Headscratchers / Suicide Squad (2016)

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Deniability

• If the team is meant to be completely deniable by the US government if anything would go wrong, why have them travel in clearly government helicopters and be accompanied by US Special Forces?
  • I'm just gonna safely assume that US Special Forces are there to make it look like they're "arresting the bad guys" when in reality they're in cahoots with each other. Also the place they were going to, judging by the trailer, seems to have been abandoned for some reason. Lastly if the operation gets fucked up in some way, then they get to gun the nut-jobs down and deny everything about the whole "teamwork" thing.
  • Given that the Squad also appears to be briefed in a military base, surrounded by soldiers (as opposed to a middle-of-nowhere black-ops facility) whether or not this version is supposed to have Plausible Deniability seems to be up in the air.
  • There's still a limit to how much you can distance yourself with plausible deniability without providing support. Ideally, the team would be sent in with a covert infiltration to do the job and then be covertly extracted. Military equipment would be unmarked, and all landing and extraction points would be at a distance and discrete. Similar to how an official team would land several miles away and enter the objective location by a planned route. In this case, a team is sent in with them because the entire city has been evacuated.
  • There's also the fact that at that point Waller may have been more concerned with using the Squad to rescue her from Midway City than she was with plausible deniability.
  • Going further, why would anyone be concerned about the deniability of this squad in this situation? There's no way the media will believe any of these criminals capable of the destruction to Midway, and if something goes wrong there's no benefit to burning the Squad since the world will be destroyed, so deniability was probably not an issue.
  • Plausible Deniability generally means that something can't be tracked back to you. In the specific case of Midway City, when the threat is over and people found the bodies of these various criminals, they could shrug it off as them sticking around to loot the empty shops. They wouldn't be surprised to find dead military types either, but Waller wanted to use the situation as a test for the Squad since it was also seen as a Suicide Mission. If someone knew where to look and ask the right questions, they might find something suspicious about known, incarcerated criminals showing up dead in random locations, but that is still adding another layer of deduction over traditional black ops.
    • To be fair, the bulk of the Squad ARE part of Batman's rogue's gallery, who tend to make escaping incarceration look like a hobby...
  • In this case, Waller's primary goal isn't to deny that the government, or the Squad for that matter, was involved in stopping the threat: she's trying to conceal the fact that the Enchantess's rampage was her freaking fault in the first place for not keeping the heart or Incubus's artifact secure.

Superman deterrence?

• The government plans for Suicide Squad to be their defense against a Superman-level threat. Problem is, can any of those in the squad actually capable of taking on Superman? We all know Superman can shrug off bullets or whatever projectiles throwing at him, so that pretty much puts half the squad out of the equation (Deadshot and Rick Flag use guns, Captain Boomerang and Katana use melee weapons and Harley Quinn uses a mix of both). Those that stand a tiny chance are Diablo and Killer Croc, both of whom wouldn't be that much effective after all considering Superman (or a Superman-level threat) can move at the speed of a bullet if he wants to. The only person who can pose a real challenge is Enchantress, who's a being from another world that literally uses magic as her weapon, and as the film demonstrated, keeping her under control is a very bad idea. The point is, aside from government black ops operations, how can Suicide Squad ever be able to combat a Superman-level threat? Maybe Kryptonite is available from LexCorp, but since Lex Luthor is in prison as of Batman v Superman's ending, there's going to be a shortage of it that wouldn't be much use in practice...
  • To be fair three of the squad could count as possible God killer threats.Diablo whose final form gave an actual God a challenge. Enchantress an actual Goddess with the power to destroy the World and was taken down only because she was weakened creating said humanity killing weapon. As for faster then a speeding bullet as Superman has shown, people with bullet proof skin tend not to dodge bullets, or are unable to dodge them unless they see them coming. For that you have Deadshot the perfect sniper who, with the right ammo, could make any kill shot required. As for the rest of the team, well somebody's gotta take the side jobs that the Government doesn't want to talk about. People who could take numerous global threats and who could be blamed for any collateral damage that may ensue. Also if her current Squad work well enough it could be used to convince the Government to allow Waller to enroll more powerful and volatile Super Villains into the program, the kind that would definitely take down Superman-level threats.
  • Also, you're thinking they are intended as a direct weapon. They would be more used to blow up labs or end conflicts that could create new metahumans. They can also be used to incite any heroes they know about to stop them from doing something, and then they happen upon a lead to a bigger threat.
  • Maybe. Now that I think about it, if Deadshot is really that good of a marksman, a few accurate Kryptonite shots could take down Superman without problem, so he actually stand a fighting chance if Superman (or a Sup-level threat) doesn't take him out of commission first. The other members, on the other hand, is still questionable. By the end of the film, Diablo pulls a Heroic Sacrifice that looks like it'll stick, Enchantress is dead, and the Joker breaks Harley Quinn out of prison, so that only leaves Deadshot, Flag, Boomerang, Katana and Killer Croc in the squad. Plus, the high-raking officials know that the whole mess started because Waller couldn't control Enchantress like she thought she could, so it's highly unlikely they will allow her to enroll much more powerful super villains, unless she has her ways, of course.
  • While Diablo did die fighting , and Enchantress is gone the team was created prior to the event of the movie as a deterrence or kill option should a dark Superman type show up. The fact remains power wise the two would have been up to the task. Especially Enchantress who had power enough to kill the World and only lost because she used most of her power building her doomsday machine. Not only that as the mid-credits showed. Waller has in-depth files on Metahumans Flash, Arthur , Wonder Woman and even knew about Batman. That kind of Intel, with government money and skilled enough and ruthless individuals equals shadow operatives that could and would find a way to kill Superman level threats.
  • That's the thing, after the events of the film, the government would have a hard time supporting Waller's Task Force X program, especially given their previous stance on Superman's collateral damage. Sure, she can contain some of the members who are, at best, enhanced normal humans, but not outright Metas with actual superpowers (imagine trying to control a teleporting meta like Enchantress, or someone with Super-Speed like The Flash). The only way she can find and recruit new members for the squad is that if she does it behind the government's backs, and even then, it could be more trouble than it's worth, and has a high chance to cause another incident like the one in the film or, at worst, ends up letting everyone on the squad escape from captivity and free to go back to their criminal ways once more.
  • That seems addressed in the post-credits scene of Waller telling Bruce Wayne she's getting too much heat over what happened and needs his backup to make sure she doesn't go down for this mess.
  • Saying normal dudes are useless is like saying Batman is useless. They might not be able to stand up against Superman without considerable help, but Deadshot at least could still do considerable damage against the others (none of which are outright immune to high caliber bullets). Harley is basically a mini Joker crossed with a bit of Wonder Woman and Boomerang regularly tangles with the Flash.
  • Didn't say they were useless. In fact, the story proves that they are more than capable of performing black ops missions for the government and taking on metahumans with not-too-storybreaking-superpowers, I'm just questioning the government's decision to make Task Force X a Superman-level threat deterrence. Like you say, with considerable help, they might be able to fight Superman on equal terms, just like Batman with all his gadgets, but on their own, they won't stand a chance. Heck, even Batman in his battle armor struggled to beat Superman using Kryptonite, and Superman was holding back during their fight. Yes, Harley is a mini-Joker. Yes, Boomerang can hold his own against the Flash, but a Superman-level meta is a whole another level of threat. Look at what General Zod's followers can do in Man of Steel, and not to mention Zod vs. Superman fight itself that leveled half of Metropolis. What chance do they have against all of that? Maybe they could get more Kryptonite at LexCorp, but I doubt it since its owner is in prison by the end of BvS.
  • Any Group that can get on depth files on Amazons, Atlanteans and figure out Batman's ID can easily get their hands on more Kryptonite. Not only that a group that can figure out the weakness of an ancient power like the Enchantress. And use it to control her for a time. Is a group with the money and means to take down Superman level threats, don't forget technically speaking the team managed to stop a Superman level threat. Sometimes it's not about matching power sets but skill, ruthless determination and cunning.
  • Maybe. I'm still skeptical, but I believe the team would have take several levels in Badass when the time comes for them to fight another Sup-level threat (or maybe find some way to nerf that particular enemy to their level). Also, they seem to have a bit of luck on their side. In the final battle, Enchantress gives them a pretty good fight using Teleport Spam and only loses because she falls victim to the We Can Rule Together speech that makes her let her guard down and allows Harley to get close to her.
  • Superman is just an example. The man just died but if someone else similar shows up, they have problems. Task Force X is a program meant to counter metahuman threats. I don't think Waller was trying to pitch a team that in this first round could take down Superman. It's just it's a better response then having no one. Also the lady has files on Flash and Aquaman. If she could get those two people on the team, then that's another step. Overall she's just trying to get this projects into Beta.
  • Why are people acting like Deadshot and Harley and Captain Boomerang would be effective with Kryptonite weapons? This task force was allegedly set up to combat the next person like Superman to show up if they turn out to be a terrorist. If the next comparatively-ranked metahuman is not a Kryptonian, they've got to research their weaknesses (and pray to God that they have them) before those three could do anything of the sort. See, the real problem here is that they're using the Suicide Squad cast for a purpose the Suicide Squad cast was never intended for in any of the source material (they're supposed to be used for covert, highly illegal government operations so that the government can do shady stuff without getting caught), and so in this version's purpose for them the Badass Normal characters, who they couldn't possibly take out of the cast because they're too popular, are now nothing more than vestigial loose ends.
  • This is the DCEU it doesn't have to strictly follow the source material . In fact from murder version Batman and borderline depressive Superman it can be argued that it is the darkest version of the source material in fact. The point is they where used as they have out of the box skillsets and mentalities that make them perfect for the job. They were expandable and highly efficient weapons. Also in the end seeing as they took out the Enchantress a being with Superman level power, on short notice and with limited assets. They have proven with the right assets and time they can take out Superman level threats with money and technology backing them.
  • Bullshit. Just because the story says they were competent enough to take down superman level threats doesn't mean it wasn't suspension-of-disbelief-breakingly idiotic for that to be the case. In an earlier scene the Enchantress's brother ate through humans at such an insane rate that nothing short of sheer luck for the suicide squad, gross incompetence from the villains, and terrible writing from the story could have ever allowed them to win.
  • The story doesn’t say they were competent enough to take down Superman level threats. They actually did take down a Superman level threat. This served two purposes. One it showed those higher up despite the possible blow back super villains can be used into a fashionable and working tool. Two, if this band of misfits can be leashed and used. Then with the right preparation an even more powerful criminal can be used. They served their purpose, as a prototype. They did the job. Also they are not heroes, they serve a black bag operation with resources and intelligence. That makes the concept of a super villain black operations team both dangerous and effective. Its not suspension of disbelief, its pragmatism. Underhanded skills, resources and practicality. Superman was almost killed by a billionaire in a mech suit. Waller’s unit had in-depth files and locations on Arthur and Barry. Intelligence plus money plus skills and resources level's many a playing field.
  • Most importantly, whether or not the Squad could, in fact, take down the equivalent of Superman isn't the issue, so far as determining whether it's worth the government's effort to back Waller's program. It's whether or not having the Squad around will offer a better chance of taking down a Superman-caliber threat - to say nothing of lesser ones - than having those guys sit on their asses in prison and do nothing when the next such threat emerges. Or even be recruited by such a threat.
  • Think about it from the government's point of view: You've got a bunch of convicts that are overcrowding the prisons and the death penalty may not be an option depending on the time and place. One day a woman comes in and says "let's throw these guys at aliens and demons who could raze the country to the ground". The result: criminals are killed with the establishment taking zero accountability and prisons have more space.
  • Considering the Government's willingness to spend millions in operational money to deploy them that is highly unlikely. Also there are cheaper ways to make more room in a prison then using prisoners as cannon fodder, especially dangerous prisoners with unique abilities and skills who could escape or cause collateral damage leading back to the government. Even in the movie the operations people where relying on the team as a last resort, true they where desperate at the time. But it does show that the Government used them as genuine assets and not as a stop gap measure to make room. Considering the expense in deployment and that originally the super criminals where locked up in a prison with plenty of room to spare and even individual cells for prisoners like Killer Croc. Then room is not an issue, after all these are not the everyday crowded jails that have room issues, but a Super Max for specialized and very dangerous criminals. So overcrowding was not a deciding factor as they did not have an overcrowding issue, also considering their uniqueness and rare skill sets not to mention money and time involved in deployment. They were sent not to save money but to weaponize and exploit their talents and skill sets.
  • Confirmed with Bloodsport's backstory in the sequel, as the mercenary who put Superman in the ICU with a Kryptonite bullet. Showing that the right operative, with the right skills and with the right gear can act as a deterrent quite effectively.

