For the last five episodes, James Gunn has been opening up the pasts of a bunch of lesser known DC monsters to reveal the events that made them the menaces to society they eventually became. Weasel was a tragic victim of circumstance, the late, lamented G.I. Robot was a slave to his one-note programming and the Bride was waylaid by the actions of a maladjusted suitor; but in this episode, we get something of different approach as the show finally turns its eye over to Frankenstein’s Monster (or Eric, as he’s come to be known).
But while the other episodes have revealed that each subject has had some egregious act perpetrated upon them, Eric proves to something of a different story. You see, how Eric sees the world isn’t exactly how we see the world and his interpretation of right and wrong leaves a lot to be desired.
The race is on to discover the truth behind whether Princess Rostovic of Pokolistan truly is destined to spread a wave of war and destruction across the Earth or is she being set up by powers unknown. While Task Force M, now led by the Bride, streaks back towards Pokolistan with orders to kill the princess, Rick Flag Sr. has forged an extremely uneasy task with Eric and are trying to prove Rostovic’s innocence by looking into the only lead they possibly have – McPherson, the expert on Themyscira brought in to evaluate the terrorist, Circe.
While Flag is understandably locked into his mission, Eric, the self obsessed psychopath that he is, somehow seems to think everything is about him and causes many issues with a subtle, intel gathering, they soon discover that the real McPherson has actually been killed and a shape-shifting villain known as Clayface has taken her place. In the ensuing fight, Flag is seriously injured, but the warning he manages to get out to the Pokolistan military kind of screws up Task Force M who sudden finds themselves under a lot of enemy fire. In the conflagration, the team splits and no one seems any closer to discovering the truth.
Of course, someone who couldn’t give a flying fuck about any of this is Eric and as we bounce back to the time immediately after he and the Bride had their first falling out and he was set ablaze. Unconscious, slightly crispy and floating down a river, he’s found by the blind, elderly Bogdana who takes him in and heals his wounds and over time, the two bond as the brooding monster and the lonely old woman become fast friends.
However, no matter how much kindness Bogdana shows and how long Eric is allowed to stay in a loving environment, the fact remains that he is an extremely selfish and self obsessed creature and when he insists that he needs to leave to search for the “love” of his life, his plan to ensure that Bogdana doesn’t get lonely proves to be horribly misguided.
With its fifth installment, there’s a feeling that Creature Commandos has gone a little off the boil for various reasons. For a start, the episode is extremely preoccupied with Flag trying to prove Rostovic’s innocence from afar, but despite some compelling (and shapeshifting) evidence that supports his theory, it’s not really pursued to any real extent other than providing the backdrop between a twisted buddy movie relationship betwixt Flag and Eric and including a cameo of a Batman villain to smooth out those plot issues. Is the awkward banter between Frank Grillo and David Harbour fun? Sure it is. And is the unexpected inclusion of Clayface a nice surprise? Of course. But there seems that some of that sparky energy from the previous episodes seems to be lacking and it spreads to the Task Force M plotline too as their return to Pokolistan kind of drifts along on a wave of violence, gunfire and some admittedly cool kills. The sight of Doctor Phosphorus giving an advancing tank dual middle fingers and then melting right through it to burn those double bird flips directly through the crew’s faces is a title chef’s kiss moment that’s gorgeous to experience. However, much like the Eric/Flag thread, it doesn’t really go anywhere yet which kind of leaves the episode spinning it’s wheels somewhat.
The problem seems to be Harbour’s monstrously entitled Eric who gets to be the lucky one to get a flashback this time despite not actually being an official Commando. It’s not that actor does a bad job – boisterous, unhinged, brawlers seem to be a speciality – but while the other episodes feature empathy generating flashbacks to balance out the deranged ultra violence occurring in the present, there’s simply no warm feelings to be found for the petty, deluded and incredibly toxic Frankenstein’s Monster who repeatedly refuses to accept reality and instead forges his own, destructive path without any thought for anyone who it may hurt. Take when Flag is trying to ring ahead to warn Rostovic that Task Force M is coming; Eric constantly talks over him to demand that the princess put in a good word for him with the Bride despite it not containing a single grain of logic.
To describe Eric as dangerously toxic would be a stunner of an understatement and it’s underscored by his flashbacks which have him cared for for a sweet old blind woman who only wants company in her declining years. Yet when Eric leaves he must leave to continent his pursuit of the Bride (who blatently and emphatically does not want him), to avoid leaving the old woman in a state of distraught loneliness, he instead figures that the kindest thing he can do is bludgeon her to death with the iron pot of the title. The tragedy here is that in his self obsessed mind, this is the kindest thing Eric could have possibly done, but the fact that just simply staying for a few more years until the woman passed naturally never actually occured to his immortal ass means that all the tragedy befalls everyone else.
It’s his egotistical bullshit that leads to Flag getting “Bane-d” by Clayface (a quick smash to the spine with an upturned knee) and leaves him in a possible critical condition, but even then, the willfully clueless Eric still makes it about him and his pathetic quest for the Bride which has marked him out as a hulking creep since day one.
However, while essentially creating the Incredible Hulk meets Baby Reindeer gives James Gunn’s script plenty of opportunities for Harbour to display more unnerving mood swings than an entire asylum for the criminally insane, it also throws off the magic the show has thus far rung out of eeking unlikely feelings for its cast of misanthropes as he’s just too much of toxic fuck to evoke the same feelings.
With the slight miscalculation of putting a thoroughly unlikable and unforgiveable asshat front and centre, Creature Commandos stumbles a bit when achieving that enjoyable balance it’s nailed so far, however hopefully normal business will soon be resumed when the next episode picks a slightly more forgivable lunatic.
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