The Big Clue Everyone Missed Early In The Suicide Squad

Contains spoilers for "The Suicide Squad"

With a title like "The Suicide Squad," it's a safe bet going into it that most of the characters won't make it to the end alive. Now that the movie's available to watch in theaters and on HBO Max, audiences see just how right they are. But the one thing that may have taken some people by surprise is how quickly the film dispatches many of its supervillains. 

We follow Task Force X as they storm a beach on Corto Maltese within the first few minutes. It turns out to be a setup as the nation's army is there waiting for them. The squad manages to get a few good hits in, but it's not long until they all meet violent ends. Not everything is as it appears, as we soon go to another portion of a beach with another Suicide Squad, this one consisting of Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), and Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian). We follow this team throughout the rest of the movie after the revelation that Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) sacrificed the first team as a diversion so that the actual squad could make it to the country unharmed.

It's a move perfectly in line with Waller's cutthroat nature, and it's only the beginning of her deception. There's a big clue staring everyone in the face regarding the big reveal toward the movie's climax, and once you realize it, you'll hate Amanda Waller even more than you do already.

During the initial beach attack, rebel forces capture Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman). Waller gives Task Force X a side mission to rescue him and eliminate everyone who caught him with "extreme prejudice." It leads to one of the funniest moments in the movie where the squad takes out a bunch of people, only to learn they aren't the bad guys and are instead just rebels wanting to overthrow their new authoritarian leaders. It seems like a misunderstanding, but anyone who knows Amanda Waller from the comics understands that she doesn't make mistakes. 

Later in the film, it's revealed that the real reason Waller sent supervillains onto the island is to destroy any evidence of the United States' involvement with testing on Starro on the island. The reveal would make for an international incident, and that's the real reason for the plan. It isn't to destroy the creature like the crew was initially told. With this knowledge, it makes sense Waller told the squad to take out the rebels, knowing full well who they were because, as one Redditor points out, "The rebels would have eventually come across Starro and spill the beans on the American involvement to the world. Waller didn't want that."

Waller isn't one to form attachments. She didn't care if Rick Flag died or not. After all, Waller sent him with the diversion group in the first place. She didn't want any loose threads that would threaten America's standing in the world. Rick was merely a means to an end, and when the time came to destroy the evidence once and for all, Rick became disposable.