Why doesn't Waller go after metahumans who are NOT evil instead?

• Continuing from the above Headscratcher, why doesn't Waller go after Flash and Aquaman in the first place instead of recruiting super-villains who are hard to control because most of them are pretty much insane? She knows Bruce Wayne is Batman, and the two apparently are friendly enough that Bruce is willing to cover up her mistake. Why doesn't she cooperate with Bruce in helping form the Justice League in the first place, then asks that they work for America's best interests? Sure, we might have another situation like in Captain America: Civil War regarding the heroes' stance on working as the government's glorified attack dogs, but still, the idea seems more appealing than putting together a bunch of insane individuals who's looking to escape captivity the first chance they get? The Explosive Leash might work for now, but could only be so long. In the movie itself, even Joker knows how to disable one so he could rescue Harley Quinn, so obviously this thing has a chance to fail.
  • My guess is that Waller, ironically, doesn't have faith that the good guys can be controlled quite as well as the bad. If she has criminals caged up with no hope of freedom (or survival) other than her good graces, she can make them do whatever she wants. Meanwhile, Flash and Aquaman could simply refuse because Waller doesn't have much dirt on them. And even if she did, you can't easily bully a hero because they're much more selfless than a criminal.
  • Or she doesn't want to control them like that. Despite her methods, Waller makes it clear she believes she is doing good work. Most of the point of the Squad is that they are completely expendable. Not only can they be controlled through threat of death, but they can be thrown into the meat grinder with no thought to their safety, and if things go south everything can be blamed on them. Those aren't really options with heroes. While Waller is dismissive of friendship as a motivator, in the end, she would rather have the Justice League as allies than slaves.
  • The whole 'stopping a Superman-level threat' talk could be just to better sell the idea to Waller's higher-ups. It's totally possible she always envisioned the Squad as her personal black ops team and little more. Since she has files on Aquaman, Flash, Wonder Woman and who knows what other superheroes, it's possible her actual plan to deal with such a threat is... to form the Justice League. However she isn't going to do it unless she absolutely has to, since a group of super powered people that she doesn't have a complete control over is something she'd rather not have around.
  • Guess it seems to be that way. Still, how does Waller think she could control the villains anyway? Yes, she has the Explosive Leash plan, but as I mentioned above, it has a chance to fail, something she came to know by the end of the film. How does she know that one day, the Squad wouldn't come up with a plan and backstab her, Flag and Katana? Okay, to be fair, the ones who can actually threaten her plans are dead (El Diablo and Enchantress), but if she keeps conscripting more and more villains to fill the squad's ranks, especially ones that are actual metahumans with superpowers, it's bound to happen someday. And Justice League would then have to clean up after her mess.
  • In the comics this is why she founded Justice League of America as well, to offset the main Justice League with heroes and have someone to do her dirty work with the bad guys.
  • It really comes down to the fact that she wanted a black ops team to do questionable things, be a group she could get away with using bombs to control, and could be the fall guys if something went wrong. No way she could get away with that with heroes. Could you imagine her telling guys like Batman Wonder Woman and Flash to rescue her and only her and leave anyone else in the city to their fate, let her study the Enchantress's ability to make drone soldiers, and let her kill her whole staff to keep them quiet? Wouldn't happen. They'd insist on saving the whole city too, wouldn't let her even think about playing with Enchantress's magic, and would expose her crimes. Where as Deadshot, while he didn't want the world to get wrecked, didn't really care much about Waller killing her whole staff, beyond some mild surprise. Meanwhile good luck trying push off a failed Black ops mission on Batman or someone from the JL. She MIGHT be able to pull it off but she'd have to go well beyond the call of duty to frame them, and that would cause the fallout of a major (And useful in other crisis's) hero being marked an bad guy and needing to be deal with. Where as it would take little effort convincing anyone that Harley Quinn did a terrorist bombing (To cover up whatever) and it would just be another tick on her record with little changing.
  • The two strategies are not mutually exclusive. Waller can facilitate Wayne's efforts to build a team for those metahumans who are willing to voluntarily do whatever they can to save the world, while coercing every Boxed Crook she can get her mitts on into operating as an entirely separate team. Which, considering she has no hope in hell of getting the Squad's members to work alongside Batman and the other heroes - not when they're the very ones who tossed so many of them in prison in the first place - is the only way she can potentially keep all such assets working for the greater good.

