James Gunn, I’m begging you, please stop breaking my heart. Please stop making me fall in love with weird little guys who have the most traumatic backstories possible before showing me that things are even more tragic than I thought. Please stop enlisting actors like your very own brother Sean to decimate my emotional peace.
I’m literally begging you.
Please stop crafting emotionally resonant, deeply affecting portrayals of strange characters who wiggle their way into our consciousness before laying bare some greater truth of the human condition. Please stop making superhero fiction that transcends its form with its focus on character development.
I’m actually, sincerely, very seriously begging you.
Because if there are two things James Gunn has proven he’s great at in superhero storytelling, it’s bringing together a group of misfit anti-heroes who gradually reveal their hearts of gold as they become an unlikely family, and torturing my emotions.
See, I just watched episode 4 of Creature Commandos, ‘Chasing Squirrels,’ which digs into the backstory of the notoriously animalistic Weasel, showing the real truth behind the child murders of which he’s accused. And goodness gracious, I don’t think I’ve cried this much over an irascible anthropomorphic animal since Rocket’s brutally sad backstory in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Here’s your customary spoiler warning as I explain exactly why this episode is so heart-wrenching.
In ‘Chasing Squirrels,’ we flashback to Weasel’s pre-Task Force X days, when he was living in the wilderness. We catch up to him spying on a group of children playing on their school’s playground, when the kids catch sight of Weasel. Though it first seems like he might be a threat to them, given his reputation as a child murderer, instead he starts playing with them, quickly bonding with the children.
Things go awry when they realize their school is actually unlocked and they begin playing inside. The kids wind up the basement with Weasel, where a groundskeeper spots them all frolicking inside the school. Mistaking Weasel as being a danger to the kids, he follows them in with his gun, leading to a series of events in which the school’s boiler explodes, burning most of the kids alive as Weasel desperately tries to save them.
It gets even sadder, and of course, Weasel, who has done no actual wrong and who is incapable of defending himself, is captured by the police and blamed for the tragedy, leading to his enlistment into Task Force X in The Suicide Squad, and his return in Creature Commandos.
I’m admittedly a little bit sensitive when it comes to kids and animals in danger, but jeez louise… poor Weasel and his little pals. First my special guy GI Robot gets blasted into smithereens, now this?
It’s the most gut-wrenching story yet in a series that is shaping up to be all about how tragedy and trauma shape our perceptions, and who among us in society is dubbed a “monster” and why. In other words, it’s exactly the kind of story that Gunn and his co-creators excel in telling.
I’ve been laying it on pretty thick here, but it’s the powerful emotional dichotomy of showing us a little monster guy who makes no sense and then showing us exactly how he reflects our humanity and our fragility that made The Suicide Squad work so well, which made Peacemaker such a terrific follow-up, and which is perhaps most effective yet in Creature Commandos.
So yes, please, James Gunn, stop breaking my heart. Or, you could ignore my fraught emotional state, my abiding pleas, and continue on filling your little superhero shows and movies with a deeper emotional core that gives them a special resonance and a viewing quality beyond all the cool guys flying around. I guess you know best at this point.
Creature Commandos is streaming weekly on Max. For our verdict on the new show, check out our Creature Commandos review. For more, check out our list of all the upcoming DC movies and shows you need to know about, or, check out our guide to the best Max shows to stream right now.