'Doom Patrol' Season 2: Is the show setting up for an intersex superhero by having Larry Trainor become Rebis?
Larry Trainor / Negative Man (Matt Bomer) has had a pretty tough time in 'Doom Patrol' Season 2. Struggling to reconcile with his family and frustrated over his inability to understand what the Negative Spirit wants, Larry is a total mess right now but it may all be setting up his ascension to something greater.
In the comics, Larry has struggled to understand the Negative Spirit as well but he would eventually realize that the spirit is actually intelligent and capable of speech. While the Negative Spirit isn't strictly evil, it's not exactly bound by human morality and feels very little regret when it comes to sacrificing Larry for its own purposes. That purpose is the creation of Rebis, a composite intersex being formed from the fusion of Larry, the Negative Spirit and Larry's physician Dr. Eleanor Poole. While Eleanor isn't a part of the DC Universe show, there's still a chance that Larry may become Rebis in the near future.
One possibility is that the Negative Spirit might combine Larry with Valentina Vostok / Negative Woman (Mariana Klaveno). Since Valentina is a lot more in tune with her Negative Spirit this might actually make them more powerful than the combo from the comics. Another possibility is that the spirit might absorb the consciousness of Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero). With Miranda (Samantha Marie Ware) taking over as primary, Jane no longer has a role to fulfil and while we're not sure if the combination process works with psychic constructs like Jane, weirder things have happened on the show.
The third and most likely possibility is that the show might forego the need for a third individual altogether and use the Candlemaker (Lex Lang) to initiate a different part of Rebis's story. In the comics, Rebis undergoes a process called Aenigma Regis through which they mate with themself and produce a new, harmonized collective. The way this happens in the comics is that the Candlemaker destroys Rebis's old body and inadvertently helps them achieve their maturation. The show could quite possibly use something similar by having the Candlemaker destroy Larry's body and have him and the Negative Spirit achieve a more harmonized union, ascending to become a version of Rebis.
Whatever path the show chooses to take, it would be interesting to have the character of Rebis join the show and to see Larry rise to his full potential. Whether that happens or not, we'll just have to wait and see.
'Doom Patrol' streams Thursdays on DC Universe and HBO Max.