‘Creature Commandos’ Episode Three Recap: “Cheers to the Tin Man”

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for episode three of Creature Commandos.

After a rough start, Creature Commandos has seemingly found its footing with its third episode, “Cheers to the Tin Man.” Is it a fluke? I guess we’ll find out next week, but as it stands, the Matt Peters-directed episode focusing on the origins of G.I. Robot (Sean Gunn) gave me hope that perhaps this show will be entertaining after all. I’m still unconvinced that the cross-cutting between the past and present-day storylines will enhance character development, but there was definitely something effectively fun here.

Of course, it helps that the G.I. Robot story itself is a rather sad one, and it doesn’t take long for us to feel for this emotionless robot whose sole purpose is to kill Nazis. We see him do exactly that during the episode’s opening moments, set in World War II, where he exacts quite the executions as he battles with the Easy Company. The action makes far more advantage of its 2D-animated style than the first two episodes, and finally delivers on the premise of a hard TV-MA affair. It’s insanely bloody, with one soldier even attempting to piece his body back together by putting his guts back where they’re supposed to be.

Again, we were primed that the show would be rated as such, but the first two episodes had relatively unimpressive violence. It seems as if writer James Gunn was unconfident on how exactly his show would be positioned within the DCU. However, he’s on a whole different ballpark here, and the violence is often playfully nasty, even during a scene where Weasel (Sean Gunn) rips off Circe’s (Anya Chalotra) face, which then gets burned by Doctor Phosphorous (Alan Tudyk) during her siege of Princess Ilana Rostovic’s (Maria Bakalova) castle.

Gunn doesn’t hold anything back, and even gives G.I. Robot his own Inglourious Basterds moment after he develops a friendship with antique collector Sam Fitzgibbon (Michael Rooker) in the 1990s. Once the war is over, the robot is decommissioned and sent to study, which eventually leads to Sam’s hands. The two quickly bond over watching The Dirty Dozen on television, until Sam takes G.I. to a meeting. At that meeting, he not only finds out that Sam is a neo-Nazi, but so is everyone else in the room. G.I. had an emotional connection, and a tangible friendship, with a Nazi. For the first time in his “existence,” he is experiencing profound anger (or, more aptly, betrayal, after developing something true with Sam), and doesn’t hesitate one to kill every single person in the room.

It’s at that moment that Gunn cuts back to the present day, where the princess’ castle is being raided by Circe and the Sons of Themyscira. The Creature Commandos were lured into following The Bride (India Varma) while Circe’s plan is to kill the princess. However, once they return, they are overpowered by Circe and the Sons’ forces…until Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) tells G.I. Robot that Circe’s sons are Nazis. With how they were positioned in the first episode, they very much are. G.I. Robot immediately has a twinkle in his eye and begins to do what he is programmed to do.

Then, we parallel cut from the past and present, seeing how G.I. Robot could never escape his programming, no matter if he began to experience feelings towards someone, such as the friendship he thought he had with Sam, or in the present, with Nina Mazursky (Zoë Chao). As cathartic as the violence is, one can’t help but feel a profound sadness to G.I. Robot, whose existence feels meaningless if he isn’t completing his eternal objective, to which he does. It’s there that his body gets dismembered by Circe before Weasel saves the day…or did he?

As Circe is about to get destroyed, she tells the Creature Commandos that they have doomed the world by stopping her kill Rostovic. Their objective, of course, is to protect the princess. But what is she (and Pokolistan) hiding? Sadly, this is not something we’ll find out this week, as the episode cuts to credits before we got a tangible answer. But I’m pleased to see that Creature Commandos is actively attempting to subvert expectations right out of the gate, instead of staying in the stale, Guardians of the Galaxy/The Suicide Squad-lite stories that felt fresh at the time of their release, but aren’t anymore.

For James Gunn, this is a challenge in and of itself to make audiences care about DC titles again, and make them want to watch everything made in the DC Universe as it experiences a ‘reset.’ I’m honestly more excited to see what will happen next week after this episode’s thrilling cliffhanger ending, but am I entirely sold on the show’s proposition? I guess I’ll find out next week, as Creature Commandos will already reach its halfway mark.

The third episode of Creature Commandos is now available to stream on Max.