The plot comes together. Also the sad story of Nina.
Last time on Creature Commandos,
we learned the story of Alex Sartorious aka Dr. Phosphorous. Alex made a deal
with Gotham crime boss Rupert Thorne. Thorne agreed to fund Alex’s research in
treating cancer through radiation, in exchange Thorne would get to sell the
info to who he wanted. The group in question being Bialya, a country currently
under a fascist regime. Alex tried to feed them false info, but he got caught.
Alex’s wife and son are murdered, Alex being framed for the crime. They then
try to kill him with his machine, turning him into the radioactive man. He killed
Thorne, stole his territory, lived as a crime boss for a while before being
caught by Batman. Phosphorous briefly considers killing a little girl that
found him hiding in her house, but she reminded him too much of his son for him
to hurt. Weasel hung out with some wolves. Nina and the Bride hid out in a
brothel, ultimately saving one of its girls from a pair of violent meta johns.
The group reconvene and prepare to kill a princess.
We open on a woman giving birth.
The baby seems to be born relatively fine, until the doctor gets a look at her
and is visibly horrified, as is the baby’s father. We’re not shown the baby’s
condition right away, but we’re told she’s got a series of unusual health
issues including that her lungs seemed to have developed outside of her body.
The doctor says they’re not sure how long they can even keep her alive, but
thinks that the baby’s father, Dr. Edward Mazursky, might be able to think of
something. He dubs the baby Nina, much to his wife’s shock. I think it’s the
confidence in his voice that surprised her more than anything.
In the present, Eric has forced a
man to drive him to the Pokolistan capital and listen to him talk very
possessively about the Bride. The dude really needs a hobby. He ends his long
speech by assuring his kidnapped driver, Ivan, that stopping the Bride from
killing Princess Ilana will put an end to the “Screwball comedy” portion of
their love story and shift it to an… adult film. The tender, soft, focused
kind. The kind made for chicks. Ivan just nods as he very much wants to get out
of this alive.
At the palace, the knights are on
high alert for the commandos. So imagine the guards shock when Weasel and the
Bride rush him and she crushes his throat. Eric pulls up, sees her massacring a
guard, and shakes his head as he laughs at her being ‘up to her old tricks.’ In
the guard house, the Bride starts looking through security cameras while
everyone else waits. Nina asks the big question, what if Waller is wrong.
Phosphorous is nonchalant about it, lighting the dead guards cigar and saying
that killing a few people out of several billion hardly matters, and takes
Weasel’s grunt as agreement. Phosphorous tries to help The Bride by looking
through security camera feeds from a few days ago and sees something in the
feed that I can’t make out. Nina remarks that it seems like they aren’t the
only monstrous visitors here. They’re interrupted by Eric pulling himself into
the guard tower and trying to tell the Bride what’s going on. The Bride sees
her centuries old stalker and immediately shoots him three times… unfortunately
warning the guards to their presence. They leap out of the tower to get away,
the Bride landing next to an injured Eric. He tries to give her Flag’s message
again, but she shoots him and tells the stalking POS to go to hell.
We flashback to Nina’s infancy
where her father seems to have rigged up a portable iron lung to keep her
breathing. Edward and Nina are clearly happy but Lily looks troubled, she walks
off sobbing as Lily falls on her back and Edward has to pick her up to right
her. Edward follows her and they have an argument on whether this is right or
not. Lily points out that he’ll forever need to be rebuilding the iron lung to
keep her breathing, and that she’ll be struggling every moment of her life.
Edward tries to convince her that everything is fine, but Lily can’t take this
anymore. She says she love him, but trying to make this work is torturing all
of them. She leaves, saying that she’ll be at her mother’s for a while.
In the present, the Commandos find
an entry point. Phosphorous kills the lone guard and then melts a hole, though
he mutters that this could take a while.
Flashing back again, we see that
Lily wasn’t exactly wrong about how difficult Nina’s life would be, as we’re
shown the 5ish year old struggling to even walk while carrying the heavy
breathing device. Edward promises her that he’s figured out a treatment to help
her so she won’t have to wear it anymore. His machine injects her several
times, Edward sying that the treatment is altering her DNA to help her breath
despite the fluid in her lungs. Edward, like so many unfortunate mad scientists
before him, learns to late that messing with DNA is never as easy as one might
think. The injections that Nina is given within moments cause her to have a
seizure as her DNA is rewritten, transforming her from the bald, flat nosed but
otherwise human child we’ve been seeing up until now into her fishy form. She
struggles to breathe, but Edward isn’t stupid. He grabs his baby, puts her in
the sink and submerges her in water. After her new gills are under, she
breathes fine and asks for her daddy.
