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The Suicide Squad is based on criminals redeeming themselves, but this also applies to the characters in the background.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Suicide Squad, now in theaters and streaming on HBO Max.
James Gunn’s take on The Suicide Squad is filled with DC Comics supervillains, ready to serve on Task Force X in exchange for reductions in their prison sentences. But they are not the only ones in the film with a shot at redemption, as the support staff of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) also play a small but key role. In a shocking turn, they end up being responsible for a shocking turn during The Suicide Squad‘s finale and also play into the larger theme of how even “disposable” characters can be heroic.
Waller’s staff is a far cry from the first Suicide Squad (2016), where the support team was non-characters who briefly appear to relay exposition to her. There’s even a sequence after it’s revealed Task Force X’s main mission was actually to retrieve Waller herself, that she executes her own staff, telling Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), “they weren’t cleared for any of this.” Whether this means the Enchantress or the Suicide Squad itself is unclear, and it mostly looks like Waller has poor management skills. But while the moment was meant to highlight how ruthlessly cold-blooded Amanda Waller is, instead, it plays as contrived and confusing, with Suicide Squad oddly respecting how callously Waller disposes of lives.
Now, Gunn’s The Suicide Squad also gleefully revels in the gore-soaked deaths of its characters, opening the film on a misdirect of an entire team of villains being massacred, their extreme deaths being played for laughs. And this version of Amanda Waller’s support staff participates in the casual disregard for human life, placing bets on which team members will bite the dust, being most frustrated at losing money than losing lives.
However, this means Waller’s support staff have actual personalities and interoffice banter, with Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and John Economos (Steve Agee) being particular standouts. Moreover, their own desensitized reactions to the Squad’s deaths sets up a satisfying moral arc in The Suicide Squad, which is visible early on when John bristles at Waller making threats against Bloodsport’s (Idris Elba) young daughter (Storm Reid).
This hesitancy manifests within The Suicide Squad‘s finale when Waller is ready to terminate the team — via their implanted explosive devices — for disobeying her order to let Starro the Destroyer conquer the island of Corto Maltese. But just as Waller is about to execute them, she is incapacitated by her aide Flo Crawley (Tinashe Kajese).
Waller has long been built up as an unstoppable government agent, largely helped by Viola Davis’ intimidating performance, making this mutiny come as a shocking surprise. Yet, it still feels authentic, as The Suicide Squad features many characters realizing their own potential to protect innocent lives, especially with children involved. At one point, a flashback has Ratcatcher 1 (Taika Waititi) tell his daughter how rats are amongst the lowliest and most disregarded creatures in the world. But that just means, if there’s a chance for them, there’s one for everybody. And The Suicide Squad shows that no matter how disposable you are — be it a weirdo Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), a grizzled hitman like Bloodsport or even background support staff — anyone can make a change and be a hero.
To see how Amanda Waller’s team stands up for themselves, James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad is in theaters now and streaming on HBO Max.
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