It's no spoiler to say that many members of Task Force X don't make it to the end of The Suicide Squad (the movie's tagline is "don't get too attached"), but the antihero team-up movie has plenty of other surprises up its sleeve.
Directed by James Gunn, The Suicide Squad loosely follows on from 2016's Suicide Squad and sees the return of Task Force X overseer Amanda Waller, unlucky recruits Harley Quinn and Captain Boomerang, and Colonel Rick Flag as the team's designated babysitter. Its ranks refilled with a fresh batch of supervillains who have been scooped out of Belle Reve prison, the Suicide Squad is sent on a mission to the small island nation of Corto Maltese to destroy all traces of a mysterious and dangerous scientific experiment known only as Project Starfish.
From shocking (and somewhat less shocking) betrayals to major character deaths, surprise survivors, and dirty little secrets, here are the nine biggest spoilers for The Suicide Squad.
"Team 1" Is Immediately Destroyed
Though the team in 2016's Suicide Squad was considered expendable, The Suicide Squad takes Task Force X's nickname one step further by assembling a team whose entire purpose is essentially to die in noisy and distracting ways. "Team 1" includes Harley Quinn and Rick Flag, as well as flamboyant but not particularly useful fighters like Javelin and The Detachable Kid. Weasel drowns immediately after being dropped into the water. Blackguard, who sold the team out to Corto Maltese's government, is the next to die when his new friends shoot him in the face. He's quickly followed by Mongal, Captain Boomerang, TDK, and Javelin. Horrified by the carnage, Savant starts swimming away without even trying to fight and has the explosive in his head messily detonated by Waller. By the end of this opening battle, Rick Flag and Harley Quinn are seemingly the only survivors from Team 1.
As they approached the island by helicopter, Amanda Waller gave Flag strict instructions to make sure that every member of the team made it to the beach alive... but she didn't say anything about getting them off the beach alive. This is because Team 1's true goal is simply to keep the Corto Maltesian army occupied while the real infiltration team - made up of formidable and uniquely skilled fighters like King Shark, Bloodsport, and Ratcatcher 2 - make their way onto the island completely unimpeded. Coupled with the back-room betting of Amanda Waller's team on which members of Task Force X are most likely to die, The Suicide Squad's opening prologue acknowledges the fact that some supervillain powers are simply more useful than others. Sorry, Boomer.
Harley Gets Engaged To President Luna - Then Kills Him
Harley Quinn was freshly out of a very toxic relationship in Birds of Prey, but by the end of the movie she had stopped crying about her break-up with "Mister J" and was loving life as an independent single lady criminal. The Suicide Squad demonstrates that while her taste in men hasn't improved, Harley can at least recognize red flags a bit sooner now. Pressured by the people of Corto Maltese to find a suitable wife, President General Silvio Luna gives Harley the Cinderella treatment and takes her on a dazzling first date that ends with a marriage proposal. Though Harley is at first excited about becoming "Harley Luna," she has second thoughts when Silvio starts casually talking about killing the families of anyone who dares to defy him, including their children. Rather than suffer a repeat of her relationship with the Joker, Harley Quinn does the emotionally healthy thing - and murders her new fiancé.
The United States Is Responsible For Project Starfish
Amanda Waller's interest in Corto Maltese's military coup and the status of Project Starfish isn't entirely innocent, and there's a good reason she sent in a black ops team made up of convicted criminals to do her dirty work. When Task Force X catches up with Dr. Gaius Grieves a.k.a. The Thinker, the scientist who has been studying Starro the Conqueror ever since the space starfish was captured thirty years previously, he reveals that his work wasn't sponsored by Nazis or by Corto Maltese's former rulers, the Herrera family. "Project Starfish" was entirely the work of the American government, which was keen to capitalize on Starro's power and mind control abilities, but reluctant to house the monster on U.S. soil. America made a deal with the Herrera family to use the former Nazi fortress of Jotunheim to hold Starro prisoner and give Grieves free reign to carry out his experiments. The Suicide Squad's primary mission isn't to kill Starro, but to destroy any evidence of the U.S. government's involvement with Project Starfish.
Peacemaker Murders Rick Flag
Upon learning about Project Starfish's origins, Colonel Rick Flag feels betrayed and decides that the whole world needs to know the truth. Unfortunately, Amanda Waller told one team member the mission's real purpose, and gave them the task of insuring that the evidence was destroyed. After Rick obtains a hard drive containing all the records of Project Starfish, Peacemaker reveals his special assignment and makes it clear that he'll kill every other member of the team in order to ensure that Waller's dirty little secrets remain buried. A fight breaks out in the collapsing lower levels of Jotunheim that ends with Peacemaker stabbing Rick through the heart with a broken piece of porcelain. Peacemaker is clearly shaken by what he has done; as a fierce patriot he's willing to do a lot of things for liberty, but killing a decorated war hero isn't something he can feel proud of.
Amanda Waller's Team Mutinies
In 2016's Suicide Squad, Amanda Waller slaughtered several of her employees simply for the crime of being witnesses. In The Suicide Squad she has assembled a new control room team who have loose morals and a tendency to treat Task Force X missions like a game - but even they have their limits. When Waller instructs the remaining members of Task Force X to abandon Corto Maltese and allow its people to be massacred and turned into walking drones by Starro, Bloodsport decides to ignore the order and lead the team into a final battle against Starro. Before Waller can detonate the explosives in their heads, she's knocked out by her team, who then take over control of the new mission to save Corto Maltese.
Ratcatcher 2 And Harley Quinn Kill Starro
Though Bloodsport reluctantly steps up into a leadership role in The Suicide Squad's final act, his plan to attack Starro falters when the giant alien starfish squashes Polka Dot Man and shakes off King Shark. Ultimately, Starro the Conqueror is killed by a bit of teamwork from Cleo Cazo a.k.a. Ratcatcher 2 and Harley Quinn. Cleo summons all the rats in the city to swarm over Starro, while Harley takes a flying leap with Javelin's javelin and stabs the kaiju in the dead center of its eye. This creates an opening for Ratcatcher 2's rats to swim inside Starro and kill it by gnawing through its brain. Like many things in The Suicide Squad, it's both gleefully gory and surprisingly beautiful.
The Final Members Of Task Force X
Of the fourteen members of Task Force X that Amanda Waller sends to Corto Maltese, only four make it into the extraction helicopter at the end of The Suicide Squad: Harley Quinn, Bloodsport, King Shark and Ratcatcher 2. The movie certainly delivers on the promise of a high body count, but for those who make it off the island alive their reward goes beyond a few years off their prison sentences. Bloodsport uploads the contents of the Project Starfish hard drive to a secure server and uses the threat of releasing the information to leverage freedom for himself and his fellow survivors. Of course, it's probably only a matter of time before Amanda Waller figures out a way to get them back in her clutches.
Weasel Makes It Out Alive
Before the credits start to roll on The Suicide Squad, an ending tag scene provides an update to the official body count. Weasel, who appeared to have drowned at the very start of the mission, wakes up on the beach to find that he's missed out on the whole thing and is now free by virtue of being officially KIA. The bug-eyed creature runs off into the jungles of Corto Maltese, where he will likely end up wreaking even more havoc on the local population. As if they haven't already been through enough.
Peacemaker Will Return
The Suicide Squad's post-credits scene reveals that another supposedly dead character is actually still alive. Peacemaker, who was shot in the throat by Bloodsport, is brought back from Corto Maltese and shown recovering in a hospital bed. Amanda Waller's most loyal soldier will return to "save the f**king world" in Peacemaker, a spinoff TV series coming to HBO Max in January 2022.