In the present, new captain Sergei
tries to keep the princess protected, even while Ilana nonchalantly walks to
the pool for her morning swim. He tries to talk her into not going but she
insists she’s fine with all the guards around her. She walks to the top of a
diving area and we see the Commandos finally cutting through the brick. They
prepare to go after Ilana, but Weasel starts freaking out. Nina grabs him and
forces him to the ground. The Bride asks what’s up and she thinks Weasel is
excited to see Ilana, reminding them all that she did play fetch with Weasel
for hours when they first came. Phosphorous suggests maybe putting Weasel down,
but the other two shoot him down immediately. Nina does her best to calm
Weasel.
Another flashback and we see Edward
trying to get Nina into a prep school. He lists off his daughter’s
accomplishments, speaks four languages, has a lot of interest in the sciences,
and is all around a good girl. He says that he’s homeschooled her this whole
time but thinks that Nina needs to socialize as she’s really only ever known
him. Principle Gale agrees to take him and asks Nina if she has any questions.
Nina asks how to play Lacrosse. She looks like she has a good time playing for
about a minute before the other girls are just massive bitches to her. We see
she’s relentlessly bullied by other students as well. They call her a frog and
demand she ribbit for them… which I don’t get. She’s clearly a fish! She’s
fully aquatic and has gills! Why call her a frog? I know it’s asking a lot to
have bullies think, but this is a prep school.
We cut to Flag’s hospital room, and
he finally wakes up from his coma. He immediately tells Waller that she was
wrong about Ilana. He only is able to get out that MacPherson wasn’t Mac before
he passes out again, and Waller calls John to check things out.
At the palace, the Commandos are
trying to keep Weasel calm while trying to get to Ilana without the guards
noticing. The Bride eyes all the water around them and smirks. Nina asks her
“What?” It took them seven episodes but the fish person is finally going to use
her fish powers it seems.
Back to the flashback, high school
Nina makes eyes at a boy she likes. He seems to smile at her and wave, but then
she opens up her locker to find a frog sitting there and everyone laughs at
her. We see her crying in her room for a minute before Edward comes home. He
finds her window open and Nina missing. In voice over we hear her note telling
her dad that she loves him but she can’t live among people like this. She opens
a manhole and climbs into the sewar. She follows the flow of the water to the
outflow, stripping off her suit as she goes before diving into the, hopefully,
clean river the storm drain flows into. Her father runs out looking for her as
it starts to rain before dropping to his knees and sobbing.
The other commandos tell Nina that
she’s the one that has to kill Ilana, who is now swimming in the water. Nina is
terrified by this as, I think the show has made clear at this point, she’s not
a killer. She’s not a career criminal. She’s an otherwise normal twenty
something year old woman that has gills. Why did they put this poor girl on a
kill squad? Phosphorous and the Bride don’t really have other options so keep
telling her to do it, the Bride giving Nina a knife. They tell her to dive in,
stab, and then fall back before anyone notices. They give her their confidence,
and Nina takes the knife.
We get another flashback to Nina living
off the grid in the Star City water system. She’s hunting fish and seems to be
doing fine when a photographer gets several pictures of her. We learn that it’s
been three years since she ran away and has become something of a local legend
in Star City. Though after the pictures, city officials have called in animal
experts from Metropolis and Bludhaven to potentially capture her. This
obviously panics her father, who finally has confirmation is baby is still
alive. Nina gets caught and dragged from the water. Her father arrives and does
his best to talk to her. An overzealous guard just sees him grabbing at the
fish lady and shoot his. Unfortunately, right as her dad was trying to tell her
she was never a burden to him. She screams as they throw her in a tank. This
feels like a lot of pomp and circumstance for what is obviously a metahuman in
a universe where they’ve existed for 300 years.
We cut to MacPherson’s house as
Waller and John head in. Waller kicks the door in, and they’re shocked to see
the fragments of Clayface scattered around the room. Waller realizes what
happened and calls the team. She gets in contact with Sergei unfortunately as
Nina makes her bid to kill her. Weasel runs to try to save Ilana, warning her
what’s about to happen. She swims to the side as Nina makes her slash and they
wrestle in the water. Phosphorous runs over to Weasel and grabs him, calling
him a stupid animal as he does. An angry Weasel bites his arm, and ends up
hurting Phosphorous but also burning his mouth. Ilana gets the knife from Nina
and stabs her in the gut seven or eight times, an absolutely chilling look in
her eye as she does. The Bride sees the blood welling up and runs to her
friend’s lifeless body. They’re cornered by the guards, but Sergie stops anyone
from shooting. He brings the Bride the phone and Waller tell her they made a
mistake. Ilana rises from the water, soaked in it and Nina’s blood.
