The Suicide Squad: Is the TV Spinoff You're Getting the One You Want?

It was 11 months ago that HBO Max announced a streaming series to be spun off of the big-budget DC movie The Suicide Squad. If have you now have seen the James Gunn movie, which is both in theaters and on HBO Max, we (again) ask:

Is the spinoff you’re getting the spinoff you most want?

(Spoilers for The Suicide Squad follow.)

The announced HBO Max spinoff, Peacemaker, is described as an action-comedy that will explore the origins of John Cena’s “toilet seat”-wearing character, “a man who believes in peace at any cost — no matter how many people he has to kill to get it.” Gunn will write all eight episodes and will direct several of them (including the first), as well as exec-produce alongside TSS producer Peter Safran. Cena has a co-EP title.

Jennifer Holland and Steve Agee will reprise their TSS roles as ARGUS agent Emilia Harcourt and ARGUS aide/Belle Reve warden John Economos, while the cast also includes Danielle Brooks (Orange Is the New Black) as Leota Adebayo, Robert Patrick (Scorpion) as as Leota Adebayo, Freddie Stroma (UnREAL) as Vigilante aka Adrian Chase, Nhut Le (Kroll Show) as Judomaster and Chukwudi Iwuji (Designated Survivor) as Clemson Murn.

An antihero at best — given how (again, movie spoiler alert!) he among other things killed Task Force X cohort Rick Flag in an attempt to hide the U.S. government’s dirty laundry — Peacemaker’s future was teased in The Suicide Squad‘s second bonus scene, which revealed that he in fact survived the collapse of Jotunheim and is now needed by ARGUS to no less than “save the f–king world.”

At the time Peacemaker was greenlit as a series, Gunn said it presented “an opportunity to delve into current world issues through the lens of this superhero/supervillain/and world’s biggest douchebag.”

Gunn subsequently explained the decision to standalone Cena’s character, telling Entertainment Tonight that whereas the likes of Harley Quinn, Bloodsport and Ratcatcher-2 all were given the opportunity to “learn something about themselves — sometimes good things, sometimes bad things,” Peacemaker throughout the film “is a douche and he stays a douche and he’s an a–hole.”

But are you curious enough about a Peacemaker redemption or origin story, to have this be the TV spinoff that The Suicide Squad spawns? With the rest of Task Force X’s (few) survivors set free in the end by compromised ARGUS boss Amanda Waller, would you rather (or also) have an Idris Elba-led Bloodsport series? Have Nathan Fillion between seasons of The Rookie catch us up on T.D.K. and if he survived his critical wounds? Hang out more with Ratcatcher-2 and sweet Sebastian? Or maybe get a tragicomic Polka Dot man prequel?

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