Summary
Creature Commandos gives us the team-up we didn’t know we needed in Episode 5, with Rick Flag and – especially – Eric Frankenstein providing some of the show’s best comedy.
I’ve already asked for more Eric Frankenstein in Creature Commandos, and Episode 5, “The Iron Pot”, grants that request. And thank goodness! With his presence, James Gunn’s Max animated series fully embraces the kind of deranged humor he’s really good at, giving us the team-up we didn’t know we needed in the form of Frankenstein and Rick Flag Sr.
This isn’t the entirety of the episode – there’s a B-plot as Task Force M return to Pokolistan to assassinate Princess Ilana and are waylaid thanks to a tip-off from Flag – but it’s very much the focus, with Frankenstein and Flag trying to stop the princess’s assassination in the present day while we get brief glimpses of Eric’s past, recuperating in the isolated cabin of a blind gypsy woman named Bogdana.
Both plots escalate into some of the best, most kinetic action of the series thus far, especially the pitched battle between Task Force M and Rostovic’s Amethyst Knights that really gives the Bride and Dr. Phosphorus a chance to flex their powers. There’s a nastiness to the action that speaks to Gunn’s roots in Troma, and director Matt Peters takes obvious delight in displaying it. The novelty of Phosphorus’s powers, in particular, allows for some really creative stuff.
But Episode 5 of Creature Commandos feels more like a comedy double-act, at least to me. The flashback structure, deployed similarly in previous episodes including the two-parter that introduced Eric in the first place, remains a bit perfunctory, but Eric’s very funny demeanor elevates it. Gunn is better when allowing his characters to be entertaining on their own terms instead of using them as a mouthpiece for his own arch political points.
Ostensibly, Eric and Flag are trying to track down Dr. Aisla MacPherson, the academic who they believe fed false information to Amanda Waller about Circe’s visions representing a terrifying future of Pokolistani oppression, with Ilana at its head. They turn out to be correct – the real MacPherson is dead and has been replaced by shapeshifting DC stalwart Clayface (Alan Tudyk reprising his role from Harley Quinn).
Eric is only helping Flag in the hopes of winning back the Bride, and their catty back-and-forth is what leads us to the Bogdana C-plot. There’s little revelatory here, it’s just fun to watch Eric operate in different environments. And his eventual – albeit kindly, if you can ever use that word to describe beating an old woman to death – murder of Bogdana is a reminder that we are, in fact, still dealing with villains here. Always appreciated.
I’m certain that Eric’s romantic quest won’t have the happy ending he’s envisioning, and I can’t wait to see that come to fruition. But where Creature Commandos will take the main plot is, at this point, anyone’s guess. MacPherson’s replacement proves that Task Force M is being manipulated into assassinating Ilana, but they don’t know that. And given Flag’s history with the princess, will they believe him when he tells them?
We’ll see. Until then, though, the show goes from strength to strength here, upping the levels of its action and comedy with a flicker of heart ticking away beneath it all.
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