After introducing us to DC’s monstrous new team, Creature Commandos Episode 2 hones in on one character: The Bride, who has a shocking past with Eric Frankenstein and his creator.
Episode 1 was a breezy, cheeky introduction to James Gunn’s DCU. Amanda Waller gave Rick Flag a simple job: take Task Force M (also known as the Creature Commandos) to Pokolistan and protect Princess Ilana Rostovic from Circe, a rogue Amazonian who wants to kill her.
It went pretty smoothly… if you excuse the Bride escaping the castle late at night with Nina to visit the place she was born (the home of Frankenstein), Flag tussling with Doctor Phosphorus, and Ilana trying to sleep with Flag.
As teased by Gunn, Episode 2 takes a page out of Lost’s book and focuses more on the backstory of one character: the Bride.
Frankenstein builds the Bride
Episode 2 opens in 1831, with Victor Frankenstein looking at all sorts of body parts frozen ice. “Shall each man find a wife for his bosom and each beast have his mate and I be alone? I yearn for a wife, father… what is it to be a human, if not for love?” Eric asks him.
Victor is wary of reanimating another body, but Eric says it isn’t fair that he’s never known love. Victor insists he’s just sharing his feelings of doubt and that he’ll do as Eric asks. “This is the face of my true love,” he says as he holds up a decomposed head.
We cut back to the present, where Nina asks: “This is where you born… why are we here now?”
Back at the castle, as Weasel, Doctor Phosphorus, and G.I. Robot watch from the bathroom door, Ilana helps Flag with his wounds. He explains that he could send an “unbearably painful” jolt of electricity straight to their brains if he needed to, and they’ve yet to prove their obedience – however, he promises to get them under control.
It doesn’t take long before Ilana makes another pass at him, and this time, he gives in. Weasel, Doctor Phosphorus, and G.I. Robot listen from outside and keep Alexei from going in while they… you know.
The Bride relives her past
The Bride and Nina head up to Victor’s old laboratory, where we see flashbacks of the moment the Bride came to life in a storm of electricity. Victor explains to Eric that because she “came from nothing,” unlike a baby from a womb, she doesn’t have any idea who she is or where she is. “She is but a cluster of fear and not knowing,” he says.
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When Frankenstein tries to give her flowers, she screams at the sight of him.
We cut back to the present, where the Bride tells Nina she’s a “human being with gills”, while the rest of the team are real monsters. As they hunt for the Bride’s tourmaline necklace, we see her learning English with Victor… and Frankenstein is getting impatient.
“You want a bride who can speak, don’t you?” Victor asks. “Words get in the way of truth,” he mumbles.
Victor shows the Bride her necklace for the first time, and we cut back to the present, where Nina agrees to look for it if it means they can go back to the castle. Outside, one of the Sons of Themyscira tells Circe about Nina and the Bride.
There’s a lot of cutting back and forward between the past and present, but the crux of it is this: Frankenstein desperately wanted the Bride to love him, but she was afraid of him, and he lashed out at Victor…. especially as his relationship with the Bride developed (he’s the one who gave her the necklace).
Frankenstein murdered Victor
Flag assembles the team to find the Bride and Nina after they’re attacked by Circe. The Bride holds off her men with ease, but they can’t escape Circe. She uses magic to turn her arm into inflatable limbs (not before the Bride gives her an almighty kick in the crotch), but as she’s slammed against the table, she relives the first time she had sex with Victor… while Eric watched in the background.
Circe headbutts the Bride and plummets off the balcony, where she lands next to Nina, who struggles to breathe after her tank is shattered by a bullet.
We get a final flashback: Eric reveals that he brutally murdered Victor so he could be with the Bride, kicking off a century-long rivalry across the world.
Read our Creature Commandos review, and in the meantime, check out our breakdown of every DCU project in development, what’s happening with The Batman 2, and our list of the best TV shows of 2024.
