hinted that something happened while Jane and Cliff were on their psychological journey. Among other things, this episode reveals what happened to the characters who remained in the real world last episode.

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Evidently, Beard Hunter made his way to Doom Manor using one of Jane’s fliers for Niles. When Rita and Vic find him unconscious, Ernest reveals that he knows all about Niles and the team.  Ernest becomes the latest character to hint at the Chief’s dark side. But after eating the drain scrum from Niles’ bathroom, Beard Hunter knows how to find him; he says, “his beard calls out to me from across time and space.”

Ernest and Vic get into a fight, but because Beard Hunter eats one of Vic’s loose facial hairs, he’s able to predict every blow because the hair apparently connects him to Cyborg’s brain stem. Ernest hijacks Vic’s arm cannon and causes two smalls explosion. Rita tells him to leave, and he does, but not before bragging that he defeated Cyborg.

Doom Patrol continues to isolate Niles from the team

This episode offered one of the show’s most extensive looks at Niles. For most of this season, he’s been missing but, a series of flashbacks in this episode explores the character’s past. This trip down memory lane is particularly remarkable because they reveal that Niles has been roughly the same age since 1914. It’s safe to say that the Chief isn’t just fascinated with studying metahumans; he might be one, too.

While he’s on a mission for the Bureau of Oddities, Niles gets kidnapped by the member of a mysterious tribe. He takes the opportunity to study his captor, who has psychic superpowers. The two seemingly form a romantic relationship, but Niles initially seems more interested in how he can use her for research.

Eventually, Niles changes his tune; he actually loves his companion. He even knowingly leads a former colleague to his death to protect her. Here, the show begins to plant some tangible seeds for the eventual reveal that Niles isn’t the hero his “students” think he is. This development, combined with Ernest’s foreshadowing, continues to build the suspense for that revelation.