Doom Patrol

If you want to understand what I've done,

there are things you must understand about my daughter.

In 1927, I was moonlighting

in the Bureau of Normalcy's American headquarters.

I intercepted a tip that brought me home to London,

a travelling carnival of grotesques

featuring a familiar beast.

A beast who, if real,

was linked to a woman

I'd tried to keep secret from the world.

Tuppence a head, if you will!

As for the girl,

I told myself I would not conjecture

until I could see the beast with my own eyes.

And yet, she was at the front of my mind.

- What violence had brought her to this place?

What had she been made to suffer

in the company of this bawdy, illiterate scum?

Misshapes, mistakes, and misfits, ladies and gentlemen.

Snows and toes.

But now, the putrid little primate

that you shelled out your shekels to see.

And here she comes,

a hideous curiosity

captured deep in the icy Yukon wilderness,

the Ape-Faced Girl!

I got something else long and sweet for ya,

Monkey Girl.

Calm yourselves, calm yourselves. She's a...

It was as cruel as I had imagined.

And as real as I'd feared.

A ferocious monster,

tethered to her deranged mind,

the Ape Girl's gruesome pet!

Her beast.

Whether it was a spirit or a familiar

I have yet to fully understand.

Go on, give us a twirl then.

But one thing was certain.

It belongs to a woman I had loved

and left a long time ago...

Around the other way.

...and apparently, it hadn't forgotten me, either.

I said around the other way!

You will obey me!

No! No!

Stop this!

As for what happened next...

...words fail.

How do you know my mother?

Two years later,

she'd barely aged a day.

I had to protect her from the world,

and the world from her.

So, I turned to a friend.

Hello, Danny.

A young, sentient alleyway named Danny.

A loving, teleporting refuge for all people.

Danny's agreed to keep you safe...

till you're a little bit older.

And I promise

I'll visit you as often as I can.

Wait.

You're not coming with me?

I wish I could.

But I have to figure out

how to be the best father I can be,

for as long as I can be.

I...

I don't want to lose you again.

And that's precisely it, my dear.

My beautiful...

darling Dorothy.

Yeah, yeah, real weepy shit.

Bet you cried for weeks.

Not what I asked.

I asked about why you did what you did.

To us.

I searched the globe

to find a way to outlive Dorothy

by one day.

My research took me to Paraguay where Eric Morden

was about to trade a longevity talisman

to a scientist in return for superpowers.

So, you shot up the Nazi lab, stole the dumb monkey paw

and Morden became Mr. Nobody.

I saw the puppet show!

What about us?

My longevity was limited.

So I began my experiments in search of true immortality.

Rita,

Larry,

Jane,

and you, Cliff.

But all these years, the only thing keeping me alive

is the talisman hanging around my neck.

Until last night...

when I traded it to Willoughby Kipling

in return for the magical substance that...

returned us to normal size.

Wait, you gave away your longevity

like some kind of asshole?

Then, what was all this for?

Don't think the irony is lost on me.

It was the only way to make things right,

and now my daughter...

will lose her father.

The one who put her in a cage?

The one who can make her feel safe.

Without me,

she will unleash hell on Earth

and you will be powerless to stop it.

Now, Cliff, you know everything.

Not everything.

Tell me about the night of my accident.

I want to hear every fucking detail.

Good morning!

Rise and shine!

Our father is dying.

He's dying.

Ahhh!

What in the Doris Day Ikea fuck was that?

Stay out of our room!

What are we still doing here?

Answer me!

I've tried to tell them.

Oh, not this shit again.

You assholes can stay down.

I'm doing just fine.

Good morning, Dorothy.

Good morning, Jane.

We'll work on her manners.

Dorothy.

One of your imaginary friends

stopped by my room this morning.

Something you wanna share with us?

It isn't true.

What isn't true?

Why would one of your friends

say it was true if it wasn't?

What is "it"? What was said?

I overheard Dad and the drunk wizard talking,

but it isn't true.

Oh, for the love of God, what is or is not true?

Niles is dying.

What?

Cliff!

Did you know that Niles is dying?

Oh, yeah, karma's a bitch.

- Let that be a lesson to you, kid.

He's not dying!

I'm dying.

But we're all dying.

Nothing to fret over.

But look at your hair.

It's already started.

How old are you, exactly?

139.

Dear God, he's practically dead.

Oh, boy, here come the waterworks.

Vic had the right idea, getting out of this shitbox.

You're really gonna shed tears for the man who killed my wife?

You don't have to tell old Blobberstiltskin here

that Niles Caulder is a flawed man.

But now, he is also a dying man.

His teeth are probably loosening

as we speak.

Soon he'll have no memory of how to take care of himself

or Dorothy.

We could be mere days away from daddy diapers.

- Rita! - Gross.

- I am not changing him. - And why not?

You can't even smell.

I am still here.

You know, she's not wrong.

If Chief croaks,

somebody's gonna have to take care of the girl.

I'm not letting her go to that decrepit asylum

with the old Doom Patrol.

Nobody is going back to that home.

Dorothy was perfectly safe on Danny for 19 years.

And when Danny grows

into something other than a brick--

Which could take ages!

And until then, the only thing keeping Dorothy

from going full wild child is us.

Us? No way!

It's every man, woman and brick for themselves now.

Enough!

I won't have you arguing over this.

You're talking as though I'm already dead.

I will work this out.

What do you mean? You already have.

Moment of truth, Chief,

because this is what you've been planning

for our entire lives.

So what's it gonna be?

Ladies and gentlemen,

is he going to cook his body with radiation

and wrap himself in bandages?