Creature Commandos: James Gunn Says Weasel’s Story is Saddest Thing He’s Ever Written

DC Studios head James Gunn‘s latest project takes a heartbreaking turn in its fourth episode, revealing the tragic origin of a character he first introduced in The Suicide Squad. “I remember finishing [writing] it. I was in Colorado with my wife, and I remember I said, ‘I think I just wrote the saddest thing that I’ve ever written in my entire life,’” Gunn shared with Variety about the episode “Chasing Squirrels” from Max’s animated series Creature Commandos.

The episode finally explains how Weasel, previously believed to have killed 27 children, was actually wrongly accused. “I didn’t know the specifics of it, but I always knew that it wasn’t fair,” Gunn notes about the character’s introduction in his 2021 film.

Told through retrospective scenes, the tale opens as the creature steps out from the forest near a primary school, discovering children at play during the holiday season. His origins remain unexplained, but the youngsters immediately recognize his gentle nature and friendly demeanor. Their playful interactions are interrupted when an elderly passerby witnesses the scene and, driven by unfounded fear of the large, fur-covered being, hurries to his nearby residence to contact authorities and retrieve his weapon.

Meanwhile, the children discover an unlocked entrance to the building. Following their lead, the creature joins them inside, continuing their games until they find themselves in the building’s lower maintenance area. A sequence of unfortunate events – involving an adult’s abandoned alcohol and the accidental ignition of flammable materials – triggers a blaze just as the elderly man arrives and opens fire.

The resulting explosion claims his life and those of the children, except for a single young girl. It’s then that law enforcement officers look into the basement to find the creature amid the victims, desperately attempting to rescue the surviving child from the growing inferno engulfing the building.

[Related: “M” for Monster: The Weird Origin Story of the Original Creature Commandos]

Sean Gunn, who provides Weasel’s voice and previously performed the character via motion capture in The Suicide Squad, approached the role with unique direction from his brother James. “Weasel doesn’t think in dialogue,” Sean explains. “But for any of us who have and love dogs, you know that your dog has pretty complex emotional life. So you put this character through the ringer, and it becomes very relatable — but also new. It’s tragic and sad, and also, I’ve never really seen anything like that on television.”

The episode’s climactic sequence required multiple recording sessions to capture the right emotional intensity. “I was a little sick when we did it the first time, and the scream wasn’t even like 1/5 of what it needed to be, really,” Sean Gunn reveals. “When we went back, we knew we really needed to get the scream.”

Executive producer Dean Lorey acknowledges the challenges in portraying such sensitive content: “We went through a lot of iterations of that whole sequence. It was difficult to find exactly the right tone for it. We did want you to feel the emotion and the horror of what was going on. But we didn’t want to be exploitive.”

For James Gunn, the episode continues his exploration of misunderstood characters. “At the end of the day, [Weasel], in a lot of ways, is the most noble character in the show,” he explains. “This is a pretty innocent creature who is treated like something else because he looks different than other people.”

The story appears to have broader implications for the series, with Gunn teasing, “You’ll see everything with his backstory come into play in the later episodes. If you talk about the characters existing on some sort of continuum from good to bad, he’s pretty much on the good side.”

Sean Gunn notes that while his brother’s work often includes dark elements, this particular story stands out: “James himself is has a darkness, and there’s a darkness to a lot of his work.” However, the specifics of Weasel’s tragedy brought something new to their long-standing creative collaboration, which dates back to the mid-1990s.