Harley Quinn and co. try to keep their involvement in the war for a magical realm purely casual, in Suicide Squad Isekai episode 4.
Showrunner & Director: Eri Osada
Genre: Anime, Superhero
Number of episodes: 10, released weekly on Thursdays
Ep. 4 Release Date: June 27, 2024
Where to watch: Hulu & Max
Suicide Squad Isekai episode 4 opens not in a faraway land of magic, dragons, and elves, but in a little old place called Gotham. It’s a Harley Quinn (Anna Nagase) flashback. There’s Joker (Yuuichirou Umehara), and here’s a lesson from the clown prince of crime himself on how to catch rats: the trick is to make them fight each other.
Which is something I’d not assume to hold true in reality, but still. You can send an email if I’m wrong. The application of this lesson in the flashback sees Joker turn some regular Gotham thugs against each other in their pursuit of him, and in the present, back in that faraway land I mentioned, this trick occurs to Harley as being a way to foil Ratcatcher (Youji Ueda) and his army of beastmen.
And so utilise this trick, the Suicide Squad do. Relinquishing Ratcatcher’s control over the beastmen with a reliably dead-eyed shot to his magic staff from Deadshot, the rest of the squaddies then watch on as the beasties regain themselves, and turn against their recent brainwasher. This quick victory sees the crew earn their freedom, via a deal they made with the Queen to halt the advancing Imperial Army, and so they’re now welcome to follow Rick Flag towards the gate (read: portal between realms), where they’ll hopefully be able to communicate with Amanda Waller (Kujira) in order to stop, or (more likely) extend, their neck bomb countdown, which, at the beginning of this episode, sits with close to twelve hours remaining.
And it’s not just Harley Quinn who’s experiencing flashbacks either, but Princess Fione (Reina Ueda) too. What is it with those two? Fione keeps looking at Harley a bit funny, and Harley says that Fione reminds her of ‘a wimp she used to know’. Is Harley referring to her past self? Is Harley to be for Fione the liberating force that Joker supposedly was for her? Or, in the absence of a certain Poison Ivy, is this the start of a haters-to-lovers situation? If you don’t know for sure neither do I, for I’m watching at the same rate you are, but I’m happy to keep following along in order to find out.
Suicide Squad Isekai episode 4 is, then, a bit of a background-focussed episode, really. We get this Joker flashback with Harley, a childhood flashback with Fione, and then some exposition on this war that’s going on too. Apparently, the elves and the beastmen switched sides about six months ago – perhaps coinciding with the arrival of Waller’s first suicide squad? Ratcatcher seems to have been responsible for the beastmen’s allegiance change, so I reckon it’s safe to assume the rest of them have got something to do with it too. But, who gave Ratcatcher that magic staff, and who defused his neck bomb? And, were these two favours enough to persuade him and the others not to go home, or is there something else to it?
I suddenly have a lot of plot-related questions after episode 4, but I’m thinking that’s because these pieces of narrative background only seem to have started popping up here, rather than in the series premiere.
Something I feel there to have been more of in the premiere than in this episode however, is the jokes. Not until Ratcatcher has a bleep-heavy shout at the now-unresponsive beastmen surrounding him did any amused noises escape me. Honestly though, if I get one good giggle out of every ~23 minutes, I’ll be quite happy, which perhaps says something about my standards.
But, as I was writing, it’s not really until the final parts of this episode, when our Suicide Squad nonchalantly, and near-effortlessly, foil the march of an approaching army is there much fun to be had. Maybe because the earlier parts of the episode are so focussed on this background I’ve been going on about? Maybe the quota for that stuff was pushed back to keep the series premiere moving along, and now had to be met for four episodes in the space of one. Or maybe there simply wasn’t enough time for it in the first three episodes.
Regardless, I’m curious to see how much of that will be present in future. I feel sure that the show wants Joker to keep making appearances, and that the show wants to continue exploring this Harley Quinn/Princess Fione dichotomy too – Harley as a character free to do as she pleases, but selfish, and Fione as a character trapped, but selfless. Perhaps the close sequencing of some more Harley and Fione flashbacks will be the method of doing that, hitting both targets with a single arrow. Or maybe showing Joker in the present, and scheduling more Harley and Fione interactions will satisfy. Of course, neither you nor me will know anything more about it until next Thursday at the earliest, so shall we meet here again then, same time, same place?
Episode 4 of Suicide Squad Isekai is now available to watch on Max and Hulu.
