Ah, Weasel. How could we have known?
It is the Weasel’s time to shine in the latest episode of Creature Commandos, following the last episode’s tragic backstory of G.I. Robot, who is still MIA this week. The show continues to build on a strong foundation and format, but with a format comes predictability, which unfortunately affects my overall impression of “Chasing Squirrels.”
Creature Commandos – S1E4 – “Chasing Squirrels”
While this week’s adventure with the Creature Commandos doesn’t live up to the heights of G.I. Robot’s putting last time, it is still a strong episode that introduces a particularly tragic background for the team’s wildcard, Weasel.
We also get an update on Eric Frankenstein while Rick Flag, Sr. questions his orders with a revelation that Circe may be telling the truth about the potential danger lurking in Pokolistan.
The Good – The Weasel Backstory and Plot Progression
First, let’s look at the development in the season’s big overarching story regarding Cerse, Pokolistan, and Princess Ilana. Amanda Waller takes on the typically Walleresque decision to explore Circe’s claims and receives a vision of a potential future showing worldwide devastation and leagues of dead superheroes, supposedly all at the hand of Pokolistan courtesy of Princess Ilana and Gorilla Grodd. We are also introduced to Isla MacPherson (Stephanie Beatriz) who proceeds to add some weight and context to what is going on regarding Circe and her relationship with Themiscyra.
As a result, Waller switches gears and sends Flag to Pokolistan to eliminate the Princess. Flag does not take that well, and the mission is instead passed on to The Bride. It’s a good twist midway through the season that reframes character relationships and what we know.
Speaking of relationships, though, Eric Frankenstein returns in the episode, convinced Flag and The Bride are a thing. Eric’s petty childishness is violent and comedic. Hilariously, we also learn that he is a huge fan of romance movies after he and Flag start actually talking following Frankenstein ambushing him.
The big hook of this episode ends up being John Doe – The Weasel – meeting with his public defender, Elizabeth Bates (Linda Cardellini), who is trying to piece together the real incident that resulted in Weasel being thrown into Belle Reve. We find that Weasel had bonded with some children and was targeted by a passerby who believed he was out to harm the children, one thing leads to another, a boiler explodes, and children die. Weasel is the scapegoat. It’s a sad story for sure and fits in well with what Gunn has been doing with the monsters of Task Force M as a whole.
The Bad – The Predictability of the Weasel Backstory
Making Weasel sympathetic makes sense and the episode does a wonderful job of establishing tragedy that allows us to connect to the monster. it also follows the formula the season has run with so far. The issue lies in that the formula should be the base and something more should be done with it, and in this situation, I feel Weasel’s spotlight falls a bit flat. Given the show so far, it becomes immediately clear that Weasel is a victim of circumstance. The minute the sketchy-looking man shows up, you create a few possible outcomes to arrange the tragedy of Weasel.
But I also expected something a little more. Given the theme of monstrosity here, I expected something a little more tragic along the lines of Weasel accidentally killing a kid in an attempt to save them. Almost a variation of Frankenstein’s Monster accidentally killing a child he was playing with. Weasel being heroic is fine, but it also feels a little flat to me. I ended up thinking to myself “That’s it?”
I generally try not to hold predictability against a story as I tend to see the underlying structure and see where a story is going. However, setting “Chasing Squirrels” against the preceding “Cheers to the Tin Man” I can’t help but feel the lack of surprise in Weasel’s backstory hurts the reveal a bit. There is a dark tragedy in Weasel being incapable of advocating for himself, and the addition of his public defender is a nice idea, but it still feels a bit unsatisfying. I hope that we’ll get some further exploration of this angle of the story at some point.
The Monstrous – Weasel
The Weasel is one of the members of Task Force M I am least familiar with in the comics, so I don’t have as much to say here as I have for previous monsters. The DCU’s Weasel looks largely divorced from the John Monroe version that tangled with Firestorm back in the 80s created by Gerry Conway and Rafael Kayanan. Otherwise, we’d have ended up with a fairly standard villain. The alien, animalistic version of the character presented in this series is much more interesting.
With that said, while I was a bit critical of how the backstory was handled and the lack of twist, I do think the inherent tragedy is a good note. I also find the idea of this monster lacking the ability to advocate for himself particularly devastating and I would be curious to see how this thread develops across the show.
Is there redemption for Weasel? We shall see.
Continuity Notes
Here are some notes from this week’s episode:
- Steve Agee is back as John Economos, returning from Suicide Squad and Peacemaker. I appreciate Gunn is fleshing out the projects with smaller characters such as Enonomos, who can easily drift in and out of stories because of his A.R.G.U.S. affiliation.
- Explaining that Circe’s powers require the use of her hands was a nice touch, as was the note about clairvoyance as well.
- Jahanapur was mentioned, which should be an element of Superman, next year. Is Creature Commandos setting up plot points for Superman?
- A lot of bodies piled up in Circe’s shared vision with Amanda Waller. I managed to spy Superman, Booster Gold, Batman, Wonder Woman, Peacemaker, and Hawkgirl. There were others, but I am less confident in that. We’ve seen Starfire in an earlier version from a prior episode.
- GORILLA GRODD (in Grodd We Trust)
- Already quite pleased to see how much Themiscyra is being built up in this new canon.
- This week’s needle drops include “Hjerteknuser” by Kaizers Orchestra and two Gogol Bordello tracks “I Would Never Wanna Be Young Again” and “Not A Crime.”
Mission Rating
Creature Commandos sticks the landing, but a lack of surprise drags down the episode a bit. Tragedy for tragedy’s sake, as systematically applied as it is, loses some of its appeal. Perhaps something may come of Weasel’s backstory as his public defender works to piece together the mystery, but until then, predictability hurts the overall episode in my review.
This episode is four out of five ghost emojis.
👻👻👻👻
Creature Commandos is currently streaming on MAX.
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