The Squad leaving Flag behind

• When the Squad finds out Flag had been sleeping with June Moon, they suddenly abandon him. Katana's abandonment makes sense as she seems to have a very stark black and white view of morality, but the disgust the others feel doesn't make a lot of sense. Flag was involved with June Moon, not Enchantress and he says as much. Meanwhile, they are hardened criminals and one of them has the Joker as a boyfriend. Somehow, being romantically linked to the human host of an evil spirit is the worst thing these people can think of?
  • Actually, the Squad were more pissed off to find out that the whole mess was a cock up on Waller's end. That they where expected to fight and die to keep under wraps that one of her projects went rogue and was going to wipe out humanity. They decided that if that it wasn't worth it and retired to the bar and drink. Preferring to die in a bar then fighting and dying to cover up a mess that Waller made.
  • They were mad at Waller, but when Flag mentioned his connection with June, they became disgusted with him in particular and when he came back to the bar, Harley flat out told him they didn't want him around. All their anger was directed at Flag, not Waller.
  • Was it? Or was their anger that the guy leading them didn't give them the full story about how his Ex was the target. Or that the whole thing happened because his Ex went rogue and the squad where there to clean it up or die trying. I never got the vibe they where disgusted with his love life just the circumstances they found themselves in. On a mission they did not want to be on. Uninformed, kept in the dark even by the guy who was technically leading them. I find it more believable that was the case and that's how I saw it. That they didn't like why they where there not the sleeping habits of Flag.
  • Flag didn't even mention his relationship with June until he joined them at the bar. In fact, that seemed to be part of what convinced them to go back into the fight. So yeah, they were definitely more pissed about cleaning up Waller's mess.

Flag Carrying Around Deadshot's Daughter's Letters

• Question the first: Why would Flag be maintaining personal possession of Deadshot's daughter's letters? Question the second: Why would he specifically decide to pack them in his tactical gear for a combat mission?
  • Same reason Waller provided for keeping everyone in check: leverage. If Deadshot balks, he can show him the letters to convince him to do it for his daughter. It probably wasn't even Flag that was getting hold of them. Notice that each letter has both RTS and RECEIVED on them, so they are probably addressed to a penitentiary where Deadshot's daughter was told he was incarcerated. They don't have record of him, so they are sent back but intercepted by Waller's team to be redirected to the real prison. They mark it as received and inspect the contents to know something didn't get past them.

The Glide Ratio of a Helicopter/The Survivability of a Helicopter Crash

• When the Joker's helicopter gets shot down, it glides to a crash on a steady, straight path. This is remarkable for an aircraft that lacks wings, and which requires constant control from the pilot to maintain any sort of steadiness. Also, in all three of the helicopter crashes in the movie, anyone who wasn't directly killed by the same shots that take down the helicopter survives. This is remarkable for a flying steel coffin with gigantic spinning blades and tanks full of extremely flammable aviation fuel.
  • I haven't seen the movie yet so I don't know about the specific scene in question, but so-called "autorotation" landings are common emergency procedure for helicopters and any qualified pilot should be able to manage one. So long as the rotor is mostly intact and turning above the stall speed, it should function as an effective wing. So long as the pilot has mechanical control, they can manage the descent.
  • In terms of people surviving, that's comic books for you. There have been plenty of incidents that logically would have resulted in X-person's death, but didn't, because that's how the genre works.
  • Ironically, the trope is called Joker Immunity. Three guesses who the namer is, and the first two don't count.

Amanda Waller and the agents

• When Waller was rescued, the first thing she did was kill every government agent in the room. Why? I guess she wanted to cover her tracks, but she was more than willing letting the Squad, Katana, Flag, and his entire platoon of about a dozen men know what had happened. Why would four or five agents matter at this point?
  • The agents didn't have clearance for the high level intelligence they witnessed that night. Flag did and ironically the Squad did as well, from Flag's reaction that was the sort of black bag move he was expecting. He didn't try to stop her or act surprised just was grateful that his level was higher then the support staff.
  • The line about "clearance" was an obvious dodge from Waller. Waller had fucked the situation so badly that she needed to kill the witnesses, and Flag didn't protest because he was also implicated. Whoever replaced Waller would also not likely have let June live due to the immense security risk she represents.
  • She didn't try killing the Squad for a simple reason: she still needed them. She was entirely willing to murder all of the criminal members as soon as the mission was complete ( and had to be convinced not to), and may really have gotten rid of the surviving redshirt guys afterwards.
  • Another consideration, assuming the "clearance" argument was just an excuse on her part, is that while the Squad and Flag's men would be very useful in helping her escape, her assorted command center staff would instead just be dead weight slowing her down.
• Here's a better question...why didn't the FBI agents fight back, or shoot at her?
  • Likely too surprised and shocked Waller would be corrupt and evil enough to shoot them just to cover her own ass.
  • She probably realized she might need to eliminate her own support staff beforehand. Could be she'd slipped something into the last pot of coffee passed around the room.
  • Most of them appeared to be technicians and support personnel, not agents. The ones at work on computers and CCTV camera networks probably weren't even armed.

El Diablo's "new family"

• In the finale, Diablo refers to the Suicide Squad as his family, and several other characters echo this with similar statements. The movie is supposed to take place over the course of a single night. When and how did these people go from "criminals forced into working together" to "friends as close as family"? It certainly didn't seem to happen on screen.
  • The Squad actually seemed to unite pretty much immediately, the group did remarkably little fighting of each other. By the bar scene, El Diablo has already bared his soul to the rest of them, and during the finale Enchantress put them all under that illusion. Calling the team his family is what let him show the Incubus what he really was made of.
  • El Diablo is an emotional guy going through tough times, looking for personal connections. I can't speak for the others but most of them are psychopaths, to which intense short term emotions come naturally.
  • It also helps that the whole squad has a common purpose to rally around, whether it is being coerced by Waller or fighting for survival against Enchantress' minions.
  • There's also the reports of reshoots and editing cutting out a lot of scenes that might have included more of the team bonding.
  • Remember: El Diablo's a former gang leader. You refer to your fellow gang members as "family" (familia) to create a bond and to unify them.
  • Also, the guy'd spent most of the last few months if not years sealed up in a water tank in solitary confinement. The other Squad members are probably the only people he's talked to for more than a few minutes' stretch since his arrest; however Diablo might suppress it, he's got to be pretty freakin' lonesome.

Griggs' "habits"

• Griggs is a degenerate gambler who pursues his vice in a clearly illegal establishment run by gangsters. He doesn't even seem to be discreet about it, as the Joker is able to easily find him there. How on Earth does he maintain the kind of security clearance necessary to be the chief guard in a government black site? As the Joker demonstrates, he is highly vulnerable to bribery and/or blackmail.
  • Most likely a lack of oversight, especially since Belle Reve is a black site and therefore basically unregulated.
  • Given the kind of convicts Belle Reeve contains, it makes sense that the more honest guards would stay away so they're probably grateful for whoever decides to work there.
  • He seems to be competent enough at his job, albeit not the most professional in demeanor. It's possible the higher-ups didn't anticipate that he'd have a capacity for bribery and don't care what he does off-duty as long as he maintains the prison.
  • Waller encouraged Deadshot to shoot him with a gun that everyone (except Waller) thought was loaded with blanks, so she clearly wasn't exactly fond of him. Maybe she expected him to get killed some way or another before his idiosyncrasies could threaten the program.

Who shot down the helicopter?

• The Chinook carrying the Suicide Squad gets shot down by heavy machine gun fire and crashes. But nobody mentions or shown who opened fire, whether it was the Incubates or Joker, and it is treated with no concern or regard whatsoever.
  • It was most likely shot down by the Incubates. The battle up to Waller's headquarters showed that they were capable of using guns.
  • Speed Force. They were Speed Force bullets.
  • They were flying into a war zone some random crazy people with heavy ordinance, other than the joker, isn't out of the question.

