Doom Patrol Showrunner Breaks Down How Season 2 Differs From Season 1

The weirdest superhero team on TV is finally returning to the spotlight for their sophomore season. Doom Patrol wowed both critics and audiences with its first season on DC Universe last year, embracing the absurdity of the comic books in order to provide an experience unlike every other superhero series out there. Season 2 is just around the corner and fans of the series are eagerly anticipating the show's return. Folks can't wait to find out what kind of insane and off-the-wall antics the group will be faced with this time around. How is the show going to keep up its zany nature AND progress the story for another season?

That's exactly the question we asked showrunner Jeremy Carver ahead of Doom Patrol's second season this week. While the tone of the show will remain the same, the characters are constantly evolving, which means that they'll be facing much different challenges this time around. At the core of those character-driven changes is the betrayal of Niles Caulder, who ultimately revealed in Season 1 that he was responsible for all of their tragedies.

"For us, it's first and foremost about character," Carver explained. "We had a very important sort of shift happen at the end of Season 1, which was the revelation that Niles had caused all of their accidents. So that immediately shifts the dynamic in ways that are, from a story perspective, very rich for a new season. And when we decided to introduce Dorothy to the Season 2 story, we now had a sort of surrogate adult/daughter relationship going on between all the Doom Patrol members and this 11-year-old living in their house. And that was trigger for us to explore a season in which everyone has to deal with all their own issues when it came to either being a kid and being on the blunt end of some family trauma or having been an adult and dealt out some of that trauma themselves. And we start to explore that in the first couple of episodes, when Larry starts to reconnect with one of his sons. You'll see that across the board with our characters, which is sort of leading to this dramatic arc for the season. One way or another child or adult, we all have to grow up."

When it comes to growing up and dealing with your past, Rita is the only one who seemed to do that in Season 1. She's a much different person heading into Season 2 than she was when the show began, putting her in a unique situation compared to the rest of the group.

"Because Rita went through so much sort of personal growth last season, she's one of the few Doom Patrollers starts off this season, despite what Chief did, in a pretty good place," he continued. "And she's coming from a perspective of, 'Maybe I have moved past all my shit, and maybe it's time to embrace this curse and these powers that I have.' Which is why we see her dipping a toe into the idea of really taking on the mantra of being a hero, but we'll soon see that even she can't avoid or outrun some of the lurking traumas from her past, which will overtake and consume her in many of the same ways the others are experiencing this season as well."

Ghosts of the pasts and fears of the future were a staple of Doom Patrol's first season, and as much as the faces of these monsters may look different in Season 2, they will still be an ever-present force in the lives of the main characters.

The first three episodes of Doom Patrol Season 2 will be released on Thursday, June 25th, on both DC Universe and HBO Max.