In a true James Gunn fashion, the “Creature Commandos” is shaping up to be one of the most emotionally rich shows ever.
This version of Weasel first appeared in “The Suicide Squad.” I said version because in the comics, John Monroe or Weasel is actually a man wearing a costume. In the 2021 film, Rick Flag, Jr. said Weasel was in Belle Reve Penitentiary because he killed 27 children. In “Creature Commandos,” Rick Flag, Sr. parroted that number of victims before being corrected by Weasel’s attorney Elizabeth Bates that the prisoner was “accused of, and unfairly convicted of killing eight children.”
In the movie, Weasel drowned even before setting foot on the shores of Corto Maltese, but just before the credits scene, he woke up, apparently unharmed.
Now, he’s back in the animated series “Creature Commandos.” The black ops unit Task Force X has been shut down following the events in the live-action television show “Peacemaker,” but Weasel was again recruited in Amanda Waller’s second black ops unit, only this time it is called Task Force M.
If you haven’t seen the latest episode, I must warn you, there are spoilers ahead.
In the flash back scenes in the fourth episode, titled “Chasing Squirrels,” Weasel is first seen hiding in the bushes right before a group of eight kids found and befriended him.
Elizabeth Bates showed Weasel photos of the children, but unable to talk, he only put one of the photos in his mouth and spit it out again. Bates ended up not getting anything from Weasel.
We do, however, get a lot of things in the flashbacks that followed.
The eight children who befriended Weasel were all playing in the school grounds. They fed him chocolate and apple before befriending him. The thankful Weasel then played catch with the kids.
Everything was fine until a man—maybe the school’s safety attendant, we really don’t know—misinterpreted their games as a “damned werewolf” attack. After seeing the kids enter the school through the back—again, mistaking the scene as the kids running away from Weasel—he called the police and grabbed his shotgun.
The kids then started playing with matches and a liquor bottle that they found in the basement. At this point, the police officers, who initially thought the man was “some kind of whack job” were also making their way to the school.
A fire was started, because of course. What’s the use of having kids play with matches and a liquor bottle if the story would not involve a fire, yeah? The kids panicked and the man, instead of helping put out the fire, pointed his shotgun towards Weasel. There was an explosion from the basement and the whole school was on fire and most of the kids immediately perished.
Weasel attempted to save one of the kids, but the police officers who came late into the scene mistook his actions as a threat and then opened fire at him. Weasel was hit a number of times but he continued to run to save the girl.
In the first episode of this series, Waller said Weasel “had what it takes to survive” since he came out alive from Corto Maltese. Apparently, not only had he cheated drowning, but multiple gunshot wounds couldn’t keep him down. If the show does not explain in season 1 why Weasel seems immortal, maybe they will explore this in season 2.
In the end, Weasel couldn’t save the kid. The police officers were so focused on taking him down rather than helping the kid. I guess this is the show’s way of critiquing the misplaced priorities of some of those who were the badges. In a world where officers are meant to serve and protect, it seems they have forgotten their role and they’ve become too quick to shoot and too slow to understand.
In an interview with Collider, Gunn said that at its core, the show is a “tragedy.”
“We can’t keep ourselves too safe from the sadness. We’re gonna go overboard with the violence, we’re gonna go overboard with the sex. Then, we have to really be willing to go there with the sort of tragic nature of it,” he said.
He also said that he doesn’t think that he had more creatively invigorating experience than in the making of “Chasing Squirrels.”
“I have always wanted to tell Weasel’s story,” Gunn said in a separate interview with Josh Horowitz’ Happy Sad Confused. “It’s cool to finally see it come to fruition.”
He also mentioned that, aside from episode 4, his favorite is episode 7, the season finale, which will air on January 10, 2025 (Philippine time). I’m guessing it’s the one that involves a sad, meaningless sacrifice that he mentioned in the Collider interview.
New episodes of “Creature Commandos” drop every Friday (Philippine time) on Max.