Boomerang

• When Flagg smashes up the app containing the code for the bombs, he tells the gang they're free to go. Boomerang immediately turns and runs out of the bar but then joins the gang when they go for the final assault. Why would someone we already know to be a coward and just out for himself continue to risk his life on what's clearly a suicide mission?
  • Probably because he realized that there was no way out of the city with Enchantress' minions everywhere and the military cordon, so he was better off sticking with the Squad.
  • It is absolutely in character for Digger Harkness, both in the comics and this film, to run off at the first sign of freedom before realizing "Ah hell, I'm still deep behind enemy lines" and rejoin the team as if nothing had happened.
  • Maybe he just wanted to drink his beers outside and/or share them with the SEAL team outside the bar.
  • It's an elaborate Visual Pun. He acts like a boomerang would do: comes back.
  • All theories that would be a lot more palatable if the movie had bothered to point in any of those directions. As is, it's a pun that is disconnected from actual story events.
  • In the movie as well in the extended cut we see while Digger is impulsive he has a strong survival instinct. Impulse lead him to flee when the door was open. Instinct lead him to return when he realized that he was in a middle of a City filled with hostiles, and that at any moment humanity could be wiped out or enslaved by a god like witch. Returning to fight increases his chances of survival. Basic logic really.
  • Or maybe Katana cornered Boomerang on the way out the door and made it clear that, if he wasn't going to remain on the team, she might as well take his head off the old-fashioned way. She's a vigilante killer of criminals, after all.

What Was The Plan?

• Task Force X was originally sent to extract Waller, and then leave. What were they planning to do about the potentially apocalyptic event happening in the middle of the city?
  • Once Waller and the Squad was clear, the military would have presumably intended to flatten the entire city. And because explosives were able to hurt Incubus and Enchantress' power was mostly consumed by her creating that weapon, it probably would have worked.

Why does Harley surrender?

• If the Joker had her nanite bomb deactivated why does Harley agree to go back to Belle Reve at the end?
  • She thought the Joker was dead, and Task Force X were the only friends she had left(assuming that Poison Ivy has yet to appear in the DCEU).
  • Are we talking about her surrendering to Enchantress? Because that's easily explainable. Harley wanted to trick her, and she did. People are underestimating her intelligence and she loves to take advantage of that.
  • I don't think the movie made it clear if Joker turned the nanite bomb off, or just jammed the signal somehow. If the latter she'd now be vulnerable again. Even if the movie did clarify it, Joker never told Harley, so she could very well believe that she was vulnerable again.
    • The pic of Harley is still dark on Waller's gadget at the end, so presumably her nanite bomb is still defunct. Best guess is that A) she didn't want to risk Waller killing the others in retaliation if she didn't comply, or B) she really, really wanted her own espresso machine. It's Harley, so either or both are entirely plausible.
  • Also , another thing that comes into play in flashbacks we see that Joker preyed on Harley's loneliness. Her need to connect. The only connection ( albeit twisted) she has in the World is Mister J. With him gone she seeks out companionship of a group of people who are not only like her but genuinely like her despite her murderous tendencies.

The mid-credits scene?

• Didn't we establish that Batman had information on all the Justice League members in the previous movie? What did he need Waller's folders for? If he's going to open Justice League by trying to recruit them, can't he just ask them for any more information about their abilities that he needs?
  • Most likely he wanted to cover his bases and see if the government knew anything that Luthor didn't, especially since the government has more resources and interest in keeping track of metahumans. After all, it's pretty unwise to try and approach someone like Aquaman without getting a full handle on his abilities and personality beforehand.
  • He had information on those individuals, but it is notable that when he was flipping through the classified report that Enchantress was one of the files with Barry and Arthur, and no Vic or Diana was shown. He may be looking for others, and is selecting candidates based on being good guys already and not trying to reform the bad guys.
  • Batman as a detective collects as much information on people as he can. When Waller approached him, it was an opportunity to get information in return for assisting Waller.
  • And also, to keep an eye on Waller's own operations. Anyone who's that interested in weaponizing metahumans is definitely worth his attention.

Shooting the Joker

• So we have the Joker on the back of a helicopter, in clear view, and Waller doesn't order him dead? I know she was pissed that Harley managed to escape her control, but how do you not take the opportunity to kill one of the more violent and crazy men in the DC universe?
  • The entire Squad was being suppressed by heavy machine gun fire and Joker's own gun. If anyone tried to take him out, they'd probably get their brains completely scattered.
  • Waller ordered Deadshot, the man who never misses, to shoot at Harley, which he nearly did despite the gun fire. He could have easily taken out the Joker.
  • It did at least seem perfectly in-character for Waller to be more pissed at someone brazenly defying her to the point of ignoring logic. She might justify it in her head that the Joker could be useful in the future (say if a certain costumed rich boy became a problem and she could always point the joker in his vague direction to kill or at least distract him), while Harley needed to be an example. Really she's a massive control freak who loses her cool when she sees any defiance.
  • Moreover, having the power of life and death over the Squad is the only thing Waller believes is stopping the others from killing her and Flagg on the spot. Taking out Joker could be a fringe benefit, but she has to kill Harley to reassert her authority or else risk having the rest of them gamble that Mr. J disabled all the nanobombs, not just his girlfriend's.
  • It's possible that she kept the Joker alive to keep Batman occupied and away from her.

Highly questionable archaeologist practices

• What kind of archaeologist just goes around snapping ancient relics in half when she ends up in a weird spot? Even ignoring the Sealed Evil in a Can she could not have known about, that thing could have held the fragile records of an ancient empire for all she knew.
  • The novelization (which is based on the movie's script) revealed that the Enchantress has been calling June to that cave via her dreams. So June was most likely influenced to snap open that idol.
  • Basically, something that would have filled in a blank if it had actually been in the film.
  • Or something that's easily understood if you paid attention to the scene and noticed the creepy tone, the creepy whispering and three hundred other SOMETHING WEIRD IS HAPPENING events in the sequence.

Diablo, Avatar or an "Iceman?"

• In the film's end, El Diablo seems to transform into an Aztec-esque being made of fire. Many are taking it to assume that he has a deity like Enchantress or Incubus inside of him. But did he pull an "Iceman" instead and encase himself in fire? It's established fire can't hurt him, so he technically can, and his control is immense, down to specifics and small details. At the end of the fight, when Incubus pins him down, the fire just goes out rather than any major transformation. And the film never actually says he has a deity inside of him. So...avatar or Iceman?
  • He did a changed a LOT more the surrounding himself in fire. He grew an extra four feet, suddenly formed a headdress and looked more like a walking skeleton then anything else. The film is pretty vague on what exactly he was, but his dialogue does suggest he was born with such a being inside him, allowing him to use such power. Eventually he just burned out of energy.
  • There is evidence that suggests Diablo's powers could be supernatural in nature. He's the only person in the Squad who can see through Enchantress' illusions, and Enchantress' conversation with him implies that his powers are similar to hers and Incubus'.
  • Note that when he transforms, Diablo starts speaking the divine language.
  • The divine language known as Spanish.
  • In addition, at least one incarnation of the comic El Diablo could channel the spirit of an Aztec god.

Underwater Killer Croc

• Wait, how can Killer Croc hold his breath that long? Doesn't he just have just aesthetic changes? In one of the comics it was called "just a skin condition". Is this a leftover from King Shark?
  • It seems to be a power he has, probably part of his mutation. Croc does it in the Arkham Games and other media too.
  • It was a "skin condition", but it has worsened substantially over time (in comics); making him stronger, more durable, and able to hold his breath very, very long, but also dulling his mind and making him more impulsive (He started out as a decently-intelligent gang leader, and ended up being dumb muscle with cannibalistic urges). A lot of adaptations skip straight to him being more monstrous.
  • "Skin condition" is probably just the knee-jerk diagnosis that some pediatrician jotted down on a much younger Waylon's medical chart decades ago, when his reptile-man mutant traits were much less pronounced.

Waller's Decisions

• First one: why on earth would you keep the jar containing another extra-dimensional entity in what looks to have been a glorified broom cupboard, especially knowing the fact that the Enchantress can teleport? They even suspected her brother was in that jar as per the reports we see. It just seems a little off given Waller's otherwise meticulous attention to detail.
  • Could be because this would be exactly the last place you'd put something extremely important in, hence no-one would look for it there. Waller probably didn't figure out that the Enchantress has some method of localizing her brother - which is weird in and on itself, but then again, it might've just not occurred to her, considering metas are something of a recent development.
• Second one: why did Waller not completely destroy the heart as soon as the Enchantress went rogue? Did the Enchantress' brother become some sort of anchor to keep her alive when he shared his power? Even so Waller can't have known that. It just seemed unclear.
  • Waller would prefer the Enchantress to be alive. She thought she could subdue her by stabbing the heart many times, giving her the chance to reconsider her decision before she dies completely. Think of it as an electric shock instead of a bomb to control a powerful asset. The only thing she miscalculated was the Enchantress's brother to override that weakness.