After, Phosphorous does his best to
cover his injury. He is furious at Weasel for getting Nina killed and from getting
a bunch of praise from the guards. The Bride asks what he expects after an
assassination attempt, a pat on the back. Phosphorous says that he would like
that, if their hands wouldn’t burn up from touching him. And he asks the Bride
if she knows what it’s like to not be touched for 15 years. She says she does
and storms off. The Bride finds Ilana and follows her into her study. Ilana
says that she understands what happened and that there’s no hard feelings. She
goes so far as to suggest that Circe is the one that wants to destroy the
world. The Bride says that she believes Circe. Ilana tries to play cool… right
up until the Bride says that she saw Ilana meeting with Clayface, in that tape
which had the glare I couldn’t see through. The Bride puts it together for us:
Ilana seduced Flag to get her on her side and tries to convince him to execute
Circe on the spot. When Flag refuses, she sent Sergie to spy on them and
confirm that they’d get someone like MacPherson to corroborate Circe’s claim.
He was the other man that stared at The Bride when they got back. So, Ilana
called up Clayface and convinced him to take out MacPherson and steal her
identity to discredit what she’d told Waller. The Bride tells her that she’s
not going to kill Ilana to stop WW3, or to save the world, but because she
killed Nina. Her only friend. And the only person with an ounce of kindness in
her. Ilana pulls a gun on the Bride, but the Bride is a faster draw and she
blows Ilana’s brains out. She quickly exits, telling Phosphorous and Weasel to
stop fighting and follow her. They escape before anyone notices.
Later, John congradulates the Bride
for a job well done. She isn’t super jazzed because, again, dead friend. John
tells her that Waller has converted a part of the non-human containment wing
for her team. When the Bride asks about that, he opens the door to the cells
and we find Phosphorous and Weasel waiting. Along with a rebuilt GI Robot, King
Shark, Nosferata (one of the monsters bullying Nina earlier, the one that
wasn’t killed) and Khalis an Egyptian themed monster. John asks if she’s in,
and the Bride sarcastically asks what else does she have to do?
In a post credit scene, we see Eric
has survived being shot multiple times. Which, ya know, tracks. He’s being
nursed back to health by the woman that tipped him off that the Bride had
returned to Castle Frankenstein. He seems to think the Bride “overreacted” to
his presence just has him even more convinced that they’re meant to be
together. He then comments that the soup is gross, and the woman says that it’s
bird dropping soup. Ending on a poo joke, classy.
Well… damn. I would not have
guessed killing Nina would hurt like that. The Bride had the right measure of
her, despite the cruelty, abuse, and anger that Nina had suffered literally her
entire life, she was extremely kind, and compassionate, and the Bride’s friend.
Her backstory was sufficiently tragic. The world was against her from literal
minute one, but she had to keep going. I respect her dad for never giving up on
her, even if that desire to get her back is what got him killed. Though, again,
the reaction to the fish lady felt way over the top considering guys like
Killer Croc and Atlantis exist in this universe. I’ll be honest, Ilana should
count herself lucky the Bride went for a headshot. In my experience in
literature, taking the only friend of an otherwise anti-social person leads to
vengeance that they write epic poetry about. I think the twist about Ilana
being… I guess a double twist villain was well done. Her interest in Flag was
always a bit odd, and she did at one point seem weirdly into the controller for
the Commando’s shock implants. I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that there’s a
draft of this season where she tries to steal that controller to get the
Commandos to work for her. I do wish we could have gotten a bit more about her
plan, as I’m not sure how this lady would ultimately lead a global war. I just
would have liked what phase one was. Or phase two, if phase one was outfitting
her knights in power armor. Overall, I liked this show. They had a good mix of
comedy, drama and action, and I’m looking forward to season 2. And also, the Clayface
movie, I want to see more of that horror monster. Oh, and I liked a visual
Easter egg of the Bride pulling a book from Ilana’s shelves and picking a work
by Mary Shelley. She chose Mathilda, which I guess side steps how Frankenstein
could be both a book in universe and a real dude. Just saying. Have a good
night and a happy Halloween!
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/viewer-log-ep-7-142553505
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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