Despite basically noble intentions, Dr. Niles Caulder is arguably the Doom Patrol's greatest enemy, sacrificing his patients to achieve his own goals.

Warning: The following feature contains SPOILERS for Doom Patrol season 2 episode 6, "Space Patrol."

Dr. Niles Caulder, the man who made the Doom Patrol, may be the biggest villain in the series' second season. While he might not be the intended antagonist of season 2, it has become increasingly apparent that he has few morals, if any, and that he is responsible for most of the team's problems.

The first season of Doom Patrol introduced Niles Caulder as a brilliant scientist who devoted himself towards exploring the strange and unusual and attempting to treat those cases that more orthodox doctors had dismissed as lost causes. Affectionately known as The Chief among his patients, he opened his home up to people like test-pilot Larry Trainor and actress Rita Farr, who had been left unable to live ordinary lives as a result of horrific accidents. However, it was revealed in the penultimate episode of Doom Patrol's first season that Dr. Caulder had caused all of the accidents that empowered his patients, as a part of various experiments intended to discover the secret of immortality.

Related: Doom Patrol Season 2 Cast & DC Comics Character Comparison Guide

Despite this, Caulder's patients still rallied in the Doom Patrol season 1 finale when they found out that everything he had done was done in the name of love and a need to extend his own life so he could care for his seemingly ageless and immortal daughter, Dorothy. While Caulder ultimately sacrificed the magic medallion that was extending his life to save his patients, most of his actions towards his patients since Doom Patrol's season 2 premiere have been negligent at best. One prime example of this has been Caulder's treatment of Cliff Steele, whom he essentially murdered (along with Cliff's wife) so that he could test the feasibility of placing his own brain into a robotic body. Out of all the Doom Patrol's membership, Cliff has been the angriest regarding the truth about Caulder's experiments and the loudest in demanding reparations in some form. Caulder's response to listening to Cliff's complaints was to offer to dope him up with Ecstasy so he wouldn't feel as depressed.

Doom Patrol season 2 episode 6, "Space Patrol," saw Dr. Caulder sink to new depths of depravity, after Dorothy (whose recent actions resulted in the death of several of Crazy Jane's personas) ran away from home in a hijacked spaceship belonging to a group of astronauts Dr. Caulder sponsored over six decades earlier, who had just gotten back to Earth. After sending Larry Trainor to keep the astronauts busy (because Dr. Caulder couldn't be bothered to talk to them), The Chief chased after Dorothy in a second spaceship he'd kept in storage. He also blackmailed Cliff Steele into accompanying him,threatening to abandon all his work on enhancing Cliff's robot body so that he could experience normal human sensations againif Cliff didn't agree to help him.

While Cliff was reluctant to do anything to help Niles Caulder, thoughts of his own estranged daughter (with whom he had been trying to reconcile) made him decide that he couldn't claim any moral high-ground if anything happened to an innocent like Dorothy. In fact, by the time Dorothy was safe and they were on their way back to Earth, Cliff said that he'd be willing to stay with the team and help raise Dorothy if Dr. Caulder died before being able to finish work on his body. It was a sentiment that Dr. Caulder said meant the world to him, just before he sealed the airlock and flushed Cliff into the vacuum of space.

Presumably Dr. Caulder has other plans for himself and his daughter, as he told Cliff that they were not returning home to the rest of the team. What these plans are is anyone's guess, but given Dr. Caulder's increasingly erratic behavior it can't be good. It may well by that Dr. Caulder had finally decided that his psychic immortal daughter had proven too dangerous to be allowed to live. Or it may be that Red Jack, a cosmic being who feeds on the suffering of others, was right when he said that Dr. Caulder was like him and offered to make The Chief into his protege.

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Matt Morrison has been writing about comics since before the word"blogging" was coined. He got his start writing for thelegendary DC Comics digital fanzine Fanzing,before receiving his own column, The Mount. Since then he has gone onto write for over a dozen websites, including 411Mania, ComicsNexus and The Cult of Nobody. He holds both an MS in InformationScience from the University of North Texas and a BFA from theUniversity of Texas at Arlington. Known as a font of comic bookhistory trivia, he has delivered lectures on the history of AmericanComic Books, Japanese Manga and Cosplay at over a dozen conventionsand served as an Expert In-Residence for a course on Graphic Novelsfor Librarians at the University of North Texas. In addition to hiswork for Screen Rant, Matt is currently the Managing Editor ofKabooooom.com, the housecritic of Explore The Multiverse and writes reviews for NoFlying, No Tights a graphic literature and anime review siteaimed at teachers and librarians. He also maintains a personal blog My Geeky Geeky Ways which hosts his extensive episode guide for the television seriesmaking up The Arrowverse as well as hiscomedic Lets Play videos. What little spare time he has isdevoted towards acting, role-playing, movie-riffing and sarcasm. Youcan follow his adventures on Twitter, @GeekyGeekyWays.

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Doom Patrol: Why Niles Caulder Is The REAL Season 2 Villain - Screen Rant