Harley's cage

• Exactly why does Harley get her own personal giant electrified cage whereas Deadshot and Boomerang simply get tiny cells? She doesn't seem like she'd warrant a unique environment, considering that a sizable squad of heavily armed guards can quickly subdue her just as easily as Floyd.
  • Knowing who Harley Quinn is and who she works for, it would incredibly unwise to leave her in a secluded area with walls and an iron door. If this film universe is anything like the comic books, she and the Joker had escape prison many times before, and they could do it with nothing more than a bucket and some cleaning chemicals. In fact, Harley Quinn was able to hide a little stick in her hair which she use to attack a guard when he gets in. Yeah, she would require a 24 hour watch with no blindspots to keep her in.
  • She's also shown to be blatantly manipulative of the guards and it's explicitly said that she has attacked them in the past. Deadshot isn't as predisposed to random violence and Boomerang isn't as dangerous in general, and neither of them have the means of luring guards into questionable decisions readily available. She has the constant watch and the special isolated electrified cage because she's nuts enough to injure or kill the guards for fun. Grigg's comments heavily imply that she's lured men into her cell and beaten or killed them in the past, though it's unclear whether he's referring to a regular cell or if she's even managed it while in this one. They're also probably under orders from Waller to keep the inmates alive and healthy, and it's even suggested that some of them are terrified of what the Joker will do to them if she's hurt or mistreated.
  • Averting the risk of (yet another) guard being suckered by Harley's sex appeal may, indeed, be a major purpose of the cage, even if the prison's officers don't actually include that fact in their reports. The cage has no privacy whatsoever. Harley may be an exhibitionist, but the guards probably aren't; having no place safe from prying eyes or cameras to molest the prisoner is bound to discourage them from doing so, whether for fear of getting caught in the act on CCTV or from sheer embarrassment.

So the Squad's finished, right?

• Probably the main issue I've had since watching it (and there's a lot of issues), is how the Squad is on their first mission in the film, and how utterly they fuck it up. I mean, I added this in They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot, but the film essentially demonstrates everything that possibly could go wrong, and only serves to either say the Squad is a terrible idea or that Amanda Waller is incredibly incompetent (given she's a personal favorite DC character, that reality bugs me a lot, but irrelevant).
  I mean, lets ignore the other things wrong with the film, but lets just remember this is essentially the Squad's test phase; if things go wrong, there's no way the superiors in charge would OK any further missions.
  Firstly, Waller fails to actually control Enchantress, allowing her to escape (why Waller didn't think to put explosives in June as a backup for the heart actually feels out of character), and causing the whole mess. Before the team can leave, their existence is compromised thanks to one dodgy guard. While in the field, one operative escapes and has to be killed, then later, another manages to override the Explosive Leash and escape. The Squad's activities are witnessed by a notorious criminal who survives the attempts to kill him and later breaks out the least-trustworthy member of the group (and thus, the identities of the Squadies and their missions are completely and unquestionably compromised). Then the entire point of the mission-get Waller out-fails and she gets captured. Then Waller gets mind-probed and all her government secrets end up in the hands of the Big Bad, who uses them to magi-nuke multiple military and government facilities, causing god-knows how many deaths and security breaches. In the end, they manage to stop Enchantress, but only after she's killed thousands, maybe millions (and definitely caused more in property damage than Zod and Doomsday combined), and at the cost of at least two very valuable assets.
  Add in the inability to keep the Squad under control for the bulk of the film (while in the comics, originally the explosives were an emergency and only reserved for the biggest risks; here, its basically the only thing keeping them in-line), the fact that Batman now knows about it and has promised to bring the Justice League after them if they continue to be used, and the fact that most of her superiors didn't even like the idea, there is no way Waller could convince them to use the Squad again, and its very unlikely she'll ever recover from this professionally (not to mention, each one of the Squadies can still expect to spend the rest of their lives behind bars, even if its slightly more cushy).
  • The Squad can still exist for the very reason why Waller created it in the first place: the government will always need some dirty people to do dirty jobs who are completely expendable. Besides, Waller cleaned up a lot of evidence showing how much she was at fault for what happened (killing most of her support staff) and the Squad certainty won't be talking to anyone. Given Waller's genius at cover-ups, it's not at all unreasonable that she managed to sell the Pentagon and White House that it wasn't Enchantress at all but another force that caused this mess and without the Squad, it would have been worse. Even those who might suspect the truth can't prove it with most everyone involved dead and evidence lost and Waller still having some of these assets under control. The fact is Waller can still sell the government that using these types of "Special" individuals for dangerous missions can work with stricter controls.
  • As for the Justice League, Waller can use the general's line of "what could stop Superman" as the very reason why the government needs a team who can handle a group of meta-humans with their own agenda.
  • You're severely understating how much they "failed". Enchantress was never part of the Squad per se, she was proposed to be part of it, but went rogue before the Squad was actually commissioned. The fault of that is entirely on Waller's lap, not the Squad's (and is probably part of the reason she had to resort to Bruce Wayne's help at the end of the movie, the whole plot of the movie was her fault, and hers alone). Sure, one of the Squad members tries to rebel and is killed for that, but that is part of the design of the Squad, it was expected, and worked just as planned. Yes, Waller gets captured in the middle of the rescue mission, but the end result is still her being extracted successfully at the end of the day, even if the way ended up being a little rougher than planned (and that's mostly because the extraction failed because of the Joker's interference). And finally, at the end of the day, the Squad was actually more successful than planned. They were sent to rescue a VIP from a war zone, they ended up ending the freaking war and saving the world. One can argue that Harley being part of the team was a failure (as she was the cause of the failure extraction, the bit about her being rescued at the end would happen anyways if the Squad was never created, and shows a weakness in the prison, not the Squad), but the team as a whole was a huge success.
  • Since a sequel is coming, that's a no.

Heroes on Vacation?

• Since no one's bringing it up: where were Batman, Wonder Woman, and Flash when all the major magic chaos goes down? We know the latter is active because he apprehended Boomerang, and the other two couldn't possibly be too busy looking for other heroes that they completely put fighting bad guys on hold.
  • Batman tends to stay in Gotham unless directly world-ending shit is happening, or Superman is involved. And Wonder Woman... we're have no idea where she went at the end of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The Flash isn't omniscient, so if he doesn't know about the stuff going down at Midway City, he can't do anything about it.
  • Well, going by the trailer for Justice League, she's been with Bruce this whole time, and Bruce has been steadily gaining information about metahumans in his efforts to make said League (including knowing all about Waller's activities). You really think neither of them are instantly aware of this crapfest of an operation? Plus, there's no way that this what's happening in Midway isn't getting national attention, and considering Flash lives IN THE NATION, he could have been there in two seconds (maybe less) after hearing about this.
  • Hell, the fact he lives on the SAME PLANET means he could have been there in a matter of seconds once he heard about it (because something like a city being overrun by eldritch horrors as a beam shoots into the sky is likely getting GLOBAL attention).
  • The Flash may be 'active', but that doesn't mean he's up for leaping into the middle of a mystical war zone. He's still young and on his own. At this point, all we've seen him do is foil a couple of robberies. It's been said that Batman will be a mentor of sorts to him in the Justice League movie. I'm sure he'll be more confident taking on fate-of-the-world level events after that movie.
  • As for Wonder Woman, she could literally be anywhere in the world. In the trailer for her own movie, we see her walking outside the Louvre in Paris in modern times, so who's to say she hasn't been hanging out in Europe since the last time we saw her? Or maybe she went home to Themyscira to tell her mother that she's thinking of getting back into the superhero business and ask her for advice. As I said, literally anywhere.
• They could be busy with other crises, recall this quote from the Justice League cartoon:
  Martian Manhunter: Wonder Woman is on another case, Superman's dealing with an earthquake and Batman would only say that he's "busy".
  Hawkgirl: Typical.
• Who's to say Barry or Diana weren't running around Midway City, all along? They could've been rescuing civilians and battling Incubates all over the greater metropolitan region, at the exact same time the Squad was infiltrating Waller's building and confronting Enchantress. They just didn't have the inside information about the nature of the threat that Flag had, to tell them how to deal with the giant energy-vortex that was streaming into the sky. Before either of them could come up with a strategy, the Squad had already shut the threat down.

