One of the things that makes Suicide Squad such a special property is that it gives DC a way to use popular characters, especially Harley Quinn, to give less popular characters time in the limelight. King Shark has been having a moment for the last few years, and characters like Deadshot and Ratcatcher have gotten more attention as well. It’s a nice break from seeing the same capes over and over–much as we adore them. Spoilers for Suicide Squad Isekai Episode 4 follow.
Suicide Squad Isekai Episode 4
The Squad continues to spin their wheels after going overboard last week and destroying an important fortress for the kingdom currently holding them prisoner. Before long though, they’re out again and hatching a plan to take the Ratcatcher, who eluded them in the previous episode, down again.
This episode moves quickly. I paused it with about 15 minutes left, and then unpaused it and that time passed in what felt like about five minutes. I backed up a full 10 minutes to ensure I didn’t accidentally skip a section of the show.
It wasn’t because of great pacing and swift action, unfortunately. It’s more that it felt rushed. The very nature of the climax didn’t help, but I don’t hold it entirely responsible. While the troops from both armies lined up, Deadshot got into position and destroyed Ratcatcher’s staff with a well-placed shot, breaking his control over the Beastmen army that would’ve easily overwhelmed the humans. Instead, the Beastmen turn on him and surrender to the humans.
The only real setup they do for this is an aside where we see Princess Fione as a child, spending time with a Beastmen child and an elf, showing that these people were not always divided as they are currently. This attempt to flesh out Finoe’s backstory was corny and did little to setup any kind of satisfying conclusion to the faceoff. We don’t actually spend any time with any Beastmen, we just know they’re not evil because Fione was friends with one when she was a child and she’s a good person–so they must be good, too!
The core idea is fun. The Squad intentionally deceives the army they’re fighting for because they realize that the people in charge are too set in their ways to go for anything but a bloody faceoff that would leave both armies in ruins. In doing so, they prove their expertise with an undeniable, bloodless act that proves they’re capable of being heroes when they need to be.
But things continue to move at this weirdly slow pace. These people have bombs in their spines that have ticking clocks in them. Peacemaker continues to keep track of how long they have left, and it’s mere hours at this point. Where is the urgency? For a bunch of characters whose whole thing is self-preservation, they just don’t seem to care too much about preserving their lives.
With weak set-up, an anti-climactic battle, and weird mistreatment of the stakes, the end result is the weakest of the show’s four episodes so far.
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