Suicide Squad ISEKAI Premiere Recap & Spoilers

One of the oddest and most anticipated anime of the summer season, Warner Bros.’ and Wit Studio’s Suicide Squad ISEKAI, has dropped its first three episodes on Max and Hulu. Here’s what happened in them and if the show is worth your time.

What Happened in Suicide Squad ISEKAI’s Premiere?

The show begins with Harley Quinn and the Joker on a rampage. They killed a whole host of hostages and are driving around what we can only assume is Gotham City, destroying anyone in their way. Joker rants about his desire to create a new world, one that Harley is all too eager to help create if it means she can spend time with him. A brief pitstop at a bar turns into an ambush, however, and the two are separated while Katana captures Harley in a surprisingly low-key fight.

While this is happening, Amanda Waller is inside an A.R.G.U.S. facility attempting to open up what she calls a “Gate.” She’s successful, and after a six-month time skip, Waller is looking to send people into the Gate. Of course, she opts to send the Suicide Squad. This is apparently the first time the Squad is assembled in this continuity, and the team consists of Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Clayface, and Peacemaker. Waller says that there’s a fifth member joining them, but she doesn’t get a chance to say who that is.

What she does say to them is the general premise of the team. They’re all criminals who are going to receive a reduced sentence if they are able to accomplish a task, and if they fail or don’t check in remotely for 72 hours, the bombs that are implanted in their necks will detonate and kill them. With that, Waller gives the team their first mission – to create and maintain footholds into a newly discovered region. With that generally vague and complicated task set forward to them, the Squad knows their mission, but everyone, especially Deadshot, begins to complain about it.

They don’t have much time to argue, though, as the plane that’s transporting them is shot down, and the Squad learns that the land they’ve been sent to is actually a magical kingdom removed from their reality. Clayface instantly realizes that they’ve been isekai’d – or transported to another world – and jumps at the opportunity to relish this new environment. That is after they deal with a battalion of orcs that targeted them. With the help of the fifth member, King Shark, who decided to eat a few of the orcs, the Squad kills most of the orcs, and they’re approached by a group of knights. The knights can’t understand what the Squad is saying due to the language barriers, so they decide to arrest the dangerous people who just killed an entire battalion of orcs they were struggling against.

In the aftermath of the battle in Suicide Squad ISEKAI, we cut to the queen of the kingdom the orcs were fighting against. While the advisors are sycophantic and willing to praise the queen for every decision, the head knight who was present at the fight, Clive, says that the queen’s focus should be on trying to end the famine that is afflicting the kingdom. The queen quickly ignores Clive, instead saying that her focus should be on destroying the attacking Empire and how pathetic it is that a strange group of nobodies (aka the Suicide Squad) were able to beat the orcs when her trained knights couldn’t. Meanwhile, the princess, Fiona, is taken aback by Harley since the two of them are virtually identical and asks Clive to bring the Squad to her since she sees them as the best chance to stop the Empire’s invasion.

Meanwhile, now imprisoned once again, the Squad realizes that with no way for them to contact Waller, the bombs in their necks will detonate in a little over two days. With that new panic set in, Clayface is able to slip through the bars to free them, but given how he’s an overdramatic and vain narcissist, as well as the loud bickering between Deadshot and Harley, the guards are almost immediately made aware of his attempted escape and hit him with some magical handcuffs that restrict his abilities. After a brief brawl that results in the Squad being put into solitary confinement, they encounter someone else imprisoned who can speak their language – Rick Flag. Flag knows instantly that all five of them are a part of the Suicide Squad. How? He used to be the head of it.

This incarnation of the Squad isn’t actually the first team to enter this magical realm. Flag led the first group a few months ago, but once the original version of the Squad arrived, they abandoned Flag and left to join the Empire, which gave them all high-ranking positions in their military. This is why Waller decided to implant bombs in this Squad’s neck – to prevent them from going rogue like the first group. Flag got captured, and he strikes a deal with Harley and the gang – if they can break him out of jail, Flag can take them to the Gate and reset the timers in their bombs since that should theoretically be within range of Waller’s signal.

Related: What Are the Suicide Squad ISEKAI Opening and Outro Songs?

Given that Clayface is still handcuffed and unable to shapeshift, the team manages to wake up King Shark, who had been napping after his orc snack. Still hungry, Flagg convinces King Shark that a bunch of delicious food is outside of his cell, so he breaks it down and is able to also free Clayface. With Clayface now free and somehow able to manipulate all clay-based matter, the Squad manages to stage a prison break, complete with a rainbow light show and dance number. With the prison now under their control, the Squad is content to just drink and relax with their new convict buddies, much to Flag’s ire, but it’s at this point Clive arrives to bring them to Fiona.

Clive is hostile to the team in Suicide Squad ISEKAI, made all the worse by Deadshot repeatedly insulting his balding head. However, Flagg was able to learn some of the language of the kingdom and attempts to negotiate with Clive. This mostly results in Flagg calling Clive a stank-ass, but Clive brings the Suicide Squad to the queen only because Fiona asked him to. The queen casts a language spell that allows them to communicate, and it’s at this point that Flagg reveals how the Empire’s generals are all former Suicide Squad members. The queen says that all this proves how incapable of a leader Flag is, which leads to his imprisonment yet again.

Peacemaker says that they’ll fight for the queen if they’re given the ability to travel throughout the kingdom, which she accepts. They’re then brought by Clive to a fort that is under the control of the Empire and guarded by an army of lycans. These lycans are strong, but Harley points out that they seem almost devoid of all sensibility and reason. They’re fighting despite serious injuries, they’re not communicating, and these appear to be under mind control. Deadshot finds this familiar and says that this sounds like the work of a friend he knew in prison – Ratcatcher.

Clayface, who looks a lot like Muzan Kibutsuji, then tells the team that since entering this fantasy world, he’s gained minor magical abilities, like being able to somewhat control all forms of clay. With this info in mind, they sneak their way into the castle despite Clive’s wishes and confront Ratcatcher. While Deadshot is all too happy to say hello to his old friend, Ratcatcher absolutely hates Deadshot and wants nothing to do with him. While Deadshot thought he was being friendly to him in the slammer, making Ratcatcher watch rat porn and eat rotten cheese isn’t friendly behavior, so Ratcatcher sicks some lycans on them.

Thanks to some quick thinking by Clayface and Deadshot, the Squad is almost able to kill Ratcatcher, but he’s saved at the last second by Katana. It seems like she was a part of the first Suicide Squad and is now loyal to the Empire. She manages to escape with Ratcatcher and chastises him for his failure. Meanwhile, despite destroying the fort they promised to take, the Squad calls their mission a success and prepares for their next adventure.

As far as premieres go, this was a pretty enjoyable, if harmless, one. The animation and character dynamics are all fun, but the general humor and plot feel somewhat conventional, not just as a Suicide Squad story but as an isekai. I like how the premiere never takes itself seriously, which is a fun change of pace, giving the show more time for some action setpieces, but it does make the overarching plot feel a bit slow. I’m interested in seeing where Suicide Squad ISEKAI goes, even if it is just for some mindless dumb fun.

Suicide Squad ISEKAI streams weekly on Max and Hulu.