Flagg not setting off Harley's collar

• When the team enters the building Harley wanders into an elevator and waves goodbye to the group. Flagg seems to notice and calls out to her(if memory serves right) but why doesn't he actually use the one device that he promises he'll use if anyone tries to escape?
  • Likely because she wasn't trying to escape (She was going up after all) she was just charging in recklessly. And sure enough she meets up with them at the top. He was annoyed that she was going off alone but presumably correctly guessed she was just taking the elevator up and it wasn't something worth killing her for.
  • Because Harley has near impenetrable Plot Armour for the majority of the film.
  • Slipknot was notably killed before directly meeting hostiles, so, as long as she's pointed in a good enough direction why not let her live to complete the mission?
  • In a previous scene, when they're all walking up stairs she exclaims for all to hear "Man I'm out of shape...". Given the physical feats she does in the rest of the movie it's clear that can't be literally true, but it was her way of saying "I hate stairs". Thus when she choses to take the elevator, in addition to the above explanations, Flag knows she simply hates stairs.

Harley's chemical-proof hair

• Why didn't falling into the vat make Harley's hair turn green?
  • Best guess: in the animated series Harley admitted she wasn't a real blonde. Maybe that has something to do with it?
  • My guess: Unlike the other versions of the Ace Chemical concoction, this version is only a bleach. And this version of the Joker just dyes his hair green. The best evidence is the fact that her hair before was blonde and after was almost white — not to mention that when she and Joker rise out of the chemicals, both of their clothes are losing color and said clothing colors are swirling around them in the chemical pool.
  • Another possibility: It was a slightly different chemical mixture. The Joker took her to the same place, but it's been years since he was there. The company could have tweaked the formula.
  • OR The Joker's green hair came from something green he was wearing. Harley's pink and blue hair seems to come from her and The Joker's shirts melting off around them and catching on the ends of her hair. Maybe he was wearing a green shirt at the time of his own chemical bath.
  • Simplest explanation: the outcome of a dye vastly depends on the natural colour of the hair being dyed. For instance, with the Real Life (and natural) dye Henna, the resulting colour will be green if your hair naturally is very light blonde, but it will be orange, red or auburn if you're naturally dark blonde to mid-brown. If we go by the actors who play them, the Joker is naturally dark brown and Harley Quinn is a medium-to-dark blond; they differ enough to explain a big difference in outcome of the dye on each of them.

Just shoot her, you morons!

• At the end of the film, after Enchantress has been defeated and everyone wants to celebrate, Waller steps out of the shadows like a recurring bad smell and holds up a tablet, threatening them with the implanted bombs if they don't get back in line and return to prison. Now, Waller doesn't appear to be carrying any weapons other than her tablet, and is on her own. Flag at this point likely wouldn't give a shit if Waller got filled full of Deadshot-flavored lead, so why ON EARTH does not one of them think of killing her and getting on with their lives?
  • Waller might not be the only one with access to the bomb detonator. For all they know, Waller herself could even be a deadman switch: she dies, the entire Squad does as well. What would killing her solve, anyway?
  • Exactly. The Squad would never escape. Waller probably has superiors who would prefer to nuke to the entire city of Midway before they let loose cannons like the Squad escape. Furthermore, she's the only one who can give Deadshot his daughter, and Flagg, his girlfriend.
  • They've already seen proof of how devious Waller is. For all they know, the bombs are set to automatically kill them all in the next 24 hours if she doesn't enter a reset code.

Joker killing that guy at the club

• What made that guy at the club think calling a dangerous mobster's girlfriend a "bad bitch" was a good idea? Did he think Joker would be okay with that? The last thing you want to do when meeting a fellow mobster is tell him how sexy his woman is, and hint to him that you want to sleep with her. Was the guy suicidal?
  • Being the Joker, he would probably have expressed homicidal outrage at the idea of someone not expressing admiration at Harley's appearance.
  • The guy seems to have at first been trying to play the Joker a compliment, telling him he's a lucky man and all. It was more his lingering gaze, something he doesn't seem to realize Joker noticed, combined with the comment that probably sparked the highly possessive Joker off. It's the first time they've met, he probably didn't realize how badly Joker would take him eyeing his woman.
  • They were in a bar. The guy was probably drunk and/or high. People say and do very dumb shit under the influence.

How is the Joker still alive?

• We've seen how violent Batman is in 'Batman V. Superman'. The guy was planning to kill Superman. You think he would have ended Joker a long time ago. It's odd he was obsessed with putting an end to Superman, but didn't go after Robin's murderer.
  • Chances are a teeny, tiny part of Batman was still holding him back from murdering the Joker. While he kills people early in Dawn of Justice, it's out of recklessness and aggression rather than per-mediated killing as planned for Superman.
    • Unlikely. In the comics, Batman was going to kill Joker after he killed Jason, but was only stopped by Joker being granted Diplomatic Immunity right afterwards and Superman being assigned to protect him (and he came pretty close anyways). He probably did have some kind of murderous intentions for the clown when he interrupted his date night, but didn't get the chance to play them out, and hasn't seen Joker since (although I find it out-of-character for this version of Batman to try and save Harley from the car).
    • Not necessarily out of character for him if you assume that he's saving her before he went so extreme in his methods as was depicted in Batman V. Superman.
    • Could be he'd been thinking of using Harley to bait Joker into the open, only Waller stepped in and scooped her up once she was in custody.
• Because it's the Joker.

Amanda and the government seem to have anti-magic technology

• So a man-made bomb can take out a powerful entity like Incubus? I was expecting Incubus to pull a Jason Voorhees and come back to life at the end. Not only that, but you can make a witch obey you by putting her heart in a briefcase. She couldn't just poof the heart out of the briefcase?
  • Well, yes, a bomb can destroy Incubus. Because it did. And no, apparently Enchantress can't just "poof" her heart out of the briefcase, or she would've done that.

Two million dollars not enough to support Deadshot's daughter?

• In one scene they show Deadshot's primary motivation for his dirty "profession" is supporting his daughter. But in another scene they show him pulling off a hit for 2 million dollars! Shouldn't that be enough for Deadshot to "retire" from killing people and take care of his daughter? Two million dollars is easily enough to make someone financially secure for life. And that's not even taking into account all the money he's made from other hits he's pulled off before.
  • It's dirty money. If he just dumped it in cash to his daughter it'd most likely be seized, massive digital transfers would carry too much attention, etc etc. Earning the money for her isn't a problem, but being able to use it without getting tracked down and locked up is.
  • Not everyone is good with money. Deadshot is shown to have less than five dollars in his account before he killed the "rat" for Angelo. Considering his reputation and how Angelo agreed to pay a million for the job to begin with, it seems like he's always paid some pretty big bucks for his hits. Then we see him splurging on a shopping trip with his daughter, both hands full of things he bought her, and talking about buying a nice house. He probably spends as fast as he earns.
    • To be fair, the odds that Deadshot uses the same account to receive his payments for assassinations that he uses for personal expenditures are likely slim to none: his specialty may be weapons, but he has to be reasonably savvy about setting up covert lines of payment to have avoided arrest so long. The five bucks was probably the minimum deposit required to create and maintain a dummy bank account exclusively to receive Angelo's payment, not the sum total of his personal wealth.
  • Deadshot's a contract worker, so he probably only gets one job a year. Also all of his equipment is custom-made, which is a hefty expense and if he's divorced he most likely has to pay child support.
  • I agree with the tropers who allude to Deadshot's probable poor cash management skills. But I attribute said weakness more to the hindrances of his profession and less due to a lack of intellect on Floyd Lawton's part. He is a world renown contract killer, and his face, ID and fingerprints are readily accessible to law enforcement entities pretty much anywhere. He can't just stroll into a Bank of America or Wells Fargo and open up a Smart Saver checking account or Christmas fund; they'd try to arrest him on sight. And Swiss bank accounts aren't the foolproof instruments of hiding dirty money that the movies and TV would have you believe they are; they get uncovered by law enforcement agencies all the time, if said agencies are smart, diligent and determined enough.
    • Deadshot likely has to bribe so many officials to keep the heat off himself that he basically has evilness-taxes. Extremely high evilness taxes. Even so, the implication is that he had finally saved up enough money to retire and was on the verge of doing so when he was caught.
  • This version of Deadshot has apparently been trying to win custody of his daughter for quite a while, even though he's openly known to be the planet's most wanted assassin. Who knows how many fortunes he's sunk into hopeless custody suits and fruitless attempts to buy off his ex's lawyers?

