Will We Ever See Beard Hunter Again? Where 'Doom Patrol's' Strangest Metahuman for Hire Is Now

HBO Max's Doom Patrol is known for its strangeness, but it manages to reach some pretty wild levels sometimes. Throughout the first season of the DC Comics series, although Mr. Nobody (Alan Tudyk) was the main baddie, we also met the far worse Bureau of Normalcy, the ever-despicable Nazi scientist Heinrich Von Fuchs (Julian Richings), and a metahuman for hire who could track down someone by consuming their facial hair. Gross? Yes. Helpful? Kind of. Strange? You bet.

Beard Hunter proved to be more of a threat than Rita Farr (April Bowlby) and Vic Stone (Joivan Wade) initially thought, and he managed to cause a bit of chaos before he disappeared from the show. So, what happened to Beard Hunter? Here's a recap about who he is and where he is now.

Beard Hunter, whose real name is Ernest Franklin, is based on a DC Comics character of the same name. But the comic book character is a little different from Doom Patrol's Beard Hunter. In the comics, Beard Hunter doesn't have powers. In his jealousy of not being able to grow a beard, he is a vigilante who finds and shaves criminals. In the HBO Max series, Ernest is a metahuman with the ability to track and psychologically link to someone by consuming even a single strand of facial hair.

In the series, Beard Hunter is played by Tommy Snider, who also appeared in Shrill, Baskets, and Bad Samaritans. But kids might know him best as Santa from Nickelodeon's holiday competition show Top Elf.

After Beard Hunter's run-in with Rita and Vic, he managed to use Niles's (Timothy Dalton) beard hair to go where he thought he'd find the Chief. Instead, he was led to the doll factory on Danny the Street, and we thought that Dorothy's (Abigail Shapiro) pal Manny might have gotten him. But we saw Ernest again later in Season 1, where he was living a beard-free life on Danny the Street.

That didn't last too long, though. After Mr. Nobody told him that he'd give him famous beards in exchange for information, Beard Hunter broke and told him everything that he knew about Niles from consuming his beard hair. That resulted in Danny the Street being trapped in a painting by Mr. Nobody, who also managed to trap himself and the Beard Hunter. But while the Doom Patrol was able to get Danny out (though he turned into Danny the Brick on the journey), Beard Hunter and Mr. Nobody remained on the canvas.

In the Season 2 episode "Dumb Patrol," we were taken back in the canvas, but Mr. Nobody and Beard Hunter were nowhere to be seen. At least, they weren't at first glance.

Beard Hunter had painted himself white to hide from the bad-idea-siphoning Scants, who were infesting the painting. Mr. Nobody, according to Beard Hunter, had gotten himself a new gig and left the painting, a nod toward Alan Tudyk's new job as a villainous voice actor for the Harley Quinn animated series.

As of now, it seems that Ernest remains in the painting. But will he return to the real world in Season 3? We'll have to watch and see. Season 3 premieres on HBO Max on Sept. 23.