Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Doom Patrol season 3, episode 1.

Each season of Doom Patrol has shown an increased exploration of Jane’s role as primary and how her Underground system of alter personalities work. Doom Patrol season 3 quickly sees Jane’s alters working together in greater cohesion. This leads to Kay Challis (Skye Roberts), the original identity, taking a more active role.

The representation of Jane in Doom Patrol is an adaptation of a character of the same name created by Grant Morrison. She first appeared in “Doom Patrol” Vol. 2 #19 in February 1989 when Robotman meets her during a stay in a psychiatric ward and promises to help her. Jane is introduced in the first episode of Doom Patrol, played by Diane Guerrero, and remains one of the central characters. In both iterations, the character is seen presenting herself differently, using a range of names, and demonstrating assorted powers.

Related: Doom Patrol Season 3 Cast Guide: Every New & Returning Character

Jane’s backstory and powers are easily the most complicated of any member of the Doom Patrol. Her mental state has needed to be handled delicately by both writers and actors, and clever storytelling techniques have been used to make the character’s situation less opaque. While the representation of Jane as primary and her use of the Underground alludes to the real-world implications for the character, it is never fully explained. Here is how Jane’s powers work in Doom Patrol and how her mental health is represented accurately.

Jane Lives With Dissociative Identity Disorder

Crazy Jane dances away at a night club in Doom Patrol

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a personality disorder in which an individual presents at least two separate personalities. While the disorder was renamed in 1994, some still incorrectly refer to it as multiple personality disorder or split personality. Most commonly, there is one identity that is regularly in control, called the primary, while other identities are referred to as alters. Each alter will often exhibit different personality traits, behaviors, and have their own memories, with other alters not always knowing what has taken place when another identity is in control. DID is not fully understood, with controversy in the psychology community regarding its expression, causes, or even its existence. The exact way that DID behaves in different people can be wildly different, and there is no one-size-fits-all understanding of it.

In and in her comic origins, Jane lives with dissociative identity disorder (DID) and Dr. Niles Caulder has documented the existence of at least 64 alters. When writing the character, Grant Morrison was reading When Rabbit Howls, the autobiography of Trudi Chase, and based the character of Jane on her. Chase herself lived with dissociative identity disorder and was documented to have experienced 92 distinct personalities. Understandings and terminology surrounding the disorder have changed significantly since the series was first written, and while the comics call the character “Crazy Jane” and she is credited as such in some promotional materials for the show, Doom Patrol has avoided using the pejorative term since its first episode.

Jane is not unique when it comes to comic adaptations depicting DID. Marvel’s non-MCU show Moon Knight Disney+ adaptation will tell the story of Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac) whose comic origin also is based on an expression of DID.

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How Doom Patrol Shows Jane’s Dissociative Identity Disorder

Crazy Jane summons all her personalities in Doom Patrol

In Doom Patrol, Jane is the primary alter for a character called Kay Challis. The show uses a construct within Jane’s psyche to help illustrate how Jane’s DID manifests, called the Underground. Within the Underground, each alter has their own station that serves as their home, with an alter called Driver 8 operating a train to allow different alters to take control at different points. As well as serving as an illustration for the viewer, the Underground is Jane’s way of explaining her own mental state and she is seen to have drawn a map of the system for Niles Caulder (Timothy Dalton). Within the Underground, the different alters are able to interact, which serves to demonstrate Jane’s progressing mental situation. This provides a route for season 2 to portray Jane entering a period of turmoil and, at the beginning of Doom Patrol season 3, reaching a point of greater inner peace where her alters are able to work together.

Each of Jane’s alters are designed to have an individual job, all rallying around a single cause: protecting the girl, Kay Challis. After being experimented on through a scheme put in place by Niles, Jane gains superpowers. Rather than Jane receiving a singular power or a cadre of abilities, each of her Doom Patrol alters appears to manifest their own unique ability that can only be operated when they are in control of the body. It is unclear what, if any, power Jane herself has, but as primary she serves as the body’s leader and calls upon the other alters in times of need.

Jane’s Dissociative Identity Disorder Is Rooted In Her Central Trauma

While the exact causes of dissociative identity disorder are heavily disputed, it is commonly associated with childhood trauma with cases often including sexual abuse. This remains the origin story for Jane in both the comics and in Doom Patrol, with different numbers of alters being created as responses to different traumatic events. In both versions of Doom Patrol’s Jane, the original inciting incident is Kay’s father abusing her when she was working on a jigsaw puzzle.

Kay’s trauma becomes manifested through its own alter, an introject of Kay’s father that is made out of puzzle pieces and reiterates phrases from that traumatic event. In Doom Patrol season 2, this alter takes on the form of a previous primary, Miranda, and represents Jane’s trauma beginning to overwhelm her. This ultimately leads to that trauma figure trying to kill Jane’s body at the start of Doom Patrol season 3. The plan is thwarted by the other alters working together to destroy the trauma as they begin to work through it, but they also recognize that the trauma has merely been quelled and is not gone forever.

Next: Doom Patrol Season 3: Michelle Gomez's Madame Rouge Explained

Doom Patrol releases new episodes Thursdays on HBO Max.

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