SEALs swim into flooded tunnel to detonate the demo charge

• The film makes it seem like the plan with blowing up Incubus with the old demo charge was an on the spot plan, yet the SEALs are able to come up with the oxygen tanks needed to swim into the flooded tunnel without a problem. Where did those come from? It wasn't like they brought them alongside and were carrying them the entire time.
  • It's possible they did have at least some of it. If not directly on them, then in the many crashed military vehicles around them. Since there was enough foresight to add SEALs onto the team, they probably had all manner of equipment on the helicopter and in the trucks as a "just in case" bit of equipment.
  • The exact phrasing was ambiguous, but it's plausible that Waller had initially sent the SEALs out to retrieve the bomb (and any other evidence of her team's involvement that'd been left behind there) before the full scale of the emergency became clear. In which case, their team may have been left stranded in the city after Waller's HQ was surrounded and isolated, and had been prepping to sneak out via the city's drainage tunnels until Flagg called with new orders.

Joker escaping the sinking car

• When Batman dives into the river to capture Joker and Harley, he finds only an unconscious Harley in the wrecked car but Joker was already gone. How was Joker able to escape from the car so quickly before Batman arrived? Batman dived into the river just after the car sank, so the Joker really didn't have much time to escape that quickly.
  • The Joker Immunity trope, by definition, means that if there is a way for the villain to escape death or come back from it, they will, regardless of how unlikely or far-fetched said survival may be. Joker, despite his insanity, is still an extremely tough and resourceful individual who thinks on his feet and adapts and reacts to situations even quicker. Escaping from certain death is his stock in trade. Also, years of tangling with Batman have undoubtedly shown him the benefits of being Crazy-Prepared for just such emergencies. Joker probably had an escape hatch under his car seat that he didn't make Harley privy to.
  • Regarding the above answer, IMO it could be one of two things. We see the driver door having been left opened as Batman swims up to the smashed windshield to rescue Harley. Either Joker was fast enough to outswim Batman using the door as an escape or (perhaps more likely) he opened the door as a distraction, and used the hypothesised escape hatch as his true escape to better sneak away from Batsy.

Flag handing the bag of explosives to Croc

• In the final battle, Flag hands the bag of explosives to Croc to throw at the Enchantress' weapon. Why not give them to Boomerang? He's the throwing expert of the team.
  • He was going for range instead of precision. The explosives where being sent into a straight arch directly to the target . A weighted package in stormy weather going a fair distance. He was not looking for anything fancy just brute strength to ensure the bag got where it was going.
  • Croc's scales and sheer bulk may also have allowed him to step a bit closer to the target, without getting swept off his feet or skinned alive by the flying dust and energies of the weapon's swirling winds.
  • Most importantly, Croc is lying right next to Flag when he arms the bomb. Boomerang wasn't in reach.

Harley's greatest wish

• When Enchantress shows Harley her dream of someday being a wife and mother, who is the dark-haired man with her? Is that "Jack" (or whatever the non-clown Joker is called in this universe)?
  • Given that the man appears to be played by non-make-uped Jared Leto, it most likely it is.
  • I think the implication is also she wishes she and the Joker were cured of their insanity an could just live like normal, decent people.

Murderers are horrified when they learn someone else is a murderer

• Why are the members of the Suicide Squad horrified when they find out that El-Diablo killed his family? Almost all them have committed murders themselves. Deadshot certainly has racked up a much higher body count. It is really so shocking to career criminals just because one guy's victims happen to be his own family members?
  • Um, yes? Because he KILLED HIS OWN FAMILY. INCLUDING CHILDREN. IN A FIT OR RAGE. That shit is a HUGE Berserk Button for most people, even hardened, homicidal career criminals like the Squad. One of Deadshot's main motivations is providing a decent future for his daughter, and even crazy ass Harley's fondest dream is to settle down with the man she loves and raise a family. With that in mind, is it any wonder that she and the others would be aghast at Diablo's actions, unintentional as they were? Fun Fact: child murderers/abusers are held with exceptionally high contempt in prison, even (especially?) maximum security institutions. Prisoners who commit such crimes are invariably harassed, abused, and even outright killed by other inmates, and sometimes even guards.
  • They may also be repulsed by El-Diablo's hypocrisy, as he'd spent so long posing as a 'peaceful' man who'd risen above his criminal past, as if he thought he was their moral superior. But his original offense against his loved ones was much, much worse than their own past misdeeds, however involuntary.
  • Why would Harley give two shits about killing children? Didn't the movie specifically mentioned that her and Joker murdered Robin just to be piss off Batman.
    • She'd be more concerned about killing a spouse.
    • Also, it's shown that she wants to have a family with the Joker, and at least hinted that they might have lost a pregnancy or even a baby (the onesies among the knives). Killing your own children would horrify her a hell of a lot more than killing somebody else's, if that's the case.
    • Also, in her book, Robin was an ENEMY, even if he was young. He was Batman's sidekick, partially responsible for her and "Mistah J" doing time in Arkham. Wheras El Diablo's family were innocents. They weren't enemies, hadn't wronged him in any way.
  • Regarding Deadshot, something to consider is that, in his book, he's only killing "worse" people, and has a policy against killing women and children. El Diablo's family were all three of the things he considered "off-limits". Innocent people, women, and children. That may have been what rattled him.

Depth of the tank

• So the chemical vat that Harley and the Joker dive into is shown to be pretty far from the platform they're standing on, yet it's shallow enough for the Joker to stand in and hold Harley in his arms when they surface. Wouldn't that have been a neck/back-breaking dive?
  • Depends how viscous the fluid is. It's clearly very thick - more like syrup or hair conditioner than water - as shown by how the shirt-dye stains create cohesive swirling patterns rather than just dispersing.

Crushing the heart

• So, at the end Flag is hesitant to crush the heart. The Enchantress tells him he doesn't have the balls, which provokes him into crushing the heart, which... destroys the Enchantress and frees Moone. What the hell, is it just me or did she commit a massive case of Nice Job Fixing It, Villain?

Where does Enchantress hail from

• Which ancient culture does Enchantress belong to?
  • The film's backstory goes on that the Enchantress and her bro entered our dimension over six millenia ago, and were worshipped as gods in pre-columbian south america.

Out of character team shot

• Ok so this isn't in the movie itself but I'm still taking it as part of the established universe. Take a look at this image.◊ How did they manage to leash Enchantress for long enough to get her to do A Lady on Each Arm with Flag and Harley? And around the rest of the Squad too when she's so malevolent? Joke answers accepted.
  • It's a publicity photo, all media has them. Why would that be a headscratcher?
  • Just trying to find a way to make it work in-universe.
  • Publicity Photo's for movies generally speaking are not meant to work in-universe, as they are publicity photos for the movie and the product as a whole.

How does one punch an assailant out underwater?

• Batman dives after the Jokermobile to check on, and potentially apprehend it's driver and passenger. He finds Harley Quinn who's faking unconsciousness, she tries to slash him with a knife but he's able to dodge it and knock her out, underwater, with one punch. How is this possible? Can his enhanced strength, at that close range, aimed at her nose underwater be enough to trash her lights, or does he require some kind of pneumatic tool to punch that strong, quickly and accurately and in so doing displace water almost as easily as he can displace air? Also, in real life, how survivable would this be for Harley, given she might be inhaling lots of water as a consequence?
  • This is overestimating the difficulty of punching underwater; it's not as easy as on land, of course, but a highly trained striker like Batman would have no real issue hitting that hard. As for Harley not drowning, that's partially explained by the mammalian dive reflex; in short, this allows even unconscious people to stay alive underwater for a short time, and Harley's not submerged long.

When did Batman arrest Deadshot, Harley and the others?

• Some entries on the DCEU in this wiki will presume that these events happened prior to the events of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, some after. This is inconsistent especially as it relates to whether Batman's character development went one way or another (basically, is he operating under "his renewed faith in humanity" he obtained after witnessing Superman's sacrifice, or not?), so it's important to sort out the chronology. Have any supplemental materials on the BluRay, or online, or extended universe supplementals (e.g comics set in the universe) clarified this one way or another?
  • Deadshot's and Harley's captures couldn't have happened too long before the events of Suicide Squad, as Floyd's daughter doesn't look any different and the stack of letters Flag turns over isn't that big, and Joker wouldn't have waited long before taking steps to bust Harley out.
  • Good logic and thank you for it. But, still it would be nice to check out any supplemental material to more definitively pin down the timing.

Why pick Harley?

• Why exactly was Harley chosen for this mission? All she does is hit things with a mallet and a bat and at least half the squad already covers that need in spades with different weapons. The only possible reasons I could see her as an asset would be her psychiatry skills (which she never uses) or her being bait to lure the Joker (which doesn't happen even though she does get Joker into the fight anyway). So is she just there because of brand recognition or what?
  • Harley is there for Amanda to point to and say, See we can get a multiple murderer with impulse control issues to play ball. If we can do that to her that must mean that not only our program will work. But can work on any mass murdering psychopath in our prisons. Basically she is proof of concept.
  • She gets along surprisingly well with the others for a psycho, this might be an additional reason. And maybe the chemicals made her somewhat tougher, given how she takes some pretty hard hits with little trouble getting back up.
  • She also lies and manipulates really well, partially because of her unassuming appearance, psychiatry skills and partially because she's a bit nuts therefore harder to read.
  • In a deleted scene she's shown to enjoy mentally playing with people. When it comes to psychological warfare, it's better to have Harley on your side.
  • Psychiatry skills she never uses? On the contrary! It's implied she did a Sherlock Scan of the entire Squad right off the bat and pegged all of them, she later makes a comment to Deadshot about being "another textbook psychopath," and is almost always one intellectual step ahead of everyone else in the movie. None of this is really played up or paid much attention to, it's all very subtle, but that's perfectly in character for Harley Quinn, Mistress of Obfuscating Insanity. Just because she's out of her gourd doesn't mean she isn't still incredibly intelligent and insightful. And then there's her I Surrender, Suckers gambit against Enchantress, which is only made possible by knowing exactly who she is and what she wants and using it against her. If the Squad comes up against a problem that needs to be confronted sideways, one that needs to be out-thought, Harley will dissect it with speed, efficiency, and brutality. . . or she'll rub soup in her hair.

Only 10 years off?

• Was Amanda joking? Why not 20 or 30 years off? These villains are cold blooded murderers who took so many lives. All of them should be serving a long prison sentence for their crimes. Taking 10 years off should be an insult to them. Heck, I'm surprised she granted Deadshot's request to see his daughter seeing how cruel and ruthless she is in the movie.
  • She's Amanda Waller, she's always been a sociopath.
  • Maybe the implication was supposed to be 10 years 'per job'; i.e. it may only be 10 years off multiple life sentences, but that was one night's work and they might be called on for another job in the future, which will give another 10 years, and the next another 10, and so on. Eventually that would mount up until it cleared their sentences (or more preferably, from Waller and the US Government's perspective, they get killed off while on the job). Of course, if this was the case, I wouldn't put it past Waller or whoever else was put in charge to drum up extra charges to extend their sentences whenever they think they can get away with it as way of keeping them under their thumb/off the streets.
    • Or to simply collect recordings of all the crimes the Squad members commit during each and every job, whether extracurricular ones (like Harley stealing jewelry from the display window) or as an actual part of the mission. A little judicious editing to erase all proof they're working for her, and mission surveillance becomes instant evidence for a new round of charges.

Lack of Super Powers on the Team

• Why is it necessary to assemble a team of brutal vicious criminals when almost none of them have super powers? The only ones with super powers are El-Diablo, Katana, and Killer Croc. Everyone else is just Badass Normal. Why would you need them to do a job that could be easily handled by the military? Sure Deadshot is a better shot then the average soldier, but I fail to see how he would be better for the job then thousands of regular soldiers or even a few teams of Special Forces units. And what possibly need for Captain Boomerang could they have? What could he do with a boomerang that the military can't do with guns?
  • They're expendable.
  • Expendable is one thing, but Waller sells the team to the Pentagon with the idea of "metahumans we can keep on our side in case we're up against an enemy Superman". The problem with that is half the members of the team aren't metahumans. There's Enchantress and Diablo with explicit powers and Killer Croc to a lesser extent. Katana has her sword and Deadshot's aim is unbelievable, but they're still human overall. What's meta about Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, or Slipknot?
  • Superpowers aren't exactly common, and they're certainly not all that matter. Accomplishments and abilities matter, too. Several of these criminals have faced Batman and gotten away (even if he eventually caught them). Harley, it's said onscreen, was responsible for killing Robin in this continuity, and she proved herself in battle against Enchantress' army. In a world where even the best marksman miss every now and then, who's to say Deadshot's unerring aim isn't a superpower? And just because the Flash caught Boomerang doesn't mean he wasn't able to evade a whole lot of law enforcement agencies on at least two continents. These people are, quite literally, the best at what they do. Waller's just the first person crazy enough to put them to work.
    • Yes they are the best at what they do, but since what they do is just normal combat things (shooting and hitting people), I fail to see why the job can't be handled by the military instead. If you needed a job done that involved shooting things, who would you want to do it? Someone like Deadshot, who is the best marksman on earth, but is also a remorseless murderer and has no loyalty and you know will try to escape whenever he gets the chance, or several teams of Navy SEALs? Sure Deadshot is a better individual marksman then any of the SEALs, but the SEALs are still excellent shots, plus they have the advantage of superior numbers and personal loyalty. You don't have to worry about them running away the moment you turn your back on them and you don't have to threaten to blow them up to get them to do what needs to be done. That's my point. The fact that the Suicide Squad guys are brutal criminals with no military training or discipline who are only doing the job because they are forced to do it is a pretty big disadvantage. The only justification I could see for using them would be if they had special powers that enabled them to do things no force on earth could do. For the vast majority of the members of the Suicide squad, that is simply not the case.
    • I can't justify Harley (their rational was probably "we want Joker, but he's not in custody and we couldn't control him even with a bomb in his head, so we'll take the other clown associated with him, even though she's never demonstrated remarkable fighting ability or intelligence), but in addition to being the best with their signature weapons, Deadshot, Boomerang and (presumably) Slipknot handle themselves pretty well up close and planned their own jobs, suggesting a degree of tactical thinking. If Waller valued quantity over quality and cared about loyalty, eagerness to escape or remorse, the Suicide Squad would never have been made. And as for the other meta-humans likely to exist in this universe, Man-Bat couldn't grasp the concept of a bomb in his head or understand his orders, Poison Ivy and Clayface couldn't be killed by the implants, KGBeast is still recovering from his burns and getting his new arm, and Bane and Mr. Freeze are too dependent on their tech that can easily be broken during a mission.
    • They also don't just do "normal combat things," they do that in addition to having massive amounts of plot armor. It's a very meta excuse, but the reality is that they exist in a world where people who are the best at what they do become borderline supernatural the moment they take a silly name and put on a costume. Keep in mind that a mere badass normal defeated (and could've killed if he wanted to) an alien demigod capable of destroying the entire planet just a little while before the events of the film, obviously that may not be public knowledge but if Waller knows Bruce Wayne's identity it's not a huge stretch to think she might also have more information than normal about what happened between him and Superman the night the latter died. Hell, even in the course of the movie we see Joker mysteriously survive yet another crash that should've been his end. It's not that crazy that people in this setting might start to become a bit genre savvy and notice that all the weirdos in suits have an uncanny knack for overcoming obstacles that even an elite squad of soldiers would have zero hope of surviving.
  • The "no way in effing hell will anybody believe a word these scumbags say if they try to rat out Waller's black ops" aspect may have been an unspoken factor. Known career criminals make lousy whistleblowers; career military, not so much.
  • Plus, not every threat the Squad might be tasked to deal with - even a Superman-caliber one - is necessarily going to be resolved by head-on brute force. Their original assignment for this film was a rescue mission, not defeating Enchantress; if the Squad could've sneaked into Waller's building, collected her, and slipped their way out of the city without firing a shot or confronting a single Incubate, it would've been rated a success. Other times, stealing or destroying some MacGuffin might be all that's needed. For jobs like that, Deadshot, Slipknot and Boomerang could've easily been bigger assets than Croc or Diablo, being experienced at penetrating secure facilities and infiltrating a target zone.